The Rusalki wait outside my window every night. White lips, grotesque smiles, green hair streaming with silver fish and lily pads. It’s like being in an aquarium. The Rusalki point and jeer through the glass. They tap on the frosted panes with icicle fingernails.
My uncles have raised me ever since my widowed mother ran away from Break-A-Leg and left me behind. Josiah is all business and worms. Obediah is unpredictable and moody. It’s hard to tell whether he’ll yank me off my feet and waltz me across the boggy ground, or whether he’ll have one of his tantrums about waste and warmongering. He’s got a glass eye that he likes to pop in and out when he’s thinking hard about something.
Kimberly Lojewski is the author of the story collection, Worm Fiddling Nocturne in the Key of a Broken Heart. A native Floridian, she holds an MA in English from Florida Gulf Coast University and an MFA from University of Massachusetts Amherst’s Poets and Writers Program. Her stories have been nominated for three Pushcart Prizes, and have appeared in PANK, Drunken Boat, Gargoyle, and elsewhere. Her story “Baba Yaga’s House of Forgotten Things” won a 2013 Best of the Net Award.
