"Remove That Hex!" - 2

This is Part 2 of an absurdist, romance novel-spoof horror-sprinkled tale of Elena, a 30-something divorced postal worker living in a high-rise studio apartment in any city in Russia. Once, she bought a talking fish who turned out to be a witch-hexed prince. The only way to remove the hex would be for Elena to fall in love and give him a human baby. Falling in love was the easy part. One day, Elena started to lay fish eggs and put them in the aquarium where her Prince lived in the fish form. She told him to watch them while she was at work, however, the eggs kept disappearing.

***

They had to start over, again and again. Lots of nights of passionate love making, all 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. Prince claimed he knew and/or remembered nothing.

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, Elena placed the new pile of fish eggs into the aquarium. Leaving 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 locked 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 security camera footage, 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 remember nothing! 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 makes any sense, still pretty freaking ridiculous, but at least I think I know what to do!”

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

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

“That might be too dangerous,” Prince said, oozing concern from his eyes. 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 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 neighbors' and get inside her apartment from their balcony. She’d then hide in the closet and come out when she hears the witch cat. Then together they'd figure out the course of action.

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

And so, 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. 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, hunchbacked, and broken, with 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. “Baba Yaga!” she exclaimed, referring to a world-known witch from Russian fairy tales.

“Not exactly, but close!” the witch chuckled 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 hex from my Prince, the love of my life, at once!”

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

“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 don't 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 hex already. Aren’t you 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, 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! And actors!” 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 two 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's rich or poor! I love him just the way he is! So, you’d better remove the hex!” Elena exclaimed, trying to regain control 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.

Realizing something, Elena said in a smart-ass voice, “I've 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, with or without your help. 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! It's still a fish, not a human baby!” 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.

Seconds later, 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 for a family!”

“What’s happening to you?” Elena asked, looking at the witch’s unnaturally quickly ballooning belly. They all watched in shock and horror a human toddler-sized baby come out of the witch’s belly, tearing 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 to the toddler’s eye level. “Lady Yaga just had a very hard life. She's a survivor.”

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

“Well, she clearly is not dead yet,” Prince stated dryly, 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. Prince turned into an even more handsome ripped modern man 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 read already!” Elena said, gasping in admiration and wiping away tears of joy. “What's 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!” Elena protested. “We all know what happens to Ivanushkas in Russian fairy tales: They are either incredibly stupid or get hexed into goats. And not the Greatest Of All Time, but real baby goats!”

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

“Not that I thought about it, but 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 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 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?”

“I do indeed,” 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 or 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 do your magic,” 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. The family voted to taxidermy 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.

Entire novella's here.