Chapter 9

Amphidrome//in vivo

“The Baba Yaga! Of all the old gods to be this spiteful, I’ve gotta say, she was not on my list!” Frau Tessa has an air of amusement now that there is no show of professionality. “But I do suppose the witches of old have always had a tight grasp on fairy tales.”
Dimitri shifts in her seat, not necessarily sure how to continue, and is rescued by the opening of a nearby door. Several waitstaff appear with platters expertly balanced on the tips of their fingers and feet marching in sync with each other.
“Ah, finally, some food!” Mr. Jorgenson speaks up for the first time since his introduction. As food is laid out in front of everyone, he turns to Dimitri, “Enjoy it while it lasts, Miss, food is truly only for the living! Gio and Liv here haven’t the pleasure anymore!”
Dimitri’s brows furrow in confusion and she tightens her lips in a sympathetic smile, unsure of how else to respond to the man.
“Don’t mind Mr. Jorgenson, Dimitri, leave it to the arrival of food for him to join in the conversation. He’s not much different from the other two anyway, aside from being much more short-lived.” Frau Tessa stands and leans over the table to uncover each dish, releasing sweet and savory aromas from their confinements.
A full chicken, already carved for serving, is the first dish she disperses to three plates, followed by a dish of roasted, brightly colored, fresh vegetables, and then steaming dinner rolls, all topped off with a glaze that Dimitri can’t identify by sight or smell. Frau Tessa places each plate in front of herself, Mr. Jorgenson, and Dimitri. Before they even begin eating, Mr. Jorgenson stands to double his portions.
Dimitri waits for the others to begin eating before taking her first bite. It all melts in her mouth. It’s fresh like the food she’s been eating at Baba Yaga’s cabin, and nothing like the lab-made meats that are otherwise so common. Mr. Jorgenson is going in for seconds by the time she opens her eyes from the first few bites. Dimitri chooses not to pay any attention to his eating habits as she savors her own food. She then must also make the decision to ignore the lack of eating habits from the girl next to her and the lanky Italian man across from her.
Frau Tessa finally continues the conversation from before as she picks away at her own food, “So, Dimitri, would you care to tell us the real story of your miracle? Those old gods always have a funny way of holding onto tradition like a lifeline, I’m sure you could amuse us with your anecdote.”
Dimitri actually laughs, nearly choking on a mouthful of vegetables, at the irony of the statement. She swallows, “Oh you have no idea. Gods, I wish Ivan were here instead of stuck with the crazy bat. The bitch had me weaving for the entire summer. I mean, massive traditional loom, going on about tradition, just like you said! I still don’t even understand the actual importance, and don’t get me started on the whole Raven business!”
The mention of the Raven piques everyone’s interest, even causing Mr. Jorgenson to quit inhaling food and for Liv to stop admiring her nails from the corner of Dimitri’s eye. Frau Tessa sets her silverware down, “Raven? Pray tell.”
Dimitri relives her dreams under the scrutiny of the others. By the time she’s done, everyone has a gleam in their eyes, be it from interest, amusement, or something like envy from Liv.
“When you’re ready, you should kill it.” It’s Liv.
“I should what?!” Dimitri turns to the older girl.
“You heard me.”
“W-what? How? Why?”
“Because you can, and because as long as she lives, you’re constrained by those gods-awful traditions.”
“Gods, who are you people? Aside from clearly being what Baba constantly scorned as New Gods, but fuck, what does that even mean!?” Dimitri throws her hands up dramatically.
“Finally!” Mr. Jorgenson has cleaned the table of everything edible, leaving his mouth free to speak, “I, Miss Dimitri, am gluttony! BAHAHAHA!”
“No shit.” Liv scoffs out the remark and then nonchalantly adds her actual response, “Consumption, and before you say anything smart, yes, there’s a difference. Gods, I hate being associated with him all the time.”
Dimitri has lost the energy to act surprised at this point in the evening, so turns to Giorgiano, who nods in acknowledgment and adds, “Most like to say Virtue, but they don’t understand the true meaning of the word, I refer to myself as False Virtue, because that’s the drug that everyone’s really on.”
Finally, Dimitri turns to the woman at the head of the table, but she laughs and waves her hand in response, dismissing the notion, “I am no god, Dimitri, just Chancellor Tessa.” She finishes the statement with a warm smile and another bite of the food still left on her plate.
Dimitri takes several long moments to gather her thoughts and feelings. At the beginning of the year, she never even put any faith into her mother’s tales of mythology, and now here she is, sitting amongst otherwise self-proclaimed gods as the feeling of a bird desperately trying to escape its cage beats against the inside of her chest. She pictures poor Ivan with his missing arm and possible centuries of torment from a witch, pictures her bloody fingertips at the loom over the past weeks and months, and then sees a vision of her family under a pile of rubble. Her eyes cast down to her half-empty plate, all appetite gone, she finally spits out, “How do I kill her?”

*****

I’m blinded by the sudden light of a sun, far up in the sky, through a gap in the tree canopy. I’m unsure how long I was in the dark, but a shadow returns to grant my sensitive eyes some solace, but not for long, as that shadow is cast by the gnarled face of a scowling old woman, looming over me. She’s halo’d by the sunlight behind her head. I try to scoot away, but my arms and legs must be phantoms. Suddenly, I’m being carried away by the witch, the tree canopy shifting behind her and the sun disappearing altogether as we pass under a door frame and find ourselves inside. I’m placed on a solid surface and recognize the ceiling of the cabin. Nearby candle-light hovers around –I must be on the dining table. I know that I’m definitely on the dining table when the witch comes back into full view, holding up a knife and fork in each hand, like a kid about to dig into their favorite holiday meal.
I wake up to the familiar sounds of Baba Yaga’s snoring coming from the room next door. I rub my eyes too hard and press the images of the nightmare into the backs of my eyelids. I need a glass of water.
Prince Ivan is in his goose form on the couch in the living room of our rental home. The sounds of nightlife subtly pour in through the windows from outside. Berlin is much noisier than Bratsk ever was. Using the soft light seeping through the windows from the street lights outside, I pad across the living room and into the kitchen to fill a glass with tap water. It tastes like minerals as I down the entire glass.
Afraid, no, not afraid to go back to sleep. Something else. But I can’t place the feeling. Uncertain? Unprepared? Whatever, I decide to pad over to Baba Yaga’s open door and stand there, watching the rise and fall of her chest for a moment.
“When you’re ready, deal with the Raven, and the rest will sort itself out.” That’s what Liv said. If she could have been frothing at the mouth, I think she would have.
Am I ready? There’s only a few days left until the performance, and I already told Baba about the gods I met over the weekend. She warned me not to be fooled by their charms. I wouldn’t have called any of them charming. Gods, the most charming person there was the only other human. Other human. That’s how it felt at the time, but now I’m not so sure.
“You can leave her be, she’ll die of her own accord probably pretty soon, but then so will you.” At least that’s what Giorgiano said, but what the hell did he mean by that?
I make my way to the bathroom and lock myself in. It takes my eyes a moment to adjust to the lights once I’ve turned them on, but it’s me that I see in the mirror once they’ve cleared, and not the face of Baba Yaga. Thank goodness. I think I’d rather see anything else but her at this point. That’s right, she fucking groomed me to be her.
One for sorrow.
Two for mirth.
I take a deep breath. It’s still me in the mirror.
“The old gods are so fond of metaphors, too. They think they’re so wise and better than the rest of us. I mean a raven, really? How predictable! Everyone and their grandmother uses ravens as symbolism!” Mr. Jorgenson can’t talk much, he fits the metaphor of a pig.
The beating in my chest never faded after that fateful meeting, except that it has felt less and less like my own blood-pumping heart. Have I really accepted this?
“I’m afraid there’s probably nothing you can do to reverse any of this, Dimitri, you were supposed to die to that curse like the rest of your friends. Miracles can’t really be human, can they?” Even when I thought I had another human on my side, Frau Tessa denied my humanity.
Death. Maybe I never begged her enough to let me join them. I guess it’s too late now, but I can drag her here now anyway. Can I take a life? Even if it’s not human? I have to.
Three for a marriage.
Four for a death.
I take four breaths, each one making it harder to contain what’s fighting against my rib cage.
“Picture it in there, beating its wings and eating your heart away, and then fucking do something about it. Hell, you’ll be your own gods-damned tragedy.” Why am I listening to a bitchy girl like Liv, again?
I close my eyes and picture that gods-damned raven inside my chest and decide that it’s time to do something about it. It entered through my mouth weeks ago and it’ll leave the same way. I open my eyes, and look at myself in the mirror, holding eye contact with the girl on the other side who looks like me and moves with me as I lift one hand and reach down my throat. I thought it would be more difficult or painful, but my fingers snake behind my teeth and down, down still until they can open up into my chest cavity. It’s not warm and wet like I expected, but feels like a cool breeze has been teasing the captor from behind the bars of its cage. I find feathers, fluttering between my fingertips. For wanting to escape so badly, she’s awful resistant to a freeing hand. Finally, I grasp the body and squeeze the fight out of it long enough to extricate it from my own maw, like saving a bird from the teeth of a ravenous cat.
The Raven snaps its neck around in a final effort to fight against my grasp. Why? So she can dive back into my rib cage? Captivity must be the only way for a metaphor to survive, so I let go, and for a brief moment the sorrow is no longer contained by a dancer’s metranomic heart.
The Raven flits about the small bathroom in search of an exit and this new pounding of its body against each wall is added to by the pounding of a fist on the other side of the door.
“Dimitri! DIMITRI WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!” Baba Yaga desperately tries to get in while her counterpart desperately tries to get out.
The cacophony crescendos as the raven croaks and Baba screeches, or maybe it’s the other way around, until suddenly there’s silence. Dark feathers float down all around me, coating the floor and every surface in the bathroom. I’m not sure I recognize the girl in the mirror anymore, hair like raven feathers and eyes brimmed with the tears of a tragedy untold.
“Di?” There’s a soft knock at the door that prevents time from standing still as I wish it would. “I’m not sure what just happened, but there’s a mess of feathers out here and Baba is gone, are you okay?”
“Yes, Prince Ivan, I’m okay. I think. Maybe better now.” I unlock the bathroom door and step outside to a similar scene of obsidian feathers coating the floor, but in the middle of it all is a familiar man. “Are you okay, Ivan?”
He’s wide-eyed as he looks down at me, “I don’t see why I wouldn’t be.” He reaches out his remaining hand to guide me away from the avian crime-scene. “I think, maybe, this is one of those real-life dreams that you and Baba were talking about, so I’m going to escort you back to bed and then return to the couch myself and we can figure this all out in the morning.”
I hardly make it to my bedroom before my vision fades to black.
Soft candle light illuminates the cabin and casts ominous shadows across the dining table, over which I stand, a fork and knife in each hand. I’m starving and somebody has left a covered silver platter on the table, just for me. I take a seat in the only chair at the table and lean in to uncover whatever delectable meal has been prepared. I feel like royalty, like a god, ruling over a domain all my own. No adversity to my throne. Just me. Arranged on the platter before me is the head of an old woman, eyes full of sorrow, as if it was all she had ever known. Suddenly, I don’t feel so hungry anymore. In fact, I think I could never eat again, for my stomach is already full of something else.
I awaken slowly, working my eyes open past the crust gluing my eyelids shut. The house feels at peace and the pale light of early morning trickles past the curtains. I push myself up and stretch, feeling light somehow. My chest feels empty, hollow, like it would echo if someone put their ear to it and asked me to swallow my self-pity.
It’s surprisingly easy to walk past the remnants of last night’s dream. My heart skips a beat at the recollection of that dream, and then skips, and then skips…
skips…
skips…
I bend over to pick up a large black feather, caught between my toes as I shuffle through the debris. I carefully smooth out the feather, studying its shifting iridescence.
“Prince Ivan!” I finally look up and scan the space. Noticing movement on the couch, I wander over. “I, uh, I need to get to practice, can you uh…”
The man grumbles in response as my words get lost. He takes up the entire length of the couch and rubs his eyes before forcing them open to look at me, standing at the back. The feather remains pressed between my fingers and Ivan’s eyes, while still blinking away morning stars, drift down to it. He grumbles again, but finds the lost words that I couldn’t, “Ah, so it was real.”
“Um, yeah. I guess so.”
“Well,” He sits up and throws his feet to the floor to stand, “I’ve been around long enough to know that the world keeps spinning, even when you feel as though it’s stopped.” He moves around the couch and plucks the feather from my hands, continuing on to the kitchen trash bin and letting it float down until it’s resting atop an empty milk carton.
“I think uh, we’ll probably need a bigger trash bin.”
He turns to look in the direction of the bathroom and sighs at the sight, “I think you’re right. But! That will be my problem for the day, let’s get you to the studio!”

Now
I can still hear the echoed sounds of bombs falling, they reverberate against the inside of my sternum. Thunder rumbles outside the performance hall, where Prince Ivan is waiting with tears streaming down his face, predicting the weather. He offers a hand, but I brush by. “I wanna go home. Now.”
“I’m sure we’ll make the next train if we leave n-”
“No. I wanna go home. How do we get back to the cabin?”
“I uh, can get us a car I think, drive to the forest, assuming it’s still there…”
“Great, let’s do that.”
We walk in silence as raindrops begin to descend and I allow myself to be soaked on the way to the nearest car rental, despite offerings from Ivan to share an umbrella he picked up. Prince Ivan manages to make quick work with a recently forged license, one of the last good things Baba Yaga did for us, and we slide into a very real compact car.
We drive through the night, Ivan making the occasional attempt at conversation until I turn on the radio and feign sleep. A classic rock station fades in and out of service throughout the night as the soundtrack to blurring city lights, and then lone street lights, until the only lights are from the occasional passing car on the highway.
The rain has passed and the sun begins to shine on a new day when we finally make it to the edge of the Black Forest. We travel deeper in, taking service roads until that fresh daylight has a thick filter over it. I “wake up” from my false slumber and roll the window down, “It smells nice out here. Familiar.”
“Don’t tell me you’re nostalgic for your times with the late hag?” Ivan is amiable, as always, but it’s clear he’s treading carefully with his words.
“No, not nostalgic, just secure in familiarity.”
“That’s a funny way to say it.” He glances over to me and then returns his focus to the winding dirt road. “We’re almost there, Dimitri, but I’m not sure things will be as secure as we left them, with Baba gone and all…”
“They will, they have to be, the cabin is mine now.”
“About that, um, may I ask what your plans are now…?”
“We go back to Russia, back to Bratsk, and I see it all for myself. Then I’m sure I’ll think of something.”
“Right… Ah! Here we are! I guess you were right, think you can get it on the ground?” He brings the car to a park in the middle of the road and we both exit.
Ivan takes a moment to stretch after the long drive, but I immediately step off the road and into the woods, where I can be underneath the elevated porch of the walking cabin. I chew the nail of my thumb, thinking, but before I can come up with any silly spells that may come from the lips of Baba Yaga, the home simply drops to the dirt. “Well, that was easy. Welcome home, Prince Ivan, mind helping clear out the insects while I get a fire going?” I glance back at him with a smirk, to which he raises his eyebrows as if to ask about my audacity.
Inside, everything is just where we left it, and the first thing I do is rip the tapestry from the wall and toss it in the fireplace. It’s not actually easy to get a good fire going after smothering the kindling and cold coals, but once it is going, gods does it burn strong. Strong enough that, after Ivan and I feel content in our initial cleaning and step outside to the porch, the house has already risen and begun to walk east.
“How long do you think before that rental car is found?” I ask Ivan as we steady ourselves on the porch railing.
He laughs, “Great question, I’m surprised the card I used to pay even went through.”
“Good thing you’re a goose and not a real, trackable man. Wanna go throw all of Baba’s old things out the windows?”
“I’ve waited centuries.”
We both laugh and head back inside to do just that.
I’m not sure exactly how it happens, and I don’t think I care enough to find out, but it only seems to take a day or two to reach the remnants of my home city, and remnants they are. Prince Ivan doesn’t accompany me out, as per my request, so that I can walk the streets alone. I’d call this less of a stroll and more of an obstacle course, though, as I crawl over crumbling walls and through pits of rubble. I’m kicking a chunk of asphalt down the flattest stretch of sidewalk left when I stumble upon a half-crushed box of cigarettes. I’ve never smoked a day in my life, it’s not a good habit for a high class athlete like Dimitri Tsovetsky to pick up. I dig the remnants of a lone cigarette out of the box and light it using the smoldering ashes of someone’s home, maybe mine, I do seem to be in the right area.
I find something of a standing wall and brush off the ground at its base to sit, bringing the cigarette to my mouth as I settle against the wall. I’ve been able to sense the woman following me for a bit now, so I suppose I’m comfortable enough to call her out now, “I’m not afraid of you, Death, you can come sit with me.”
She steps into clear sunlight ahead of me, long black hair adorned with colored yarn and beads. She seems approachable, kind, and patient. It’s admirable, but probably not for me. No, I think it’s best for the world to continue to revolve around me, but keep its distance.