A fairy tale about the year of the pandemic.

 

Three Baba-Yagas and the Dragon-Plague

A fairy tale about the year of the pandemic

Behind the mountains, beyond the forests and beyond one great river, in a palace built a hundred miles from New York City, three happy Baba-Yagas sat around  the table in a colorful kitchen. On the round table top, a large glass jar shone with sugared fruit, and from inside it spread, like memories of July, the scent of raspberry wine. The end of Fall was near. The three Baba-Yagas sipped the sunny liquid from their tall-legged goblets, and with each sip they grew more and more cheerful and ruddy. 

One was Ania, the other was Rebecca, the third was Cait. None of them were a hundred years old yet. In fact, other, older Baba-Yagas, who were four and six hundred years old, treated Ania, Rebecca and Cait like teenagers. But they envied their beauty and talents.

Ania could speak Polish and paint fairy-tale pictures beautifully, Rebecca was a shaman and knew Russian, Mongolian and Costa Rican shamanic spells, and Cait sang sweetly, wrote books about the elements, and was a Tarot master. Older, more grown-up Baba Yagas considered themselves to be superior witches, but all they could really do was dance. Ania invited them to dance in her palace several times a year, but only her closest friends were allowed to enter her kitchen. And this was the room full of secrets of the witch Ania, who was the mistress of this palace.

But there was no dancing this year.

The palace stood among meadows like a thousand spreading green tablecloths. There was a very wide, deep river behind the meadows. Behind the river there were bulbous misty mountains, and on the mountains there were thickets of forests and bushes. The windows in the palace were higher than the door, and there were many great rooms there. In the halls and corridors there were stairs, some straight and some winding, that led to the attic. The colorful kitchen, tucked away at the end of the entrance hall, was cozy and small. 

While Ania, Rebecca, and Cait were merry with wine, slicing and eating a large loaf of bread, and sharing gossip about grown-up Baba Yagas, there was a dragon standing in front of the palace.

And now it must be said that this year was different from other, better years, because now a terrible plague was raging all over the world. The plague was spread by very small viruses, and since last winter people were sick in every country on Earth, and many sick people died. Ania, Rebecca and Cait did not know for sure whether the plague was dangerous for them or not, whether they would get sick like other people, and whether they could die from the virus before they lived even a hundred years.

Adult Baba-Yagas survived more than one plague, but spoke reluctantly and sparingly about why not all of them survived. After every plague, cholera, flu, tuberculosis and other diseases raging through the centuries, several of them were never seen anymore, but only Baba-Yagas who was a thousand years old knew what really happened to their missing friends. Baba-Yagas were witches, but not doctors.  They knew witchcraft, magic, spells, fortune-telling, curses and charms, but they knew no cures for any plague. They knew what the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn meant, but they didn't know how to completely kill bacteria and viruses, so they couldn't disenchant the world from the plague.

The dragon stood in the courtyard in front of the palace. From the scales on its back, from its webbed tail, from its terrible muzzle, from its belly as big as a drum, but covered with wings, and from its clawed paws, water kept dripping.

The sun had already set behind the mountains above the river, so it was almost dark around the palace, but in the courtyard and on the sandy road to the river, a long, wet streak gleamed in the last flashes of light. The evening, although without wind, was as cold as it is in late autumn. The dragon breathed a small flame of fire from its horrible maw to dry its front paws, but drops still dripped from its belly and tail.

It was almost an ordinary dragon, but it had strange eyes, quite different from the eyes of normal dragons. This monster's eyes looked like red balls, and there were a lot of little sucker tentacles like an octopus's, or like the snail's horns that the snail puts out when you promise to give it cheese for pierogies.

Out of these eyes flew and flew little balls that looked quite like them, but much, much smaller, and they floated through the air in every direction the dragon looked. They were the plague viruses, fleeting like streaks of steam or smoke. Some flew quite far through the air, and some fell almost immediately to the ground.

The dragon had ears like a bat and it moved those ears in all directions, but at one point it turned its head towards the river, pricked up its ears, listened, and heard a disturbing noise. It jumped under a big tree. The dragon did not hide there for long, because the noise was coming closer and closer. The monster jumped out from under the tree, stomped its huge paws on the grass, tore it with its claws, tripped over a fence, shattered the protruding poles, and stepped into the stacked garden tools until the rake whirled in the air and hit its tail, but it did not even look back. It smashed another picket fence and disappeared into a thicket of autumn-yellowed bushes.

From the side of the river, the noise grew louder. It sounded as if a hundred feet were stamping along the way, and as if many people were panting loudly.

Finally, you could hear the muffled voices of people speaking in a strange language, as if issuing commands, orders, and warnings.

Flushed and happy from the effects of the raspberry wine, the three Baba-Yagas didn’t hear anything. 

They were happy because they were never sad with each other, but also because they were seeing each other for the first time after many, many months. It was a wonderful meeting, although they often sadly mentioned people they knew who had been infected with the virus and even some that had died of it.

They exchanged ideas for withstanding the plague, and when the level of wine in the jar had lowered significantly, they even began to plan the next magical meeting to be held in the hut which stood on the chicken's leg, maybe this winter, maybe in the spring.

Cait broke off pieces of white bread, Ania poured more wine into glasses, Rebecca collected crumbs from the table and snapped her fingers at the candle to light it. There was an autumn silence in the kitchen for a moment. Then they heard noises outside the main door, on the other side of the long hall beyond the kitchen. Ania, who, as a resident of the palace, knew all the usual sounds of palace bustle, looked at Cait with the same surprise as Cait looked at her. Then they both glanced simultaneously at Rebecca, who, with eyes as round as wheels and as large as Ania's red hat, stared out the window where a lush pelargonium stood. Both of them followed Rebecca's gaze at the night-black panes and saw a short, vague flash of something outside the window, like rows of white teeth in a great maw, and red glowing eyes.

"Did you see it?" – Rebecca asked in an icy whisper.

"Did you hear it?" –  Ania and Cait whispered with a shudder.

The vision outside the window disappeared, but the noise outside the door grew louder and louder until they heard a distinct knock on the main door of the palace.

The atmosphere of fun went out like a blown candle.

It was Rebecca who grabbed her wand most quickly, since she kept it attached to her white hat, an ornament hidden among the curls woven of wool, lace, and bird feathers. Cait reached under her bright apron for her wand, which lived in a canvas bag strapped around her waist.  The apron covered the front of the black skirt, and under the black one you could see three others: navy blue, brown and red, each inner skirt was slightly longer than the outer ones. In a flash, Ania opened the drawer in the dresser behind the table and she took her wand out from under a dozen neatly-folded, colorful tablecloths.

"Magical Sticks!" Cait shouted. The three Baba-Yagas simultaneously tapped their wands on the floor, and they instantly turned into thick sticks at least two yards long. The Magical Sticks took their positions next to the witches, where they stood at attention, vibrating slightly.  

"I feel dizzy with wine," – said Ania, and Rebecca nodded.

"Three beautiful, tipsy Baba-Yagas will be the salvation and decoration of the world" – Cait solemnly announced and wrapped a large scarf around her head.  Rebecca grabbed her long jacket lined with navy blue silk. Ania wrapped a long colorful scarf on her shoulders like armor.

"It's not the monster knocking on the door," – Rebecca said.

"There are fifty-two men standing there, but a tall man in a long caftan is knocking on the door" - said Ania, and Cait looked at her appreciatively and ordered - "Let's go!"

"Let's go!" – Ania and Rebecca shouted back.

They left the kitchen and marched with their Magical Sticks in hand into the big main hall.

When the three Baba-Yagas reached the door, the Magical Sticks slipped from their hands and stood next to them, vibrating.  Ania turned the key in the lock and pulled the handle. Just in front of the threshold stood a tall man in a jacket that reached down to the tops of boots. They could see his dark face, and slanting eyes that gleamed from under the great cap, and everyone behind him looked Asian too. The leader bowed deeply, and the others followed suit.

Only twelve entered the palace, while the rest of the visitors stayed behind on the terrace. Ania, Rebecca and Cait sat down on a couch and listened to his explanation.

"...so that black dragon is on your property now."

The leader said these final words in his own language and was about to correct himself, but Rebecca cut him off in the same language and translated.

"These are the Mongolian Shamans that I told you about this summer" – she explained to her friends. If she looked at them, she would see from Cait and Ania's expressions that she didn't need to explain. But she didn't look.

In the summer, when the plague had receded somewhat from its winter/spring attack, the Mongolian Shamans who now stood before Ania, Rebecca, and Cait were sending out news. It read more or less like this: 

"We Mongolian Shamans want to defeat the raging virus by action in an invisible spiritual world to save humanity, not only in America but on the entire planet. The Sun kills bacteria and viruses, but this year the Sun isn’t reaching the Earth in full force, firstly, because it is further away than usual, and secondly, it has weakened due to industrial smog and smoke from fires in California, Australia, Amazon and elsewhere on the Earth. The spirits of our shaman ancestors told us that they saw a great black dragon hovering over the Earth and the whirling of its tail engulfs the Americas. The swirling cloud from its tail is getting stronger and bigger."

The twelve learned shamans explained that the Earth's orbital cycle around the sun is Jaran, or five times twelve years, and contains five elements: stone, water, air, plants, and fire, and the worst year is the Year of the Rat, which is right now, because then the Earth is farthest from the Sun.

In the summer, Rebecca had persuaded Ania, Cait, and others to join in an action along with the Mongolian Shamans, to light fires and candles, and beat the drums in the Valley of the Great River, and to do it in different places, at a safe distance, separately but together, for two weeks.

Rebecca had worked hard, persuading others to join in the action. She had directed it, synchronized it, and controlled everything—but she had finally stopped. Somehow it hadn't worked out. Nobody knew why the action had failed. But then, because of the plague, this year so many different intentions and plans did not work out that it wasn’t surprising that the shamans' action with the three Baba-Yagas didn’t either. They couldn't even meet each other. Only now they dared to drink raspberry wine together. And now, what a nuisance: a dragon-plague on the property and an army of Mongolian Shamans.

Ania, Rebecca and Cait sat silently on the couch, their faces furrowed with worry and sadness.  

Rebecca was the first to rally.  She nodded at her Magical Stick, turning it back into a wand, and waved it—and suddenly a long table stood in front of the couch. Next, Cait nodded at her Magical Stick, waved her wand in the air—and fifteen long-legged goblets tumbled onto the table in a row. Then forty more cups flew through the air and out of the open door to the terrace. Then Ania waved her wand and a large jar of raspberry wine floated into the hall from the kitchen. Gracefully tilting, it filled the fifteen goblets. At a whisper from Ania, she, Rebecca and Cait, all waved their wands simultaneously, and three jars of raspberry wine came out of the palace's cellar. Floating like heavy Zeppelins through the hall and out the door to the terrace, the jars gracefully filled the forty glasses of the Mongolian delegates waiting on the terrace. Everyone raised their glass and made a toast. To the action plan! 

Like an invincible platoon of military guards, the fifty-two Mongolian Shamans stood shoulder to shoulder on the banks of the Great River. As she looked around the yard, Ania noticed the overturned fence in her garden, the scattered rakes, shovels, pitchforks, and other tools, and above all, the huge paw prints under the bushes, leading first to the window to her kitchen, and then across the property to the Great Barn.

"I know where the dragon is," – she said.

"Magical Sticks!" – Cait shouted.

The three Baba-Yagas walked towards the Great Barn. They gently nudged their Magical Sticks from time to time, and these, vibrating slightly, glided past the witches to go on ahead of them.

High up in the barn’s attic was a strange storage room, a huge storehouse for puppets, gathered for years after the Halloween parades held in the palace courtyard. Gargoyles, monsters, skeletons, huge skulls, giant worms, giant birds, terrible masks, paws, arms, legs, wings, tails and of course - twisted, very scary, toothed and large-eyed dragons.

Three Baba-Yagas opened the wide gates to the Great Barn. They knew the dread dragon of viral plague was hiding here among fake dragons, pretending to be a puppet too. Its footprints on the dusty floor led to the ladder that reached to the storeroom under the roof of the Great Barn.

"Magical Sticks! Action!!!" – shouted three Baba-Yagas in chorus.

Three huge Sticks rattled on the floor, then flew up the ladder. There was silence for a few seconds. The three Baba-Yagas held their breaths and listened. Suddenly there was such a thud, such a noise, that the Great Barn shook, and three Baba Yagas covered their ears with their hands!

There was a rumble under the roof, and a tremendous thum-clunk-clonk-crash-smash-smack-bang-boom-thunder-wallop-stomp-clump-wham. Dust poured from the ceiling planks, the whole structure creaked and shuddered. Then everything went quiet. Tup-tup-tup, the dragon's feet in the attic patted. Tup-tup-tup, the dragon's feet rattled on the ladder. Tup-tup-tup, the dragon's paws slapped on the floor of the barn.  One Stick glided along the dragon's mouth, the other Stick nudged its bulbous belly, the third Stick pushed its tail.

The Sticks stopped the dragon in front of Ania, Rebecca and Cait. The dragon lay silent and humble, only its tongue sticking out of its mouth and its red eyes shining.

"Get off my property immediately," – said Ania.

"Get out of the Great River Valley and America immediately," – Rebecca said.

“Get out of all the Earth, get out of all the whole planet, right now – Cait said.

The dragon grunted and muttered something.

"It's speaking in Russian-Mongolian-Costa Rican slang," – Rebecca explained, – "and says will go to the Moon."

"Don't you dare! No way!" – Ania and Cait shouted.

The dragon muttered indistinctly.

"It's asking where it should go," – Rebecca translated.

"On the asteroids!" – Cait shouted. –  "Mars or Jupiter or Saturn! Far away!"

"But not like you are here now" – said Ania. – "Take all mutations of your virus with you."

The dragon shook its wings. Immediately the Sticks nudged it in the mouth, stomach and tail, but the dragon did not take a single step. Instead, its skin lit up with colored balls, similar to its eyes until it was covered with changing lights in various shades of orange, pink, purple, green. The eyes of the three Baba-Yagas flashed red from these colors, like those of the mythical Amazons.

"And you're dressed up," – Rebecca sneered.

The dragon muttered something.

"This scarecrow says he won't reach the asteroids," – Rebecca translated.

"Oh yes you will," – Cait said.

Ania beckoned to her Magical Stick and it obediently flew into her hands. Then she bent down to the dragon, nudged it in the teeth, and said an indecent slang phrase in Polish: "Wyp...laj!"*

The dragon huddled in sudden fear. It kicked off the ground with its paws and soared into space. It flew and flew and flew, farther and farther away, and from the bank of the great river, three Baba-Yagas heard – “Hooray! Hooray! Hooray!”  shouted by fifty-two shamans.

It was already late at night. Ania, Rebecca and Cait returned to the palace.

"Do you still have raspberry wine?" – Rebecca asked.

"I have" - Ania replied.

"Three beautiful and tipsy Baba-Yagas… ” – Cait began.

"...are the salvation and decoration of the world!" – finished Rebecca and Ania in chorus.

– – 

* "F..k off"

* * *

Written by Bronek Kowalski

Illustrations taken from the paintings of Ania Aldrich

English version corrected by Friend

January 2021