Chapter Witch versus Wits


    Baba Yaga waited in the shadows dressed as black as the darkness. She was watching the parents peeking in on their boy through the door swaying together.


    “There he is my little future head man.” Tanner chuckled merrily. The boy never even stirred; he slept so sound. Baba Yaga snorted that by tomorrow the old fool would never remember even having a son. One spin of her mortar and pestle would see to that. She waited in the hall, looking to the window, only a sliver of moon the way she liked it. Utter shadow everywhere. All day her ears had been burning to madness, well as far as madness could infect the mad. She was certain this child had been the start of it. She would feast upon him. As the adult snores grew heavy, so too did her footsteps as she swept into the room.


    She shut the door with a wave of her hand and caused the dresser to block the door. She wanted to relish this: the terror….. She paused to smell the room and was suddenly confused when her granddaughter’s scent hit her. Then her rational mind reminded her to ignore her strong demon senses. Her dove had watched Rose give the boy that coat. And of course Ivan had said she had tucked the boy in.


    This did remind her however, that she would have to lie to her Granddaughter. Her power was growing and so the spell of forgetting would not continue to be as effective on her. Baba Yaga muttered low to herself in an uncontrollable manner.


    “Tell her the Tanner’s boy died in his sleep from fever and that the Tanner blames her for the cursed coat and so he nor his wife will never again acknowledge having a son in her presence.”


    That might work for a time. Hopefully time enough until Rose’s full bloom of red when the blood would begin. It should be soon. She was turning that ripeness of age. Baba Yaga would be young and beautiful, just as she was when she took over the Canaanite Queen who worshiped her demon form and had opened the gateway through fiendish shadow seeking her knowledge.


    Untying the rope belt around her middle she caused it to wind around the bed slowly of its own accord. Each hair on her head stood on end as well as the lengthened and unknotted tassels on her shall. Her golden jaws snapped together in anticipation. Over the bed and child the rope wound tight.


    “Your diaphragm is squeezing and you cannot breathe, try to give me the pleasure of some struggle, my doll.” Baba Yaga slid her hands together and the rope slid back and forth still squeezing around the child’s middle. Any other child would have woken up already for she had not been discreet in her entrance knowing the parents would already be slumbering. The rope only continued to dig deeper and deeper into the blankets and bed.


    Rose watched from behind an antler rack made of skins built to hold extra pelts. The light was so dim she could barely make out the outline of the large figure. Indeed it had startled her to hear the dresser against the door. This was followed succinctly by the flash of a frightening face that seemed suspended in the air like a floating head. A brief glint near the window off the giant golden jaws showed pinched cheeks covered with large leather straps that pushed up a huge nose with abnormally long nostril slits underneath two beady, ember eyes. The face was gone in a moment. The figure moved to the bed back through darkness.


    Rose readied her weapons. She ducked down low. She could hear the creature muttering not its words over the creaking and popping of its mouth. Upon the floor Rose saw the shadow of something snakelike extend from her arm. She heard the bed creaking and rocking and the sliding of sheets. Rose was relieved she had changed her mind about sleeping in it when she had found herself getting drowsy waiting for attack. A horrible voice began to whisper from the darkness. It sounded like the voice of a crow if a crow could speak.If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    “Where are you hiding pretty? Not in your bed tonight I see. Did you feel me coming? Did you sense your doom?” The last two sentences echoed. There was scratching in all four corners of the room and heavy breathing under the bed. The window opened of its own accord and a distant cackle as if from a dream came from outside. The room was empty. Rose sat for a long while in darkness after gripping tighter the carefully selected weapon in her hand.


    A squeal worse than that of a pig sounded as the fur coats were swept aside by two oak like hands with brown curled nails. Rose’s shoulders were clasped by them as an open metal maw made straight for her upturned face. A child is what Baba Yaga expected to find, not an armed one.


    Rose cast upward her mother’s sickle sharpened to perfection to split the thinnest blade of grass and with a great clang it grazed off the golden teeth and slit across the witch’s shoulder. Rose swiped horizontal only catching air as the dark lady moved back.


    This did not deter Rose, her blood was up. She put forth a fearsome cry as she raised one of her Father’s hunting spears which he had discarded after it had broken in half too small. Yet for Rose it was just the right width and balance, dropping her first weapon she charged low and fast. Upon recognition of the voice Baba Yaga was held with shock, plowed into with such force that even as the spear entered her gut she was lifted off the ground and thrown back through the window. Rose let go, surprised by her own strength and cruelty during this moment, black hair slid over the sill.


    Tanner burst into the room with his wife. “Rose what goes on here? Why are you covered in blood?” Rose was shaking with excitement of course also with the knowledge that she had attempted to kill something as intelligent and cunning as herself. She had come a long way from simple rabbits.


    Tanner moved to the window thinking of his boy. Even as Rose shouted, “No, the witch is still out there!” She expected at any moment the hag to leap up off the ground.


    “A witch!” exclaimed his wife who was distraught and pulled back the sheets to find nothing. “Where is my boy?”


    “He is safe.” Rose assured her. “I have hidden him.”


    “Something dark and formidable moves swiftly across the green, there it is in the woods.” Tanner turned on his heels. “I shall go fetch Ivan.” He grabbed Rose’s hand and pulled her into tow. “You shall explain to us what you were doing in here!”


    Rose explained that Emilyan had talked to her about the noises at his window and that she in turn had switched places with him. Time being pressed she omitted anything else leading up to the events she described in the room. Her mind was a bit disoriented even though it happened only moments ago, was this the effect of witch? When asked to describe she could only remember the snake-like shadow moving toward the bed and the black tendril of hair that slid over the sill.


    She had just finished when they arrived on Ivan’s step when immediately he came through his door. “Rose what have you done!” he bellowed, for he saw she was covered in blood not her own and Tanner''s wife weeping.


    The Tanner found the boldness to interrupt Ivan rapidly and loudly giving explanations so that the neighbor''s hatas lit up from his exclamations. His wife no less began to run around waking everyone who had not roused crying warning: “Guard your children! Protect their lives! A witch prowls among us!”


    Ivan scolded, “Rose you should have come to me with these suspicions.”


    “The child did act foolishly Ivan yet certainly you agree we must pursue this fiend!” Roars of ascent came from the men in opposition which proved startling due to their usual complacent and fearful manners. Ivan’s eyes grew wide and hollow as he looked out beyond them into the night. “We shall go, gather up your torches and weapons! Women gather all the wood you can in the center of the village! Keep your children close!