Maryshka and The Red Door

Once there was a poor little orphan girl called Maryshka who, because her parents had both been eaten by a fierce purple dragon leaving her with nothing but a ring with a red rose upon it, lived with her Aunt Boris.

That's a funny name for an Aunt, I know, but Boris wasn't an ordinary Aunt, she was a witch; a cruel, heartless but very powerful old witch who spent most of her time, when she wasn't making Maryshkas life miserable by treating her as a slave, doing wicked things and casting evil spells on people around the world.

Every evening when it had grown dark and a large horned moon was jutting from the sky, her Aunt would go off flying upon her black handled broom saying before she left, "Now remember, Maryshka you must never go into the room with the red door. If you even so much as peek through its keyhole, I will see your eye peering in and will know".

Maryshka had often wondered about what could be behind the red door but she had been too afraid of her aunt to look although once or twice, pressing her ear against it, she had thought she had heard a sound like someone, a woman, sobbing and a sploshing and gurgling like water.

"I wonder if there is someone in there", she had thought but then, remembering her Aunts warning, had put it out of her mind and carried on with her chores.

One evening, however, after her Aunt had gone flying off into the night on her broom, its bristles blazing with green flame and leaving a long trail of purple smoke behind her, Maryshka heard a knocking at the door and, answering it, she saw a young man outside dressed in fine clothes of gold trimmed, red velvet with a long red cape and a sword in a scabbard hanging from his belt.

"Are you the Witch they call Boris?", he asked, placing his hand upon the handle of his sword.

"No", said Maryshka, "She is my Aunt. Why? What do you want with her".

"She cast a wicked spell upon my mother and my father, turning them both into pigs", he said, "And I have been searching for her for almost 4 years; searching so that I could force her to turn them back or, if she will not, put a hole in her evil heart".

"She is not here", said Maryshka, wondering whether she should be more afraid for her wicked Aunt or for the young man who she thought looked quite handsome aswell as gentle and kind, "And I do not know when she will get home".

"Then I will wait here until she does come home", said the Prince, determinedly.

And so Maryshka got the young man a chair and then they sat down together in her Aunts kitchen and talked and he told her that his name was Prince Borodin and that, before they had been turned into pigs, his father and mother had been the king and queen of a far away country.

But then he asked Maryshka about herself, and she told him everything about her life; how she had been orphaned when she was very young and taken in by her Aunt and she also told him how sad her life was; how her aunt mistreated her, making her dress in rags and sleep on the cold stone floor and do all of the chores in the house.

But then the Prince noticed the ring that Maryshka was wearing with a red rose upon it, hanging on a chain round her neck.

"That ring", he said, "Where did you get it?".

"I've always had it", said the girl, "My Aunt said that my mother had given it to me before they were killed. It is the only present I have from them".

Hearing this, the Prince told her of a Princess who had been abducted as a child from her family.

"No one ever knew what had happened to her", he said, "But that red rose is her family's coat of arms. Perhaps you are the child who was taken".

Maryssa was shocked to hear this but then, before she could say anything, she and the prince heard the sound of the witch coming back on her broom, screaming and cackling with evil glee as she tore across the sky then, suddenly, just as the prince was reaching for the handle of his sword the witch came flying in, like a rocket, through the window of the room.

And then, seeing the Prince holding his sword, the witch leapt from her broom and with a click of two bony fingers she had turned her broom into a crooked wand that she held in her hand.

"So we have a guest", she said, smiling evilly, "Well, introduce yourself young man. Who are you and what are you doing, uninvited, in my house?".

"I am Prince Borodin", said the man, "You cast a spell upon my parents and I have come to make you turn them back or to kill you".

The witch laughed so hard that her pointy hat nearly fell from her head.

"Hah!", scoffed the witch, "Kill me will you? And how do you expect to do that holding a deadly viper in your hand".

The Prince looked down at his sword but then, to his astonishment, it had vanished and, instead he saw that he was holding the tail of a long, hissing black snake that then began coiling itself around his wrist.

Horrified he tried to shake the snake from his arm while the witch watched and laughed and, looking on, Maryssa could not help feeling sorry for the Prince.

But, just then, the girl remembered the red door that her Aunt had always forbid her to open and, running out of the room she ran to the door and turning its handle tried to push it open.

It was difficult at first because there seemed to be something heavy behind the door pushing against it but Maryshka kept pushing and then suddenly, out of the room, with a roar like a river, came a torrent of water.

And there was so much water that Maryshka was swept up by it but then the water burst into the kitchen where the witch and the Prince were standing and seeing the wall of water moving towards her the witch screamed.

"Oh my tears", she said, "So many tears".

You see, long ago the witch had given up her tears in exchange for evil power; the water that had been locked up in the room was all the tears that the evil hearted witch had never shed and when it came rushing into the kitchen it washed the witch out of her house carrying her all the way to a deep well in her withered garden before throwing her into it and landing upon her head to drown her.

Fortunately for Maryshka, just as she had been about to be swept away, the Prince had grabbed hold of her arm and holding on himself to the antler of a deers head that was mounted on the witches kitchen wall, he had saved her.

After that, the Prince took Maryshka back home with him to his Palace.

Fortunately, when he returned, he saw that the spell the witch had cast upon his parents, turning them into pigs, had been broken and they were overjoyed to see him and even happier when, but a few days later, he and Maryshka were married in the royal cathedral.

Then Maryshka and the Prince lived happily ever after.