Remove That Hex!

Fair warning: This story is written in a tradition of Russian absurdism, sprinkled with satire on (erotic) romance novels. No magical realism here, but if you find something particularly absurd or funny in this tale that delighted or surprised you, please let me know in the comments.

*****

Once upon a time, a beautiful woman in her early 30s went to the market to buy some fresh fish, fully intending to fry it for dinner that same day. She only needed one fish as she lived alone, after her good-for-nothing husband left her. At the market, she stopped by her usual vendor and couldn’t choose for a long time which fish to buy. She usually bought a trout, but this time her attention was drawn to a golden-orange fish that looked like trout but wasn’t one (trust me, the woman knew her fish). There was something about the fish’s eyes. They were not glazed like dead fish eyes and seemed to be giving her a horny look, winking and blinking at her.

After casual chatting with the fish salesman, the woman decided to buy both: One trout and the orange fish. She paid cash, put both fish into a string net bag and went home, to her small studio apartment in a high rise building. As she walked, checking off in her head if she had at home the vegetables she’d need to make her famous fish soup and the spices she’d need to fry the fish, she thought she felt some movement in the bag. But every time she looked at the fish, they seemed to be dead.

When she got home, the woman put the orange fish into a bowl with water, set the trout on the kitchen counter, pulled a plastic apron on herself, put her kitchen gloves on, took out her best curved fish knife and masterfully cut, opened, cleaned, and scaled the trout.

As she cut it into several pieces, setting aside the head and tail for the soup and the filet for frying and baking, the orange fish suddenly jumped in the bowl and said in a clear human voice, “Don’t do that to me, good woman, I will be of great use for you!”

“What use can you be, if not for eating?” the woman asked. She pretended not to be surprised, like it was normal to talk to a fish that was dead a minute ago, but inside she was shocked.

“You’ll see,” the fish responded. “Hit my head on the counter, but not too hard lest I die.”

“If you die, I’ll just eat you,” the woman said, took the fish by its tail and slapped its head on the counter, ever so slightly. Nothing happened.

“Not like that, softie,” the fish laughed. “A little harder.”

The woman hit the fish harder. Nothing happened again.

“Harder!” the fish pleaded.

The woman added some force to the next blow. Nothing happened again.

“If only someone saw me now,” the woman said. “They’d think I don’t know how to work the fish knife, trying to kill you with a blunt-force trauma.”

“C’mon, hit harder!” the fish said.

“But you said not too hard, lest I kill you!”

“Not that hard, but harder than what you just did! Don’t you have any strength in your arms, woman?”

That hurt. The woman wasn’t exactly a bodybuilder but not a wimp either. She pulled her strength, took the fish by its tail with both hands and smacked it against the counter with full force.

A second later, a handsome prince in colorful medieval Russian princely garb stood before her, holding his head in his hands, as if nursing it after a hard blow.

“Stupid witch! It’s more painful with every time!”

“I’m not a witch!” the woman protested, shocked. “And you literally asked for it!”

“Not you, of course, my darling, but the witch who put a hex on me! Every time a woman has to hit me on the head it seems to require more and more force.”

“A hex???” the woman asked, shocked. “And a hit? What happened to the kiss?”

“The kiss? I can give you a kiss right now for what you’ve just done for me, darling.”

“No, I mean the kiss on the lips, to turn you into the prince.”

“Oh, like in the Princess Frog story? You know it’s just a fairy tale, don’t you?”

“And this is not?” the woman drew a smooth demonstration curve with her hand from the counter to the prince.

“Sadly, no. This spell is very real. And the witch who put it on me was very ‘creative.’ Hence the hit. One day, I will die from the blunt-force trauma to my head if the hex is not removed,” the prince was still swaying back and forth from the hit, trying to keep his balance.

“So, what’s the way to remove the hex?” the woman asked, just out of curiosity.

“Ooooh, that tricky witch really went to town with this spell. For it to be broken, a human woman needs to fall in love with me and give me a human baby.”

“When do we start?” the woman asked. She was already falling in love with the prince.

“It’s not that simple,” the prince said, smiling. “Not only we have to develop a deep human connection in the form of genuine love, but the baby must be conceived and born in a particular way.”

“Which way?” the woman blushed, thinking of all different sexual positions she never tried with her jerk of a self-centered missionary-position husband, the only man in her sexual life.

“I can’t just tell you right away, you’ll have to see it for yourself. Kinda like an IQ test, per the witch. Besides, I’m not sure myself. Every time it’s a new puzzle.”

“Ok,” the woman said, disappointed. “Should we eat then?”

“That would be great, I’m starving!” the prince said.

“Alright, but I only have fish,” the woman said, slightly embarrassed that she may put him into an uncomfortable position.

“Wonderful! I love fish: fried, baked, or in a soup!” the prince responded, with great enthusiasm and in anticipation of her great cooking.

“Wouldn’t you feel bad about eating your own kind?” the woman asked, shocked. She wouldn’t want to be with a cannibal who had no empathy.

“My own kind? Where does that come from? Oh, wait! Did the witch turn me into a fish this time?”

“Yes, didn’t you know?”

“No, I honestly didn’t! Last time I was a rabbit. That’s another thing the witch does, turns me into a different animal every freaking time!”

“And you don’t know which animal it is?”

“Not until I get into a human form. Most animals have no self-awareness, you know.”

“I see,” the woman said, starting to fry the trout. “What’s your name, by the way?”

“I don’t remember. I’ve been out of my true human form for so long that I forgot my own name!”

“Alright, I will just call you Prince then, like Prince the singer,” the woman smiled dreamily as she imagined how she’d tell about her new love to her friends at work. She worked at the local post office, so they had a lot of time to chat while sorting, weighing, bundling the mail, and doing other routine mailey tasks.

“Works for me,” Prince said. “And what’s your name?”

“Alenushka,” the woman said.

“No way! Like Alenushka from Russian fairy tales?”

“Yes, my mom started to call me that when I was a baby and it stuck. My official name, the one in my passport, is Elena.”

“That’s perfect, I’m so lucky! If you don’t mind, I’ll call you Elena. Alenushka sounds too young to me. With the Me Too movement and exposure of sexual harassment now, I don’t want to be seen as a perve,” Prince said. “You’ll be my Elena the Beautiful.”

“You know about Me Too?” the woman asked, impressed.

“Of course, I’m no caveman!” Prince smiled and winked at her. Elena liked him even more now that he showed his knowledge of Russian folklore, gender awareness and sensitivity to sexual harassment issues.

They had dinner and went to bed almost right after. They made passionate love for a looong time, with Elena suggesting they try out all sorts of sexual positions, new to her, from the old Kamasutra book she studied in secret from her boring ex-husband. Prince liked her adventurous side, not knowing that she was just experimenting in hope of getting pregnant and giving him a baby right away. She really wanted him to stay with her in his human form. Completely exhausted, sweaty and worn out, they finally fell asleep around 3 am.

At 6 am, Elena suddenly woke up from an intense feeling that someone was watching and calling her. She turned around and saw the fish gasping for water on the pillow where just several hours ago her beloved Prince fell asleep.

“That is one heck of a hex,” Elena thought, putting the fish into the bowl with water. She didn’t know that as a part of the hex, the fish would never die out of water, just feel an intense pain. “You stupid, witchy bitch, I’ll figure out how to beat you!” Elena pledged, throwing her fists into the air.

And then Elena went to work and told her tall tale to all her girlfriends there. They all, except for one perpetually jealous woman, encouraged her and pretended to listen, seeing how happy and freshly plowed she was. But deep inside they all thought she was going crazy, from being dumped by her uncaring stupid husband. The jealous one just said as much. But she couldn’t upset Elena in her happiness.

Elena couldn’t wait to finish her shift and get home to her Prince. The moment she did, she smacked the fish’s head on the counter again, and it turned into her handsome lover. Again, they had a nice candle-lit dinner and a night of passionate lovemaking. And around 6 am, with the first break of dawn, Prince turned into the fish again. It continued like that for several weeks, and in between Elena bought the largest aquarium she could find, put all sorts of rocks and fake castles into it, setting in a lot of water plants and lilies for her Prince to enjoy when she put him there before she went to work every morning.

They had the best life during the night. After long and passionate sessions of adventurous sex that they never got tired of, they would talk and talk about their feelings, memories, grievances against their parents, and life in general. Elena wanted to know everything about her Prince.

“So, you said once that your previous turn of animal was a rabbit, right?” Elena asked once.

“Yes,” he answered hesitantly, trying to figure out why she needed this information.

“What happened to that woman?”

“Which woman?”

“Well, just like me, some woman must have figured out you were actually a prince?”

“Ah, that. Yes, she did. She just got tired of me, I guess.”

“What? How can anyone get tired of you?” Elena kissed him softly on the lips and flirtingly buried her face in the thick curly hairs of his manly chest.

“Well, I don’t know. She couldn’t get pregnant for several months, got frustrated and told me one night she got tired of fucking a rabbit for nothing. Apparently, she hoped to pay off her mortgage with my princely riches. Next thing I know, I’m out of her house on the street again.”

“Were there any others?”

“Rabbits?” Prince clarified.

“No, silly, women who have figured out you were cursed!”

“Yes, many,” Prince said reluctantly.

“How many?” Elena’s voice was pregnant with the notes of jealousy.

“I don’t know exactly. It’s been like this a long time, for over five hundred years now.”

“Wow, five hundred years! Do you at least remember what other animals you were turned into?”

“Not all of them, but I vividly remember being an alligator and a donkey.”

“Oh my, I wouldn’t want to wake up with an alligator next to me,” Elena chuckled. “Or a donkey.”

“Every form has its challenges. I guess you got lucky in that department,” Prince said, lovingly striking her long red locks and kissing her on the lips. Elena caught a whiff of rotten fish in his breath, but she was getting used to it by now even though it started to spread around her apartment. A couple of neighbors stopped by asking if she forgot to take out a garbage bin with some rotting fish in it. Elena learned to ignore the smell and told the neighbors off. Whatever one would endure for love!

“So, in all those turns, no woman could get pregnant and give you a baby to break the spell?” she continued her interrogation.

“Well, remember it has to be a human baby. When I was a porcupine the woman who took me home gave birth to a baby porcupine. That was not fun.”

“Ouch! You are not kidding, are you?”

“Why would I joke about something like that? She was in so much pain and so mad that she threw us both into the street.”

“What happened to the poor baby porcupine?” Elena asked, genuinely concerned. Everyone was telling her that she’d make a great mother one day.

“I don’t know. Most of the times, when I get kicked out by an angry woman I wake up as a different animal. To make it more interesting, the witch has a habit of checking in with me. I suspect she erases my memory, partly or completely, about the women I’ve been with and animals she turned me into. I feel demented most of times.”

“Wait, the witch is checking in on you? She is still alive?”

“Of course. She is immortal. If she died, or lost her witch powers, the hex would have dispelled. And maybe I would’ve died too. Who knows what the witch wrote in that hex in small font?” Prince tried to make light of his grave situation.

“My poor Prince. I’m sure we will finally be able to figure out how to break your spell,” Elena would say lovingly every time she felt she was getting enough for her to piece together as much information as possible that would help her remove the hex. She couldn’t even imagine now how she’d live without her Prince.

One night, after about two months into their somewhat mutually satisfying relationship, Elena felt a strong urge to go pee right in the middle of them changing sexual positions.

She ran to the bathroom, leaving Prince behind, puzzled. Sitting on the toilet, she felt bloated and constipated, and made lots of grunting noises unbecoming of a true gentle lady. As she got up from the toilet, Elena noticed something that shouldn’t have been there.

“What the actual f*ck?” she exclaimed so loudly that Prince ran to her.

“Are you OK in there?” he asked, stopping at the bathroom door.

“I’m not sure,” she responded. “Come here, look for yourself.”

“I don’t know if I should go in there when you are doing your business. I mean, we are close, but I don’t know if we are THAT close,” Prince mumbled.

“I’m already done! Come in, I need you right here, right now!”

Reluctantly, Prince entered the bathroom.

“Have a look, do you see this? What do you think this is?” Elena asked, pointing at a pile of small bright orange balls at the bottom of the toilet.

“I don’t know,” Prince said, scratching his head. “Did you eat caviar without me and pooped it out whole?”

“Caviar! Of course! Fish eggs!” Elena slapped her forehead. “I guess that’s your puzzle, the particular way that you were talking about, how I get pregnant, with you being a fish…”

As she was rapidly blurting out this nonsense, the daylight broke through the bathroom window and Prince turned into the fish.

“Right, just in time,” Elena asked, “I’m left to deal with this on my own, right before I must go to work, too! What do you think I should do?”

The fish didn’t answer, gasping for water. Elena carefully took the fish and put it into the aquarium. And then a brilliant idea came to her mind. Risking being late for work, she built a nest out of rocks and plants in the aquarium, went to the bathroom and carefully scooped the fish eggs from the bottom of the toilet. She then transferred the eggs into the nest and said to the fish, “Keep them warm. Maybe one of them will hatch and give us a baby.”

“That does not make sense!” the fish said. “How can a human baby hatch out of a fish egg?”

“Does any of this make sense? How can a fish talk? Or a woman lay fish eggs?” the woman responded impatiently, dressing to go to her important postal job. She had been recently promoted to a shift manager and couldn’t be late or skip work.

“How do you suggest I keep them warm in the cold water?” the fish asked.

“I don’t know, maybe sit on them?”

“Do you hear yourself? I’m not a chicken, I must move when I’m in the water. Sit on them! So absurd!”

“For someone who said animals lacked self-awareness, you are incredibly perceptive,” Elena said, and added in a conciliatory tone, “Well, I don’t know what else to do! In any case, it wouldn’t hurt to try, stay as still as you can over the eggs.”

The fish wanted to protest again, but Elena interrupted, “Or we’ll have to try again until I get pregnant with a human baby, maybe? This whole thing is so ridiculous it hurts my brain!” Elena shouted as she was leaving for work.

When she came back home after her shift, the fish eggs were gone. Like they were never there. As a Russian saying goes, as if a cow licked them off clean with her tongue. The fish was slowly swimming around in the aquarium, seemingly undisturbed. Maybe a little too slow and happy, Elena thought, like after a good feeding.

“Did you eat your own babies, you freaking cannibal?” she exclaimed angrily.

“WHAT? Where does that come from?” the fish asked, totally bewildered by the unfair accusation.

“What happened to the fish eggs?”

“Which eggs?” the fish asked, genuinely clueless.

“Your fish eggs! The ones I laid in the morning?”

“Listen to yourself, woman: My fish eggs? I’m a male, not female fish. You laid them? You are a human; how can you lay eggs?”

Elena thought the fish was pulling her leg, pulled it out of water, and smacked it on the counter in frustration, turning the fish into Prince.

“When I left for work this morning, I put the fish eggs I’d laid earlier into that nest, for you to sit on them so that they don’t get cold and hatch,” Elena explained to Prince. “Where are they?”

“Either you are going crazy, or the witch is playing her dirty tricks again,” Prince answered. “Because I don’t know and/or remember anything about you laying eggs and putting them into that nest.”

And so, they had to start over. Lots of nights of passionate love making, but now with the goal of getting Elena pregnant. Every time she’d lay eggs, she would put them into the aquarium nest, and they’d be gone by the time she came home from work. And Prince of course didn’t know and/or remember anything. Elena didn’t even want to think he could be a narcissist manipulating her and using her as a means to his end of staying alive in a good home. She felt, however, that they were running out of time. You never know with those hexes, how long the domestic bliss can last.

Once, after Elena placed the next pile of fish eggs into the aquarium and left for work, she thought she saw a neighbor’s cat trying to get into her apartment. So, next time before leaving, she made sure to close all the windows tight and to lock the door on all four locks. But the fish eggs disappeared again. That was when Elena finally decided to splurge on security cameras.

And what do you know? When Prince and Elena watched the footage from the security cameras, they saw the perpetrator. It was a cat indeed, but not the neighbor’s cat Elena suspected. The culprit cat looked old and unkempt, broken or torn, with a limp in its front right leg and one eye half-closed by a scar running through its head. In the recording, the cat seemed to have appeared out of thin air, got to the aquarium nest, scooped out the fish eggs with its paw and gobbled them all up. Then the cat stared at the fish for some time, scratching the aquarium glass with its brittle untrimmed nails and moving its mouth as if saying something to the fish. And then it disappeared into the thin air again, just like it showed up minutes before.

“That’s the witch herself!” Prince said, pale from the shocking realization. “No wonder I don’t remember anything, she must have been erasing my memories every time with that signature paw-and-mouth move.” Prince mimicked the cat scratching the aquarium glass.

“The witch is a cat?” Elena asked in disbelief.

“Of course not, she is a mature lady who can turn herself into a cat!” Prince answered. “It all makes sense now!”

“No, none of this still makes any sense, still pretty freaking ridiculous, but at least I think I know what we need to do!”

“Yeah, what?” Prince asked, filled with hope and love.

“I’m staying at home next time we lay eggs, and I’m going to catch the witch when she is stealing them.”

“That might be a little too dangerous,” Prince said, oozing concern from his eyes and Elena’s heart warmed at the thought of how much he cared for her.

“What if you get fired? Don’t you take your work seriously? I thought you can’t skip your shift, or even be late,” Prince added with a note of disappointment in his voice.

“I can skip one day for this, removing the hex to achieve my personal happiness is more important,” Elena said, shocked by the turn of concern.

“Really? If you lose your job, I won’t be able to support you. Where from will we get the flowing and disposable income then?” Prince asked. “I can’t give you everything, the way I am now, or maybe ever.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Elena said. “As my grandmother used to say, we should work to live, rather than live to work.”

“Exactly, but if you lose your job, you won’t be able to work, to live. Period!” Prince seemed visibly upset.

“Listen, if it’s that important to you, I’ll ask one of my friends to cover for me at work, alright? I just don’t see any other way. We need to catch the witch cat in the act! After all, it’s about our happiness, together!”

And that’s what they decided to do. Elena would pretend to go to work, go to her upstairs neighbors and get inside her apartment down from their balcony. She’ll then hide in the closet and come out when she hears the witch cat. Then together they will figure out the course of action.

“Just find a way to turn me into a human,” Prince said. “I don’t want you to deal with the witch on your own!”

And so, the next time Elena laid eggs, they did exactly that. When she heard the cat slurping up the eggs, Elena crouched out of the closet and grabbed the cat by its tale. The cat jumped, turned around and saw Elena. Seemingly terrified, the cat started to scratch and bite Elena, fiercely trying to free itself. Elena was holding on tightly with her right hand, at the same time fishing out her lover and smacking him on the aquarium table. She broke many a small knickknack she was so fond of collecting. The moment the fish turned into Prince, the cat slipped out of Elena’s hand and flipped into the witch.

She was an old woman. Torn and broken, with a hunch on her back, a limping right leg, unkempt gray hair, and a patch on her right eye. She was so ugly Elena stepped back in disgust and disbelief and said, “Baba Yaga!” referring to a world-known witch from Russian fairy tales.

“Not exactly, but close!” the witch responded, chuckling menacingly. “No one remembers Baba Yaga had a younger cousin. You may call me Aunty Yaga.”

“I don’t care what to call you!” Elena said firmly. “Remove your freaking spell from my Prince, the love of my life, at once!”

“Or? What would you do to me, you, stupid human woman?” the witch spat all around her through missing teeth in rage.

“Hey!” Prince started, protesting the inappropriate name calling.

“I’ll kill you!” Elena yelled with passion.

“Ha-ha-ha! No human woman can kill me without dark magic. You do not practice dark magic, do you?"

“No, I don’t,” Elena admitted, lowering her gaze in embarrassment.

“C’mon, lady Yaga,” Prince pleaded. “Just remove the spell already. Aren’t you yourself tired of these silly shenanigans: Turning me into animals, running around erasing my memories, harassing me for over five hundred years?”

“Nope, not tired,” the witch shook her head stubbornly, “I can do it forever, never gets old. It’s one way I can express my unlimited creativity!”

“But to what end? Why did you put the hex on my Prince in the first place?” Elena asked.

“Because I LOVE him, alright? I’ve been in love with him ever since I laid my eyes and lust on him, when he was just a young lad in his prime, like 14!” the witch shrieked. “And he won’t love me back!”

Elena burst into laughter, “First, that’s sexually harassing a minor. Second, have you seen yourself in the mirror, Yaga?”

“Of course! I’m the most beautiful creature in the whole world!”

“What???” Elena’s jaw dropped. Searching for politically correct words, she mumbled, “You are so… old and battered!”

“That’s ageist, honey!” Prince protested indignantly.

“Spot on!” the witch was happy to have his support. “So many older women were or are in a relationship with a younger man: Cleopatra, Catherine the Great, Elizabeth Taylor, Brigitte Macron, Rebecca from Ted Lasso, to name a few! No one seems to mind them with their age difference. Or it’s all right when men do it, but no-no-no for women!”

“You are no Elizabeth Taylor, deary,” Elena said sarcastically. “And definitely not the fabulous Hannah Waddingham you call Rebecca from Ted Lasso.”

“Who are all these women you are talking about?” Prince asked, lost in their conversation.

“Famous women world leaders! Actors, mostly,” Elena said.

“Actresses!” the witch corrected her.

“They are ACTORS, equal to men in their talent and craft, unequal in pay and leadership positions in Hollywood!” Elena snapped. “You are nothing like any one of them!”

“Well, neither are you!” the witch slapped back. “And if only you knew what and who battered me, you’d be crying for me, upon hearing about all the abuse I had to endure from humans and non-human monsters! Everyone wants to kill or harm me!”

“You must have deserved it!” Elena barked, folding her arms on her chest.

“Now, honey, that’s classical victim blaming!” Prince said, even more indignantly.

“Whose side are you on, Prince?” Elena asked in disbelief.

“You keep calling him prince,” the witch laughed. “You know he is penniless, right? All his riches are gone, expropriated by all those bloody revolutions you had here: bourgeois, Soviet, democratic, autocratic. It’s all gone, poof! If you are hoping to get his assets, think again! He has nothing. He doesn’t even know and/or remember his name!”

“You’ve made sure of that, lady Yaga!” Prince responded, offended.

“I like the way you call me lady Yaga, keep doing that! Do you want me to serenade ‘In the Shallow’ to you?” the witch said, winking at Prince with her one good eye.

“I don’t care if he is rich or poor! I love him just the way he is! So, you’d better remove the hex!” Elena exclaimed, trying to get back control of the conversation.

“Well, I love him too!” the witch said, smiling and winking her charm at Prince again.

“But he doesn’t love you, he loves me!” Elena was getting exasperated.

“If only he made an effort to get to know me better, he’d fall in love with me! Time works wonders,” the witch said, looking at Prince with her one horny eye and moving her good hip toward him in a suggestive manner.

“Oh my god, are you trying to twerk?” Elena asked and the witch immediately stopped, embarrassed. “Do you even hear yourself! This is so absurd!” Elena said, breaking her arms in desperation.

“Ladies, please stop,” Prince started in a conciliatory tone. “Let’s try to come to some compromise here.”

As he was saying it, a pool of water suddenly formed on the floor under the witch’s shabby dress.

“What the h…?” all three of them exclaimed simultaneously.

And then Elena said in a smart-ass voice, “I have never given birth myself, but it looks like your water just broke.”

“What?? That’s impossible!” the witch said.

“Why? Because you are too old for this shit?” Elena asked sarcastically.

“No, because I’m on a pill, you stupid clueless woman!”

“Hey!” Prince started to protest name-calling again but froze as he saw a little orange trout-looking fish plopping into the pool of water between the witch’s legs.

“Oh, my goodness, this little fish looks exactly like you in your fish form!” Elena exclaimed.

“B-b-but that’s impossible!” the witch and Prince said at the same time.

“See, this is what happens when you eat the fish eggs I laid, planted into me by my soon-to-be-husband. You got pregnant and gave birth to this little guy. Or girl,” Elena said, picking up the little fish and carefully putting it into aquarium.

“He will never become your husband! Never! Because I’ll never remove the hex!” the witch shrieked.

“We’ll figure it out, under or without the spell. We are a family now,” Elena said, touching the aquarium lovingly, tracing the little fish’s movement as it explored its new habitat.

“No, you are not! That fish came out of me, not you, so I’m legally and biologically its mother! It’s my family!” the witch shrieked louder.

“You STOLE those eggs from us and ATE them! If you are a mother, then only a surrogate one! Just a vessel for your own spell, isn’t that ironic! We are its true parents, Prince and I!” Elena wouldn’t give up.

“You think you are so smart, don’t you, like you’ve figured it all out, the spell and everything! Smarty pants!” the witch was clearly asking for a squabble.

“Ladies, please calm down…” Prince embarked on his peace-making mission again.

“Oh, just shut up!” both women snapped at him.

“Oh, no, look!” Prince pointed at a little black kitten tumbling out onto the floor from under the witch’s dress.

“I guess you can now have your own baby, as you love the cat form so much!” Elena said, watching the witch picking up the kitten and tenderly striking it with her crooked hand, radiating complete and utter happiness of new motherhood. But then the witch’s face cringed with malice again as she yelled, “I still won’t remove the spell! I’ll take him away from you and we’ll have our own little family!”

“Never!” a child’s voice boomed out from the witch’s abdomen. “I want my real mom and dad, together as a family!”

“What’s happening to you?” Elena asked, looking at the witch’s unnaturally quickly ballooning belly. They all watched in amazement and horror a human toddler-sized baby come out of the witch’s belly as he tore her flesh apart.

“The spell is broken!” the baby declared triumphantly. “The evil witch is defeated and dead!”

“Not yet!” the witch protested, writhing in pain on the floor.

“She is not that evil, really,” Prince said, in a patiently patronizing voice, squatting down to the toddler’s eye level. “Lady Yaga just had a very hard life. She is a survivor.”

“Oh, c’mon! Am I the only adult with clear mind here?” Elena exclaimed.

“Well, she clearly is not dead yet,” Prince said matter-of-factly, trying to make his point as he got up.

Meanwhile, the space around them magically cleared and cleansed itself from the rotten fish stench and birth water, things broken in the cat fight repaired themselves, and Prince turned into an even more handsome ripped modern man. He was wearing jeans and a fitted t-shirt that spelled “Alexander.” Even the witch transformed into an average-looking woman of an extremely advanced age, still rolling on the floor side to side in pain.

“Alexander. Is that your name, daddy?” the human baby asked.

“Look at that! Not even a day old, and he can already read!” Elena said, gasping in admiration and wiping away tears of joy. “And what is your name, sweetie?” she asked as she picked the boy up and held him in a tight loving hug.

“You can call me Ivanushka,” the baby suggested.

“I would never do that!” Elena protested. “We all know what happens to Ivanushkas in Russian fairy tales: they either become incredibly stupid or get hexed into goats. And not Greatest Of All Time, but real baby goats!”

“I was just kidding, mom!” the baby said. “You pick a name for me!”

“I’ll have to think about it. I’m torn between Daniel, Denis, and Ilia. They all sound good in both English and Russian. What do you think, honey?” Elena asked Alexander.

“I like them all, my love,” Alexander responded. “Maybe our son should decide for himself?”

“Ilia it is then,” Elena said decisively. They all laughed, completely and utterly happy.

“Hey, does anyone still remember me? I’m dying here!” the old woman called out from the floor.

“Oh, my goodness!” Elena exclaimed, suddenly filled with compassion. She looked at Ilia and asked, “As you are our magical baby, can you do something to help her?”

“I can try,” baby Ilia said, climbing off his mom and wobbling toward the old woman. “We are not monsters, after all!”

“No, just let me die already! I cannot go on with the spell broken and without his love, whatever his name is… Alexander! What’s the point of living if there’s no hope of having him in my life!”

“That’s exactly what I meant, finish her quickly and humanely, end her suffering!” Elena said emphatically.

“Honey, how can you say that!” Prince-Alexander protested. “Everyone deserves to live out their life and die peacefully in their sleep, not in pain from an advanced-age childbirth! Moreover, how can you ask our newly born toddler to kill somebody, let alone the woman he just came out of?”

“I was just kidding,” Elena said. “You protest much, but do you have a solution?”

“Of course, I do,” Alexander said and addressed the old woman. “How about you live with us, however long you have left of your natural life, as a matriarch of the family? We’ll call you Babushka Yana. Everyone needs a loving grandmother, and we will need to have someone around all the time while we are at work and in school, to keep the kitty away from the fish,” Alexander pointed at the newly born kitty stalking the fish in the aquarium, licking its lips, and tracing the fish movements with its tiny pink paw.

“I would very much like that,” the old lady replied.

“Ok, now you can try your magical powers,” Alexander gave a green light to Ilia.

The baby did some hand manipulations around the old woman’s tummy, and she was magically healed. She also seemed to have become slightly younger. And they all lived happily ever after...

They built a new big house and Babushka Yana lived with them, an exemplary tender and loving grandmother with a slightly horny wandering eye, until she died one day, just weeks after Ilia turned 18. They found her on the pillow of her bed, as a curled up well-groomed old black cat with a happy smile on her face. As a family, they voted to taxidermize her and placed her on their fireplace mantle as a reminder of their past adventures and shared experience and love.

Sadly, the responsibility of preventing his grown sister kitty from eating his aging brother fish fell on Ilia, but that is a totally different story… Pardon me, a tall tale.