Chapter is Boiling over


    The dwarf kicked in the door. “Eat him! Eat him! Eat him!”


    Baba Yaga was prone to such demons at times. It irked her to no end that a man who was supposedly her servant could simply smash through all her wards at once.


    “What did he do today?!” she dropped the dismembered leg into the water. It was Hilda’s perhaps or maybe Nina''s; she had gotten the dried parts mixed up over the years. She had found them in the frozen snow, apparently they had killed each other. As she thought of the fact that she had never found her Rose the cauldron began to boil over with her rage.


    “Look! Look don’t you see?” The man pointed to his beard which had been trimmed short with a wild crooked swipe it appeared, barely noticeable except to another dwarf. He had to let go of the silver chain with one hand to show her and it nearly yanked him out the door.


    “Come inside here and sit!” Baba Yaga snarled in wolf and Hansel trotted in pretty as you please and sat on his haunches. Baba Yaga turned and began stirring. She was actually hiding a smile from the dwarf. There were times her barely beating human heart found kinship with this boy’s trickery of course it was the tastiness of his will that was attractive.


    The disappearance of his sister even had not disheartened him. Which told Baba Yaga that she was out there still alive, twins who possessed magic often had a connection or bond. Not that she needed his connection. Every day she checked the doll and she saw it was sleeping comfortably and warm somewhere. At the time, she thought she had been smart to leave her captive behind to wait for the children in case they backtracked. Instead she lost both girls while searching for one and it was aggravating; water hissed as it hit the floor.


    “I command you to change.” She growled and Hansel as much as he wished to fight it changed swiftly back into a boy. The dwarf chained him to the wall while a house glove picked up the hatchet.


    “Shall we take his whole arm this time?” The dwarf licked his lips. And the glove seemed to quiver with excitement for a moment; it revealed its true form of glowing bone.


    “No, I told you! You will ruin the recipe. Only two fingers for tasting!” Baba Yaga ordered.


    Hansel obediently put out his hand and down went the hatchet. He barely flinched and afterwards licked until his two longest fingers grew back. His lack of concern over this matter bothered the witch. Over everything else he struggled over this he seemed too complacent. A noise from her bedroom stopped her stirring. Quickly Baba Yaga went to go check her dolls.


    Sure enough, one was up and moving. It walked in a rocking manner towards her foot. His pale twin was near, very near.


    “Go and fetch Ivan!” She commanded the dwarf.


    “I just got here for dinner.” whined the little man.


    Baba Yaga snatched the two fingers from his greedy little hands and threw them in the soup. “Fetch him quickly!” The hatchet floated away and the gloves folded themselves neatly on a cedar chest. The dwarf excitedly grumbled. Hansel flashed bright glowing eyes in his direction.


    “My boy your defiance pleases me.” Baba Yaga purred, “With your sister back we shall see how resistant you remain.” Hansel looked to the window and opened his mouth but quickly she said, “Change!”


    “Babushka I am home!” Rose ran up the path to the door which was steep. Baba Yaga quickly dipped her finger in the soup and splashed her eyes.


    “Is that my little one, my Granddaughter!” she cried and quickly moved to the doorway. To Rose it appeared she had been crying and she felt badly for making her Grandmother worry. “Grandmother I am so sorry it was only supposed to be a few days and I was gone for almost a whole week.” Rose hugged her. “We were chased by a Wolf and then the Frost nearly froze us and then…”


    “Almost a week, it has been six years.” Babushka pinched Rose’s nose. “And you have stopped aging properly as if you have been slowed.” At this Baba Yaga’s eyes narrowed. Rose was so surprised by this statement she spoke to herself in soft disbelief. “Six years, that can’t be.”You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.


    “The Frost you say?” Grandmother pondered aloud.


    “Yes…” Rose was uncertain of how much to tell her Grandmother. Just then a great wolf bounded out of the doorway and began barking, each bark sounded like her name, “Rose! Rose! Rose!”


    “Babushka…” Rose gasped and the little maiden jumped in front of her defensively.


    Baba Yaga quickly pulled out a muzzle from her shall and bound the animal’s mouth.


    “Many things have changed since you have been gone, my child.” Baba Yaga sighed.


    “Your Father and Miller are training this partially wild dog for my protection. And your mother…”


    “Grandmother, did you hear it? It sounded like it said my name.” Rose wasn’t listening and she was still distracted. “Is that a Wolf too?” Rose shivered and Martha turned to give her a hug. Wolves still frightened her and she looked at the animal who stared back at her whining. Grandmother smacked it.


    “You only think so because you have been frightened. I assure you it is only a mongrel barking. I see you have found a companion.” Babushka looked the other little girl up and down with interest.


    “She cannot talk because she has no tongue. I think she was a slave to someone.” Rose presented the girl she had found. Baba Yaga acted shocked.


    “Sweet child I shall treat you as I would my own for you have brought back what is most precious.” Grandmother embraced her abomination in a hug. “You will be my Granddaughter’s playmate and protector. I shall name you Martha.”


    The dog growled through his muzzle. Ivan appeared with the Miller who was panting behind him. “Rose, is that you? I have searched for you everywhere!”  Nina’s mother Natasha came running up. She had several boils all over her face. Her appearance was the second thing to frighten Rose.


    “Rose, I followed Ivan when I heard you had come home! Where are my daughters? Are they with you? I have not heard a word and no one will take a message for me!”


    Rose looked a little nervous; she did not know what to say; surely their mother would not believe them murderers. Eventually, carefully she found her words.


    “They chose to go on to Volpi. I could not stop them. They were determined to get through the snow.” Grandmother’s pestle wavered on the table but did not fall over.


    “What snow? Where is Sadko?!” The distraught mother demanded.


    “Leave the child be, she is tired and needs rest after being lost in the woods.  We still have news to give her.” Grandmother scooted them all through the door and began to close it in the Mother’s face. “Please, Ivan, will you not go to Volpi! Will you not search for my kin! Something terrible has happened I feel! They are lost! They are lost!”


    “Do not worry,” Grandmother smiled her cold eyes, “Volpi is not very far. Why have they barely even left home…” The door shut. Weeping was heard briefly outside and then footsteps.


    “Father,” Rose’s eyes brimmed with tears. “Sadko, I think must be dead. There was a great beast that attacked him on our travels and chased us to the outside.”


    “He is not…the only one.” Ivan sighed. He sat at the table and Grandmother poured him some soup. To the girls she gave some sweet hot bread.  Rose found she was too excited to sit at the table as weary as she was. The silence drew out too long.


    “Is Mother worried sick about me?” Rose bit her lip. The fire crackled and everyone in the room looked very grave.


    “Rose, your Mother went looking for you and instead found a bear.” Ivan laid Elena’s cloak on the table. He had been carrying it folded in his belt. “She is dead.”


    The great dog began growling as Rose felt dizzy and dropped her bread on the floor. Martha jumped up immediately and held her steady in a hug. All she could see was the blood on the bear’s shoulder when he entered as they slept. She remembered his cleverness in avoiding the question. How he admitted to killing people. She teetered sliding down even through Martha’s grasp and Ivan bent down to scoop her up off the floor. He took her into Grandmother’s bedroom in shock.


    Upon the covers she grew angry. “No! No! No!” she cried, “It can’t be! I was…!” She pounded the pillow with her fists.


    “Yearling,” Her Grandmother took the cloak from Ivan and sat on the bed and stroked her back. This gave Rose more pain for it reminded her of her own Mother and she wept. “It was not your fault alone. It is the fault of this big wild world; you see how hard I struggle to keep evil out of this realm?” Babushka whispered.


    She put pressure on Rose’s shoulders to make her roll over. Grandmother stood and let the cloak open. The ancient cloak of the order of white, pristine and glittering like new. Rose wondered how they ever got the blood out of it. Such was the darkness of her thoughts.


    “One day when you are of age and your hair matches the color of the roses on the tree I shall present this to you a woman, beautiful and strong and together we shall see the world in honor of her.” She folded it and placed it in a chest at the foot of the bed.


    “You must rest.” She tucked Rose in and kissed her cheek. She said a little chant to make sure no bugs were in the bed. Rose turned on her side and watched Babushka limp out the door. Her Father sat at the table, eyes dark and hollow not looking at her as the dwarf smoked a pipe and spoke in a low voice to him. Martha grabbed the door handle with a sympathetic frown and began to shut it at Grandmother’s request. The white dog that still looked like a wolf to her patiently lay under the table staring. Its eyes seemed to be saying something. She was too miserable to care. Still they burned into her as she slept almost as much as her grief.