Baba Yaga Goes North—Allison Wall

There came a day I stopped pretending. I decided to act on what I had known to be true for a long time, and the hard part was done. I wasn’t fighting myself anymore—and I was the strongest enemy I’d ever had. I was Baba Yaga, see. What greater foe could you imagine?

I cast my first spell for knowing. Well. Not my very first (the spells whispering in my head, I had never been able to fully ignore), but for the first time openly. For the first time on purpose. I embraced all that was within me—the ugly with the beautiful with the everything-in-between. With intention and wholeness, my spell was a hundred times stronger.

I knew what to do.

I traded those pinching jeans for an old, patched skirt, and I braided my thin hair on top of my head. I quit my job and with relief turned my back on that beige and fluorescent box, where the only view was a line of dumpsters in an alley. I canceled my lease. I sold my car. My MacBook. My rose-gold iPhone. I closed my bank account and tied up the cash in a flowered kerchief.

I said goodbye to the people around me, the ones who thought they knew me, who were shocked. They didn’t understand what I was doing. They tried to talk me out of it, told me I was confused, that no one was Baba Yaga, that she’s just an old fairy tale. That I was a young woman, not an old witch. That I was suffering from body dysmorphia or bipolar disorder.

The age talk, though. That frustrated me. You think an old witch was always old? Was Baba always Granny? Or did they paint her that way because they hated her? The young hate the old, the old hate the young. Pointless. They are different banks of the same stream.

But I knew their arguments. I’d put them all to myself, and some they hadn’t thought of, in a vain attempt to dissuade myself from this path, to dissuade myself from accepting who I was, who I always had been, always would be. What I had not been able to do, they had no chance of accomplishing.

So I left them and went to the bus station to buy a ticket.

“North,” I said to the ticket seller.

“Minnesota? Wisconsin? Michigan?”

“North,” I said again, “where there is forest.” For the man-given names of places no longer made any difference to me.

They thought me very odd. I supposed I was, and glee filled my heart, and I smiled. They gave me a ticket all the same.

I rode the bus for many hours. When I got off to stretch at a rest stop, my bones felt ancient. My joints creaked. As it should be! I skipped a ring around the parking lot. The air was colder, drier. Excitement built in my body, thrilling along the threads of my nervous system. I was almost there.

More and more, the trees turned to pine and juniper along the interstate. They whispered to me in their own language, and they called me by name. I grinned at them, my heart full to bursting with their personalities and stories. I muttered blessings on them as we passed. The seat next to mine was eventually abandoned. I stretched out deliciously and yawned.

I rode the bus as far north as it would take me. I got out in a small town, where the buildings in the square were all made of logs, rustic imitations of bygone times. The air was crisp, cold, and the wind blew briskly at my back: Hurry, hurry, Baba Yaga, it said. Chortling at its urgency—for everything happens in its time—I allowed myself to be guided onward.

I walked through that town and out the other side. I put my feet upon the soil and the pine needles and moved into the wild. Here, the trees told me the way, pointing with long, gnarled branches. Sunlight glittered and played in the treetops. Black squirrels scrabbled, scolding one another hoarsely. Chickadees and juncos called. The wind whistled high overhead, through the pines. No engines, no motors, no human voices. No sound but these, the sounds of the world.

At last, at last, my soul unclenched, as a fist opening, as a rose bud blooming. It relaxed. I could breathe. And I had not even known I was holding my breath.

All came into brighter focus. The little clusters of mushrooms, leftover from summertime; the lichens and mosses; the nests of chipmunks and owls. The sound of running water.

My heart quickened. To the north-west of the stream, a clearing opened, and in that clearing was—

An A-frame cabin, built of rough-barked pine branches, with curling wood shingles, and a door, stained red with raspberry juice and sap. The stone-and-mud chimney rose on one side, like the curious ear of a dog. When it saw me, the cabin stood up on its long chicken legs, and it hopped up and down for joy.

My darling house! We had not met in this lifetime, but we knew each other well. I put my hand upon the drainpipe, and it calmed. It tucked its legs and lowered itself so that I could reach the door, turn the ancient knob, and let myself in.

The cozy scent of woodsmoke, juniper berries. The dear iron stove, with its great door. The bright braided rug upon the hearth. The rafters, strung with herbs. My old mortar and pestle upon the table. The broom, fresh with new twigs, resting gaily in the corner. All was here. All was as I knew it should be.

And the house, feeling my bliss, leapt and turned. And I put my nose to the ceiling and I danced danced danced, kicking and stomping, whirling, feeling the air rush through my fingers. And I was home.

photo by Maciek Sulkowski (via unsplash)