Baba Yaga Dreams

She bothers me, this woman who comes to me in my dreams wrapped in Snakes.

She tries to tell me her name but I won't listen. She holds the Serpents out but I won't touch them. She offers to tell me her secrets but I've been warned nothing on this journey is free.

It all costs.

Like the Main de Glorie I used to steal my lock of hair back from the Baba Yaga in the House of Bones.

I took the Main de Glorie in and lit it's waxed covered fingers and when the flames jumped up everything in the House of Bones fell asleep.

I was able to move from room to room and saw people on hooks and racks and hearts in wicker baskets and I saw Baba Yaga herself sitting in a rocking chair with a little doll dressed in red with strands of my hair pinned to it's head on the table next to her.

Its eyes were taped shut and before I peeled the tape away I knew why I wasn't able to sleep or waken. Why I'd been walking in twilight for almost a month.

I left the tape on. I didn't want to wake up in this place. I didn't want to know where I really was.

I placed the little doll in my pocket and leaned close to Baba Yaga and asked her sleeping form, " Why, why me? "

And from the place Baba Yaga goes when she dreams I heard her whisper, " I'm not really asleep you know. "

I expected her eyes to snap open, for her claw like hand to grab me by my throat and squeeze until my face turned black. But she slept and dreamed and I guessed things like the Baba Yaga that live in Nightmare Worlds never sleep.

They're always there waiting for you to shut your eyes.

" I spent the night in a house built by a Devil because of you. I won't forget that...ever. It's all about you and me and revenge Baba Yaga. The things I see now...the things I hear, all of that because of you. It costs Baba Yaga. It's going to cost you. "

I went out of the House of Bones and walked down that dark road filled with bones and whispers and I took the doll from my pocket and pulled the tape away from the dolls eyes.

The light from the Main de Glorie's fingers flared blue and orange and died out.

I was plunged into darkness...and it didn't matter. I could see just fine. I could move sure footed through the Deadwood Forest.

I belonged in this place now.

That was the price you see that I paid for using the Main de Glorie.

It all costs.

And I’ve paid in full.


© anita marie moscoso 2005-text