Babayaga

speaking but with no sound; not even a whisper emerged. He knew the old trick of mouthing out a silent phrase, but this was different, she was making no effort to slow or overenunciate the shape of her words to help him comprehend whatever she was saying.
    Finally she stopped and broke her gaze, quickly rising to kiss Oliver on the cheek as he put on his hat and started toward the door. Will didn’t know what to say, so with a confused blush and somewhat flustered, he mumbled his goodbyes to both women and followed Oliver into the outer hallway and down the stairs.
    Out on the street, waiting as Oliver tried to find a cab, Will experienced a curious feeling. The words Zoya had been saying moments earlier seemed to catch up with him, coming clearly to life in his mind, as if she were there beside him saying them out loud. Perhaps she had said them in the kitchen after all and he had for some reason been deaf in their presence then, but apparently nobody else had heard them either. It was strange but it did not matter, for he heard the words now, quite clearly. “I will find you later, I can help. You feel foolish and nervous, even scared, but you are merely lost.”
    IX

    When the priest walked into his farmhouse he found the young girl sitting at the kitchen table, eating a bowl of hot stew. He went to the sink and poured himself a glass of water.
    “So, you’ve escaped?”
    The girl looked up at him. “Elga says you are not a real priest.”
    “Oh, I am real. Maybe not as much as most, but far more than some.” He looked at the girl. Her hair was brushed out and she wore an aquamarine blouse that made her clear blue eyes shine. He could tell she would have grown up to be a beautiful woman someday. Perhaps she would still if she could stay alive. It was possible; Zoya and Elga had both survived against long odds and countless years. But even if she did, she would not be a woman until centuries had passed. Time had become different for her now.
    “Elga says you are an old friend,” the girl said.
    “Well, I am old. That’s true. I’ve known her since I was only a few years older than you.” He finished the water and rinsed out the glass. “How is your stew?”
    “It’s delicious! She cooked it this morning while I was still asleep. She said I should leave it on the stove for you in case you were hungry.”
    “What kind is it?”
    “She said it was a meat stew.”
    “Here is a little advice for you. Try to avoid eating things that are only called ‘meat.’ Especially when they’re cooked by Elga.” He looked in the pot on the stove. He could see carrots, small onions, and red potatoes simmering along with the meat, but he did not feel tempted. “Where is she now?”
    “She is working at the hospital. She told me she will finish there today and then she will take me into the city.”
    “When do you plan to go?”
    “As soon as she comes home.”
    “Ah. I see.” The priest got up and went back outside. It was a cool day and he had wanted to get his tulip bulbs in before the frost came. He went to the barn and climbed into the loft where the bulbs were stored. He saw that Elga had filled up much of the space with her cluttered stash of jars, herbs, and old texts. She had not asked his permission, but he was accustomed to her using his property as she wished, coming and going at will. (More than once Andrei had awoken in the night to the rough stony sounds of digging in the yard. He knew it was most likely a night badger or raccoon, but there was always the possibility that Elga or Zoya was burying a corpse in the vegetable bed. Knowing there was nothing he could do about it, he would roll back to sleep, consoling himself with the thought that the cadaver’s blood and tissue would be good for the soil.)
    Andrei took the bulbs, found his shovel, and returned to the garden bed. Digging into the soft rich earth, he thought about Noelle, back in the kitchen, remembering how he had been at her age, so wrapped up in himself, waiting like a tulip bulb, through the cold and the darkness, for a blossoming season.
    This was over a half century before, when the tsars still ruled Russia. Born to a struggling merchant and his pious wife who both passed away from fever, he and his brother had been sent off by relatives to seminary as young men, the last of the family money entrusted to their care. Neither Andrei nor his brother, Max, were impressive students, though Andrei certainly believed he had been