Karl rolled his eyes, and sat back. He'd only met his babushka only once when he was a toddler. She had scared the heck out of him. She had lived in a weird little house out in the plains - his mother called them the Steppes, but they were all flat, not terraced like steps. So he was surprised when after the 18 hour flight (well, they changed planes 3 times and there were layovers in between), there was a four hour train ride, then a car ride into an ancient forest.
"I thought babushka lived in the Steppes?" he said to his mother.
His mother looked really old all of a sudden. Perhaps she hadn't been able to sleep on the plane, Karl had barely been able to sleep. Why did she have to get sick now? His big plan with Chad had just been set in motion, and now he wasn't there to enjoy it. He sighed.
"Mother, I didn't think babushka lived in the forest?" he asked.
"In the forest? Oh, you remember when you visited her before? But you were so young. Uh, the steppes? Yes, I suppose she lived there, but since then she moved here," said his mother.
The trees were so close together now, that you could no longer see the sun. The cars headlights came on automatically, as they drove deeper into the dark woods. They came to an opening in the dense forest. There was the tiny white house with the red trim, and the two blue curtained windows that looked like eyes. It was the same house that Karl remembered, but it couldn't be the same house. Even if she had it moved, the house was too wide to fit down the road. The trees grew right up to the narrow road. Maybe if they disassembled and reassembled the house here? The Uber driver followed the road around the house, but he never arrived at the front door. The house seemed to turn keeping the blue draped window eyes fixed on the occupants of the car.
"Stop the car, driver. We will walk," said Karl's mother. "Karl, get the bags."
Karl rolled his eyes, but said, "Yes, mother." He slipped his tablet back into its case. He hadn't been able to get any reception since the airport. And the history indicated Chad was sedated, so not much information on him. Except apparently the colonoscopy went well, and the obedience training was going to start- wait that was posted six hours ago. The obedience training had started, but he didn't have a signal. Hopefully, it was all uploading to the cloud. He stuck the tablet in his backpack, got out of the car, slung the backpack over his shoulders, and began to unload the luggage. His mother disappeared around the corner, and Karl followed with two suitcases. There were four more to go. The builder of the house seemed not to believe in right angles, it looked like a caricature of a house - a haunted house. He walked up the steps, and through the red mouth of a door. It was dark inside, and smelled funny. He set the bags down, and rushed back out.
He hurriedly carried the bags in. It was getting cold fast. As he carried the last bags toward the house, the Uber driver called after him, "How do I get back to the road?"
"It's right behind you!" shouted Karl, over his shoulder.
"No. It's gone!" shouted the Uber driver in a voice of high pitched terror.
Karl turned and looked. The trees filled the spot where the road had been.
"Drive around the house, I'm sure you'll find it!" Karl shouted confidently. He was far from confident. A wolf howled, then a dozen or more other wolves joined the howling. It seemed to be getting close. It also seemed to be getting darker. Karl hurried into the house and shut the door behind him.
Outside the Uber driver drove around the turning house at least twice before the house reared up on two yellow chicken legs, and the driver drove into a tree. The people inside didn't hear him crash, as the forest opened up before the house which was running at about 100 mph. The forest closed back in the wake of the racing house. The Uber driver looked at the wolf looming over his bloody body. It opened its massive jaws and bit down hard. He passed out. An hour later the moon rose. The wolves had waited silently around the wrecked car. Now they stood up and began to howl. The Uber driver opened his eyes. His arms were so hairy, and his fingers looked like claws. He saw the moon, heard the wolves howling, and joined the chorus. He had seen the house of Baba Yaga, and lived. So he was a werewolf now, but he was alive. His bones and muscles snapped, cracked and popped louder than any breakfast cereal. His clothing ripped, and he tore the remnants away with his teeth. The she wolf who bit him was in heat. She had selected him, and he would be her mate. He didn't know if he would ever be human again. It didn't matter. He had seen the house of Baba Yaga and lived.
"Karl, come see your babushka!" called his mother from over by the roaring fire.
There was a chair by the fire. A cat hissed as the fire flickered, crackled and snapped.
He walked slowly over to the chair.
"Babushka?" said Karl.
In accented English, the old crone said, "Come closer and give your Baba Yaga a kiss."
"Baba Yaga?" Karl asked as he approached, "Isn't that name of the Iron Toothed witch?"
He leaned close to the old woman, who laughed, displaying shiny metal teeth. Karl almost jumped back, but he was a quick thinker. Soviet era denistry! No wonder she called herself, Baba Yaga. He laughed too.
"Yes, Baba Yaga!" and he kissed her on the forehead.
"Karl, sit with me."
"Mother," said Karl's mother.
"Begone, Baba Yaga, leave me alone with my grandson."
"Yes, mama," said Karl's mother as she retreated from the room. The house seemed bigger on the inside than on the outside. It looked like one room from the outside, but there was a staircase, and three doors that led somewhere.
Karl smiled nervously at his grandmother from his perch on a stool between her and fire.
He asked, "Why did you call my mother, Baba Yaga? She doesn't have metal teeth, and her name is Barbara."
"Ah, porcelain veneers!" said Baba Yaga touching a finger to her nose, "And she told you her name was Bar-bar-ah, hm?" She shook her head, and continued, "All the women in my family are Baba Yaga. Always three. Grandmother, mother and daughter - until now." She stared at Karl intently. "You're the first boy."
"When you die mother, I will be grandmother, he will be a man, and then there must be a new child," shouted Barbara from the other room.
"I told you I wanted to be alone with Karl!" snapped Baba Yaga, "And I don't plan on dying anytime soon!"
She looked back at Karl with unfocused eyes, and then they came back into focus, "Now where was I?"
"Karl doesn't seem like a proper name for a Baba Yaga, but you're not female, so maybe? Never mind, you will find your true name in time. Choose it carefully. The name is a powerful thing. Very powerful," she tapped her finger to her nose knowingly. She seemed to study Karl, and then spoke after a long pause. "Your magic is different than your mothers and mine, boy. All cold numbers 1's and 0's, but it is potent all the same. You changed a man into dog," she said brightly. She seemed more alive, "Rex is a good name for a dog. And you did it without any training." She clapped her hands together.
Karl had shifted to the edge of the stool in terror. How could she possibly know about Chad?"
"Never had a grandson before," she cackled, "But you show promise. Your mother tried to have a daughter, but all she got was you."
"I sort of guessed. All the visits to the fertility clinics, and painting my room pink when I was little. She even made me wear a dress when we visited you fifteen years ago," said Karl with rising anger in his voice.
Baba Yaga cackled, "But it didn't fool me! How could you be a boy child?"
"Well, you see my dad's sperm contained a Y chromosome, so -"
"That's not what I mean, child. Your mother hasn't told you anything, has she?"
"Not really, I guess?"
"Alright, I will give you the synopsis for now, and she can tell you the full history of the Baba Yagas over the next couple weeks."
"Weeks?"
"You see there have always been three. Always an ancient, a middle aged, and a young one. We are as old as the steppes, as old as the forest, and as old as the sea. Always female. Until now. Will you have son or a daughter? Will there be three Karls instead of three Baba Yagas? I am not sure? But you are me, just as your mother is me, and my mother was me. A trinity of nature. Elemental forces." She sighed. and slumped back in her chair. "Your mother longs to be the grandmother, but I will be your child. Will I be male or female? Hm? Mother, how does it feel to be male?"
"I'm not your mother, babushka," said Karl firmly.
"When you know your full history, she may reveal herself. I suspect she's hiding deep inside you, always being female, and suddenly being male can be very terrifying. I find it so. But I also find it exciting. When you remember who you are mother, perhaps we will know why you are now male?"
"Yeah, good luck with that. Listen, babushka. I know you had a stroke, so maybe you think what you're saying makes sense. Maybe it would make more sense, if I wasn't so tired from the trip. It was getting dark when we arrived in Siberia, so maybe I should go to bed?" Karl said standing, up and patting his babushka on the shoulders.
She laughed, "It's hours to sunset. Why don't you put on your swimsuit and lounge on the beach? The Black Sea is lovely this time of year."
Karl rolled his eyes, as he walked toward the door where his mother had exited. The house seemed to shift, he reached for the doorknob, but now he was in front of the front door. He opened it and was shocked to see sunlight streaming in, and reflecting off a water. The house was about fifty feet from the shore. Where had the forest gone? The Black Sea was in a different time zone than Siberia, but he didn't think it was that big a difference. It looked to be noon here, and it was maybe 8 pm there? He pulled out his tablet to check the time zones.
Baba Yaga grinned. She was still in her chair, but she was now seated next to the doorway that Karl was standing in.
"Are you a Time Lord, er, Time Lady?" Karl asked, "I mean the house is bigger on the inside than the outside, and moves through time and space, and it sounds like you - er we regenerate. Are we from the planet Gallifrey?"
"Time Lords? Time Ladies? Alien planets? No, no, no. We are Baba Yaga, we have always been part of this Earth. My house does move, but it has legs. Doesn't your mother's house ever move? Surely, it has legs?"
"If it can move, I've never seen it do so," Karl answered.
His grandmother let out a big sigh, and slumped back in her chair.
"Karl, you go play on the beach. I have to talk to your mother," Baba Yaga said.
Karl sighed, "I didn't bring a swimsuit."
"You turn big strong quarterbacks into Alsatian dogs, and you say you didn't bring a swimsuit?" she said indignantly. She waved her hands vigorously.
"But I didn't-" Karl started to feel a draft. He looked down, he was now clad in a tiny black Speedo with a red stripe down the side, and black rubber clogs. His clothing was gone.
"Okay?" Karl said uncertainly, this was too unreal. He was either a sleep having a lucid dream or maybe the plane crashed and this was heaven.
"Go have fun. My comehither spell has brought a nice blonde girl to play with at the beach," she said pointing. A young buxom blonde woman seemed to walk in a daze toward the house.
Karl had to admit as women went she was pretty. He sighed, and said his grandmother, "Thanks, but I prefer guys."
She laughed, "Oh, that's easy enough." She raised her hands and a wispy tiny shadowy version of the young woman appeared between her hands. She spun her hands around the image of the girl, and it started to change. The hair grew shorter, the breasts flattened, the chest widened. She grew taller. Karl's neck was getting sore, as he rapidly looked from the image that grandmother had conjured to the woman on the beach. She was becoming a man. Her hair was now a buzz cut.
"She looks like Chad," gasped Karl.
"He looks like Chad," Baba Yaga corrected. "Now go have fun with your new toy." She turned in her chair - or rather her whole chair turned. Karl noted it didn't have wheels. Then she shouted at the door through which Barbara had vanished earlier, "Baba Yaga! Bar-bar-ah! Come here, now!" She looked back, well, her chair spun back. Now Karl noticed it was four inches above the floor.
He said, "Uh, your chair is floating, babushka?"
"Simple levitation. Now get going," she said swatting Karl's butt with her claw like hand, "Go play with Chadski or whatever you want to call him. I need to talk to your mother in private."
"But I don't speak Russian," sighed Karl nervously.
Baba Yaga nodded, "I know. So he speaks English now."
"Yes, mother?" said Barbara sheepishly.
The door slammed shut.
The newly created Chad fumbled to remove his bikini top, and waved at Karl.
"Hi, handsome, want to go for a swim?" asked the Chad clone.
"Sure what's your name? I'm Karl," Karl said confidently. He normally didn't like the dates his mother set him up on, but grandmother seemed to have the magic touch, he thought.
The buff guy thought for a moment, and said uncertainly, "Nadia? But that can't be right, can it, it's a girl's name." He flexed his arm and adjusted his ill fitting bikini bottom. His cock and pubes were sticking out of the top, and the back was wedged deep in his butt crack.
"Nadia suits you," said Karl. He somehow knew what the name meant, "It means Hope. And I hope to get to know you better, Nadia." Besides, if his mother asked, he could truthfully say that Baba Yaga had used a comehither spell to bring Nadia to him, and he had sex with Nadia (at least he was pretty sure he would), and he wouldn't have to mention that Baba Yaga turned Nadia into a buff blond male who bore a striking resemblance to Chad back home.
Nadia blushed, as Karl put his arm under Nadia's, and up over Nadia's other shoulder. "So you come here often, Sailor?"
Nadia laughed, "You're funny. No. No one comes to this beach. They say it's haunted, but it's so secluded, I'm not sure why I came here today. But seeing you makes me happy, I did come. It's hot. Let's go for a swim."
Karl couldn't help but notice that Nadia's cock was getting hard, and the tiny suit couldn't contain it, which was probably why Nadia wanted to go in the water right away.
"Say, Nadia, I think they sold you a girl's bikini brief, or maybe one that's a couple sizes too small. You said it's a secluded beach, so how about we go skinny dipping?"
Nadia looked relieved, as he nodded. Nadia pulled off his bikini bottom - well, ripped it off would be a better description. "Oops," said Nadia, "Now what will I wear."
"I'll find you something later, but you look fine to me just the way you are," said Karl stepping out of his own suit, and laying it on a convenient boulder, which he wasn't sure had been there a minute ago.
Karl turned and looked back at the house. Witchcraft? Well, in Twain's Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, the time traveler was thought to be a witch or wizard because of science. To primitives, Science looks like Magic. Karl was a scientist, but what he had done to Chad seemed beyond the realm of human science, didn't it? Perhaps Baba Yaga didn't remember that they were extraterrestrials? Or perhaps the people who wrote Dr. Who based the Time Lords on the Baba Yagas? It didn't matter. All that mattered was the knowledge, and the power that came with the knowledge.
Karl certainly had fun. The dumb blond jock Nadia was a very good copy of Chad, and whatever spell he was under made him Karl's perfect love slave. They frolicked in the sea, kissed, and eventually ended up making love in the sand. Damn, Karl hadn't thought how irritating sand under his sheath could be. Nadia was scratching her ass trying to get the sand out too. Karl was tired, bored, and little sunburned. He picked up the remnants of Nadia's bikini. If he really was a Baba Yaga, maybe? He moved his hands like grandmother had when she changed Nadia from a woman into a man. The bikini bottom was now a pair of board shorts, and the top was a cut-off t-shirt. Karl put on his Speedo, and handed the transformed bikini to Nadia.
"Told you I'd find you something to wear," Karl said.
"Thanks, Karl. I had a wonderful time," gushed Nadia, "Do you think we could-"
"It's best if you go home now. I'll call you, if I need you."
Nadia nodded and got dressed. Karl frowned. He had gotten the sizes wrong, or had he? The muscle top looked like it was painted on Nadia's torso. The board shorts fit around the waist perfectly, but were tight around the crotch, revealing way too much of Nadia's male anatomy. He turned as he walked away, and Karl smiled. The shorts hugged his butt too, with the seam buried deep in Nadia's butt crack.
"I had fun. I will see you again."
Nadia beamed, "Very soon I hope!" he called as he followed the path home.
He didn't know how he got to the beach, and he didn't know how he got home, but he was home.
At dinner, Karl was very tired, but while he mother cleared the table, he leaned into babushka, and whispered, "Do you think if I used the comehither spell to summon Nadia, you could show me how to turn her into a man again?"
Baba Yaga looked confused, "Did you change him back into a female?" she asked.
"No, but I figured she would turn back when she got home. I mean what will people say about her having been female this morning and male this evening?"
"Nadia saw my house, right?"
"Yes, I guess."
"She will tell people that he went to the haunted beach, and saw Baba Yaga's house. People won't ask again, but accept that she is now a he. Nadia will probably be happy that he can earn more money now that he is a man," said Baba Yaga with a smirk.
"Mother?" asked Barbara Yaga as she returned from the kitchen bringing dessert, "What were you saying to my son?"
Babushka grinned, and winked at Karl. Then she said, "I used a comehither spell to entertain Karl. He had fun at the beach with - I think he said the name was Nadia."
Karl blushed, "Babushka?"
His mother smiled, "You just needed to meet a good Russian girl."
"Mother!"
Baba Yaga and Barbara Yaga both laughed, but for very different reasons.
"Karl take the dirty dessert dishes to the kitchen and put them by the sink, please," said his mother after they had eaten.
Karl carried the plates through the swinging door, and was surprised that instead of a kitchen, he was in a huge butler's pantry. There was a dumb waiter, and a stair case disappearing downstairs. The kitchen must be down there, so he went down the stairs.
Meanwhile, Barbara Yaga leaned close to her mother, and asked, "You're sure that Karl is grandmother?"
"Oh, yes. He's already done transformation spells," Baba Yaga said with a nod.
"When? I never taught him!"
"I know. The first ones were before he came here. The swimsuit Nadia wore got ripped, and Karl repaired it with magic."
"Oh, my!"
"But grandmother was female? How do you know, it's her soul in him, and not just her magic?"
Baba Yaga almost said that Karl had the same taste in lovers as his great grandmother, but Barbara Yaga would probably realize that Nadia was a hunky male, if she had. So she said, "A daughter knows her mother, even if her mother is now a man."
Barbara Yaga was scared. Her grandmother was the most powerful of the three Baba Yagas. She always was, but she had never been male before. Perhaps being male made her more powerful. All the Baba Yagas had trained their successors in the magical arts, but Karl had trained himself.
Baba Yaga said, "And who's fault is that?"
"It's rude to read other people's minds," retorted Barbara Yaga.
"It's late, Karl's already in bed. We should sleep too. Karl's training begins tomorrow," said the ancient Baba Yaga.
Karl tossed and turned, and tried to sleep. He hoped Nadia was okay. If he turned into a girl, everyone in town would freak. How could grandmother think that people would just accept Nadia suddenly being male - and gay? This was Russia after all, not the most LBGTQ friendly place in the world. Damn, Nadia's butt seemed to made to fit his cock. He snickered, of course, it was. He wondered about Chad. Maybe he could get the tablet to work tomorrow? He was also nervous about his training, and the possibility that he was an old woman reincarnated as a man, after how many generations as a woman? He yawned, and fell asleep.
Baba Yaga sleeping on a cot by the fire closed her eyes. Karl and Barbara were now sleeping soundly, so she could too.