Love Strode in on Chicken Legs

As long as Mariya had lived in The Woods, she had been in love with the dreadful Baba Yaga. 

Mariya herself had become a thing of twisted joints and loosening skin. She was of an age where age itself was no longer a thought. She had seen the day break open and the night fall down thousands of times. Most days, her life in The Woods was full of quiet whimsy. Mariya was a witch, but of all the magic at her disposal, she used only a pinch. A little magic in the morning to make her tea the perfect temperature. A little more to make her vegetables grow into the perfect shapes. Perhaps some to dust her vast collection of oddities and knick-knacks. For centuries, that had been her calm, peculiar life. She had lived and lived and lived, but she had never felt more alive than when she was around the gruesome Baba Yaga.

Everyone knew of Baba Yaga. It was true that she, too, was a witch, but she was far from Mariya’s personal brand of magical woman. She was known as many things: a trickster, a krone, an ogress, a beast. Yes, Baba Yaga was all of these and none of these at the same time. She stood at an enormous height, looming over even the tallest knight. Many would describe her as ugly. She had countless wrinkles and spots with cataracts in her eyes and hatred in her heart. Some saw  her as ugly, though Mariya vehemently disagreed. 

Villages trembled at the sight of her approach, at the sound of her cackle, at the smell of her dreadful oven. Did she truly cook naughty children in it? Perhaps. Did she truly even exist? Some argued she did not. There were many who believed her to be only a folktale, one made up by parents to deter tantrums. This, of course, was not the case. There was a truth Mariya carried like one of her treasured knick-knacks: she had been the first to know of the one named Baba Yaga.

Once, when Mariya was still a young witch, she found herself lost in The Woods. This was a pleasant thing for her. To be lost among the trees and woodland creatures was her biggest adventure. Though danger lurked in every nook and cranny, Mariya was not scared. It may have been her first day in there, but it had already felt like a home of sorts. 

Mariya walked with no real destination in mind. She figured she would know where to stop once she got there. After hours or perhaps days, she arrived. In a clearing of grass and mushrooms, sat a girl with moonlight gray hair. Her skin was splattered in freckles and moles, giving her an aged look, though she could not have been any older than Mariya herself. Her nose stuck out beautifully from her face. Buried in her lap was a goose with feathers the color of tar. On the ground in front of her lay a whittled piece of wood. It seemed to be a roughly shaped house, only from its base grew bird legs. In the girl’s crooked hands, she feverishly ground something in with a mortar and pestle. 

“What is that in her hands?” Mariya wondered from her place behind a tree. Unfortunately, Mariya had always had the terrible habit of moving her mouth with her thoughts.

The girl did not startle. Her eyes never raised, but she held the mortar with her arm outstretched perfectly towards Mariya. Inside, a yellow mush was being made from what seemed like dandelions. 

A rough, creaking voice far older than the girl slipped from her mouth.

“Paint. For the chicken’s legs.”

“Oh. What is it for? Is it a toy?” Mariya herself kept her dolls in the bag at her side, even though she pretended she was too old to love such things.

“No! Not a measly toy. One day,” the girl lifted her eyes, milky and faintly blue, to meet Mariya’s. 

“One day, it will be my home. I will travel from land to land, the legs of the chicken carefully carrying me. Alone, I will live the rest of my life in it, so I have to take my time with this part.”

She began to grind her yellow paint again.

“How do you know all this? Why must you be alone?”

The girl thought for a moment, tilting her head with a crack. “Maybe not alone. Dymok will be with me, but he is just a stupid goose. But perhaps …” 

The girl’s face looked up to the stars, deep in thought, “What are you called?”

“Mariya. What is your name?”

“They will call me Baba Yaga! Fear will be left in my wake, and I will not care,” the girl exclaimed, crackling with laughter.

“I have never known fear. I am never afraid of anything. I will never fear you, the one who will be Baba Yaga.” Mariya said this in the way only a child could, with confidence and fierce determination. 

“How interesting. Mariya the Unafraid. We shall see how true this is,” the girl said, her voice like tree branches cracking under feet. 

Almost as if she were never there in the first place, the one who would be known as Baba Yaga vanished in a swirl of black feathers. All that remained was a smear of yellow paint in the dirt and the memory of the strange girl with milky eyes and moonlight hair. 

Several years passed, and Mariya had never left The Woods. She built her small cabin by hand (a magical hand, albeit) in the very clearing she met Baba Yaga. She started her life, solitary, quiet. Every now and again, a traveler would stop by her cabin in need of food, potions, or other adventuring needs. Through it all, the girl with moonlight hair floated in the back of Mariya’s mind. 

Of course, she had encountered Baba Yaga  a handful of times since that day. The next time would be in what would be their teenage years. The sound of giant footsteps grew closer and closer until Mariya realized what it was she was hearing. By that time, the whittled hut was only the size of a doghouse, but its chicken legs did carry Baba Yaga across the lands. She traveled and made her way back through The Woods, right past Mariya’s own home. Mariya ran out and climbed to her own roof (she was still limber in those years). 

“Baba Yaga!”

Baba Yaga draped herself upside down out the window of her moving home, her white hair swaying with each of the chicken leg steps. Dymok, the midnight goose, posed like a weathervane on the small chimney. Baba Yaga laughed heartily as she swung. She looked much the same, though she, too, had reached her teenage years. 

“Mariya the Unafraid, you never left these woods! How quaint a life you must lead. Tell me, do you fear me now? Have you heard the horrors I leave in my wake?”

“Travelers tell the tales as gruesome as I am sure they seem. ‘Oh no! The terrible witch who eats our children like others eat chicken!’ Tell me, is that completely true?”

          Mariya had indeed heard these stories. She believed them, too. Yet she could not bring herself to feel anything negative towards Baba Yaga. If anything, she was entirely too delighted to see her again. 

“The ones who deserve it, I do eat. They go nicely in a borscht. Quite filling. Does this make you afraid?”

“No, not even a bit. I think you are not as terrible as even you think.”

“There will be worse things that I do, my friend. You will come to fear me.”

Though she smiled, Mariya could see a hint of sadness in the milky blue of Baba Yaga’s eyes. Mariya wished she could ease that sadness. She wished she knew Baba Yaga well enough to know what helped her best. 

“Maybe we could have tea and talk. You could attempt to convince me to fear you?”

At that, Dymok honked once from his place upon the chimney. If Mariya squinted, she could almost see a disappointment in the upside-down hunch of Baba Yaga’s shoulders. 

“Not yet. The day for tea will come. Perhaps tomorrow. Or perhaps in several eras. Only the stars would know.”

“Well, tell the stars I look forward to that day.”

Baba Yaga swung herself back up into her hut, and the chicken’s legs continued through The Woods at a startling pace. Mariya watched until the hut, the goose, and the strange Baba Yaga were hidden completely by the trees. She felt a pain in her chest and hoped it would not be too long before chicken feet stamped across her lawn again. 

There were other encounters, thankfully. It seemed that every few years, Baba Yaga found her way through The Woods again. Each time, they would briefly talk, and Mariya would be quite the opposite of afraid. Each time, Baba Yaga refused tea, blaming it on the stars. Each time, Mariya cursed the stars and hoped. 

The last time, it was simply a tap at her door, the honk of a goose flying away, and a bundled cloth left at Mariya’s doorstep. When Mariya unraveled the cloth, two connected, whittled dolls fell into her palm. It was small yet meticulously crafted. It was Baba Yaga and Mariya herself, connected at the palms. Mariya held it to her chest, cursed the stars, and hoped again. 

          Decades passed with no sign of Baba Yaga until one morning, a thunderous sound came from Mariya’s roof. The cabin shook under some enormous weight. The crunch of talons sinking into the wood of her home encouraged Mariya to move her archaic bones as quickly as they would allow.

           She opened her door, almost stepping on a small black lump. Greeted by a loud, angry honk, Mariya knew exactly what had landed on her house.

           “Dymok?” 

           The goose waddled close to Mariya’s legs, rubbing his black feathers on the edge of her skirt. Mariya scooped Dymok into her arms, petting him as if he were a kitten. As she did, she turned to see the chicken legs bent on the slants of her roof and the large hut threatening to crush her magically built (not indestructible) home. The door to the hut had been swung open.

           “How many countless years have passed, and your withered old brain can still remember the name of my stupid goose? Get a life, Mariya the Unafraid!” 

           Baba Yaga began to descend from her hut in a worrisome leap, landing harshly as the dirt kicked up around her. By then, her age had finally matched up with her features. She almost looked like a normal, ancient woman, if you ignored her huge stature and the childlike mischievousness in her milky blue eyes. She hobbled until she was directly in front of Mariya, the closest they had ever been. Mariya was always short; she was shortened further by the hunch of her aching back. Baba Yaga loomed above her. 

           “What, are you finally afraid of me, my dear Mariya?” Baba Yaga crackled in laughter, mocking though not unkind. 

           “Never, you old krone. It just hurts my neck to glance up so far.”

           Baba Yaga crackled again, easing herself to plop down ungracefully onto the grass. They were now at eye level.

“Krone? Look who is talking. Our hair is almost the same now.”

           It was true. Mariya’s hair, which once was solid black curls, was now strewn with more strands of gray and white than she would care to admit. 

           “Oh, how you flatter me. What brings you to my neck of The Woods?”

           “Can I not just visit my oldest friend?”

           “You are always welcome, you know this. You just choose not to.”

           “This is true. I have gone everywhere and everywhen. I have seen terror and joy and all the other wonders of this hectic world. It seems that everyone, human and not, gets an anxious sweat and bone chills at the mention of my name.”

           “Not I.”

           “No, never you, you persistent, ancient spoon. I have traveled alone for the cycles of so many moons and I think …”

           Mariya did nothing but stare at the woman sitting inelegantly in the grass before her. Since that first day in The Woods, this was the longest she has been able to see her. She intended to commit every mole and wrinkle to memory. 

           “I think having tea with someone other than a stupid goose sounds nice.”

           “And you are stopping here on your way to this splendid tea? How kind of you,” Mariya teased.

           “We shall have tea, you muppet! The stars have told me so.”

           “Ah, the stars, the stars. Always you and these stars. Do you always listen to them?”

           “It is less a matter of following their direction. They know all, every second of every day, every thought and feeling and consequence. They have told me all of this, and all I can do is live with the knowledge of everything my life will be.”

           “And they have told you that we shall have tea today.”

           “They have told me a lot. About what we will do. What we may … feel.”

           Mariya thought of every hope she has ever had concerning Baba Yaga. Now, she hoped the stars did not mind being cursed so much. 

           “I hope what we feel matches, then?”

           “According to the stars —”

           “I do not care for the stars. I care for you.”

           Baba Yaga looked uncomfortable yet determined. She stood, still slouching to look Mariya in the eyes. 

           “I care for you, too. Now, would you like to have tea in my hut, you stubborn thing? 

           “I would, though I do have one favor to ask of you.”

           “I am known for my favors. It will cost you greatly, though.”

           “Calling you baba seems strange when we are both well past a grandmotherly age. And yaga still seems strange since we are witches both. What could I call you instead?”

           “What would you like to call me, Mariya the Unafraid?”

           For the first time in her entire life (which has spanned eras), Mariya felt the flutter of nerves in her chest and the quickening of her breath.

           “Perhaps … perhaps I could call you Zhena?” Zhena. Wife. A word Mariya had thought of many times yet never said aloud. 

           Milky eyes met Mariya’s own, smiles creaking across two antique mouths. 

           “Your favor is granted, Mariya.”

           “And the dreadful cost?”

           “A lifetime of tea with you as we are carried across the earth by perfectly yellow chicken legs. I must warn you, Dymok will steal sips of tea at the most inconvenient of moments.”

           Dymok honked in agreement.

           “How undeniably dreadful. I suppose it is a fair trade.”

           “You know, nothing about me will change. I will still be who I have always been, even before I was.”

           “I know, Zhena. It is why I have always loved you, and I intend to do so until the night falls down for the last time.”

           “Even if I still eat people?”

           “Even then. Now, shall I make us some dandelion tea?”

           For the first time in centuries, Mariya left The Woods. She grabbed only her loose tea leaves, and the small, whittled dolls of her and her love made all those years ago. As the stars might have told you, this would be how she would spend eternity, making tea to the sound of her Zhena’s crackling laughter while swaying slightly with every step of the giant chicken legs beneath her. Every night, she would go to sleep with the same thought in her mind: what a wonderfully dreadful life indeed.