Vasilisa

This is… an old story. I cannot pretend that it is my own story. It is… Something. Something that has been told many times, told again, and plowed under once more into the imagination of the masses. To grow again and to fertilize the imaginations of the next ones. And over and much more over, and many times again. It is a story that belongs to everyone. And this is my own telling of this timeless, ageless, story. I am not a Pushkin, nor a Tolstoy that I can pretend to add anything new. But even a cat can write about a queen.

This is, at its heart, a story of a young maid, just a young girl, her life, her spirit, and her faith.

Her name is Vasilisa.

Vasilisa lived with her mother and father, Kanstontin and Svetlana, in a pert house on the edge of a prosperous town. They were happy. As happy as a happy family can be. Vasilisa’s father was a merchant and spent a large amount of his time traveling to faraway places such as Kiev, Odessa, Constantinople, Moscva, and Warsaw. Sometimes as far away as Novgorod and the far north where the Karelians play such beautiful music on their Kanteles on the shores of the White sea, angels weep at the sound. He had dealings with even further removed places far away  where they spoke riddles and told strange tales. He told his wife and child the most exotic of stories and brought back the most lavish of gifts. The nesting dolls of Ukrania. The bright white and red dresses of the dancing girls of the far north. Pepper and spices from the brilliant Cathay. Tea sets from the islands of Edo in the far east. Braided carpets from the exotic Navaho people of North America. These he traded and bought and sold, keeping those he knew his family would love.

“What have you brought for us today, Papulya?” she asked excitedly after hanging on his neck for an hour. “My dear, my Kukla,” he’d reply with a wink and a curl of his eyebrow. “Nothing much. Just the whirl of a Dervish, the edge of a Samaria’s blade, and the steam of an Eskimo’s breath!” he teased. “What?” she demanded. “Oh, and the prayers of a saint.” “Is that all?” she would mock-protest, cocking an eyebrow in return. “He was a very sincere saint!” her Papa said, then he would produce some of the most lavish treasures she could never imagine on her own.

And Vasilisa wished so much that she could go with her father and see the greatness and the grandeur of the land, hear its richness, and breath its luster. And thus be a part of it all. If only.

“Vasilisa?” said her mother one day as she wove fine silken threads into cloth and Vasilisa embroidered her mother’s cloth with swans and peacocks of gold and silken thread dyed in shades of red and yellow, green and the darkest shades of blue brought home by her father from the far east in India. “You know your father and I love you very much.” Vasilisa could not agree more. “And want the best for you.”

“As do I, Mama,” she said drawing needle and thread through the finest of silk.

“And that there is nothing I would not do to be with you.”

“I understand,” she said, getting worried. “Is there something wrong, Mamoshka?”

“No, nothing,” she lied. “I just want you to know that,” she added, brushing a tear from the corner of her right eye. “And here!” composing her dignity. “I have a present for you. Take it!”

Her Mama offered her a little doll. Vasilisa took it. It was a cloth doll with a smile painted between its cheeks and bright eyes looking up at Vasilisa. “She is beautiful,” Vasilisa said.

“Here is a special present just for you. Just from me. I want you to keep it with you always and if ever you find yourself in trouble, you are to tell your troubles to this doll and she will help you.”

“Mama?” said Vasilisa. “Yes?” she answered. “Is something wrong? Tell me! Now!”

“No. Nothing, my darling. My Vasitchka,” she crooned. “I just want you to have this. For the times when you might be-alone someday. You keep her with you always, yes?”

“Yes, Mama.” “And take care of her?”  “I will.” “And one more thing, my sweet.” “Yes?”

“If you ever are in need. Or trouble. Or in want for anything. Give her a bit of milk and a crumb of bread.”

“Mama?” Vasilisa said in a frightened voice. “Then tell her your sorrows,” her mother continued. “You will do that for me, da?”

“Da, “ she said, not knowing what else to say. “I most certainly will, my Mamulichka.”

“Is good, my baby girl,” her Mama replied. “My Vasitchka.”

And Vasilisa was content. And troubled at the same time. And she was right to be both. For her mother passed away shortly after, poor thing. Her mother knew she was going and wanted to pass one parting gift to her dearest daughter. And so she did. Vasilisa wept. And grieved. As did her father who bore a double grief, once for himself who had lost a wife and once for a daughter who had lost a mama.

Time passes, as it always does. And tomorrow becomes yesterday and today becomes history. Time comes and goes and responsibility remains the same. Forever. Vasilisa’s father was caught in a trap not of his own making. It was just there. And he fell into it. With Vasilisa, his beloved daughter.

In the village where they lived also lived a widow named Tatiana. A woman with two girls and a hovel of poverty. Also not of their own doing. They became a family, because-Well. Because that’s what people do when they fight the beasts of poverty sniffing at their doorstep and sucking the heat from their hearths. Sometimes marriage is a contract of convenience and a wager against death.

Vasilisa’s father was away, on a long journey to the westernmost branch of the Silk Road in the strange land of Venice, gathering riches for the safety and comfort of his family back home. Back, in their lonely home, Vasilisa, her new mama and sisters, worked far into the night. One spun wool into yarn. One wove the yarn into bolts of cloth. And Vasilisa embroidered the cloth with delicate patterns and varied designs of birds and fruit trees, rivers and sunsets, and baskets of plenty.

She sat and peered carefully at the empty cloth in her lap. It was a mapmakers blank tapestry. A raw canvas and a brooding chaos awaiting some pregnant god to whisper into it, ‘Let there be light!’ And Vasilisa marked the passage of light across her brood of chaos in colors and whispers, figures and grand designs. This time she was embroidering the crest of their beloved Tsar, the two headed eagle, in gold and purple threads. Spears were clutched in its claws and gold crowns emboldened its two heads.

“Oh, blyat!” spat Klavdiya, the eldest daughter. “Daughter!” snapped her mother, in horror while her younger daughter looked down and smirked into her sleeve while trying to look scandalized. “Watch your tongue if you choose to keep it!”

“I’m sorry, Mama,” Klavdiya said, realizing her indiscretion. “I just… We… The lamp! It’s about to go dark.”

“Well,” Mama said. “That does not warrant an obscenity. But I see…”

“I can still work. Without light, Mama,” said Manya, the second daughter,” pleased at her sister’s outburst and quick to make hay from her misstep. “I do not need to see to weave thread into cloth. “I, too, can still work,” said Klavdiya, humbled by her recent crime but not about to let her sister gain the advantage of it. “I do not need to see to spin wool into yarn.”

“I cannot see,” said Vasilisa. “And I need light that my hands might guide the thread through spool and spindle, needle and thimble, and all of the ways of the sharp and the tender in the making of a rich tapestry. Without seeing, all is for naught.”

“I see,” said the Mama. “Then you must get more oil for the lamps. Here. There is a little bit of oil in the kitchen lamp. Take it! You may need it on your way.”

“My way?” Vasilisa said. “My way where?”

“To my kinswoman, Baba Yaga.”

“Baba-?”

“Yaga. Yes. She lives in a cottage in the forest. Nary a gentle walk from here. Just go left outside our door and walk until you see her cottage.” “But!” “You can almost see it now, if you could only see. Just go to her now and ask of her a flagon of oil,” said the Mama, reassuring and patting Vasilisa on the head. “Tell her I, her cousin Tatiana, sent you. Go now. We will continue on the chores that beset us without light and leave you a great deal of work when you get back. You go and get the light that you so urgently need, girl. Go!”

Vasilisa took up the spare lamp, gathered some bread and a morsel of meat and rolled them into a cloth, along with a flagon of water. She left.

“Blyat?” said Manya to her big sister with a wicked grin when the two of them were alone. Klavdiya shot back a shriveling look that still managed to growl a sneer. “Suka Blyat!” she hissed, distain evident in the cracks and cleavages of her voice. “Ha!” spat Manya, savoring the family dynamic that swung in her favor. For now. “You know who you are. And where you belong,” she snickered. “Blyat again!” hissed Klavdiya.

Vasilisa took a deep breath. She looked left and right on the path outside of her cottage. The one she and her mother and father, one dead, one far away, had lived in in warmth and light. Now it seemed dismal and dark. She sighed. “My Vasitchka,” she remembered her mother’s words, and touched the little doll kept always beneath her dress, close to her heart as her mother had always been. “Where shall we go? And how shall I call you, my little friend?” The doll just snuggled closer into Vasilisa’s breast.

To the right lay the village. The heartbeat and the heritage of her home, her family and her hearth. And the center of town where her father made his deals and planned his next trips to the far away capitals of the world where he would exchange his wonders for theirs. And bring back treasures in return for Vasilisa’s tapestries and peculiar needlework. Her embroidery was starting to get noticed. In faraway capitals they spoke of her work. Kings and grand dukes wore it as finery. The Tsar, himself, asked for it by name. “Where is Vasilisa’s gilded fabric?” he demanded whenever a merchant came to the city and spread his wares on the souks and tables of the market before the grand Kremlin.

That was not her way today.

Her way lay left, out of her cottage. Where the non-village lay. Past fields and graveyards, over brooks and muddy mires. Into the forest. “Where in such a place does one find a babushka?” she mused. She followed the path. Past the fields. By the cemeteries. Over the water and knee deep in mud. Into the forest. Into the dark. Ever did her little kitchen lamp draw thin.

Suddenly a rumble and a thunder came up behind her. She looked. And wondered. Then she panicked.

Vasilisa saw three horsemen speeding toward her, each at its own pace. The last one was white, like a porcelain teacup. As white as white can be and shining. The second one was red and dusty, like a dim lamp burning the last bit of a cloth wick soaked in oil with naught but a red glow burnishing the fading flicker of night. The first, the one closest to her, was black. The rider was also black as an Ethiopian in one of her father’s stories of the endless nights in Arabia. He and his steed seemed to stretch toward her like taffy at the summer festival on the green in her little village back home-Oh! Would that she could be back there right now. With her father. And her mother-a pang rent her heart. Or even the new mother and the new sisters she had now as surrogate. “Mama,” she breathed. And all breath went out of her.

The black horse and rider came up alongside of her. Slowed. Stopped. The horse’s head stretched out into a strand of black hair, the eyes staring at Vasilisa from all directions at once. The world swirled around her. Up became down and each other direction went its own way. Then it neighed and snorted. The great, black man looked at her. He stretched out his hand. Gave her a little black box. And the black man whispered something in her ear. “Midnight,” he said. Then he swirled back into infinity.

The red man and his horse slipped by her. He never stopped or tarried. Nor did he regard her at all except to proffer a hand to her, momentarily, and to drop a trinket into her upturned palm. It was a ring. It might have been gold. Or a gold that burns with red fire. It clasped a red-orange stone in its bezel. And the red man looked into Vasilisa’s soul, his eyes glowed softly, ever so softly, and he and his red horse were gone.

Last. The white man on his white horse stopped. And tarried. And even spoke to her. “Where are you going, Vasilisa?” he said, his horse neighing as if agreeing with the man’s question and longing to hear her answer as well. “I…” “Yes?” “I am going into the woods.” “What for?” “To find Baba Yaga.” “And why would you seek such a person?” he asked. “That I might borrow some oil for my lamp.” “She is a witch. She will eat you…, if you let her.” “I-“ “But it is late,” the white man said. “Why do you not just climb up upon your stove and sleep the night away in comfort and warmth? The night is long and the morrow awaits us all.” “But I must work.” A raised eyebrow met her response. “And my new mama bade me ask of her some oil for our lamps.” “Of course,” he said. “Work is both a blessing and a curse. And so work we do or perish. And are blessed. And are cursed.” Here he reached down and gave Vasilisa a porcelain bottle and was gone.

“I don’t understand,” said Vasilisa. “A box, a ring, and a bottle? Chattering in the night? Baba Yaga a witch? What are these things all about?” And she went on, flummoxed and befuddled.

Vasilisa walked down the path, the left path out from her cottage door where her new mama and her new sisters worked. And wondered what she was doing. What it was all about. And kept coming back to Baba Yaga: The Witch. As she walked she examined the trinkets the horsemen had given her. She tried to open the box, which just said to her, “Not yet.” She tried to put on the ring, but it also said, “Not yet.” She tried to uncork the porcelain bottle, but it lastly said, “Not yet.” “Are there no answers?” she said out loud. Sighing, she plodded on.

Shortly, she came to an answer, of sorts. I’d like to say that it was a great and wonderous answer, or a calling, or a voice speaking wisdom or some challenge like, “Stop! Who goes there?” followed by a wise old sage, giver of wisdom, who then gave Vasilisa the knowledge she needed to continue on her journey. But there was no such sage, no such challenge, no such wisdom. No such journey, actually. Just a chore. Just Vasilisa. And herself. And her own, tired old wisdom and tired old realization that the road goes on and never ceases.

But roads change. And become different. And become something else. In this else’s case, the road became a fence. And a courtyard. And a house within them. But not just any fence, courtyard, or any house. The fence in this case was an odd one. It was made of bones. White, knobby bones stood in rows along the path. A skull was perched upon each bone-post along the way. Clickety-clackety bones laced between them. Red coals of fire burned within the skulls’ eye sockets. They seemed to turn and watch her as she passed.

Vasilisa stopped, and wondered, but continued notwithstanding.

She thought of all the wonderous stories her father had told her. Of the sea-maiden in Denmark who had become a girl, only to lose herself for her love of the land-man and to become sea foam on the shore in the end. A fate she did not deserve. “I will not be that girl,” Vasilisa thought. “I swear it. By my father on earth and my mother who watches over me in heaven.”

The eye coals in the skulls burned at her.

After a bit Vasilisa came to a gate. It, too, was made of bones, only this gate was a rib cage. The hinges were creaky finger and foot bones and the gate latch was a skull with grinning teeth. “Well,” it said. “What do you want?” “Um,” said Vasilisa. “I have come to see Baba Yaga,” she said. “I am charged to ask her for some oil. For our lamp.” Vasilisa felt odd at this, asking a gate permission to enter. Then, “I am Vasilisa, daughter of Kanstontin and Svetlana. Tatiana sent me.”

“Well,” said the gate. “I suppose I can let you in. At least,” and creaked open, painfully. Vasilisa heard the gate grating upon its old bones and felt pity. “Here,” she said, taking her kitchen lamp and dripping the last few drops of oil onto the gate’s hinges. “This might make your chores less painful.” “Why,” he said. “That feels marvelous!” and swung open freely to let Vasilisa pass.

As Vasilisa entered the yard she heard the gate sigh, “Poor child,” as it gently closed.

As she crossed the yard she came upon a larch tree. It was weighted down with vines and poison ivy, but still managed to swing its branches erratically and threaten Vasilisa. “Stop!” the Larch commanded. “Why do you trespass on my mistress’s home?”

Vasilisa froze. She considered the tree for a moment and finally said, “Oh mighty tree. You look distressed. Are you a prisoner here or are you a proud dedushka of the forest?”

The larch was puzzled. “What do you mean, little girl? Speak!” “I see that you are tied up tight and constricted like a criminal bound in chains,” she said. “That is true,” the larch reflected. “The babushka of this house does nothing to ease my confinement.” “Well, I think I can do something about that…”

And Vasilisa pulled down the vines and hanging moss that gripped the tree, being careful not to hold the poison vines or barbs directly with her hands, but using wet leaves and branches to clear the most deadly of the tree’s confinement. It took a while. The sun, which had been coloring the eastern sky like some of Vasilisa’s embroidery, now rose and looked on, approvingly. Then she was done.

“You have freed me,” said the Larch. “I am grateful. Why have you come to this unpleasant place?” “I am sent by my stepmother,” she said. “I am Vasilisa and I come to beg some oil for our lamps.” “Ah, I see,” said the tree, seeing more than perhaps Vasilisa herself. “If it is your duty, you may continue. And may you find the mistress of this place forgiving.” And Vasilisa passed. Though she wondered at this place, and why should she wish to find the mistress ‘forgiving?’

Beyond the tree she encountered a vicious creature, half wolf and half dog. It was snarling and snapping at the ground in warning. Vasilisa noticed that the animal was famished, its ribs showed through its chest and the skin was drawn tightly across its rump and legs.

“Oh,” said Vasilisa, jumping back. “You poor thing!” “Who are you? And why are you here?” “I am Vasilisa, and I am come to ask a favor of your mistress, Baba Yaga. But first, I must ask if I can do a favor for you.” “What favor!” the dog growled, suspicion and hunger bubbling up from his stomach and burning in his eyes, “What is this trickery?” “Here,” said Vasilisa. And she took the bit of meat and piece of bread that she had stored away in her rags and placed them on the ground in front of the dog. He sniffed the parcel then snapped it up and swallowed it in one gulp.

“Ah,” said the wolf-dog. “I have not tasted such in many an age,” and curled up behind a woodshed. He fell into a marvelous sleep without his usual bedfellows, starvation and bitter cold.

Vasilisa walked around a corner and came upon a terrifying sight. There a little house sat with broken slats and a crippled foundation. It had windows in the upper floors, which were shuttered tight. The door was slightly ajar like a sneering scoffer. It looked like a giant head, not resting. Not sleeping. But brooding. She stepped forward, her foot stepped on a dry branch by the path, making a loud “Crack!”

Immediately the shutters flew open. Inside, smoke stained window shades flew upwards and spun on their spindle, “Flap-flap-flap!” while dirty, lace curtains drew together and glared at Vasilisa in suspicion. Then the house drew itself up upon giant chicken legs and started whirling around and around! Vasilisa was afraid it would crush her.

A whooshing came from the air like the sound of a hurricane. A great kettle appeared from behind the house, in it sat an old woman who was using an ancient bristle broomstick to row through the air as a sailor would row his lifeboat through a tempest. It was Baba Yaga, the goal and the terror to which Vasilisa ran. She came to a thud and a skidding stop in front of Vasilisa. “Who are you?” she demanded. At this the house came to a halt and reseated itself on its roost. The foundation groaned.

“I am Vasilisa Kanstontinova,” she said. “I don’t know any Vasilisa Kanstontinova,” barked the woman. “What are you to me?” “I am daughter to Kanstontin the merchant and Svetlana, my Moma. I live with your cousin, Tatiana, my new mother and my sisters on the edge of the village.” “Ah,” said Baba Yaga. “I know them well.” “And we were working late at night on my embroidery when we ran out of oil for light. They sent me here to beg for some help, though now it is daylight and I suppose it is no longer necessary.” “Not necessarily,” said Baba Yaga thoughtfully.

“Come,” she continued. “You will enter my house and rest, as you have been walking all night.” Vasilisa followed the ancient woman inside. A feint breathing sound came from the threshold. Not so much a purring as a growling.

Vasilisa hesitated at the doorstep. Baba Yaga turned, “Well? Do you want to come in or not?”

Vasilisa knew she had to at least come into the house now. And she needed a favor. Now a favor begets a favor. Which is itself a favor. Or a promise of a favor. And therefore negotiable. A promise bequeaths a price. And a price is a promise of sorts. A price can be compounded, exacted, amortized, and multiplied as needed. A promise that you will do for me what I have already done for you. A promise can be a weapon, a tool, or a lever.

“What is it?” snapped Baba Yaga. “Don’t be rude, child!”

“I need some oil. For my lamp,” she said, finally coming into the house. “Oil?” “You see. My sisters and I were working in the dark and we can’t see. We need light.”

Baba Yaga turned and stood in front of her. Then she said, “Well. If you are going to ask favors of me, you can do some for me.”

Vasilisa stuttered, ”Ma’am? If I may help?”

“Clean my stove!” Baba Yaga demanded, pointing to the clunking center of her house. Vasilisa shook, then turned, then considered. The stove in Baba Yaga’s house was, as are all stoves in Vasilisa’s world, the center of the house in mass. A block of brick, iron, stone, and concrete. And a place where people cook, eat, gather, and sleep on top of when the outside temperature is in the depths of freezing. Far below in fact. A social, domestic, and thermal center of gravity of the home. The inside was filled with wood ashes, cinders, smoke, burned stumps that looked suspiciously like old blackened bones, and horror. Vasilisa blanched. And held her nose. And spoke.

“As you wish,” she said, and she got to work. Vasilisa swept all the way, and even to the way back and beyond that, to all of the nooks and crannies. Where the leftover fags of winter slept. And the coal dust crept into the seams of night. And cleaned the whole of it from front to back. From side to side. Top to bottom. Here and there then back again. She worked late into the day and further on until nightfall. And then it was done.

“I’m done,” said Vasilisa.

“What?” said Baba Yaga, and looked into her stove. “Are you sure you got it all?” she turned her left eye, the sinister one, upon Vasilisa like a butcher’s knife seeking the seam between a muscle.

“Yes!” she said. “I’ve finished your task.”

“So you have,” admitted Baba Yaga. “So you have.” Then, enthusiastically, “Have some bread and some milk. You have earned it.” Vasilisa ate and Vasilisa drank, being sure to set a little bit aside without Baba Yaga’s seeing. She could feel the doll under her dress.

“May I have the oil now?” asked Vasilisa. “Not so fast. Not so fast.” “But I did your chore for you. I cleaned out the creosote and ash coffin that is the depths of your stove.” “So you did,” “And you said a favor would be paid with a favor.” “Ah, that I did, as well.” “So?” “So what?” What is to be my favor?” “Didn’t you see? I fed you bread and milk.” “I-“ “So we’re even.” “But what about the oil?” “Oh, it’s oil you want now, is it?” “That’s what I came here for. That’s what I wanted all along! I told you!”

“It is too late for you to leave now. You will sleep here by the stove. And you will do one more task for me. Then I will give you some oil.” “How can I trust you?” “Careful what you say, girl!” Baba Yaga growled like her wolf-dog had earlier in the day. “Show me the oil and promise me that you will not demand any more of me in the morning.”

Baba Yaga glared at Vasilisa, then nodded, a curious look in her eye. “Here,” she said like someone about the show off a great treasure. And she took a leather flask down from a shelf on the wall and dripped a few drops of oil into Vasilisa’s hand. “This I will give to you, tomorrow morning, when you have finished my last task.”

“Very well,” said Vasilisa. “What do you want me to do?”

Baba Yaga’s curious look turned into a grimace, her tight lips turned up on the left side. Her smile was not at all comforting. Vasilisa felt wary. Baba Yaga turned to another clay jar on her shelf and took it down along with a piece of silk paper, thinner than a soap bubble and whiter than the snows of the utmost North. She went to the corner of the house and knelt on the floor. Taking a handful of spelt from the jar she mixed it with some cinders on the floor until it was all completely mixed and indistinguishable. She set the paper next to it.

“You will separate the spelt from the cinders,” she demanded. “Tomorrow morning I want to see two piles. One of dirt on the floor and one of spelt neatly piled on the paper next to it.” With that she left Vasilisa and climbed into the rafters above her stove for the night.

Vasilisa stared at the pile of seeds and cinders, which just looked like one, big pile of dirt. She knelt by the pile, got down on her hands and knees, and inspected it closely. It still looked like dirt. She hugged herself and was about to cry when she once again felt her mother’s gift, the little rag doll, next to her heart. “Oh,” she thought. “I set some food aside for you.” She took out the doll and studied it in the frail light of the cottage. Outside the white horseman was retreating into the west. The red horseman was swiftly riding along the ridge of the sky, lighting everything a gloomy rust. Soon it would be the black rider’s turn to paint the night sky.

“Oh, little doll,” she said. And took the morsel of bread and bit of milk she had set aside and was glad that she had. She offered them to the doll. The doll came to life. She reached out and took the bread, ate it, then drank the milk. She smacked her painted on lips and said, “Ah. Is good,” and then, “Thank you, Malishka. What do you need? I can comfort you. I can ease your load. Or I can just listen to you. What do you wish?” “Oh, my Kukla,” said Vasilisa. “I am in the house of Baba Yaga!” “Oh!” said the doll. “And she demands much from me. For I am tasked to get some oil for our lamps and in return she wants me to do impossible things for her.” Then Vasilisa described the things she had gone through since leaving her home, the strange horsemen and the eerie guardians of the house, and what Baba Yaga had demanded in return.

Finally, when she had finished her narration, the doll spoke, “I see. Well, I know what to do,” and the doll clapped her cloth hands together and made a high pitched, squeaking sound. Out of the woodwork and from under the furniture and around the beams in the ceiling came dozens and scores of mice. They stopped in a circle around the doll and Vasilisa.

“You must help Vasilisa or she will be eaten by the witch, Baba Yaga!” said the doll. “Take this pile of cinders and spelt and separate it into two neat piles, with the spelt on the sheet of paper.” Immediately they all turned to the dirty pile on the floor. They sniffed it, pawed it, and began turning it out and separating some pieces from the rest. Then the doll turned to Vasilisa, “Do not fear, my darling. Your mother always takes care of her Vasitchka. Go, rest, sleep! This will be done by the morrow.”

The next morning Baba Yaga came down from her warm rafters to where Vasilisa had been sleeping in a cold lump next to the silent stove.

“Make me breakfast,” said Baba Yaga. “What?” said Vasilisa. “Make me something to eat, you little kitchen wench! You are my slave after all. And I command you.” “I am nobody’s slave.” “No?” “No! You do not command me.” “Really?” “No. Not now. Not ever.”

“Hmph,” said Baba Yaga. “I commanded you to clean my stove, and you did.” “In exchange for some oil!” “Bread and milk, as I recall!”

And after some thought, Baba Yaga said, “Why not? Very well, little Miss. Not-My-Slave. So you say. So be it. Let’s play this by your rules.”

“Oh?” Vasilisa said. “Rules? What rules?” “Why, the ones you just decided to play by,” said Baba Yaga. “And what might those be?” “You do a favor for me and I might do something for you.” “That wasn’t the agreement,” “Wasn’t it?” “No, it wasn’t. You said last night that if I separated the cinders from the spelt you would give me a flagon of oil.”

“Is that what I said?” “Yes! Yes, it is.” “Well?” “Well! Here is your spelt.”

Baba Yaga inspected the piles, one of gravely cinders that had been thrown onto the floor from the stove and one of all neat and clean spelt grains. “So it is,” she said. She took the leather pouch of oil and gave it to Vasilisa. “Here is your oil,” she said. As Vasilisa started for the door Baba Yaga said, “Now make me something to eat!”

“What? No. I must now take this oil home to my mama and sisters, that we might continue our chores.”

“I never agreed to that.”

Vasilisa was now getting angry. She was a well-mannered girl who was always ready to help those in need, but not one to be abused. She was nobody’s footstool and her wrath, while mainly sleeping, was no stranger to the light.

“Neither did I!” she shouted and fled to the door.

She leapt through and dashed away before Baba Yaga’s house could leap up and prevent her from leaving. Baba Yaga was after her.

Vasilisa came to the wolf-dog, who sat down beside the path and wagged his tail as Vasilisa sped by. She came to the mighty Larch, who raised its branches to clear the path before her. The gate swung open as she neared and she was out and into the lane.

Baba Yaga came to her hound. “Why did you not stop her?” she demanded. “You have had me as a servant for years and not once have you given me even a scrap of flesh or a bone to gnaw on, I had to scavenge for my meal. But Vasilisa gave me the last bit of sweet meat and soft bread she had. I will not betray her for you.”

Baba Yaga cursed him and fled on. “Why did you not put down your branches and trap Vasilisa?” she shouted at the Larch tree. “I have lived in your yard, planted as a patient sentinel, for a hundred years. It that time you never cleared the clinging vines and poison plants from my branches. Vasilisa took the time to clear my limbs that they might feel the sun and the rain in good measure. I will not detain her for you.” Cursing again, Baba Yaga raced on.

“Gate,” she shouted. “You should have kept her locked on my grounds. Why did you let her go?” “I have served as your miserable fence gate since my mortal flesh melted from me leaving only this cage of dry bones,” the gate said. “Not once did you give even an drop of oil to sooth my tendons or lubricate my knuckles. Vasilisa poured out the last of her feeble lamp to ease my agony. I will not imprison her for you.” Baba Yaga stomped her booted hoof and howled. She fled back to her giant mortar and swung her cornhusk broom as she leapt in. It rose from the ground, swung around the gables of her cottage, and sailed along the road toward the village of Vasilisa.

“Vasilisa,” whispered the doll. “Heed me! We are both in danger.” “What is it?” said Vasilisa. “Stop and hide here beside the road. Baba Yaga would not let us go so easily,” and Vasilisa paused and hid under a drooping pine tree. A shadow swept over them. Above, Baba Yaga was crisscrossing and weaving over the road and had almost seen them as they crawled under the pine tree’s branches. “The guardians of day who passed you last night. You did not understand what they gave to you. But I do. Bring them out now.”

Vasilisa brought out the little black box, the red ring, and the white porcelain bottle. “Now,” said the doll. “Open the box!” Vasilisa started to say that she could not open the box when she tried yesterday, but the doll stopped her. “Trust me,” she said.

Vasilisa did as she was told. She opened the box and suddenly a flood of black tar flowed out of it, but it was not sticky. Instead, it was just blackness. It flowed out and under the tree, beneath the pine needles and into the cones. And flowed out of the tree like a beacon of night.

“We can escape now,” said the doll. “Baba Yaga cannot penetrate midnight.” “Nor can we! I cannot see any better than she.” “Take the ring, now. Put it on your finger!” Vasilisa found that she could now easily fit the ring on her finger. The stone glimmered with a warming red glow which seemed to shine out from her hands but only for a few paces-no more. She could see the underside of the tree and the branches like skirt fringes brushing the forest floor. She crawled out of their hiding.

Each step she took illuminated another step a few feet ahead-they were in a small fishbowl of light. Above them they heard Baba Yaga, cursing and sweeping back and forth, occasionally hitting the branches of tall trees and shrieking in terror. The sounds of her thrashing and cursing grew further away, then stopped abruptly after a very large, “Crash!” Then they were in silence.

“Now, go! When she recovers she will be angrier than ever!” said the doll. Vasilisa carefully held her ring hand ahead and over her head and guided the two of them to the next step on the path. Step by step, being careful not to make any noise less the witch had found a way to follow them, they made their way back to the village. As they reached it, the black sky gave way to the burnishing red and orange of sunrise. The ring went out in Vasilisa’s hand.

“Where have you been?” said Tatiana as she came into the house. “Do you have the oil? There is much work for you to do!” Vasilisa hugged the doll next to her heart and said, “Yes, Step Mother.”