Night Witch

Part 5: Baba Yaga

"...There was a woman there, who didn't look at all like the other Traders. Wizened with a short figure and yellow undertones to her skin. She set up quite the booth, filled with oddities and a place she could read people's palms. Ma shrugged it off as devilry, and Vasilisa dared me to go in and get my palm read. If I did she would buy me a map that I had been wanting. So I did.

The woman was wearing all black, and had purple eyes like that girl Olga's. She gave me a sharp look and asked me to lay my palm on the table.

I will have a long life, and I will die because of my daughter, she said. I will be powerful, but I will have to endure great suffering in order to achieve that power. I will be a queen in my own right. Then she smiled, and got something out from her robes.

It was a mirror--one half bedecked in dark gems with tinted glass, and the other half bedecked in light gems with regular glass. When I looked in, I saw myself in the regular half: dark hair, green eyes, fair skin. On the other half, I saw something...well...strange. My skin was a light shade of gray, and I could see myself slit a man's throat. I was wearing a fine red cloak, as though I was travelling and had finally got enough money to get something nice for myself.

I watched as the man slumped onto the ground. He had fair hair and was wearing leather skins and furs, as though we were in a cold place. And indeed, I saw the pale ground beneath him stain red like it was snow.

The scariest thing about it is that I wasn't scared. Just calm, and oddly eager. I smiled before quickly giving the mirror back to her.

I asked her who she was to show this to me. She smiled, and her teeth were stained red, as though she'd been drinking blood.

"Call me Baba, Mara Hedge. And I'm rather ordinary by my own standards--but of course, you Moracians have different ones." She stood up, reaching only about to my ribs. Short little thing for all her talk and magick. "I know what's going to happen to you, Mara Hedge. I know everything about you. I know that you hate your sister and you get sick of the way she will flirt with anything." My stomach twisted as I thought of the fellow that Vasilisa was flirting with shamelessly. Was it really that obvious?

"I know that you've never felt sexual attraction to anyone and so you think there's something wrong with you. I know that one day, you wish to travel the world, particularly South Skava, but you'll only get as far as Galasriel if you're lucky. And I can tell you that no matter how much you love fire, it will end you in the end." She leaned forward, grabbing the mirror and sticking it in her robes. Her eyes were small and black, like beetles. "How much of that was true, Mara? How will you pay me?"

I stood up, accidentally knocking the chair aside. "I must go, witch," I said, the derogatory word causing her to smile. I tried to maintain my composure. "Fair evening, child of Night."

Vasilisa told me I was white as a sheet after I left the tent..."

--From the journal of Mara Hedge