Title: Bluejay Author: Kleenexwoman Rating: PG Disclaimer: Kevin Smith owns Jay and Silent Bob. As far as I am aware, Baba Yaga belongs to the Russian people, of which I may be one. Notes: "Baba Yaga" is the Russian equivalent of the boogeyman. You can read some really cool stories about her that frankly are not really appropriate for children. Her name is pronounced "bah-bah yah- GAH", thank you Gail Shulman for the pronunciation lesson. Soundtrack: "Blue Jay Way" by the Beatles, "Free Bird" by Lynryd Skynrd, "Wind Beneath My Wings" by I think Whitney Houston, "Blackbird" by Paul McCartney, and "Come Fly With Me" by Frank Sinatra. ++++++++++++++++++++++++ Fairy tales do not lie. That old woman gathering wood? You had better be nice to her, for she may be a powerful fairy that can make diamonds or snakes come out of your mouth every time you speak. Then again, she may be an evil witch who will set you impossible tasks before you can regain your freedom. Better to avoid her altogether unless you have someone watching over you. Robert the Silent knew this. He knew of Baba Yaga and her house with the chicken legs, of Koschei the Deathless and his iron skin. His mother had told him the stories of transformation and true love before bedtime to lull him to sleep, and his grandmother had told him the stories of witches and werewolves late at night to keep him awake. His favorite story was the one about the Princess and her Seven Swan Brothers, about the princess whose birth would mean the death of her brothers, and so her father the kin sent them away to live in the woods. When she found them, she discovered that they turned into swans at night because of a curse that a witch had put on them. Her brothers told her that to take the spell off, she would have to weave and sew seven shirts for them and that this would take seven years, and that she could not speak while she was doing it. So she stayed in the woods and sewed, and a king found her and made her his bride. But she never spoke, and the king's jealous mother accused her of witchcraft. So, still sewing and still not speaking, she was tied to the stake and about to be burned. But as the executioner lit the bonfire, she finished the last shirt. Her brothers came down as swans and rescued her, and she threw the shirts over them and they turned back into men. It was a happy ending for all concerned-except for the jealous bitch in the castle, of course. She suffered the standard Grimm Brothers death of being nailed into a barrel with spikes stuck into it and rolled downhill into the sea. Yes, Bob knew all of this. He knew that the youngest of three brothers would always win and that the youngest princess was always the fairest. The rules of the story were inviolable and sacred. Jay, on the other hand, did not know this. The only tales his mother had ever told him were the ones about where his father had gone, and by the time he was ten he had figured out the ending to every one. Witches and fairies and magic spells were not something he was interested in. The old lady was having a little trouble with her groceries. She had an armful of overflowing bags, and with every step she took, a can or a box would fall out. Then she would have to stop and set down her bags and pick it up, and by the time she had balanced it on top of the bag, something else would have fallen out and she had to begin the process all over again. Jay thought this was hilarious. Each time a can would clank out onto the asphalt, he shrieked with laughter. Of course, he had been finding everything hilarious that morning, no doubt due to the premium quality of the cannabis he had partaken of earlier. Still, it was annoying as hell. Bob darted out into the parking lot and started picking up the cans. Jay stopped laughing. "What are you, a fucking faggot Boy Scout now?" Bob just glared at him. The old lady watched as Bob gathered the containers. "Young man, I must thank you," she said as he carefully piled the cans on top of the bag. Bob shrugged. The old lady unlocked her car and stuffed the groceries into the trunk. "I insist. Unlike your loud friend over there, you were kind enough to help me out. What is your name?" "Yo, I'm Jay and that's Silent Bob," said Jay, his verbal skills heightened by the promise of a reward. The lady wrinkled her nose at him. "I asked him, not you. Still. Silent Bob, did you say?" She turned to Bob. "Well, they do say that truth has no tongue." Bob nodded. This was a proverb he was familiar with. "And yet you may find it useful to speak." She bit her lip. "Hmm, I don't think.No, that should do it." She tapped Bob three times on the lips and turned to get into her car. Bob was a little surprised, but he did not press the issue. Jay decided to act on his best friend's behalf. "Hey, you old bitch. You said you'd give Lunchbox here a reward. What's this finger- kissing shit?" The old lady threw him a nasty look. "Young man, I advise you to be quiet. You might get into a lot of trouble with that big mouth of yours. You said your name was Jay, did you not?" "Yeah. What, are you going to report me or something?" "Jay," she mused. "Like the bird." "Um." The old lady closed her eyes. "For a fortnight be silent, as wise as your friend. Or your name shall transform thee to unhappy ends. There," she said, opening her eyes. "I hope that's good enough." For a moment, Jay was dumbstruck. This gave the old lady time to get into her car and drive away. Finally, Jay opened his mouth to speak. Bob slammed a meaty hand over Jay's mouth. "Don't talk." As he uttered the words, he felt something leave his mouth. Jay's eyes grew wide as a silver dollar and a five-dollar bill dropped from Bob's lips. The dollar bounced on the asphalt and rolled into the drain in the center of the lot, but the five fluttered into a puddle. Jay removed Bob's hand from his mouth and bent down to pick up the five. "-" He looked at Bob. Bob shook his head and put a finger to his lips. Jay gritted his teeth. "She said it was for fourteen days," said Bob. Three quarters and four ones dropped to the pavement. The first few days were interesting. Bob rather enjoyed the silence, a welcome change from the mindless chattering that usually filled the air around Jay. He also liked the look on Dante's face when he hawked up a twenty to pay for the beer and noodles. Jay had seemed, at first, to be coping. Bob had decided that it was in his best interests not to talk, and so he did not talk. He made a game of it and crossed off each day on the calendar. Eventually it got boring. Jay liked to talk. It was his link to the world, taking in sensations and experiences and filtering them through words, shaping events by commenting on them colorfully and at length. He felt disconnected and powerless, a ghost with no voice. He wondered if this was how Bob felt all the time. "Shit." Bob looked up in alarm. It had been five days-nine short of the promised two weeks. Jay wasn't supposed to talk. "Fuck this. I know I'm not supposed to day anything, Lunchbox, but I can't not talk, all right?" Jay slumped against the brick wall of the Quick Stop. "I can't fuckin' stand it. People are making jokes about Silent Jay and I can't tell `em to go fuck themselves, a hot chick walks by and I can't even tell her she's hot. If this was supposed to teach me humility or something, it ain't working cause I don't care." Bob eyed Jay. No transformation. Still, maybe it wouldn't happen until midnight. He would have to watch carefully and see. "What are you looking at, you tubby bitch." Jay wasn't even listening to what he was saying. It just felt so good to let the words flow again. Eventually his diatribe wound down. "Hey, do you still have that thing where money comes outta your mouth when you talk? I could really use some sunflower seeds." They walked home in the fading light. Jay was nibbling sunflower seeds from a package, cracking them open and dropping a trail of shells. Bob wondered whether the shells would be gone in the morning and, if so, how they would find their way back to the Quick Stop. Maybe next time he would take some white stones in his pocket. He shook his head. Mind with the fairies again. The money trick had been pretty good, but Jay was talking up a blue streak and he hadn't shown any signs of turning into anything. "Ya know what's funny, Lunchbox? If you had been the one laughing and I had been picking up those cans, we'd be rich right now from all the fucking money that I'd spit out and.well, you hardly talk anyway, so it doesn't matter." Jay grinned. "Whatever. Transform to unhappy ends. What a fucking lunatic, right?" Ah, irony. Where would we be without you? Not playing Skeeball with a longhaired Goddess, that's for sure. "AAAARGH!" Jay burst out of his room, topless and hatless. He collided with Bob in the middle of the hallway. "Shit, Bob, you gotta help me!" Bob stepped back to get a good look at Jay. The blonde boy's entire chest was covered with feathers. They were glossy, black and blue and white striped. Jay frantically began pulling feathers out of his chest. "Ow. Fuck! Crap." As he spoke, a new feather appeared for each word. Bob gently covered Jay's mouth. Jay looked up at him pleadingly. Jay lay naked on the couch, a pillow stuffed into his mouth. He nodded at Bob. Bob tugged at a feather. Jay winced. "Mrgph!" Bob pulled harder, then stopped. Jay was whimpering and tears were collecting at the corners of his eyes. And the feather still wasn't coming off. Jay put the pillow down and shook his head. "I don't think it's going to work. I'm fucking stuck with these." Bob sat in the kitchen, staring blankly at the wall. Jay had been getting worse. More feathers had been growing in, on his back and limbs and even his neck. His hair had turned into feathers and his arms had grown stiff flaps of flesh that could only be wings. Bob had theorized that the curse would only last, as the lady had indicated, a fortnight. And it was probably exact. She had laid the curse on at about 2 in the afternoon, and that was when, if Bob was right, it would stop. Hopefully, Jay would lose his feathers. Maybe Bob would lose his money-speech power too, but that was a small price to pay. It had been two weeks. Jay had refused to go out, but he was jumpy and irritable in his room. He kept staring out the window at the tree outside. Bob checked his watch. He had shared his theory with Jay, who had insisted on being left alone. 2:30. Whatever would have happened should have happened by now. Bob silently left his chair and padded to Jay's door, knocking gently. There was no response. He twisted the doorknob and stepped inside. The room was empty. The window was open, and there were a few feathers on the bed. Bob sat in the middle of the room and cried. He had searched the entire tri-town area until he remembered the obvious. Witches always lived in the middle of the woods or in a desert or on an island far away from everyone. There was no way he was ever going to find her in a semi-suburban neighborhood. He scouted out the neighborhood, scouring each wooded area, each pond and vacant lot. There were stories about cottages and castles that only appeared if you approached them at a certain time of day or from a certain way, and so he visited each place several times a day. After about a month, he thought he caught a glimpse of a smokestack reaching above the trees, but when he tried to enter the clearing, there was only a tangle of poison ivy and some empty beer cans. He picked up the cans and put them in someone's trashcan. Bob set up a birdfeeder. He hung it outside of Jay's window and filled it with sunflower seeds. He watched carefully for about a week, but didn't see any blue jays. There were a lot of robins and chickadees around, though. After the first week he stopped watching.