Blood Equity

The woman reeked of rotten borscht.

That was the first thing I noticed about her. The next thing I noticed was that she was Russian.

In my experience running estate sales, Russian customers are typically…challenging, to say the least, mainly because they adamantly refuse to accept the listed price on any given object. They’ll haggle you to the point of exhaustion, then continue to haggle you in your dreams long after the deal is done. I don’t know how they managed to plant themselves in my unconscious, but they’ve staked out a hippocampus gulag and they aren’t about to leave quietly.

Maybe I’m being prejudicial, but experience is how I learn. And I’ve learned to send my shackles up whenever I hear Russian spoken at a sale. I grounded myself as best I could as I watched her inspect every item carefully.

She was dressed in a mushroom-colored cardigan, over a burgundy peasant’s blouse and pleated brown skirt: kind of an old world look, but to each their own. Her face looked timeless, in that her deep blue eyes had clearly seen a lot, but it was difficult to tell whether she was wearing make-up over the rest of her face. Her hair had a touch of gray, but it was at the ends rather than at the roots. She had blood red nail polish, and her nails looked disturbingly long.

One of the most interesting things about her was her bag. While she was carrying it like it weighed nothing at all, I could tell by the way it swung that it was about the same weight as a neutron star. It also seemed to have the same gravity as a neutron star, in that expensive things kept disappearing into it.

This estate sale was taking place on the outskirts of town in a 50 foot tall, ancient red barn with at least an acre of floor space contained within it. Given my community’s general outlook of goodwill toward humanity, there was not a cop in sight.

That meant I had to the joykilling cop.

As I said, we learn from experience.

I sucked in my gut as I approached her, trying to puff out my chest in an attempt to make myself look more intimidating. My daughter told me she thought it made me look constipated, but I found that doing it made people listen to me. And it even made my daughter listen to me, even if she did resort to snorts and giggles afterwards.

“Privyet,” I said, rearranging the items on a shelf near her. “Kahk dyelah?”

She cocked an eyebrow at me.

“Nichevo,” she replied. “Vui?”

“Horrorshow,” I paused. “Except when people steal stuff. You do intend to pay for all you’ve filched in your bag?”

“Nye govoryou Angleski yazik,” she replied, looking like a bad actress putting on a confused face.

Her accent went from sounding authentically Russian to sounding like a western Illinois kid reading a Russian phrase book.

I decided to play along though. I pointed at her bag, then at the counter, then I indicated that she should pour out her bag on the counter.

She gave me a pleasant enough smile, shrugged, and walked over to the counter, adding a subtle sway of the hips that definitely wasn’t there while she was filching.

When I looked at her again, the gray in her hair had disappeared and her hair was a uniform strawberry blonde. Her face looked about twenty years younger and her lips were pursed. Somehow she had also acquired an application of lipstick that perfectly matched her nails. Her eyes seemed to have gone from blue to violet. I also noticed her smell had changed from rotting beets to Chanel No. 5. Her clothes were more form-fitting, and I had to admit she was shapely, to say the least.

I wondered if it was a trick of the light, or of the wind, but I dismissed it as she poured out the bag’s contents.

At first, I saw, as I expected, the trinkets she had shoplifted. Then I saw gold coins.

Lots of gold coins. As in more gold coins than a person could carry, let alone in a small shopping bag. Enough gold to spill over the counter and onto the floor.

She gave a slight Slavic smirk as she finished emptying her bag.

“I wish to buy this barn, and all the contents,” she said in perfect English, raising a hand to indicate her surroundings.

“I thought you said you didn’t speak English.”

“Your Russian was atrocious, so I adapted,” she replied.

“Atrocious?” I asked.

“It sounded like cows being slaughtered right after their throats are cut,” she placed both hands on the counter and looked at me expectantly.

“That seems a bit harsh,” I gulped.

“That’s why I’m a vegetarian,” she said. “But I’m a perfectionist, especially when it comes to language.”

I gave her another look. Her eyes had become a dark, greenish gray, like the sky before you make a dash for the basement. I found myself wanting to hide from her.

“What do you mean, about language?” I asked.

“It’s an imperfect construct in its nature, especially in that there are implied meanings and meanings beyond meanings. If a person can’t bother to speak their given language properly, I try to speak to them in a language that they will understand, precisely and direct,” she said as she drummed her nails on the counter.

“Will you sell this barn to me, or do I go elsewhere?”

The barn wasn’t one of the items the family wished to sell. I explained to her that I would need to talk to the family first. As I did so, I found myself terrified of misspeaking.

“Do what you need to do. Tell them what I’m offering,” she indicated the gold as another coin spilled to the floor. “If you prefer, you can take a picture and show them what I’m offering.”

She gave a gesture toward my cell phone.

“I’m in need of a larger space, and this barn will suit my needs,” she again gestured toward my cell phone.

I took a picture of all the gold coins, and there were enough to fill a large wheelbarrow, or maybe two. I had to stand back a bit to fit them all in the picture. I also gave the sellers an estimate of the worth of the coins, based on the current market price of gold per ounce, and figured that they would earn many times more than the structure, and all the items within, were worth.

As it was, cobwebs stretched over the entire interior. There was a basketball-sized hole in the roof above me, and enough other holes to give a disco ball appearance to the floor this time of day. The rafters looked sturdy though.

The sellers responded much quicker than I had expected. I read their text and frowned.

“What did they say?” she asked.

I wasn’t expecting her to watch me so closely, and I gave an involuntary shudder.

“They replied that they aren’t interested in selling the farm at this time,” I said, adding. “Apparently they have a developer in mind with whom they can earn a lot more money.”

Her face went from being pale to purple in a matter of seconds. She hissed, giving everyone within earshot a legitimate reason to leave the premises and drive far away, quickly.

She and I were the only ones in the barn within a few minutes. The last car sped away as I ran out to try to reason with the estate sale minglers.

I only noticed one car in the barnyard, mine.

“Where is your car?” I asked her, coming back into the barn.

“I walked,” she replied, seeming assured as she had gathered her composure, and a less purple complexion, once again.

I tried not to think of the fact that it was at least four miles to town, and I was prepared to offer her a ride home when she interrupted my train of thought.

“As a perfect example of needing to be precise with language, I defer to your message you sent to the sellers. I told you I was interested in the barn and its contents, alone. You inferred that I was interested in the entire farm. I have no interest in purchasing land,” she stated in a clipped manner, emphasizing each syllable like a sadistic schoolteacher.

“I need you to text them again, emphasizing that point,” she stated, flicking a coin to an unseen corner of the barn.

I typed a text to the sellers clarifying the woman’s intention. Within 30 seconds, they responded that they would happily accept the offer and they would be there in about 15 minutes to close the deal.

They added that they were thinking of tearing down the barn anyway, and this offer more than saves them the expense of doing so.

I reported back to the woman what the sellers stated.

She gave a dismissive smile as she clapped her hands together.

I felt the entire foundation of the barn shift.

Her eyes rolled back as she uttered the words, “Menya zovut Baba Yaga.”

Her appearance went from a shapely seductress to that of a withered crone as the entire barn, foundation and all, was lifted from the barnyard, causing me to grab onto the counter. I watched structural supports manifest as the barn began to break apart, the supports healing the breaks and fortifying the structure. I saw holes in the roof being repaired and the rotting shingles replaced by thousands of interlocking stone tiles.

I watched the gold coins, all the gold coins, swept up in a whirlwind and carried outside through one of the doors. I dove after the coins and I found myself suspended in midair, 20 feet above the ground outside of the barn, arms flailing as I tried to grab a single coin that remained tantalizingly just out of my reach.

I heard Baba Yaga cackle, sounding like a child scalded by boiling water.

I turned and saw that she was now dressed entirely in black, with a single, crooked, wart and pus-covered finger gesticulating that I should approach her. I shuddered at the thought that I had once thought this crone to be attractive. I found myself being conveyed toward her, following the same rhythm as her finger. As much as I struggled, I was used to being on the ground, and I had no frame of reference for moving through air so I kicked and punched the air to no avail as I was brought back through the doors of the barn.

“You’ll recall I said the barn and its contents,” her voice seemed to come from the entire barn. “That includes you.”

She placed me in the center of the barn, where if the barn were to rotate in any direction it would spin around me as an axis.

“There’s quite a bit of hay in the rafters. While some of it is moldy, it will have to do,” she gestured upward and then I found my mouth being ripped apart as I was forced to chew through bushel after bushel of hay.

I watched as my body grew bigger, most especially my legs and my torso. My legs stretched over the floor of the entire barn and were now being forced through two holes at the bottom, spaced on opposite sides of the barn. After the hay was consumed from the barn, I tasted other vegetation, from the farm and the surrounding area, being swept into the first of several stomachs I had acquired.

My brain was reduced in proportion to my body as I became akin to a pack animal, carrying the barn where it needed to go on my enormous legs.

“Take me home,” she commanded, and I lacked the wits to protest as I ran as fast as I could to the Motherland.