Baba Yaga gives Vasilisa fire.
It is not a weapon of revenge, an obedient servant or a reward for good behaviour.
The fire has eyes.
The fire had eyes.
Yaga names no victim and places no curse inside the flame. She gives it the ability to see.
I gave no order.
I named no prey.
A seeing fire
must choose
its gaze.
Vasilisa carries it through the forest. On the road, the fire watches the field, the trees and the space around her. It has not yet passed judgment.
Then she enters the human home.
Everything looks right: straight walls, clean curtains, familiar rooms, outward peace. Nothing in its shape warns of a mouth.
But the fire sees how the house works.
It sees who fed and who consumed. Who gave their hands to labour. Whose voice was turned into silence. Who lived upon another person’s years.
It saw who fed
and who consumed.
This house never showed its teeth.
It never showed a claw or tooth.
It only ate her light.
A person can be fed, clothed and physically alive while the home spends years consuming their voice, time, independence and right to leave.
A home can feed upon a child
and leave
the body fed.
Two kinds of hunger meet in the bridge.
Yaga’s hunger is honest. It is visible in bones, iron, the forest boundary and the form of her hut. The other hunger has learned to call itself family.
My hunger wore a warning.
Theirs learned
to call itself home.
The fire is not carrying out Vasilisa’s revenge or obeying Yaga’s command. It recognises a structure that concealed consumption behind the appearance of a normal home.
It saw the hunger
dressed as home.
It burned the hunger.
She walked away.
The final turn changes the accusation against Baba Yaga. People called her a cannibal and an eater of children. She does not ask them to remove that name. She shows that another house in the tale had already been eating a child for years: slowly, and respectably enough that no one called it a monster.
They called me
the eater
of children.
I sent her home
to what
had been eating
her.
Author’s lyrics from the final package. Audio comparison follows upload.
The fire looked back.
Two coals
inside the bone.
Carry it home.
Do not command it.
Let it see
what calls itself home.
She carried it through black pines,
not weapon, lamp, or shield.
The road went red before her.
The fire watched the field.
I set no curse inside it.
I named no face to burn.
I gave the flame two open eyes
and let the fire
learn.
I gave no order.
I named no prey.
A seeing fire
must choose
its gaze.
The fire had eyes.
It knew the room.
It saw who fed
and who consumed.
I gave no order.
I named no prey.
The fire looked once.
The walls
gave way.
The house stood straight and quiet,
its curtains clean and white.
It never showed a claw or tooth.
It only ate her light.
It took her hands for labor,
her silence for its bread.
A home can feed upon a child
and leave
the body fed.
They reached to take the fire.
They called the flame
their own.
The eyes moved past their faces
and looked
into the home.
The fire had eyes.
It knew the room.
It saw who served
and who consumed.
No hand could turn it.
No plea could sway.
The fire looked once.
The walls
gave way.
They saw the bones
around my fence.
They saw my iron door.
They never saw
the quieter teeth
beneath her polished floor.
My hunger wore a warning.
Theirs learned
to call itself home.
Mine asked
why she had come to me.
Theirs sent her out
alone.
The fire had eyes.
It knew the room.
It saw the hunger
dressed as home.
I gave no order.
I named no prey.
It burned the hunger.
She walked
away.
They called me
the eater
of children.
I sent her home
to what
had been eating
her.