Finding Baba Yaga Read online

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  Table of Contents

  About the Author

  Copyright Page

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  For the Baba Yaga women in my life—Heidi Stemple, Elizabeth Harding, Malerie Yolen Cohen, Mira Bartok, Betsy Pucci Stemple, Joanne Lee Stemple—and in memory of the greatest Baba Yaga of all, Marilyn Marlow. Tough love personified.

  Foreword

  Here’s what you need to know about Baba Yaga, the great, iconic, Russian fairy tale witch. She lives in a house in the wood that walks about on chicken feet. She calls to it: “Turn about, little house, turn to me,” and it rotates until its front door is right before her. She flies around in the sky in a human-sized mortar (the kind used for grinding herbs), which she steers with a pestle. She has an iron nose and iron teeth. Smart and bold little girls like Vasilisa work for her and are rewarded, but Baba Yaga devours naughty boys. Some stories say she has a fence around her house made of the bones of the children she has eaten. But that fence also migrated in storyland to the house of the Hansel and Gretel witch, so I have put it there instead.

  Baba Yaga represents the ageless life force. She’s a magical crone, once both feared and worshipped by Russian peasants. In fact, these days around the world, she is better known than any other Russian folk tale character, more popular than Vasilisa, Kostchai the Deathless, or Firebird. She’s appeared in novels, graphic novels, movies, and TV series. Added to that, Baba Yaga is both my hero and the nightmare figure in my dreams. I have taken all the characters, added a modern family, and the rest is a novel in verse that mixes Russia folklore and American realism.

  —Jane Yolen

  PS: In July 2013, I discovered the very strange website Once Upon a Blog … Fairy Tale News (http://fairytalenewsblog.blogspot.co.uk), which featured an ongoing set of weekly posts voiced by Baba Yaga as a Lonely Hearts columnist. Originally posted on The Hairpin, “Ask Baba Yaga” has since been collected and published as Ask Baba Yaga: Otherworldly Advice for Everyday Troubles by Taisia Kitaiskaia (Andrew McMeel, 2017). Ask Baba Yaga is hilarious and provocative, and these poems would not exist without her posts.

  You Think You Know This Story

  You think you know this story.

  You do not.

  You think it’s about a princess who runs

  from a wicked king.

  It is not.

  You think it is about a charming prince

  who rescues, relieves, releases

  a maiden from her tower.

  It is not.

  Surely there must be pumpkin, huntsman,

  coach, some dwarves, a troll,

  riding hood, ring, wand.

  There is not.

  Stories retold are stories remade.

  A sorrowing girl in a house.

  An old witch with iron fillings.

  A hut in the wood,

  in the meadow, in the hood.

  This is a tale

  both old and new,

  borrowed, narrowed,

  broadened, deepened.

  You think you know this story.

  You do not.

  CHAPTER ONE

  The Last Fight

  Papa Says, Mama Says

  It is not a conversation,

  but serial monologues,

  each one waiting

  for that breath space

  to say his own,

  her own

  piece.

  Peace.

  There is no peace

  in this house,

  only strips of paper,

  tatters of cloth,

  slivers of glass,

  slit lips and tongues.

  I pick up the shards

  and put me to bed

  every night.

  Wake up in pieces

  every day

  because of what

  Mama says,

  Papa says.

  I don’t say.

  Argument

  At first no one screams,

  trading whispered accusations.

  Papa means, Mama means.

  At first no one listens,

  words like filth hang between us,

  tears glisten.

  At first no one forgets,

  anger anchored way too deep

  in an ocean of regrets.

  At first no one thinks it matters,

  Papa said. Mama said.

  Night shatters.

  At first no one denies

  the sliver of surprise

  beneath each glossy nail.

  At first.

  The Word That Shatters Trust

  Papa does not let us swear.

  Words, he says, bind the world,

  otherwise we shatter the trust

  God gave us in this life.

  Good words, logos he calls it,

  God’s words in the beginning.

  It’s why he’s so careful with them,

  doling them out like a miser

  on Christmas morning.

  But bad words, he calls bogus,

  confusing anger with sin.

  Sometimes a bad word

  is punctuation to a bad day,

  makes us laugh, gives us courage,

  lifts the heart.

  Swearing can be held too tight in the heart,

  Speaking it aloud, an artifact, an art.

  The Goodest Word, The God-est Word

  Has Papa ever said love without warning?

  Has he ever said love with warming?

  Has he ever said love without worry?

  Has he only said love in a weary way?

  Has he ever spoken,

  Has he ever really said the word?

  Love.

  Soap in the Mouth

  I simply say the bathroom word,

  the one written on school walls.

  The common one in the mouths

  of angry teachers when chalk breaks.

  And Papa calls me filth,

  takes the Dove soap,

  jams it in my mouth

  before I can apologize, turn away.

  There’s no anger in what he does,

  only deadly purpose.

  He says words have power.

  The power to make you feel dirty

  even while getting clean.

  Angels are always clean.

  Through the bubbles I ask:

  What about feather mites?

  This time I remember to duck.

  The Taste That Lingers

  Soap on the tongue lingers.

  You cannot spit it out,

  cannot swallow it down.

  It is as if that word still

  tingles in my mouth, a reminder

  of my father’s distaste.

  I think of Nathaniel

  in my kindergarten class,

  t
he only Jew I’ve ever known.

  He told us how he learned

  to read Hebrew prayers

  by licking each letter.

  They were strange and difficult,

  smeared with honey

  on the rabbi’s book.

  Words shouldn’t be dirty or clean

  but definitely sweet,

  on the tongue, in the mind.

  Nathaniel taught me that

  before I knew the alphabet.

  Papa would have been horrified:

  at the letters,

  at the honey,

  at the Jew.

  Behind A Closed Door

  No words can unlock the door,

  can find the key to my cage.

  I swing my head like an old elephant

  well used to captivity. I pace the floor,

  count the steps between bedroom walls.

  In mourning, I wait for morning.

  Waiting is a coffin that confines me,

  defines me.

  I have to find the courage.

  I have to find

  the key.

  Fence of Bones

  Mama unlocks the door after Papa leaves,

  the accusations between us

  like a fence made of bones.

  Long leg bones the railings,

  arm bones the gate,

  eye socket the lock,

  middle finger bone the key.

  We sit at the table,

  coffee growing cold.

  My mother grows old,

  her face skull-like.

  I watch her fast-forward

  into a bleaker future.

  Standing, I fling the coffee cup,

  call her witch,

  wish I could believe

  in the magic of escape.

  I will be well punished for that word as well.

  The Porch Tells Me to Go

  I sit in the porch rocker

  where once I was a child.

  The porch tells me to go.

  The steps tell me to get away.

  The driveway tells me to flee.

  The old tree tells me to leave.

  The swing hung on a limb,

  where once I could almost touch the sky,

  Papa’s hands on my back, pushing,

  before he was pushed into preaching,

  that swing says nothing.

  A car rushes down the street,

  as I should,

  singing a tireless song.

  The rocker tells me to stay,

  its voice a comfort.

  But the road beckons,

  the highway calls,

  the day seduces.

  Another word I’m not allowed to speak

  Unless it’s to condemn.

  If I’d Made a Plan

  If I’d made a plan

  it wouldn’t be this one.

  If I’d packed a bag,

  it wouldn’t be my backpack.

  If I’d left a letter,

  I couldn’t have written a word.

  See, it all begins and ends

  with that.

  A word.

  But which word:

  love,

  regret,

  goodbye?

  CHAPTER TWO

  The Runaway

  Never Look Back

  Never look back at the porch,

  the house, the bedroom,

  the secrets.

  Look ahead.

  Never look back at the kitchen,

  the soap, the lock, the key,

  the silence.

  Look ahead.

  Whatever I’m wearing, I wear.

  Whatever’s in my pockets, I have.

  Whatever I think I know, I know.

  Whatever I forget is gone.

  Goodbyes are not an option.

  Only so-longs.

  All Paths Lead Here

  I run out of the house,

  across the road,

  forget to look both ways,

  hear the door slam behind me.

  No one follows to beg me to come home.

  No one sends me a letter.

  No one tracks my email.

  No one calls 9-1-1.

  All paths lead here,

  the Baba tells me later.

  No paths lead out.

  The Hardest Part

  The hardest part is not looking back.

  The hardest part is looking ahead.

  The hardest part is not turning the corner.

  The hardest part is crossing the street.

  The hardest part is not passing the school.

  The hardest part is walking out of town.

  The hardest part is not thumbing a ride.

  The hardest part is getting in the car.

  The hardest part is not getting out of the car.

  The hardest part is going in the 7-Eleven.

  The hardest part is not stealing the chocolate bar.

  The hardest part is walking out the door.

  The hardest part is not eating the chocolate.

  The hardest part is …

  There is no easy part.

  Phoning a Friend

  With almost the last charge

  of my cell phone battery

  I phone a friend.

  She says come over,

  have dinner,

  stay the night.

  I who have never

  come over, had dinner,

  stayed the night

  before.

  When I get there,

  my mother’s battered car

  idles in their driveway.

  I don’t go in.

  Only then do I remember—

  I have no friends.

  What Happens Next

  There’s only

  forward,

  outward,

  onward.

  There’s only

  inward,

  downward

  afterward.

  There’s only away.

  A Long Walk to Nowhere

  Your back wears out before your feet do.

  Your shins complain before your stomach.

  It’s no longer easy to live on candy bars

  stolen from the corner store, though the map’s good.

  Rain takes a long time to dry on your clothes.

  Sleeping on the ground is harder than you think.

  Learning to pee in the woods, in the scrub,

  means unlearning years of potty training.

  Hunger is a bad companion and a worse friend.

  Somewhere becomes a nightmare.

  I knock on no doors, make no phone calls.

  Nowhere becomes my destination.

  You can find it on the blank spaces

  of any free map in any old store.

  Just turn a corner of your mind,

  and it’s there.

  Sleeping Rough

  First night I lie on a picnic table

  looking up at the stars.

  All I can pick out are Orion and the Dipper.

  Maybe I can borrow a library book.

  Learn the names of galaxies, constellations.

  Find out about the moon and tides.

  Remember then I have no library card with me.

  I have no library to go to.

  I turn angrily, fall off the table.

  See stars.

  Washing Away the Filth

  It’s too cold to wash in the river.

  Besides, I’ve left all that soap behind.

  I think of it suddenly, the Dove resting

  in its plastic nest, wondering

  when Noah will send it forth.

  My mind wanders over the endless sea

  of my leaving. There is an ocean

  between me and the safety of some Ararat.

  Who knows what toothy creatures

  hunt in the dark waves.

  I’m filthy now just as Papa always said

  There’s no sea, no ocean, no rainfall,r />
  that can ever wash these stains away.

  Stain—almost an anagram for Satan,

  one small letter difference.

  Things always come back

  to the word.

  This Is Not a Fairy Tale

  Expect no princes.

  Expect no magic rings.

  Expect no glass slippers.

  Expect no fairy godmothers.

  Expect no singing dwarfs.

  Expect no talking dragons.

  Expect only

  seven deadlies delivered:

  exhaustion,

  boredom,

  regret,

  hunger,

  anger,

  danger,

  death.

  All part of God’s taketh away.

  The Last Road

  I turn off the highway onto an A road,

  cross to a B road, sidestep onto a thin blue line,

  numberless but still paved.

  Cars brush by me, one so close, my map

  flies into the air on its own wings,

  a fat, lazy pigeon, not a dove.

  When I find the map again,

  along the shoulder of the road,

  the page I’m on is crossed with tire tracks.

  Finding a space in a hedgerow, I plow on through.

  My options narrow to this: A simple path

  into a wood of ghostly white trees.

  Above me a murder of crows discuss dinner.

  A wind puzzles through the birches.

  Like the hero in any good tale, I boldly walk in.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Into the Woods

  Counting Stones

  This is the abacus of my journey.

  A stone for the days I was on the road: 7.

  A stone for the nights I slept rough: 6.

  A stone for the days I saw no one to talk to: 5.

  A stone for the days I had nothing to eat: 4.

  A stone for the days I longed to go home: 3.

  A stone for the days I tried to return: 2.

  A stone for the doors I walked out of: 1.

  A heavy heart with all those stones

  weighing me down.

  A February of them.

  I leave the abacus in the woods.