Funk-N-Fiction

For our second Halloween Day flash fiction, Deborah Blake, and these sweet furbabies, takes us back to the world of her Baba Yaga! And you don’t want to miss the treat you could win at the end!

The Littlest Baba Yaga and the Halloween Surprise
by Deborah Blake

Barbara Yager was cooking dinner for herself, her husband Liam, and their adopted daughter Babs when the question first arose.

Okay, cooking might have been a slight exaggeration, since Barbara had many strange and esoteric talents, but cooking, in fact, was not one of them. Blame it on being raised by an eccentric mythical witch in the depths of the Russian woods perhaps, or many years spent on the road living in the magical Airstream trailer that was the modern transformed version of the traditional Baba Yaga’s wooden hut on chicken legs. It was a lot easier to use magic to produce a meal than it was to actually cook one.

Which is why she, Liam, Babs, and Chudo-Yudo, Barbara’s dragon disguised as a giant white pit bull, were eating in the Airstream, instead of the charming farmhouse it was parked behind. The refrigerator was a magical as the rest of the trailer, although it was true it could be a little quirky, which was why they were having lasagna instead of the pot roast she’d requested. Since her only attempt at actually making a pot roast herself had been a disaster that rivaled Chernobyl, no one was complaining about lasagna.

Babs in particular was inordinately fond of anything that involved cheese, since her formative years had been spent trapped in the mystical lands of the Otherworld, where there were unicorns and flying horses, but no cows. She had been kidnapped by a power-hungry rusalka and cared for—if you could call it that—by Liam’s delusional former wife, and although Barbara and Liam had rescued her four years ago, she still had issues adjusting to the Human world, cheese products aside.

Babs appeared to be about nine, petite and adorable, with wide brown eyes, a snub nose, and dark hair in an asymmetrical pixie cut. She was sweet and cooperative, for the most part, but also solemn, literal to an extreme, and still adjusting to life as a Human child while also training to be a Baba Yaga when she grew up. It could be a challenge to balance all that with trying to give her as normal a childhood as possible.

Plus, you never knew what was going to come out of her mouth, so when Babs put down her fork with a decisive click and said, “I have a question,” both Barbara and Liam winced, and from under the table, Chudo-Yudo could be heard to mutter, “Oh gods, now what?”

“Yes, Babs?” Liam said, putting his own fork down and taking a sip of his beer instead. As the sheriff of Clearwater County in rural upstate New York, Liam faced all sorts of challenges at work. He had confessed to Barbara more than once that raising one magical child was scarier than all of those challenges put together.

Barbara couldn’t blame him. Babs found the Human world quite confusing, and some of her questions could be difficult to answer in a way that made sense—in part because Humans so rarely did.

“When does a Baba Yaga get her own dragon?” Babs asked, looking straight at Barbara with the direct and focused stare that set her aside from normal children.

Liam sputtered, spewing a little beer on the tablecloth, where the Airstream efficiently cleaned it up.

“Well, that can vary,” Barbara said, trying to figure out where this was coming from. “Many Baba Yagas inherit their dragon from the Baba who trained them, and get them when that Baba Yaga retires. That’s what happened to me.”

Chudo-Yudo snorted under the table, causing a tiny shower of sparks to land on the ornate flowered carpet. A crimson water lily rose out of the fabric and squirted water on the smoldering bits before subsiding back in with the rest of the carpet. “I much prefer you,” he said, mumbling around a large bone Barbara hadn’t given him. That last one was really grumpy.”

Considering her own not insignificant levels of crabbiness, that was quite the assessment. But having been raised by the woman, Barbara couldn’t disagree. Thankfully, she and Chudo-Yudo got along well. Technically, all the dragons were named Chudo-Yudo, but like Baba Yaga, it was as much a title as a name, so most of them chose to go by something else. Barbara had a suspicion that her own Chudo-Yudo might have been the original, but you never asked a dragon about his age. Not if you wanted to stay in one piece. Or get turned into a charcoal briquet.

Babs looked thoughtful, and slightly perturbed. “That is a long time,” she said. “You are not going to retire for many years.”

“No, I’m not,” Barbara said. “Of course, some Baba Yagas go off on their own after their mentor deems them ready to do so, and then they get their own dragon. That’s what happened to Bella. When she finished her training, she went to the Otherworld and Koshka found her there.”

There were currently three Baba Yagas operating in the United States, Barbara on the East Coast, the youngest, Beka on the West Coast, and fiery-haired Bella in the middle of the country. Beka’s dragon was named Chewie, and usually appeared as a gigantic black Newfoundland dog, and Bella shared her vardo wagon with Koshka, who chose the guise of a huge Norwegian Forest cat.

“The cat found her?” Liam said, looking confused. “I always figured the animals—”

There was a cough from under the table.

“Sorry, the dragons were assigned to each Baba Yaga by the Queen of the Otherworld.” He drank some more beer, then took a bite of lasagna. Even though Liam and Barbara had been together for four years, since the adventure with Babs and some other missing local children that had brought them together, he was still figuring out how her world worked. He told her he was fine with that, since it made every day an adventure. She thanked the universe for him every day, still not quite certain what she’d done to deserve someone so wonderful. Babs thought they were both silly.

“Not exactly,” Barbara explained. “If a Baba Yaga doesn’t inherit her Chudo-Yudo, or if her mentor Baba’s dragon doesn’t decide to stay around, the dragon chooses the witch, not the other way around. Although the Queen does get the final say.” Because she got the final say in everything, really.

Babs cocked her head to the side, a sign that she was thinking and reassessing her previous view of the world. “That is very interesting,” she said finally. “May I please be excused?”

Liam frowned. “You haven’t finished your dinner. Is something wrong?”

“Very nice use of your manners, though,” Barbara added. Personally, she didn’t care much about Human niceties, but Liam insisted they were important, and worked hard to instill them in Babs.  He’d long ago given up trying to do the same with Barbara.

“There is nothing wrong,” Babs said. “I just have something I need to do.”

“It can’t wait until after dinner?” Liam said, but he was talking to the air. Babs was already out the door of the Airstream (which had kindly opened itself for her) and heading out into the yard.

Liam looked at the door and then at Barbara. “How worried do you think we should be?”

Barbara shrugged. “On a scale of one to ten, one being a talking toad and ten being an erupting volcano,” both of which she had dealt with at one time or another, “I’d say maybe a three? But with Babs, you never know.”

Liam sighed, gazing wistfully at his dish. Lasagna was one of his favorites. “I guess we should probably follow her, then.”

“The Airstream will reheat your dinner,” Barbara said. “And yes, while I’m usually happy to let Babs do her thing, whatever that is, I have a feeling that this time we might want to see what’s going on.”

Chudo-Yudo heaved himself out from under the table, which had to move quickly to get out of his way. “Wait up,” he growled. “I’m coming too. I’m with you on the feeling. Something is going on. And whatever it is, I’m not going to miss it.”

***

Barbara, Liam, and Chudo-Yudo followed Babs through the open yard, past the large barn, and into the pine trees that bordered the entire property. They were one of the reasons Barbara had picked the house—she liked her privacy. Babs had disappeared by the time they’d come out of the trailer, but having a dragon-dog with a supernaturally sensitive nose meant it was easy enough to follow one small mostly-Human child.

Eventually they came out into a flower-filled meadow where a small stream trickled melodically and numerous colorful butterflies frolicked through the azure skies.

Liam came to a sudden halt as they emerged from the trees. “I don’t remember this meadow being here,” he said, running his hand through his sandy brown hair, a sure sign that he was worried.

Barbara shook her head. “That’s because it wasn’t.” She swiveled her head around, looking for some form of threat, supernatural or otherwise, but the meadow remained tranquil and quiet, completely benign other than the fact that it didn’t belong.

“Chudo-Yudo?”

The dragon-dog sniffed the air and gave his version of a shrug. “It’s a transition point to the Otherworld,” he said. “Temporary, I think. It feels…accidental, almost.”

“Huh,” Barbara said. She suddenly had enough with being patient, not one of her best traits anyway.

“Babs!” she called. “Where are you?”

From a clump of improbably large rosemary bushes, Babs’ pixie-like visage appeared. A moment later, the rest of her followed as she moved toward the others, followed by two tiny black shapes.

“Hello Baba, hello Liam,” she said cheerfully, apparently not feeling as though there was anything out of the ordinary about a portal to the Otherworld appearing in her backyard. Of course, after living with Barbara for a number of years, that kind of made sense.

“What have you got there?” Barbara asked. “And where did you get them?”

Babs gave one of her rare smiles, like the sun coming out, and knelt down to pet the two fuzzy black kittens who stuck to her heels as though attached by invisible strings.

“They found me,” she said happily. “Can I keep them?”

One of the kittens hiccupped, and a small plume of flame shot out of its mouth.

“Crap,” said Chudo-Yudo.

Barbara just laughed.

I hope you enjoyed this sweet story.

Deborah is offering her readers a choice of prize today!!

Simply leave a comment on this post to let us know what your favorite kind of story is these days — Cozy Mystery? Urban fantasy? Contermporary or Paranormal Romance? Thriller/Suspense? One lucky commenter can win their choice of either a $10 Amazon gift card, OR, a signed copy of the Baba Yaga Collected Novellas. 🙂

Contest starts today, and goes through midnight on November 1st. Our winners will be chosen from all eligible entries on November 2nd and notified, and then announced in our wrap-up post on November 3rd.

Good luck!!