Дмитрий Мансуров - Invasion

Yaga dived into her thoughts.

So maybe someone had broken into the courtyard and the dog mistook the actions as a game. If so, who was that evil, vile, disgusting, terrible being? A stray thief? The locals know there’s nothing to steal here. Apart from Ivan, but why would anyone but Yaga be interested in him? This version didn’t seem suitable as well, then. Maybe the neighbor’s dog barked at the moon? But this was a normal nightly habit of all the dogs of this village. Running out from the yard for this wasn’t necessary. So that theory was out, too. What, then?

Yaga took another look at the yard. A ruffled rooster fell out of the chicken coop, walking on wobbly legs. Apparently, it was the last creature who’d seen the dog alive and well. Otherwise, why would he be so nervous?

That’s it! The chicken coop! The guest who was crouching in the darkness of the night, as if it was some game of hide and seek, the dog who was waiting for him or her, the collision… and the whole plan fell apart! Well, of course! The only one who could do such villainy was a red-tailed cunning beast who adored chicken and sneak attacks to the point of obscenity. The fox! Probably the same one that had Yaga had spotted twice recently.

That meant…

“The dog is gone,” Yaga sighed. How could that dog compete with a red cheat? It had probably brought the poor dog to the middle of nowhere, thrown it to the wolves, and was now sleeping in a quiet and secluded place somewhere.

She had to come up with a new plan. Of course, she could always hypnotize another hound, but if the fox decided to hang around every night, very soon, the supply of dogs in this village would end. And for an absolutely fruitless reason.

“There’s no time for doing nothing!” Yaga barked, jumping on her broom. “Let’s go home!”

High above her, the kite was flying, sated and wildly pleased with himself and with his public success. This week turned out to be unusually successful! So successful that he was thinking about tearing a decent piece of the cheese he’d planned to stock for later and throwing it to the doggies to make them fight for it. But who to throw it at? What fun it would be!

The frozen sparrow fluttered out of the cloud, hoping to warm up, and swept right in front of the kite’s beak, brazenly chirping and rushing down the slide. The kite flinched, shouted a couple of insults in the heat of the moment, then took aim and launched some cheese at the brazen bully. Soon, both of them became mere dots and disappeared from sight. And then the sparrow’s feathers flew in all directions from an invisible point.

“Got him!” the kite exclaimed and flew on. It really was a great week.

“I want to eat! I’m hungry!” the crow croaked wistfully, swinging on a branch near her nest. The bones in the nest had been repeatedly chewed on, so they acquired a translucent look. Hunting season had turned into a season of dieting and suffering, and whose fault was that? The suffering was so profound that the crow even heard words of sympathy from her potential food as it darted into the burrow before she had time to catch it.

The sparrow flew down vertically, stunned by the adrenaline pumping in his blood and the impact of the cheese that hit him right under his tail. This cheese, smelling incredibly tasty, continued falling as well. Cheese! The stunned crow inhaled the alluring smell, but the second after the cheese fell to her eye level, it disappeared, and the crow fell out of reality for a long time, frozen in complete astonishment.

One could understand the real reasons for her astonishment only if they saw the scene of the cheese falling at a very slow speed. Because in this case, something interesting would become apparent. Here was a crow sitting on a branch. The sparrow passed her by slowly, very slowly, with his open beak and bulging eyes, and a piece of fresh village cheese was falling down unhurriedly nearby. Here it reached the eye level with the crow. Her beak opened suddenly, her neck rapidly extending as she grabbed the cheese. Then she turned around, hiding the cheese in the nest, returned to her original state, and only then did she begin to look surprised.

The feeling of unexpected happiness that overfilled her was so strong that it spilled out in a long, loud, and incredibly enthusiastic cry of “Caaaaa… (only four hundred and forty-three letters long and a hundred and twenty decibels high)… aaawww!”

By accident, the cry went straight into the ear of a caterpillar that was chewing the leaf in melancholy, and his ears along with the leaf immediately withered. For the crow, such an outcome had no value. Unlike for the caterpillar and his descendants who never had ears ever again after this.

The wish that came true so suddenly had improved her mood up to the heavens. The crow exhaled, inhaled, and began to sing a self-created song cheerfully, scaring those who weren’t frightened by her enthusiastic scream earlier. From the raucous caw, the caterpillar had temporarily lost its mind, slipping down the wilted leaf and freefalling to the grass where he remained before turning into a neurotic butterfly with a thin little body.

Yaga, in a spoiled mood because of recent events, returned home and pondered over the details of a new plan. This time, she took into account all the possible troubles. She became so immersed in her thoughts that she nearly collided with the half-crazed sparrow that jumped out from behind the trees.

“Hitting me! With cheese!” the sparrow was indignant. “I will—”

“Look where you’re going!” Yaga abruptly changed the course and flew into a tree. The trunk became uprooted and the tree fell to the ground. A crazy squirrel with a nut jumped from a tree and stared at the cause of the accident angrily. Then she threw a nutshell at Yaga and the sparrow. “If you ever crash into my tree again, I’ll turn you into a wet place on a shirt! One that will never get dry again!”

The sparrow looked at the sky anxiously, breathed a sigh of relief and said, “Well, I, personally, haven’t crashed into you.”

Yaga followed his gaze and saw a kite soaring high in the sky.

“Are you bothering the king of birds again?” she asked. “How come you’re still alive? I’d eat you if I were him. Bones and all.”

“I’m already dead!” the sparrow boasted ominously. Then he pulled out the mask looking like a skull from under his wing and put it on his head. “I just rose from my grave! I’m a vengeful spirit of hellish revenge! I’m a crow-like spa… rring. Uhm… A sparrow… Oh, who cares? Everyone should fear me!”

“You’re one crazy…,” Yaga replied, but the bird already flew away. “Well, I’ll see you later, if you’re not strangled by then… Stop throwing shells at me!”

Yaga returned to her hut, put the broom near the threshold, went to the table, and pushed the apple with her finger gently. The apple rolled on the plate and the plate itself began to glow.

“Call the wood goblin for me!” Yaga ordered. The fox that was sleeping in a cage stretched in delight and opened her eyes. Yaga was surprised by the appearance of God-knows-what in her own house. She looked away from the plate and stared at the cage.

“What the hell is that?!” she demanded.

Only now did the frightened fox notice whose hut she had chosen when fleeing from Hunter! Damn it. Instead of escaping from the frying pan, she went directly into direct fire!

“Do you think this is a shelter for homeless foxes?”

The fox had been dreaming quietly about the owners of the hut turning out to be a nice old couple who would treat her to some chicken, so she was as discouraged as Yaga was. Chicken, of course, became an unreachable dream once again. It’d be good if she didn’t end up in a chicken soup herself. She didn’t know if Yaga ate foxes or preferred to make collars out of them, but regardless of that, it was clear that she was in a grave danger.