The Thread Of Fire
It had been one whole year since the great flood, one whole year since Jenny Greenteeth had stolen her brother Max, and one whole year since Lucy had seen a firebird soar over the city, bringing hope after the flood. It had been one whole year since she realised her Nana wasn’t entirely what she seemed. As the two of them sat looking out over the city, Lucy turned to her Nana and asked those questions all children ask – How? Why? Where? When? What? “How did you know the firebird, Nana?” she asked.
“Well, it was many years ago now,” said her Nana. “It was when I still lived in the old country. I was born the same day that the firebird was reborn and I was named Fireina. I had two sisters, and my family had been keepers of the firebird’s eggs, the firebird’s soul, for as long as anyone could remember.”
“I never knew that!” Lucy exclaimed.
“Listen to the story,” her Nana chided gently.
“They never moved from the old country, my sisters; they preferred to stay there. They were sometimes a little jealous of the fact that I liked to play with the firebird more than with them. But then, the firebird and I had so much in common, born on the same day, me with fiery red hair that mirrored its feathers – and some would say the same quick sense of humour. Sometimes he would use feathers to leave trails through the forest for me, or eggs as presents on bright spring mornings. But, you know, although firebirds are majestic creatures, with tears that can heal and feathers that bring light and hope, they can also be very, very mischievous.
I remember the day he decided he liked chilli peppers. He took a bite from the sun then washed it down with a bunch of chillies. Then he sat on the thatched roofs of all the houses in our village, burping – have you ever seen a firebird burp? I’d never seen people running so fast, with their buckets of water to put out the flames! Then there was the day he decided he wanted to be a chicken…
“Well, he didn’t exactly … decide. He was busy showing off as usual, flying around very low and fast between the tree branches. Of course, eventually he hit his head, and when he came round, well… the firebird thought he was a chicken! It was funny at first, seeing something so majestic walking around clucking, but when he didn’t stop, I became a bit worried. He would sit on the top of the church and try to talk to the rooster on the weather vane. It was three days before he remembered he was really a firebird, and even then you couldn’t tell if it was a fiery flame or a blush from embarrassment across his face.
“Then one day he decided he was going to tell jokes, I have no idea why. He sat on the roof of the grocer’s shop screaming jokes at everyone who went past. It wouldn’t have been so bad, but they were ridiculous jokes, not even funny, the sort of thing you get in crackers these days! Oh, the firebird was a character, all right. ” Lucy smiled, curled up the way she had when she was a little girl, and listened. But her Nana’s face grew darker, like a cloud crossing the sun.
“What are you thinking now? ” Lucy asked.
“I was just remembering…remembering the day Baba Yaga came to the village.”
“What’s Baba Yaga? Who’s Baba Yaga?”
“Baba Yaga…she was a mean, haggard old witch. They say she used the skulls and bones of small children to light her cottage…but this wasn’t just any cottage. Baba Yaga’s house walked around the forest on chicken legs. That meant no one could ever find it to destroy it.
Baba Yaga couldn’t just set up home, she had to be invited to live somewhere – and we never knew who invited her to live in our village, but after she came, the children kept disappearing.”
“Why?” wondered Lucy.
“Because she’d steal their souls to light the dark. Baba Yaga was scared of the dark. Everyone knows that children’s souls are the brightest things in creation. She would take their souls, and whatever was left she’d turn into small, scared animals. So it was that as the children started vanishing from the village, strange animals began to appear in the forest.”
“Why was Baba Yaga scared of the dark?”
“No one really knew,” Nana said, sighing slowly.
“They say that when she was a child she had two older sisters who were jealous of her powers and her ability to weave spells. Maybe she might have used all those powers for good, but one day her sisters shut her in the cellar. She wouldn’t stop crying and screaming, so to try and make her shut up, they put hundreds of chickens in with her. Baba Yaga was scared of the dark, scared of the clucking, scared of the beaks and the claws. When she came out, Baba Yaga was terrified of the dark and loathed birds.That’s why she chose chicken legs for her house, to face her fears!”
Nana paused for a moment.
“One day the firebird and I were playing at the edge of the forest. My sisters were deeper in the woods. Sunset was always the most dangerous time. I called to my sisters and they yelled back, telling me not to boss them around. I was angry, so the firebird and I went back home, taking what little light remained in the forest.
That was the last I saw of my sisters. Baba Yaga stole their souls. She left them as two frightened animals to fend for themselves in the forest, unable to remember who they really were.”
Lucy looked at her Nana. She was no longer Nana, she was Fireina, who’d played in the forest with a firebird, who had lost her sisters, who had seen the dark side of the woods.
Fireina grew up feeling guilty that she’d left her sisters to Baba Yaga. She always swore that one day she would try and find a way to release them, but it had never happened. It was the time of year when the dark came early, when your breath clouded on the night air. Fireina was painting eggs to give as gifts when there was a knock at the door.
Knowing her parents had gone to the market to sell goods, she remembered Baba Yaga. Tentatively, she opened the door a crack. As she did, it was pushed open and she fell back helpless as a tall figure in a long, dark cape strode in. She couldn’t see his face, it was hidden in the shadows.
“Who are you?” she managed to say.
“My name is Lord Fox, and Fireina, I need your help.”
Fireina had heard of Lord Fox, but never seen him. They said he was half-human, half-fox. Some didn’t even believe he existed until they heard the baying of his court in the dark woods.
“I need your help,” Lord Fox continued.
“There are no children left in the village. Now Baba Yaga is stealing the souls of adults and old people. If she isn’t stopped, no one will be safe, she’ll move on to other villages, and we can’t let that happen.”
The firebird had flown in and perched on top of the stove pipe, nodding seriously as he listened to Lord Fox. Fireina thought of her sisters. How could she refuse?...
Maybe there finally was a way to get them back.
She agreed to go with him if he told her his story, as to go into the forest with a stranger would be a dangerous and foolish thing.
Long ago Lord Fox had been human.He was arrogant; some even called him cruel. He would boast and ride around his estates, looking at his subjects and all that he owned. If they were hungry, perhaps he’d give them bread. But what he loved to do above all else was gamble. When he was losing, he gave no thought to the bread it could buy for the starving. Betting was his whole life.
One day an old, wrinkled woman shuffled into his Great Hall.
“I have a bet for you,” she announced. “I bet that I have something you don’t possess.”
“You? ” he raised his eyes in disbelief. “What could you possibly own that I don’t have? Don’t be ridiculous, woman.”
“So you won’t take my bet?” she asked
“Of course I will,” he answered quickly. “I never refuse the chance to gamble. Come back tomorrow with this thing that I don’t have.”
He laughed, because he knew that his riches meant he could better every beautiful, wonderful thing for miles around; nothing could compare with his possessions.
“And what will you give me if I win the bet?” she asked.
“There’s so much you obviously need,” he answered condescendingly.
“A good bath, for one, or a change of clothes. What do you want if you win?”
“I’d like you to invite me to live in your village.”
“Consider it done,” he answered, surprised by the request. “If you win, you are invited. It’s a small thing.”
The next day, everyone who was able, crowded into the hall.
“What have you brought me?” he asked the woman, expecting some great package. Instead, she simply put her hand inside her cloak.
“This,” she told him simply, and sitting in the palm of her hand was an old, cracked bowl.
Lord Fox threw back his head and roared with laughter.
“So you’re foolish, as well as old and smelly. An old, cracked bowl?”
He ordered his servants to go to the kitchen and bring an old, cracked bowl . But none could be found; anything old or cracked had been thrown out. Then he ordered them to look in the cottages of the peasants, for all they owned belonged to him. But the villagers were so poor that they didn’t even possess bowls. The men searched all his estates, but could find nothing to match the old woman’s wager!
The old crone had won. Lord Fox was embarrassed, a little humiliated that she’d bested him, but what of it?
“You’re invited to live in the village,” he told her. But the words died on his lips because, as she slipped off her cloak, cackling before him stood Baba Yaga. Now, invited, she could do what she wanted… and that was when the children began disappearing.
He felt guilty. His own pride had brought this on the people. When the first children vanished, the villagers clamoured for his help. He strode through the fields and forests, searching in vain for Baba Yaga. He’d go hunting for her during the day with his hawk, and when they went hunting at night, the hawk would call his trusted friend the firebird to light their way. One day, when he was out hunting, just after the sun had set, and with no moon to speak of, the firebird was flying round and round, as if trying to warn Lord Fox of something. It was then that he saw two girls cowering and frightened by a tree, while the old hag stood over them. She raised her hand as if to suck out their souls. Lord Fox called out, “Baba Yaga, I invited you into my village. Haven’t you done enough? Stop this now!”Instead, she turned and threw a spell at Lord Fox. Sensing the evil in her gesture, the hawk swooped down, caught the spell upon its breast, and fell dead to the ground. Still this sacrifice wasn’t enough. Some of the incantation reached Lord Fox. He glanced up just in time to see Baba Yaga’s hands fill with two bright lights, and the children, their souls gone, bounding into the forest as two frightened animals.
He’d brought this upon the village, and now his beloved hawk had also paid the price. It was the first loss he’d suffered, the only thing he’d ever really appeared to love. Lord Fox dug a grave for the hawk and the firebird left a feather upon it.As he dug the grave, tears trickled down his cheeks. He wiped them away and felt not skin but fur beneath his fingers. He then gazed in horror as he saw he no longer had the hands of a man but the paws of a fox! The waistcoat and the boots were there, the legs remained but he’d been transformed. Lord Fox was now half-man, half-fox.
Lord Fox finished his tale, Fireina looked closely. Lord Fox was wearing his waistcoat, old and tatty now, then he patted his watch, the two reminders of his humanity. She agreed to give her help and soon she, the firebird and Lord Fox were making their way deep into the forest.
They needed to trap Baba Yaga, but how could they defeat her? It was then that the firebird remembered the old story and asked,
“What if Baba Yaga isn’t just afraid of chickens? What if she’s allergic to all birds? What if feathers could destroy her? What if feathers could kill her? Then we would be rid of her for good!”
They looked at the firebird, with its glistening, golden feathers.
“You’d give up your feathers?”
The firebird nodded quietly.
“We need to trick her somehow,” said Fireina. They thought, they talked and finally decided to make a child of feathers. The firebird’s feathers were plucked until he was bare and shivering, and Fireina put her shawl around him.
But when they’d made the feather child it didn’t look right, so Fireina cut off her lovely long hair and braided it upon its head. That was an improvement, but there was still something missing; something didn’t feel right.
“It doesn’t have a heartbeat,” she said. “And it’s not wearing clothes. How could we miss that?”
Lord Fox looked at the shivering firebird and Fireina’s short hair and knew he too had to make a sacrifice, so he took out his precious watch and placed it in the chest of the feather child, it sounded like a faint heartbeat. Then he took off his waistcoat and put it on the child.
“There’s no breath,” he said quietly.
So Fireina hid behind the tree and breathed, her breath clouding on the cold night air. Now the feather child looked real.
Attracted by the feathers, not realising the real cause of the brightness but thinking it was the luminosity of the child’s soul, Baba Yaga made her way to the infant. “Are you afraid of me, girl?” she asked.
“No,” replied Fireina from her hiding place.
“I am Baba Yaga. Do you understand that I could steal your soul?”
“Yes.”
“I could pluck out your heart, are you afraid of me now?”
“No, I’m not,” answered the feather child.
Baba Yaga came closer and closer.
“Listen to my heart,” whispered the child, “You’ll see I’m not afraid. It doesn’t beat any faster. ”
Convinced the girl was flesh and blood, Baba Yaga brought her ear against the waistcoat to hear the faint but steady heartbeat. She smiled at the child’s brightness and reached her hand into its chest to seize its heart.
As she did, the phoenix feathers began to burn her. Baba Yaga screamed loud and long, cutting through the cold night air. Her face turning red with pain and fear, until finally, without warning, she exploded, scattering a great pile of ash on the ground, that was blown away by a night breeze…. nothing remained of the evil old hag.From down below in the village came a cheer. Suddenly, hundreds of dazed-looking children began to wander from the forest, some still with grass in their mouths. Anxiously, Fireina checked for her sisters, overwhelmed with relief when she found them again.<
The firebird soared over the crowd, telling his impossible jokes and seeking praise for his actions until he realised he was featherless. So he perched on a nearby tree, crossing his wings over his body to hide his modesty. All that was left was Lord Fox, surveying the scene. Although it hadn’t seemed like it, his had been the greatest sacrifice. The firebird’s feathers would return, Fireina’s hair would grow back, but all that remained of his watch and waistcoat was a dented piece of metal with twisted cogs and springs, and a single charred button from the garment. They had been all that was left of his humanity. At least he’d done his duty, he thought, and Fireina watched as he turned and walked into the forest. Whether she followed or whether she didn’t, I couldn’t tell you – until next time.“How much you learn about a person in a year, in a night” thought Lucy smiling.
Nana went off to put the kettle on and almost as if she was reading Lucy’s thoughts she called back from the kitchen.
“You can learn a lot in this world Lucy, as long as you ask the right questions.”
For the final story in the beacons project, Please visit
