“He asked me to marry him.”

“Again?”

She nodded grimly.

“And you said no, of course?”

“Of course,” she said, then, after a pause, “my parents said yes.”

Morana huffed. “It’s decided, then.”

She looked at her best friend, conflicted. The longer she looked, the less conflicted she felt.

Ruža was beautiful. With long black hair that could be easily combed into the most intricate of braids, fair skin pampered and unkissed by the sun, piercing pale eyes, and full hips destined to birth a dozen babies, she was everything a bride should be. 

Everything Morana couldn’t be.

“Don’t look at me like that,” said Ruža softly.

“Like what?”

“Like you hate me.”

Hearing that, Morana lightly slapped herself and forced a smile. “My dearest, closest friend, I could never hate you. I am only worried, that’s all. I know you don’t love him, I know you don’t want him, or anyone, so…”

She cupped Ruža’s cheeks, pinching them with disdain and devotion. “But think about this, you could do much worse than Janko Cesarec. He’s rich, he’s tall, he’s handsome, he has a kind mother, which is very important and very rare. Isn’t he dashing? Isn’t he at least a bit attractive to you?”

“No,” sighed Ruža through her pressed cheeks.

Morana scoffed. “My dear, my dear, all this beauty is wasted on you.”

“What would you do,” said Ruža slowly, “if you had it?”

“If I had beauty?” laughed Morana. “Roža, you flatter me!”

“If you had my beauty. My face, my body,” explained Ruža. “What would you do?”

Her stare wasn’t indifferent anymore, her pale eyes now shining. It sounded almost like a challenge. Morana mused. “Your beauty, huh? Your beauty…”

She let go of Ruža’s face and twirled around the room, skipping and dancing. Her long skirt spread around her like the petals of a rose. Morana closed her eyes, imagining how easy her life would be were she actually a rose.

“I would let every guy buy me flowers,” she said. “I would pluck the petals, play ‘loves me, loves me not’. It would get boring soon, of course, because it would turn out he loves me every time.”

She laughed and continued, “But in the end, I would marry Janko Cesarec. The same way you will. I would choose him because he’s the best and he would choose me because I would be the best.”

She picked a flower from the vase and sniffed it deeply. “And we would have a beautiful wedding and people would faint from the beauty of seeing me in my dress and we would dance and dance all night long. And then, we would have a dozen children, all a year apart and we would be very happy together.”

Ruža shook her head, smiling. “You want to marry Janko?”

“What can I say, I love him.”

“You don’t love him.”

“I could love him!”

Morana’s excitement waned. She sat at the table and gazed at the flower in her hand. “What I can say for sure is that I would have a better life than I have right now. Than I will have. I will stay like this, I know. No husband, not one child, let alone a dozen.”

She chuckled. “That’s just what I’ll be—alone.”

A fair-skinned hand covered her blotchy one, trapping the flower between them. Ruža looked determined as she said, “Do you truly think so? Would you rather live my life?”

Morana nodded, amused. “Give your life to me right now and I can die happy.”

“Meet me in the forest today, after dark,” said Ruža decisively. “There’s something I want to show you.”

Morana was afraid of the dark. She slept with her blanket over her head, terrified of things that lurked around and under her bed. To sleep was to be vulnerable. Anyone could look at you, breathe at you, touch you… And you didn’t see a thing.

Since Morana was afraid of the dark, it was easy for her to sneak out that night. Her mother would never suspect her fearful daughter vanishing into the forest with only the pale moon to guide her. She didn’t see a thing.

Morana ran through the forest like something was chasing her. She tried closing her eyes, then realized it made the world even darker. She tried covering her ears, but the silence couldn’t offer a warning and sounds often could.

In the end, she hugged her shoulders and swiftly moved down the beaten path. She heard every sound and didn’t make any of her own. Near the end she noticed a single light in the clearing, a large lantern or a small campfire. Weighing her options, she nodded fiercely and stepped closer.

Ruža was waiting for her. In the glow of the flames her pale skin looked eerie, but still every bit as beautiful. Morana settled down by the fire and glared at her.

“You didn’t have to leave without me, you know,” she said bitterly. “I almost lost my soul getting here.”

“Your soul is not that fragile,” said Ruža, and Morana could hear teasing in her tone.

She sulked. “What did you want to show me?”

Ruža grew serious. “There is a secret I discovered not long ago. On a quiet night just like this, I took a walk down the same path you did now. I felt the urge to run, so I did.”

“Running. Exciting.”

“I wanted to run faster,” said Ruža. “To run so fast that no one could catch me. I ran and ran, faster and faster, and felt myself changing. First, my hands and feet grew smaller, then my nose grew longer and before I knew it, I shed my skin.”

Morana made a face, but Ruža continued. “I could run as fast as a wolf because I had become one. I got scared, stopped dead in my tracks, and I was myself again.”

There was a brief silence before Morana snickered. “What? You want to tell me you’re not only pretty, but also magical? That’s not fair, Roža.” She pinched her cheek playfully. “That is a nice dream but tell me why you really wanted to meet me in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night.”

Ruža only smiled. “It’s not the wolf form I’m interested in. It was just an introduction.”

“To what?”

Ruža buried her face in her hands. Morana leaned toward her, afraid her friend might cry. She patted her head, trying to muss her hair. It changed underneath her fingers.

Ruža’s hair retracted and thinned. Her skin lost its glow. Her eyes were still hidden behind her palms, but they had probably changed the most.

Morana’s mouth opened and she forced Ruža’s fingers away. Seeing her dark, saucer-like eyes, Morana screamed. She cupped her friend’s cheeks once more, but they were Ruža’s no more. They were Morana’s.

Ruža looked up at her with Morana’s face. Her beauty was gone, replaced with dry hair, spotted skin, dull eyes, and hips so narrow she could hide behind a tree. Morana wanted to do just that. She screamed and stood up, but her own hand grabbed her.

“Let me go, let me go,” she cried. “You’re a witch, you stole my face. Give it back. Give me my face, give me your face! Do I have a face?”

“Calm down,” Ruža’s thin lips said under the hooked nose. Her tone was gentle but firm. “I didn’t steal it. I borrowed it. And you can borrow mine.”

Hearing her voice from another’s mouth both disturbed and soothed Morana. She relaxed but still kept pulling her hand back ever so slightly. “What do you mean?”

“Don’t you see?” Morana’s other face smiled more sincerely than her real one. “This is what you want. What both of us want. We can switch faces. We can switch lives.”

“You’re insane,” said Morana and finally escaped her grip. She bolted for the village, wanting to run so fast that no one could catch her but then something stronger than a bony hand took hold of her. 

“Don’t you want to get married?”

She halted and slowly turned to her cursed reflection. “What did you say?”

“If you switch with me, you can get married right away.”

“That’s not what you said.”

“You can get married.”

Morana sighed and dropped to the ground. She crawled back to the flames, her resolve broken. “Teach me how.”

Ruža tried. She explained how you have to encourage your desire, letting it grow from your core outward. She told her how she had to let the urge become so big it outgrows the body. She described the feeling of transformation as a river rushing to the sea, persistent and unstoppable.

Morana had the desire. She closed her eyes, ignoring the darkness for the first time, and wished and prayed and hoped. She imagined Janko’s bright eyes, his grin from ear to ear. Flowers, whiteness, hand in hand. She could have a new life if she became someone new. She had tried to trade everything she was, but stayed her old self.

As the hours passed, Ruža wiped her new face with a flick of her wrist. Her pale eyes stared ahead, unblinking. “We’ll try again tomorrow.”

They tried every night for a month. Ruža wished and her shape shifted into something else. Morana wished more and stayed the same. She was losing the patience she didn’t have to begin with. She stomped her feet, groaned and whined, and ripped apart every flower she would come across.

Ruža’s wedding day was fast approaching. Her mother had the bouquet made.

“This isn’t working,” cried Morana the night before the celebration. “You should go sleep and prepare for the sleepless wedding night and I will—”

“No,” said Ruža resolutely. “I will not marry.”

“You can just stay ugly,” said Morana. “Then he won’t want you.”

“No,” repeated Ruža.

She reached out her smooth hand and held Morana’s. She closed her eyes and wished. Morana laughed nervously. “Roža, what are you doing?”

Ruža’s desire grew like a plant. Once rooted, its stem peeked out. Shyly at first, then shamelessly. The seed outgrew the dirt, the wish outgrew the body.

“Roža, stop it,” screamed Morana. “It hurts!”

The flames stopped moving. The scene froze.

Ruža’s flower pushed itself into Morana. Seed, root, stem, leaf, bud. Out of dirt, through the skin, into the flesh. It wiggled like a pile of worms. Seeds, roots, stems, leaves, buds. Petals. Flowers. Opening up, reaching inside, tickling, and itching along the way. 

Morana’s skin bubbled. It was changing and shifting, unable to stop or pause. Her shape was unstable. Layers of skin built and torn, her eyeballs rearranging into different positions and colors. She was uncooked dough, fresh mud, easy to mold and form. Full of potential and nonexistent.

Ruža held her hand. Morana held it. She was Morana no more.

Desire bloomed. From the flower, it would bear fruit.

Morana feared the light more than the dark. “Did it work?”

She still felt Ruža’s grip on her wrist. “Am I you? Am I beautiful?”

Ruža held her breath. “Don’t look.”

“What is it?”

Morana let her fingers wander before allowing her eyes to open. She yanked her hand free, relieved to still be able to. They’d been touching for only a brief moment, a passing one that might still alter their fates.

Morana gently cupped her own cheeks. They were slimmer, smooth, slightly sunken. They fell in even more as she slid her fingers over them. It must be what beauty felt like. Her fingers moved to her hair, almost missing the nose on their way. She followed it down her shoulders, lengthy and luscious; the hair she had always wanted.

She would grin from ear to ear if only she could have ignored its texture. The roughness tickled her new skin, unpleasantly holding onto it like thorns. It was tangled, unkempt, and wild. She nodded in understanding. No rose without thorns.

“Nothing a brush can’t fix,” she muttered, satisfied.

At last, she peeked through her eyelids. The light pierced her eyes. It hurt. She turned her head and screamed some more. It was not her face she saw on her friend. It was something worse.

No hair, only sharp horns. Her nose was longer than any of them, hooked so much she could smell her own nostrils. Skin not like fresh petals, but tree bark. Wrinkly, warty, and wrong. 

It got worse when she spoke, “Mo-ra-na…”

Her teeth knocked into each other, grinding against each other. No two were the same size or the same color. Morana had seen enough. Without a second glance, she ran away.

Her new body was surprisingly agile. She sliced through the wind, rode on shadows, giggled at the holes in the dirt. She could hide inside them. The layers of darkness scraped away like the layers of her thick skin, revealing all that was underneath.

She liked it. The darkness was safe for those who saw right through it. She kissed the night, hugged it tight, and felt its warmth for the very first time.

Ruža enjoyed the dark for a different reason. She could hide her new hideous body inside it. She had never enjoyed being beautiful, but this wasn’t any better.

She turned around, put out the fire with a few stomps of her hairy feet, and walked away from the village. 

After a few days of walking, she found a hut and made it her own. Her new body was strangely unbothered by anything. She would lie on the floor and enjoy it; eat rocks, and lick her lips in delight. Her iron teeth came in handy. After some time, she didn’t mind the grating sound.

A solace in solitude—it was all she had ever wanted. A solace in solitude, but she didn’t expect the guilt to stay. It had become her only companion.

She thought about Morana day and night. She didn’t need to sleep and so her thoughts went uninterrupted. Persistent and unstoppable like a river. No desire, only regret. Only this unchanging body. She couldn’t take a break.

A few times, she returned to the village. She found her mother, still bitter and disappointed, her father still handsome and boring. She found Morana’s parents, soft and heartbroken. She found Janko, still sleeping alone in his bed for two. 

She didn’t find Morana.

She didn’t stop looking. Her eyes were small, and her nose obstructed her view, but she could still see. She knew where to seek her friend and when she would appear. 

The screech Morana had let out upon seeing the flames was still alive in her mind, so her visits to the village occurred only at night. Morana didn’t like the forest, of that Ruža was certain. Morana couldn’t keep away from the village, no matter how much they tried to keep her out. She was just within reach.

Ruža would waddle down the street, glancing at every window, ignoring every lit candle, waiting for a glint of shining eyes to appear beside her.

When the sun shone, she stayed in her hut. She didn’t want to scare anyone to their death. What she was now wasn’t for the light of day.

One day, two small children, a brother and a sister stumbled upon her faraway home. She was impressed by how easily they’d found it. Children had different eyes than adults. Once they got older, they wouldn’t pass her hut a second glance, but now they walked up to it with wonder on their faces.

Standing on their tiptoes and holding onto each other, they knocked on her window. She was startled. It was a single narrow room with no place to hide. She tried to lie down, but before she could, the little boy placed his hands on the glass and looked inside.

The wonder on their faces was replaced by terror and tears. Ruža quickly smeared mud on every window and watched it dry.

She didn’t know how much time had passed, how many children she had frightened, or how many rocks she had swallowed before she saw something interesting through a misty window on a moonlit night.

Janko’s house was still the largest in the village. Still lonely. He had been asleep on his back, snoring softly when a creature sprung from the shadows and landed on his chest. He made a sound of protest but didn’t wake up.

Long hair in knots. Long fingers with even longer nails. Thin skin that barely covered the body and eyes that glowed. Ruža saw just a glimpse, only a silhouette, but she recognized it instantly. She smiled into her claws and sneaked in through the back door.

She didn’t make a sound, but Morana heard her. She chuckled but didn’t turn around. “My dearest, closest friend. You found me.”

“I tried every day.”

“Every night, you mean,” said Morana. Her voice was like a lullaby, gentle but sinister. Barely above a whisper. “I can’t stand the day. I used to hate darkness, but now I hate everything else.”

Ruža tried hard to subdue her grinding teeth. “Do you hate me?”

Morana laughed the best she could. “I could never hate you.”

A solace in solitude for Ruža, a solace in the shadows for Morana. But Ruža always loved being alone and Morana never liked being in the dark, especially not alone.

“I have to say, your look doesn’t suit me,” whispered Morana. “Your long hair, your fair skin, your piercing eyes. They are all wasted on me.”

She gave her one side glance and Ruža froze in place. It was cold and there was nothing behind it. Only two dots of moonlight in the dead of night. 

Morana continued, “I could say the same for you, but my old look never suited anyone. Not even me.”

“Do you visit him often?”

“I visit everyone,” she said. “When I’m with them, they can’t wake up and I can look at them. They look so beautiful when they sleep, even if they’re ugly when awake.”

“What are you looking for?”

Morana shrugged. “I just enjoy looking at them.”

Her face dropped. “Aren’t you the same, Roža? Didn’t you enjoy looking for me?”

“Roga,” corrected Ruža. “It suits me better.”

Morana laughed, and it was almost real. “I see, I see. Not a rose anymore, of course. New look, new you. I like it.”

She raised her hands above her head and moved them gently, like casting a spell. “Maybe I should find a new name too.”

Her hands dropped and she cupped Janko’s face. “What name would you like, my dear? Morana, Morana might be too long.”

Her fingers stretched his mouth into a smile. “I need something you can scream.”

She raised her hands once more and her nails reflected the glow in her eyes. They plummeted toward his throat and Ruža cried, “Mora–”

“Perfect,” said Morana softly. Her hands stopped, hanging in the air. “Mora is perfect.”

Ruža couldn’t bring herself to say anything more. She stepped toward the bed and hugged Morana from behind so they wouldn’t have to see each other’s faces. She was cold, but so was Ruža. She was slimy smooth and Ruža wasn’t, but it didn’t make a difference.

Their skins recognized each other. No matter the shape or form, they knew. They were a part of one another and for another short moment, they were whole.

Two hags hugged until the first rays of the sun cut through the curtains. They ran in unison, away from the light. What they were wasn’t for the light of day.

After that chance encounter, Morana disappeared once more. Ruža visited the village less and less frequently. She couldn’t find her there anymore. Her desire wasn’t strong enough.

Instead, she picked fresh flowers every morning, tore them apart by sundown, lay on her back on the cold hard ground, and waited for her dearest friend to visit.

Every night she would learn something new. Rubbing her eyelids made thinking feel like sleeping. Which shape of rock was the tastiest. Counting to one hundred was hard. Sometimes it conjured up childhood memories of varying happiness. 

But always, every single night, she would learn two things all over again. First, no matter the leaf or petal, flowers weren’t as sweet as rocks. Second, no matter where she was, in the village or the forest, nightmares couldn’t be worse than rotten dreams.

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A Hug for a Hag © 2024. Ariana Dobrostal

[EN] Ariana Dobrostal is a big fan of mystery, fantasy, and horror. She enjoys writing dialogue the most. In high school, she was a member of the creative writing club led by Miroslav Mićanović. At the time, she also won a prize at the Croatian Soundscript competition, which turned her story “The Shriek of Metal” into an audio story. Recently she’s published stories in the SFeraKon collections.

The short story A Hug for a Hag was originally published in the Morina kutija, no. 7 (rujan, 2024). You can download it for free from our site or Smashwords.

[HR] Ariana Dobrostal velika je ljubiteljica fantastike i horora, a najviše uživa u pisanju dijaloga. U srednjoj školi bila je članica kluba kreativnog pisanja pod vodstvom Miroslava Mićanovića. U to je vrijeme i osvojila nagradu na natječaju Hrvatskog zvukopisa, koji je njenu priču „Krik metala“ pretvorio u audio priču. Prošle godine objavila je priču „Sisanje Snova“ u SFeraKonskoj zbirci „Devet mikrokozmosa“.

Priča A Hug for a Hag objavljena je u online časopisu Morina kutija, br. 7 (rujan, 2024.). Časopis možete skinuti ovdje ili s platforme Smashwords.

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Urednički komentar: Prijateljstva život često stavi na kušnju jer nas ponekad čak i uz najbolje želje i namjere, društvena očekivanja znaju odvojiti na različite strane. Upravo nam to ilustrira ova mračna i atmosferična kratka priča kroz poigravanje slavenskim narodnim pričama.