Irina and the Ragdoll

[ydegirl 2357]

 

IRINA AND THE RAGDOLL

A CHILDREN'S NOVELLA

by

ISOBEL, COUNTESS OF AYR

Published 548 E.S.

 

For my children, current and future.

 

Irina was a rather simple girl. Both her parents were carrot farmers, living on the outskirts of the capital in a house that leaned lazily to the side. Little Irina was on her way to see her dear friend, Fat Tsveta. Fat Tsveta lived on the other side of the capital, about four-thousand paces away from Little Irina’s humble carrot farm.

 

So, Irina packed a bag. It would take her about an hour to get to Fat Tsevta’s farm. In the brown cloth bag, she stuffed some food and an extra quilt, in case she got cold. For a while, she debated taking Visjna, the dirty rag doll her mother had made for her. Ultimately, Visjna was stuffed into her bag and Little Irina began the trek to Fat Tsveta’s shack.

 

Olga’s forest was an eerie, gray forest that very few villagers of Prusta went through. Irina’s mother, Big Irina, scolded her constantly for cutting through the forest. Little Irina often came home with ticks and bugs clinging on hopefully to her clothes and hair. A pang of nervousness scurried through Little Irina’s small, lithe body. She dug through her bag, trying to fish out Visjna. But Visjna’s thin, cloudy brown yarn hair was nowhere to be found! However, at the bottom of her bag, was a gaping hole - the pelmeni she had packed had left a smelly trail, and ants had already begun to take it apart.

 

Out of the corner of her eye, a rat dressed in a disgusting burgundy sweater scurried off into the brushwood. She shuddered, gritting her teeth so that they grinded against each other. Out of her better judgment, she followed the ghastly brown rat into the forest.

 

The rat had led Irina to a clearing, an unusually vivid spot of the woods where the greens seemed to shine and the yellows glowed. In the middle was a simple wood cabin with a tasteful red roof. Some shingles on the roof had fallen off, but it was not enough to deem it scary or ugly. Irina ambled up to the magnificent purple door, which had a stained glass mural, and knocked. Her pound reverberated throughout the clearing, causing a few birds to flutter off and her to jump. The door creaked open.

 

“Hello?” Irina called out, creeping into the cabin. It was rather dull inside, cobwebs, moss and other nature had begun the war of reclamation. “Anybody home?” She called out again, languidly slithering in further.

 

Nobody responded.

 

She found Visjna crookedly sitting on the fireplace, a button eye hanging on by half a thread. “Oh, Visjna!” Cried Irina, running to scoop her up like a mother to her hurt daughter.

 

And then, a wicked cackle broke through the house. It was evil, deep, shrewd and loud. Irina jumped around to find a disfigured, old woman. Wrinkles had colonized her face, her mouth was thin and two cracked and wonky teeth stuck out of her mouth. She had no eyebrows and wispy, white hair that seemed to accentuate her bulging green eyes. The Witch pointed a long, bony finger towards the ragdoll. “Not on my watch!” She croaked, rushing towards Irina.

 

Irina shrieked, and threw a candle at The Witch. The candle - although it was lit - didn’t seem to harm The Witch. Instead, it awkwardly bounced off her arm. Irina threw old leather bound books, silver pots and pans, shoes and whatever else The Witch had laying around her cabin. But, like the candle, everything bounced off her.

 

Suddenly, the disgusting, brown rat wearing the burgundy sweater came in. “Olga,” he squeaked. The Witch stopped, staring at the rat with a hint of annoyance in her face. “What do you want for the ragdoll?”

 

“Stop! It’s mine!” Cried Irina. The Rat ignored her, waving a paw in the air.

 

The Witch groaned. “I don’t want anything for the ragdoll. It shall be mine.”

 

“But surely you want something?”

 

“No.” Replied Olga.

 

“Not even a new potion?”

 

“No.”

 

“A wand?”

“No.”

 

As the two bickered, Irina snatched Visjna, stuffed her under her arm and slyly snuck out of the cabin, out of the clearing, and back onto the path. Once on the path, she ran towards Fat Tsveta’s house - arriving there just before the cusp of dusk. She pounded on the door, out of breath and sweating.

 

“Irina! What took you so long?” Fat Tsveta boomed, a worried look on her face.

“Oh, Tsveta! I had the worst day.” Irina groaned, shuffling into Fat Tsveta’s poorly lit shack.

[Totalitarianism_ 593]

“What a lovely folktale, I must tell it to our little Colborns some time.” Remarked the Burgrave of Malkovya, Milodrag the Scyfling, as he read the tale with his morning Tarchar coffee.