Babayaga

He awoke in absolute darkness. Was this death? Had he been pitched into the cold blackness of purgatory? He almost hoped so. He got back on his legs and tried to shake his tiny head clear. So many odd and terrible events had unfolded so quickly that he felt he was prepared for the worst. He began to make his way and though he was unable to see a thing he quickly realized that he was still in the dense, dark forest of hair atop the man’s skull. He could make out a few muffled voices and then he heard a door slam. The surface he was riding on seemed to bob both forward and downward in a gradual sinking manner, indicating to Vidot that they were descending the stairs. It was then he realized he was being carried away from his home, away from his Adèle, away from every ideal he had ever possessed of love, harmony, and domestic happiness, trapped beneath the surface of another man’s hat.

XX

Up in the Pigalle hotel, Zoya checked on her concoction. Finding it dry enough, she removed a long-stemmed clay pipe from the bureau and placed the small owl ball in the chamber. Tucking herself into the corner of a white cushioned chair, she struck a match and inhaled deeply. Then she lay there, waiting.

It did not take long. The ceiling above her soon dissolved from solid to liquid as the walls subtly ruffled like a theater curtain with actors busily moving behind it before the show. Spectrums of light flickered, casting visions that quickly pooled in around her. Soft glowing red and powder blue hallucinations rose from the floor, translucent figures finding their form, crossing past one another in a busy collage, some familiar, some unknown; street scenes and tiny sets of homes, offices, hallways materialized in different corners of the room, their motions choreographed by the rhythmic words of the whispering women wrapped and enshrouded in obscuring layers, ghosts from the ancient vanished covens who now crowded around Zoya. Each voice layered over another, narrating in cacophony the many-dimensional scenes playing all around.

Zoya kept control, maintaining her concentration; she was well practiced in this art. More than a century ago, when Elga first gently dropped the owl ball into the pipe for her, she had been taken on an anxiety-ridden journey into darkness that disclosed a wild and chaotic universe, purposeful in its intention but unfathomable in its cause, its myriad of forces so overwhelmingly powerful Zoya barely survived witnessing it all. But she lived, and learned, and now she could choose the thread she wished to explore amid the tumult, focusing on the ghosts’ discordant tones until she isolated each tableau she wanted to follow. There in the corner, by the love seat, a miniature Oliver volleyed in an early-morning game of tennis, while over by the base of the sink she saw her rabbit Will making his way through the crowd to work, looking a little worried, but more steady in his step than he knew.

She looked around, trying to locate Elga. There was a street carnival and a small bedroom where two lovers lay entwined, a fog passed across their bodies, blown from the tops of rows of boiling beakers that sat in a busy laboratory; then trees grew up between the industrious scientists until they all disappeared into a dense forest. A parliament of owls flew out from the high branches, spreading their broad wings to clear the room of every vision, causing it all to vanish like vapor in the air. She looked around the empty apartment, frustrated; there was more to discover, she sensed it, some crucial element was lurking below.