Ekaterina, Part Two: The Wild Winds

I was young, only twelve, when I met her. We were trying to get our visas, trying to make it possible to emigrate to the United States. The work wasn't good here, not for us. My father worked as a cabdriver, shuttling the few tourists we had, while my mother cleaned hotel rooms. Both jobs paid very, very little. To us, America sounded like a beacon of hope.

How naive we sound. Well, we were naive. We didn't know that the struggles you find at home are replaced with different struggles elsewhere.

Like I said, I was twelve and times were hard. Most of the money went either to helping feed and cloth my brother (still an infant) and I or to bribing officials to push through our visa applications. I did my part by trying to keep everything in the apartment neat and tidy. And then, one day, I saw an old shopping cart outside the building. Feeling as if it shouldn't be there, I pushed it until it was hidden in an alleyway.

I walked back to the apartment building and opened the door, when I heard the voice: "Who moved my cart?" The voice was old and coarse.

I looked back and there was an old woman, caul and kerchief tied around her head, her face wrinkled like an old crumpled newspaper. "Who moved my cart?" she said again and I felt guilty.

"I'm sorry," I said, "I did. I did not realize it belonged to you or you were coming back for it."

The old woman looked at me. "You're a very responsible young woman, aren't you? Very responsible."

"Thank you," I said.

"It wasn't a compliment," she said, her voice hissing. "Young women like you shouldn't be responsible. You should be wild like the winds. You should be like the breeze, free and going wherever it pleases you."

"I'm sorry?" I said.

She stepped forward. "Do you want to be like the winds?" she asked. "Show me my cart and I can make you like the wild winds."

I backed away. "I don't...I don't think so."

"You shudder at me," the woman said. "You should. I am the Grandmother of Shudders. I am the Wild Woman of the Wind. I can teach you hear the whispers of the wind, teach you their wanton ways."

I didn't know how to reply to that, so I turned and rushed back to our apartment.

That night, though, the wind blew open the window to our apartment several times and we had to push a chair in front of it to make it stop. I didn't tell my family, though, but every time the window open, I could hear the wind whisper to me, "Where is my cart?"

Ekaterina, Part One: The Grandmother of Shudders

You cannot believe how cold it can become in the Ukraine. It is not simply the temperature, it is the wind and the way it blows, fast and sharp. A cold snap is usually accompanied by high winds, winds that will whip your body ragged.

My name is Ekaterina. When I was a girl, my mother told me about the Hali or Ale, the spirits of bad weather, the demons of dark clouds, who would gobble up children if they were bad. Needless to say, I had many nightmares of the Hali.

When I grew up, my belief in the Hali dissipated and my mind grew occupied with other things. I grew up in a harsh world and after the collapse of the Soviet Union, it became even harsher. Though the place where I grew up was free, it was still poor, filled with those who had been stepped on my history.

It was there, before I moved to the US, that I met one of the Hali. In my studies, I have seen mention of many names for her, the Woman, but the one I knew best was Baba Yaga.


I should first explain what the name Baba Yaga means or at least what it means to me. Baba is short for babusia, meaning grandmother. And yaga means a feeling of revulsion and horror, shuddering.

Baba Yaga then is the Grandmother of Shudders.

Ezra, Part Five: Words That Hurt

Do you remember that old rhyme? 'Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.'

That was a lie. Of course words will hurt you. Words can cut as deep as any knife.

I asked a question and the King answered. He did not speak, it was not speech. It was something else. It was like the words became etched onto my brain. It was like I was a stone and the words were carved into me.

I cannot tell you what my question was. It was mine and mine alone. Some day, you might be able to ask the King a question for yourself.

I would recommend against it.

The King told me the truth, complete and uncut. I know the answer to my question and I wish I didn't. I wish I stayed ignorant.

I can't do that now. I can't stay ignorant. I know the truth.

I'm afraid I broke down in tears after I knew. I cried in front of the King and his Dream. I wanted to die and yet I didn't.

"Do you know the truth of it now?" the man asked.

"Yes," I said. "I do."

"No more whys and wherefores?"

"No," I said.

"Good. Do you still wish to go on?"

"Do I have a choice?" I asked.

"You always have a choice," he said. "You could have said no. You could have chosen to ignore the truth. You could have not asked any question at all or an insignificant question. But you chose a big one, one of the big truths. And now you have another choice. You can go on with this knowledge or you can choose to stay."

"Stay where?" I asked.

"With him," he said. "Become a part of his dream, a part of his sleep. You will be stone, of course, but you won't have to worry about the world. Well, not until it ends, at least."

"Are those the only options I have?"

"Yes," he said. "Stay or go. Choose."

I closed my eyes. I was tired and my head hurt, but I knew. I knew I couldn't go on. Not like this. Not knowing what I knew.

"I would be stone?" I asked.

"Completely," he said.

"Let me write my story," I said. "To warn others. Let me write it down and then I will stay. Then I will become a stone."

The man smiled and said, "Of course."

So here I am. In a moment, I shall become a part of the King's dream. My body shall turn from flesh to stone and I shall sleep until the end of days. 

It cannot come soon enough.

Ezra, Part Four: Question And Answer

The incident at my friend's lawn inspired me to get out of the pit I had dug myself. I wanted to know what had happened. I knew it couldn't have been a dream, it was too real to be a dream. I started working on my classes, taking more in mythologies, and I stopped drinking.

If you were so inclined, you might even say that I became stone cold sober.

I eventually moved on to an actual four year college and majored in photography with a minor in classic mythology. My interest in what had happened had not waned, but there had not been any other incidents, so I decided to move on with my life.

I started taking pictures professionally, at weddings and other events. It provided a steady income and it meant that I was always holding a camera, always ready to snap a picture, especially of a statue.

I took so many pictures of statues of all types. Statues of men and women and dogs. Statues that were brand new and blindingly white and statues that were ancient and crumbling.

And I read up on the King Under the Mountain. There were loads of myths about a king or hero in a cave, sleeping until the end of days when he will awaken. Merlin, Bran the Blessed, Charlemagne, King Harold, even Vlad the Impaler was rumored to be one of those sleeping (although I wouldn't classify him as a 'hero'). And then there was Emperor Constantine XI, the last Byzantine Emperor, who was turned to marble and said to await the end.

And then the day came when I saw him again. I was at a wedding, the reception that was being held outside. I was taking pictures of the cake and the guests and I happened to notice that there was a short marble statue near the edge of the reception area. I walked over to take a picture of it when I noticed it was holding something in its hand.

It was a note that read: He Always Tells The Truth. He Need Only Be Asked.

I held the note gingerly in my hand and realized that I no longer heard the sound of people laughing and talking and eating and I turned to see that the reception area was empty. There were still tables and chairs and there was the cake, but nobody was there.

Not nobody. Somebody. The man in the black and gray suit, the man with the cane. He was there. As he smiled at me, I knew that if he was there, so was the King. So I looked around and there he was. He was where the couple had just recently gotten married. He was holding his hands down as if in prayer.

"He prays," the man with the cane said. "He prays for the world's ending, so he can awaken. He doesn't want to sleep, he's tired of sleep, but he can't wake up until the end."

"I know," I said. "I know who he is."

"Good," the man said. "So you will ask you question, then?"

"What I don't know is who you are," I said. "Why are you always here? Why tell me these things?"

"Is that your question for him?" the man asked.

"No," I said. "That's my question for you."

The man smiled. "Very well. I am a part of him. He sleeps, but his sleep is unlike your sleep. His dreams are unlike your dreams. I am his dream. If he were to awake, then poof, I would be gone."

"So it would be in your best interest to keep him asleep," I said.

"Perhaps," the man said, "or perhaps not. I am still a part of him and I want him to wake. But as I said before, that will only happen when the end comes and that will not be soon."

"And why are you appearing to me?" I asked. "What's so special about me?"

"Special?" he said. "What gave you the idea you were special? Perhaps he chose you at random. After all, to tell the truth, he first needs someone to ask a question. So ask."

"Anything at all?" I said.

"Anything at all," he said.

So I asked. And the King answered.

Ezra, Part Three: Hate The Sky

I'm afraid that my experience in the museum did not encourage me to be a good student. I consistently got low grades and though I managed to graduate, I did not have what it took to get into a decent college. Instead, I went to community college and continued my record of mediocrity.

I would go to work and go to class and if I didn't have any classes, I would go to a friend's house where we would drink and drink a lot. Looking back, I can see the trait of alcoholism that my father passed down to me, but back then all I really understood was that I wanted to pass the time and this was the best way to do it.

So I drank. I didn't party that much, but when I did, I tended to get even more drunk than normal. It was after one of these parties that I fell asleep in a friend's lawn.

I awoke in the middle of the night to feel the grass on my face. I sat up and wiped my cheek as I silently cursed my friend for not bringing me inside. I stood up and immediately felt a wave of nausea. I closed my eyes, trying to hold back the contents of my stomach, took several deep breaths, and then opened my eyes again.

Something was different. I wasn't in my friend's lawn anymore. For one thing, it was bigger than my friend's lawn. The air felt cool as I looked around. There were green hedges everywhere, no sign of my friend's house. Just me and the grass and one solitary statue.

I looked up at the statue. It was of the old man, the King from the museum. He wasn't sitting anymore, he was standing, his arms outstretched into the sky, as if he was trying to pull down the heavens.

"He hates the sky," a voice said and I turned around, ignoring another wave of nausea, and there was the man from before. He was still wearing his black and gray suit and holding onto his cane.

"Where am I?" I asked. "How did I get here?"

"He hates the sky," the man repeated, "because it is a lie. The sky represents complete and utter freedom, a freedom that he cannot have. You look up into the sky and wish to travel to each and every star, but you can't. The truth is that you are stuck here, trapped on this earth, this tiny ball of mud, and you can never escape."

"Who are you?" I asked, increasingly desperate.

"You never asked your question," the man said. "You must ask and he will answer. He will tell you the truth and nothing but. Go on. Any question at all."

I turned and looked at the statue again. The hands that had been outstretched where now at his side, resigned, tired.

"I know you have plenty of questions," the man said. "Ask and all will be revealed."

"Please," I said. I tried to walk backwards, away from both the man and the statue, but I was still uneasy and hungover and I tripped. I landed on my arm and my stomach flipped and I heaved onto the grass.

"Some other time then," I heard the man say before the world blurred before me.

I woke up to my friend shaking me awake and asking, "Are you okay?"

I did not have an answer.

Ezra, Part Two: At The Museum

I first met the King when I was young. Just a teenager on a school trip to a museum. We wandered the brightly lit corridors with a tour guide telling us (in a quite animated fashion) about the exhibits. There were paintings and old books and then there was the archaeology exhibit, where they displayed bones and other objects that they had been pulled from the earth.

I wish I could say I was fascinated, but the truth was I was bored. I was not a perfect student -- far from it -- and the only reason I was on this trip was to escape the tedium of the classroom, but that had been replaced by the tedium of the museum.

The archaeology section changed that. I passed arrowheads made of flint and axes that looked like they are been cut out directly from rock until I reached the end of the exhibit where there was a statue sitting on a stone chair.

The statue was of a man, old, his face filled with sadness. There was a stone crown on his head and I wondered why this was here -- after all, the rest of these things seemed like Native American artifacts, things that came from around here, but this looked like some European king. Perhaps it was on loan from some other museum and they had placed him here because they had no other section to put him in?

"He's the Sleeping King," a voice said and I quickly turned. There was a man standing behind me. He wore a black and gray suit and held a cane on his hands. "Also known as the King Under the Mountain."

"Shouldn't he be, I don't know, under a mountain then?" I asked.

"Oh, he is," the man said. "This isn't really him, this is just a statue of him, you understand. His real body is underneath the earth, waiting for the end of days, when the stones will call to him and he will awaken."

"Okay," I said, thinking quite reasonably that this man was a crazy person.

"You can ask him anything," the man said. "Anything at all and he will answer. He cannot tell a lie, not while he sleeps, and he will be sleeping for a very long time. Ask, my boy. Go on."

I didn't ask though. I walked away as fast as I could, trying to catch up to the rest of my class. I avoided that exhibit for the rest of the day and it was only as we were walking out, that I peeked back into it to see the statue one more time.

It was no longer there.

Ezra, Part One: The Sailing Stones

Do you know what the sailing stones are? They are rocks, large rocks, heavy and solid. They are out in the ominously named Death Valley, where nobody goes, with only the wind and sun to keep them company. And they move.

No one knows how they move. They are found miles away from where they were, with deep tracks showing their trail. Scientists have studied them. Some speculate that it is the wind that moves them, others say that it's due to ice floe.

I have a theory of my own. I think they move because they want to move. They move and we can only speculate on their motives.

My name is Ezra. I have motives of my own in telling this story. There are some stories that should be set in stone. This is one of them.

This is the story of the King and I.