“It’s a good story for you, I think,” an old woman said as she pushed a plate of cookies across the table. Late fall snow began to fall outside. Wet clumps obscuring the beauty of singular snowflakes. A mash of fate down the river of circumstance.

“Let’s not,” the man said as he dunked a ginger cookie into some milk. The woman looked across the table at him.

“I think we will.”

He shook his head and broke another cookie in half before dunking it, “Fine.”

“It started with the burying of an ash tree. Eight lightning strikes, a lost marten, and the last nightmare of a broken man.”

“What kind of story is this?”

“The kind that changes the future once you’ve heard it.” The house shifted underneath them. A flash of terror crossed the man’s face as he raced to the window. He saw a pair of giant, yellow chicken legs below— and the ground further beyond them. The old woman gave a wide smile and gestured to his seat. He sat back down. “Drink your milk. It’s good for the stomach. Calms the nerves.” He listened. “This is a special story. One that hasn’t been told for an entire age. But you bear the mark of the last Volhv to hear it. So you must hear it too.”

The man took in the room around him as he felt it spin in fear. Nothing inside could have been from the modern age— he didn’t know how he didn’t see it before. Black iron and bright silver decorated the main room— a giant cauldron peeked out from the kitchen alcove. “Kasimir, would you please pay attention. You can stare at the cauldron later. You might even learn something.”