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Katianna Milena Bovinich adored Helen from the day Helen stepped over the broom. Four feet and ten inches tall, Millie had always been superstitious. If someone accidentally stepped on her foot, she lightly stepped on the other person’s to keep the peace, a common practice in Russia. One’s new year was cursed if the first person who knocked on your door was a girl.
Here in the States, Millie applied Southern superstitions to her own from Russia. Baba Yaga, a fearsome witch in Russian folklore, never left a trail behind her because she swept away all traces of her path with a broom. A Southerner friend had sworn that you could peg a witch, or the like, by leaving a broom in the middle of the floor. A witch would pick it up and set it in a corner. A Christian would step over it. Millie tested the theory to see if Helen had bewitched her son. Helen left it alone because her own mother had told her it was an insult to pick up another woman’s broom. She passed the test.