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The first time I saw auntie Raya I knew she was a witch. She had to be! Now tell me, would a nice non-witch auntie have this kind of face? All scrunched up, dark, with a big misshapen nose and an assortment of moles and knots. She most definitely would not. And then there were her ears: peeking out of her babushka head scarf, they looked like a giantess’ ears and were almost as hairy as a dog’s. Our dog Trezor even had shorter ear hairs! All of this at once I considered when auntie Raya came to see my grandma. Upon considering, I cried in terror. It wasn’t even the face or the surreal ears that scared me, but her teeth! She had only three teeth, all of them long and yellow and looking like they belong in a wolf’s mouth, not an aunties’. When Raya spoke, I could see her tongue slither behind the scary teeth like a wet snake I once saw in a puddle behind the wooden toilet, and she sounded like she had tea in her mouth. After a few moments, when I have finished screaming, I informed her that actually only wolves have teeth like these. Rather loudly, from the comfort of my mother’s arms. Mom let out a giggle, and grandma covered her mouth with her hand. Maybe she was trying to hide her teeth, I don’t know, hers weren’t nearly as scary anyway. But auntie Raya suddenly started crying, turned her back on us and walked toward her izba, which was just across the road from our house. There was a wooden footbridge and a small bench beside her old wicket gate, and along the fence there was a ditch surrounded by great big pine trees. But I never went there. This was my enemy’s territory.
Raya had an enormous black rooster, almost as big as me. Whenever it spread its wings, craned its neck and started crowing, making all of the hens scatter, I always darted behind our wicket. The rooster was just as ugly as Raya herself. It had no teeth of course, but what it lacked in teeth it made up for in moles and knots, which covered its head, comb and wattles. It’s eyes were pitch black with a fiery red rim, its legs were always covered in mud because it liked to stomp on dirt like a stallion. My grandpa had made a sandpit just by our wicket for me to play in, but even there I was afraid. The rooster would stalk me, and whenever it would locate me, it would lower its head like a bull and start towards me, at first slowly but then faster and faster, until it was running at full speed, spreading its enormous wings… by that time I was usually behind the wicket. Once I couldn’t hear the rooster approach and it pecked my leg and my butt. It hurt a lot, but what hurt more was the fear. I couldn’t even run away, my legs had given up on me because of fear. I fell face down in the dirt, covered my head and yelled as loud as I could. Thankfully, grandpa heard me screaming, jumped out of the barn holding a shovel and dashed towards us. The rooster didn’t let go of me immediately, it kept eluding grandpa’s foot, screeching and roaring and landing more painful pecks. …What a terrible day. I stayed inside for the rest of it, and I heard grandpa say that he told Raya that if the rooster attacked anyone else, then he, grandpa, would kill it. I didn’t believe it of course, I don’t even think this kind of a rooster could be killed, so I decided to stay home indefinitely.
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That’s how I found myself inside Raya’s izba. Everything there was different too. Grandma never let our cat go past the seni*, and our dog Trezor wasn’t allowed to even enter the house. Raya let all her pets inside. When we came in, a hen was pecking at the kitchen floor, and Muchtar was laying beside a chair, nibbling at its wooden leg. Raya said he was an old dog and his teeth hurt. I lightly pet Muchtar on the head and he responded with a lazy tail wag. He was very sweet. Then Raya was gone to fetch water from the well, and I tried to ride Muchtar. I mounted him all right while he was laying down, but each time he got up, I inevitably tumbled down. I even hit my head on the stove once, and got very scared, but the stove turned out to be lukewarm. Then finally I got Muchtar to sit, mounted him from behind, held onto his fur, but when he got up I felt that I was sliding down again, so I grabbed his ears. In that exact moment Raya came back with a bucket, Muchtar wagged his tail, lowered his head, and down I tumbled down once again, almost spilling the water. Raya took Muchtar and locked him in the seni, where he whimpered a little and then got silent, maybe he fell asleep.
And then mom came back. I immediately wasn’t mad anymore and was instead very happy. We went fishing together, and I tried to teach her, but she was too squeamish about the worms. She dumped the worms right on the ground, and I was mad at her again, because I spent hours digging for them and because who throws out perfectly good worms like that? No one. Then I had to skewer a worm onto the hook for her because of course she couldn’t, hers all floated away. We caught no fish that day. I couldn’t see both corks at the same time and kept missing the bite which made me very upset. Still, this was a happy day, fishing with mom. A very happy day. Pity I ever got to go with her this once…
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