Morushka

Story about a strange creature

I rode the winds on my blue kite. And with my feet firm, my white hair a whirl, I plucked the fattest blooms that grew on the winds and I shoved them in my apron. I didn’t pick the purple lilies that grew in the highest wind. For when the sun lowered, it cast a shadow on the peak in the shape of the beast with ten fangs. The beast Morushka who’d nibbled the five moons into sickles, whose own hunger had turned him into a shadow.

“If you don’t behave, Morushka will rise up from the snows, junder down the slopes, whack down the wall with his two tails and gobble you in one bite,” Granny had always said as she’d tucked me into bed. I’d breathed in her smell of bloom cake and kite wax and I’d watched the smoke from my dying candle in the light of the five moons.

“Can you see him?” I’d whispered as Granny reached for my curtain.

“He’s still just a shadow. Jinna will keep you safe.” And she’d placed my ragdoll in my arms.

And I’d hugged Jinna when I’d stood on the edge of the mountain, on the precipice above the fogs, the winds pinching my nose and tugging the tangles in my white hair. I’d hugged her while Granny rode the winds on her blue kite.

“How’s my old kite faring?” Granny asked as I tipped my apron up. Flowers fell onto the table.

“Still the fastest in the sky,” I nodded. “Faster than an oopty hawk that ate a blowing cloud.”

“Well I don’t know that such a bird would be fast. Seems to me he’d be more likely to have the sorest belly on the mountain, and we’d hear it grumbling all though the night – echoing under the five moons and down the labbin warrens - and on into tomorrow, too,” she said, setting the blooms in piles. “You’d better get to work, or we’ll have no supper.” She winked and lowered herself onto her stool, her face in a half smile that felt like a morning alone in the skies. And I crushed the blooms until they wept colours.

I lay in my bed in a stillness like drifting, my belly full of bloom cake, my blankets heavy as sleep. The mountains sung under the five moons and the night was in my room, carrying me. I was almost dreaming when there were three taps at my window. I shuffled from my blankets. The taps came again. I pulled back my curtains. Morushka stood in the shine of the sickle moons. Winds lit his fur. His breath was white puffs. His two tails tapped on the glass.

“But, you’re just a shadow,” I said. And I pressed my palms to the pane, stared into his eyes as great and dark as slumbering coals. And I felt shivery and falling all at once. “You were just Granny’s story.” I looked past him, all the way past our village, past the church with the bending steeple at its edge, to the snows all white and sharp as his fangs. And then he yawned. “Did you nibble the moons into sickles?” I whispered. I thought I saw him nod, and I wanted to bury into his fur and sleep there until it was time to ride the sky. I ran from my room, past Granny’s closed door that trembled with her snores, past the stove that still eeked bread warmth. I crept outside and the coldness curled into my white hair as I ran around the side of our home. But Morushka wasn’t there. And all I found, was a purple lily.

“Last night, I dreamed Morushka came to me,” I said. Granny crumbled the last slice of bloom cake into the porridge and added a shake of nutmeg. Morning filled our windows. The sickle moons were fading to blue.

“Morushka – there’s a name I haven’t heard since I rode the winds,” she said, lowering herself onto her stool.

“It was a dream, wasn’t it”’ I scooped the porridge into our chipped china bowls.

“Look up the mountain, can you see him now?” And I looked and past the church with the bending steeple, all I saw was snow.

“But he was so real – the blowing winds were in his fur. And there was a purple lily under my window.” I darted to my room and lifted the flower from my pillow. “Here.” She leaned forward, took a loud sniff.

I thought the lily would fade, but it gleamed more than the rivers that move in the far-off skies. And sometimes Granny looked at it strangely. We didn’t talk about Morushka, but sometimes, when the night clung close and each breath was dark, I opened my curtains and watched for a shadow thick with fur.

And long after Granny had gone, the lily still shone. And I grew older still. And I sat by the window and watched my daughter riding the winds on the blue kite. And I watched her crush the flowers she’d plucked. And we ate bloom cake in the dusks when the only sound was the music of the deep fogs, and even softer – a grumbling like a creature with ten fangs hungry for the moon.

“I saw Morushka,” Sally said. “He left me a purple lily.” And she held it out to me, but I shook my head.

“He’s just a story,” I said.

But later, when the sickle moons hung on the edges of the sky, I heard the squeak of floorboards. I wrapped my blanket tightly about me, and I ran. And I saw him, all fur and shadow and fangs, his two tails whipping the dark, his feet swift as he ran up the mountain, faster than winds, my daughter sitting on his shoulders, her hair flinging white.