Babayaga

twilit woods, Zoya kept her distance and quietly worked her way around the building, looking for any sign that she might be welcome. The hut was foreboding. Without any sign of a door or window, smoke crept out from the roof and sharp scratched lines of yellow light leaked out from the pitch-caulked cracks between the hut’s timbers. She thought she could make out a woman’s deep voice, either talking to herself or humming a tone-deaf tune. Zoya hid behind a thick patch of thistle, settling in, to wait for the owner to emerge. But all night and well into the next morning, no one came out. As she lay there, pains of famine now desperately screaming in her belly, Zoya dug and scratched at the earth, finally sucking on worms and beetles for moisture. Part of her wanted to bang on the cabin walls and beg for bread, water, and mercy, but another, stronger feeling urged her to stay where she was. So she kept waiting. But nobody came out. Instead, the aromatic scents from the cabin smoke grew deeper and richer; the air swam with the fragrances of clove, garlic, and ginger, all wrapped in the smells of simmering haunch fat and pinewood smoke. It was too much to bear. Drained now of all strength, Zoya collapsed flat against the earth, her tears turning the soil beneath her face to mud.
    She slept there through the rest of the day. Then, late in the afternoon, as the sun began disappearing behind a wall of dark clouds, a flap on the lower edge of the cabin swung open with a hard bang. A baritone voice like a swamp bullfrog’s called out. “You, in the dirt there. Come inside now. It’s going to thunder.” Then another trap door popped open beneath the house, beside one of the cabin’s stilts. Crawling close, Zoya found that there were footholds carved into the side of the birch leg. She climbed up into the dark room. While its contents seemed wondrous at the time, it was no different from the other lairs Elga would stitch together again in St. Petersburg, Warsaw, Riga, Ostrava, Kiev, and scores of other cities. There were rows of dead creatures, skinned and dried, earthen bowls of moldy bulbs and moss, stacks of fungi and gnarled roots stewing in open pots of luminous orange, pale gray, and olive green liquids. Volumes of loose-bound manuscripts, books, and papers were piled up, some pages torn out, hand-scratched and nailed to the rough walls. The small stone fireplace had a cracked chimney that the smoke leaked out of, making the atmosphere murky and hard to inhale. But the fire did kick out a strong heat, and Zoya was immediately drawn to its side while the old woman bolted tight the floor hatch behind her. Pulling up a stool, Elga sat down close to make a study of the girl.
    “So, some villager told you about my home?”
    Zoya shook her head no. Elga nodded. “You know who I am, then?”
    Zoya shook her head again. Elga gave her a grin that was almost warm. “Well, you look hungry. I have good yarrow soup. Eat first, then we can talk.”
    Along with the warm broth and vegetables, Elga served the girl the simple truthsayer recipe Zoya had long since memorized. It worked the way liquor does, only more so, and after an hour the old woman had pulled out the girl’s tale, her rape and abuse, her father’s death, her germinal child, all of it streaming from Zoya’s lips without a tear or a shiver. Every hardship of her life was reduced to batches of sounds that Zoya handed over to her hostess in exchange for more soup and a chance to stay by the warm fire.
    When she was finished, Elga looked at her for a moment. “You would like help?”
    Zoya solemnly nodded.
    “Fine, fine,” the old woman said, clearing the empty soup bowl away. “I will help you, of course I am happy to, but it will cost you, and we must decide now how you will pay.”
    “But I have nothing,” Zoya meekly replied.
    Elga shook her finger at the young girl and her eyes flared. “We all can pay, girl, and you owe me too. You think soup comes free? I broke my back carrying that wood to burn in that fire. By any honest count, you already owe me more than you know.”
    Zoya looked around, nervously realizing that she had trapped herself in a house with no windows and a locked door. “Please,” she pleaded, “I have nothing.”
    “There, there, do not be so hard on yourself,” the old woman said, shifting her hard expression to a crafty smile. She reached out and softly stroked Zoya’s tearstained cheek. “Every soul with a breath has to