FIVE

One night, as Koschei was sleeping, cozy in his nightgown and with two baby moles nested on his chest, he heard a bloodcurdling wail. At first, he didn’t want to pay attention to it. But the cry repeated, and Koschei felt a pang of guilt. He carefully put the baby moles, in their deep slumber, aside, and ventured out of his shelter. A friendly firefly landed on his shoulder to show him the way.

There was some commotion where the healing spring was located. Upon reaching it, Koschei saw a human figure leaning over the water. When the firefly got closer, Koschei was able to make out a soldier’s uniform, as well as the object the soldier was using to try to get water out of the spring. It was the top part of the soldier’s own skull, cut off neatly, perhaps with a sharp sword. The pink-gray brain lay arranged on top of the soldier’s head, like a dusty tangerine half. Though the soldier was scooping the water up, it kept spilling out before he could reach his improvised bowl to his lips and sip. Each time he realized his failure, the soldier grunted.

“What’s the matter with him?” Koschei asked in a whisper.

“He’s returned from the other world,” said a saiga antelope, and a parliament of eagle owls nodded in agreement.

Koschei asked for clarification.

“He died but found that he belonged neither in heaven nor in hell,” a jumping spider began to explain. “And now it turns out that he can’t be on this earth, either, because nature rejects him for his otherworldly scent.”

“And what happened to his head?”

“I heard it got caught in the golden gate when he was running away from heaven,” a stickleback offered from the spring’s waters.

“So, he’ll die of thirst now?” Koschei wondered.

The animals shrugged their paws, wings, and legs. The fish released air bubbles. The creatures began disbanding, and soon it was only Koschei standing by the spring, his trusty firefly gently buzzing by his ear.

“It doesn’t seem right,” Koschei told him. “If I didn’t know about this tragedy, it would be one thing. But now that I know, I can’t in good conscience turn away.”

Koschei approached the soldier, still accompanied by his glimmering friend. Immersed in his fruitless labor, the soldier did not notice.

“Here, let me help you,” Koschei said. He cupped his hands and leaned down to the spring. Then he brought the water to the soldier’s parched lips and let him drink. He wasn’t sure this would work, but it did, and the soldier sipped greedily and, in a hoarse voice, asked for more. After the soldier had enough to drink, Koschei poured some water on the cut in his skull. The flesh and bone started sizzling, and when Koschei placed the top part of the skull on the cut, it was welded shut.

The soldier leaned back, exhausted, and uttered a satisfied chuckle. Now he had time to look at his vis-à-vis. After looking Koschei up and down with his gleaming red eyes, the soldier asked, disgusted, “What are you?”

As the soldier stared at Koschei’s nudity gleaming through the nightgown, Koschei’s skin started tingling, then itching, then burning. Red flames first engulfed his nightgown, then his body and skipped to the grass beneath, the nearby bushes, trees. In a couple of minutes, the whole island was on fire.