“It. Is. Going. To. Be. A. Ball.”
“Liliya, darling, are you quite clear on the definition of ball?”
“Yes, I am, and this is to be one!” Liliya, thin of body and still childishly plump about the face, placed her hands on her hips and tossed her dark hair. “Really, Vladimíra, you treat me as if I know nothing at all!”
“I don’t mean to, sweetling,” Vladimíra said, sweeping over the floor of their bedroom to adjust a ribbon Liliya had displaced with her dramatic gesturing. Liliya repressed a role of the eyes. She’d always thought that Vladimíra, even though she was only thirteen, acted annoyingly like their mother, from her constant fussing to the endless pet names.

“Grand balls don’t happen at the edge of the wood,” Yeva, the second eldest, said primly. “That’s ridiculous. You have them in the capital, with the czar and czarina and all the nobles and glittering lights and—”

“You don’t have to have to be in the capital for a grand ball,” Vladimíra interrupted. Yeva was known to go on and on and on about the city and how marvelous it surely was, how opulent the splendor must be. It quickly became tiresome when she got to talking about it for more than a few seconds, as Liliya well knew.

“But they certainly don’t happen on the edge of the wood!” Vladimíra continued, now speaking to Liliya. “Beloved, it is a wonderful thing, your imagination, but a line must be drawn somewhere. There are bears and wolves in the woods.”
“Not to mention evil fairies, leshii, and Baba Yaga herself!” Yeva added in a whisper, shuddering.
“There’s no such things, lovely,” Vladimíra said in a know-it-all sort of voice.

“Yes there are!” Liliya cried. “Well, Baba Yaga is just a story, a wili told me so. And as for leshii, they smell a little funny, but they are such reasonable fellows! Fairies aren’t evil, either, but I suppose they are rather beastly if they don’t know you very well.”

“Liliya,” Vladimíra said desperately, “you are a creative child. It’s wonderful that you’ve thought up stories about all these wicked creatures from legend and made them into kindly beings, but you must understand that they simply aren’t real!”
“They are real, but they aren’t goodly,” Yeva argued, “remember when little Iov disappeared last winter? They never found him!”
“A tragedy, my dear, but he wandered off on his own and got lost in the woods. It’s very difficult to find someone or… or… or a body out there. It certainly doesn’t mean that there’s anything magical about that place!”

“There’s something magical about it, alright,” Liliya snapped, “but the forest folk would never take someone away!”
“Stop talking about them!” Yeva cried, “You’ll bring them to our house!”
“You brought them up first!” Liliya felt fury rising within her—how dare Yeva speak of the forest dwellers in such a way? She’d never even spoken to them!

“The point is,” Vladimíra sighed, silencing Yeva’s coming retort waving away the argument with a snow-white hand, “no, we won’t have a ball at the edge of the wood. If you so want to play pretend, Liliya, why don’t we have one in the kitchen? Father can play his gusli for us to dance to, we can wear our fine dresses without dirtying them, and it won’t be nearly so dangerous. I’m sure mother would even bake some bread and cook some meat for a feast beforehand, like they do in the cities!”

“NO!” Liliya shouted, stomping one foot, “It must be on the edge of the wood, don’t you understand?”
Her sisters did not. They continued to dispute the idea fervently, and with resignation, Liliya accepted that her sisters would not be joining her at the ball her otherworldly friends were so kindly hosting.

That night, Liliya slipped into her best dress, dark green and embroidered with lace and golden thread. She did so without so much as a rustle of skirts, so as not to wake her sleeping sisters. Slipping out of their room without a noise was easier than she had thought it would be, the door didn’t make a sound. She crept through the kitchen, past her parent’s room. A pair of loud snores from within assured her that parents slept soundly.

As soon as she was out of the house, Liliya took off at a run, dashing away into the night. Past the large rocks, down the path, around a curve in the trees, out of sight of the village. When she came around the last bend, she gasped. She couldn’t believe her eyes. The mystic forest folk all wore their best finery, their garments and movements more elegant than anything that could be seen along mortals. The fairies that were present flitted about above the festivities, casting beautiful lights on all the dancers. Surely, even the czar’s most glorious ball couldn’t compare to this!

Crying a joyous hello, she joined the dancing. The wili, the leshii, the fairies, they all whirled about her, laughing and singing and saying how pleased they were that she’d come. Liliya spun about with them, not a care in the world.

“Come,” they cried at the end of their dancing, just as the moon was beginning to sink. “Come, our feast is waiting, just a little ways into the wood!”
Liliya paused. The wood was their domain. Legend said you couldn’t eat the food of another realm and leave again, but surely that was just another foolhardy story. Her friends from the wood were always so benevolent, and would never dream of trying to steal her away. Laughing at the absurdity of her hesitation, Liliya followed them into the darkness.

Unearthly creatures are, of course, known to be deceptive.

All her sisters could ever find was a ribbon from her hair, resting at the edge of the forest.

It was a shame, those less superstitious said, how often wandering children were lost in the woods.