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February 25 - May 19, 2023
“Why would I choose to die?” “It is easy to die,” replied the bannik. “Harder to live.
“It is a cruel task, to frighten people in God’s name.
Wild birds die in cages.”
His voice was like snow at midnight.
“Blood is one thing. The sight is another. But courage—that is rarest of all, Vasilisa Petrovna.”
“You are too attached to things as they are,” said Morozko, combing the mare’s withers. He glanced down idly. “You must allow things to be what best suits your purpose. And then they will.”
“Nothing changes, Vasya. Things are, or they are not. Magic is forgetting that something ever was other than as you willed it.”
“All my life,” she said, “I have been told ‘go’ and ‘come.’ I am told how I will live, and I am told how I must die. I must be a man’s servant and a mare for his pleasure, or I must hide myself behind walls and surrender my flesh to a cold, silent god. I would walk into the jaws of hell itself, if it were a path of my own choosing. I would rather die tomorrow in the forest than live a hundred years of the life appointed me.
