A Question of Magic

by E. D. Baker

  Serafina had always thought of Alina as the sister who got into messes, like the day she and her friends stole walnuts from a neighbor’s tree. The rest of her friends escaped, but Alina was caught because she had filled her pockets so full that she couldn’t fit through the gap in the fence. Katya, the oldest, had been the obedient daughter, who did what she thought her parents wanted her to do, including marrying Viktor. Serafina, however, had always considered herself the smart daughter, who did what she thought was right. And now she had to find out for herself what was really going on.

  Straightening her shoulders, Serafina stepped through the gate. The answer to what was happening to her might well be waiting for her in this cottage.

  She ignored the skulls’ snickering and raised her hand to the latch, but the door swung open just as the gate had.

  “So you’re back!” said a voice.

  Serafina looked around. The only one there was the cat, still on the bed where she’d left him that morning. He was sitting up now with his tail wrapped around his legs, his green eyes fixed on her. The night before, she’d thought she had dreamed that the cat had spoken to her, but maybe it hadn’t been a dream at all. Maybe the cat really had been talking. So many other unexplainable things had happened that she was beginning to think anything was possible. If skulls and a cat could talk to her, what was next, the teacups?

  “I was sure you’d return sooner or later. New Baba Yagas always do,” the cat continued. “Their lives are ruined if they don’t.”

  “You mean Baba Yagas are real?” Serafina said, still not quite believing that she was conversing with a cat.

  “Of course they’re real,” said the cat. “There have been Baba Yagas for hundreds of years.”

  “Some of the skulls didn’t think I’d be back.”

  “The ignorant ones were saying that you were gone for good,” said the cat. “They forget that a new Baba Yaga has to learn what it means to be Baba Yaga, and this is the best place to do that. The rest of the skulls were placing bets on when you’d show up again. You were faster than most, but then you’re probably one of the smarter ones.”

  “Have there been a lot of Baba Yagas before me?” asked Serafina.

  “More than I can count, but I’m a cat and not very good at counting.”

  “If I’m the new Baba Yaga, what happened to the old one? It wasn’t my great-aunt Sylanna, was it?”

  The cat twitched his tail. “The only name I know is ‘Baba Yaga.’ The last one left when you showed up. Didn’t you see those sparkly lights when you walked in? That was the fairy whisking her away. Baba Yaga was dying, and the fairy Summer Rose had promised to take her to a beautiful place to live out her last days once she had a replacement. Although Baba Yaga wanted to stay to teach you what you needed to know, she was too sick by the time you got here. She asked me to tell the cottage to go as soon as you were inside so you couldn’t leave and so you would have time to learn about being Baba Yaga. I thought she was a nice enough person, although she didn’t like cats as much as some of the Baba Yagas before her did.”

  “You talk as if you’ve met the other Baba Yagas.”

  “That might be because I have,” he said, sounding sarcastic. “My original owner was the nasty witch who started it all. She was a crazy, evil lowlife, but she knew her curses. I was just past kittenhood when she cursed me to live as long as Baba Yaga, and since there’s been one person after another holding the title, I’m still here.”

  “Do you have a name?”

  The cat made a funny little sound in his throat, which Serafina thought meant he was laughing. “I have lots of names! Octavius, Gwawl, Evrawg, Drefan. The last Baba Yaga to give me a name called me Viktor.”

  “I can’t call you that! One of my brothers-in-law is named Viktor, and I don’t like him one bit. I think I’ll call you Maks.”

  “My uncle’s name was Maksimillian.”

  “Then it’s perfect!”

  “Huh,” grunted the cat.

  “Why have there been so many Baba Yagas?”

  Maks gave her a disgusted look. “That’s enough questions; answering questions isn’t my job.”

  “There’s no one else I can ask,” said Serafina, but the cat turned away and began to lick the base of his tail.

  Serafina sighed, but the bodice of her dress was still so tight that deep breaths were uncomfortable. “At least I can do something about that,” she murmured to herself, and turned to the trunk at the right of the doorway.

  There were a lot of gowns in the trunk, but only a few fit her. When she’d selected the one she wanted, she started to take off her old clothes—until she noticed that the cat was watching her. “He’s just a cat,” she told herself, but she found his gaze disconcerting, so she went into the corner of the cottage farthest from the bed and turned her back to the cat before slipping off her under-shift.

  Serafina was folding her old clothes when she noticed a bowl of slightly withered apples on the table. She was hungry enough not to care how an apple looked as long as it wasn’t rotten, so she plucked one from the bowl and bit into it. When her glance fell on the book lying open on the table, she sat down and turned to the message that had greeted her as Baba Yaga. The rest of the pages were still blank.

  “I was hoping this book would tell me what was going on,” she said to herself.

  Words began to appear on the blank sheet of parchment.

  As the new Baba Yaga, you will answer one question and only one for each person who asks.

  “What happens if I want to answer more than one?” she asked the book, but nothing else appeared on the page.

  What good was a book that answered only some of her questions and only some of the time? Serafina slammed the book shut and shoved it away from her. “I don’t want to be Baba Yaga!” she cried. “I want to go home!”

  This wasn’t fair! She was supposed to answer other people’s questions while hers went unanswered? Suddenly it occurred to Seraphina that if she could answer their questions, she might be able to answer her own. “What is happening to me?” she said out loud, and waited. But she didn’t lose control, or spout an answer, or feel any different.

  “You can’t answer your own questions,” said Maks. “And you can’t tell people what to ask you.”

  Serafina turned toward the cat. “If you know so much, why don’t you just tell me what’s going on and save us both a lot of—”

  “Hello!” an old woman’s voice called from outside the cottage.

  Serafina hurried to the door. Maybe her great-aunt hadn’t been that sick after all. Maybe Sylanna had come to tell her what to do. Peeking out the door, Serafina saw an old woman wearing a faded green shawl standing by the gate, one hand resting on a knobbed cane as she tried to lift the latch with the other. The old woman looked up as Serafina opened the door wider.

  “Good,” the woman said, giving Serafina a weary smile. “Someone is here. I’ve come to ask Baba Yaga my question.”

  Serafina couldn’t help but feel disappointed that the woman wasn’t Sylanna. Not sure what to do, she glanced back into the cottage. The cat was curled up again with his eyes closed. “You’re no help,” she muttered.

  Her mind was racing as she faced the old woman. It wouldn’t do Serafina any good to deny that she was Baba Yaga, not if she was going to have to answer questions whether she wanted to or not. It was even possible that by helping others, she might be able to help herself. Maybe by answering the questions, the answers she needed would present themselves somehow. Or maybe she had to answer a certain number of questions before she could go back to being her old self. She’d do anything that might help her return home. She just hoped it wouldn’t take too long.

  “Come in and sit down,” she told the woman. “We can talk inside.”

  The old woman shuffled into the cottage, and Serafina showed her to the table. As her visitor sat down, Serafina moved to the other chair so she could sit facing the woman. “How can I help you?” she asked.
>
  Her visitor looked surprised. “I won’t ask if you’re Baba Yaga and waste my question in such a foolish way. You didn’t look like this when I saw you before, but I’ve heard rumors that your appearance often changes. Ah well, that’s neither here nor there. For years I’ve been thinking about what question I would ask you. My age and poor health finally helped me decide. Before I forget, here’s a loaf of fresh-baked bread to thank you for seeing me.”

  Serafina had noticed the bread’s aroma the moment the old woman entered the cottage, but she thought the smell had just lingered on her visitor’s clothes. When the woman pulled a string bag out from under her shawl and removed a loaf of crusty brown bread, Serafina’s mouth began to water. Suddenly she was ravenous, and she would have eaten the bread then if her visitor hadn’t been looking at her so expectantly. “What is your question?” she asked the woman, unable to take her eyes off the loaf.

  “You’ve probably answered this question many times before, but I need to know—what is going to happen to me when I die?”

  Serafina had no idea how to answer, but her mouth opened of its own volition and she said, “You are a good woman and have shown others great kindness your entire life. You will die peacefully in your sleep this very month, and when you do, angels will come to escort you to heaven.”

  The old woman seemed satisfied with the answer, but Serafina must have looked distressed because her visitor leaned forward to pat her hand, saying, “Don’t fret about me, my dear. Your answer was so much better than I expected. I was worried that I’d have to endure a long illness and upset my family with my suffering. Now I know that I should get my affairs in order and I don’t have to worry that I will die in pain. Thank you, my dear. You’ve helped me more than you can know.” There were tears in the old woman’s eyes when she shuffled from the cottage, but Serafina noticed that a gentle smile curved her lips.

  When Serafina stood to close the door, her dress felt uncomfortably tight again and her hem was inches above her ankles. “I need a mirror,” she murmured, and let her gaze travel around the room.

  In the far corner just past the bed stood a cupboard so old that the wood was almost black. When Serafina opened the door, she was surprised to find that the cupboard was stocked with food and other essentials. One shelf held cups, plates, some old worn pots, and a handful of silverware. Another held a small sack of sugar, a larger sack of flour, a crust of stale bread, and a bag of potatoes that smelled as if they’d just been dug out of the earth. There were other food items on the next shelf, but it was a glimmer of light reflecting off something shiny that caught her eye. It was a small mirror, half-wrapped in a soft cloth. When she picked it up, she expected the mirror to be as old and serviceable as everything else in the cottage. Instead the frame was gold encrusted with finely wrought flowers made from amethysts and sapphires.

  Normally Serafina might have enjoyed examining the craftsmanship of the frame, but the moment she caught sight of her reflection she couldn’t look at anything else. She’d had the face and body of a girl when she came to get her inheritance, but now her cheeks were thinner and her hair was more lustrous. Glancing down, she saw that her body was as curvy and well-rounded as her older sisters’.

  Serafina’s heart pounded in her chest and she began to breathe too fast. Although she looked older, her mind was still the same as it had been before. What was happening to her?

  Serafina was fighting off increasing panic when another voice called “Hello!” from outside the gate.

  Chapter 7

  Serafina missed Alek and her family fiercely and thought about them often. It had been more than two weeks since she’d seen them, and although she had started writing to her parents and sisters more than once to tell them that she was alive and well, she never got beyond the first few sentences. She wanted to tell them that she’d be home soon, but she had no idea how long she’d be gone. And how could she tell them about what had happened to her, when a fairy’s magic had caused it and they didn’t believe in either fairies or magic? She couldn’t even tell them about her day-today life when that was so beyond anything they could understand.

  She had also tried writing to Alek. He was more likely to believe what had happened to her, and there was so much she wanted to tell him. The problem was that she was sure he would want to rescue her, but how could he rescue her from a curse that would follow her everywhere? Although she yearned to see him, she didn’t want to entangle him in the mess that her life had become. Serafina had thrown out every letter to him that she’d started.

  Fortunately for her, she was beginning to get used to her unusual life. She no longer hurried to look in the mirror after she answered each question, as she had for the first two weeks. There was no point; she knew that she looked like a mature woman now and she didn’t want to see herself age. It helped that she had stopped growing after a few days and no longer had to look for new clothes in the trunk. It also helped that she knew what to expect. People came to her throughout the day, asking her questions about themselves or the ones they loved. Others came to her at night, stealing through the dark so that neither friends nor family would know of their visit. All of them brought her gifts to pay for her answers. Her larder was well stocked now, and on the rare occasion she thought of something she needed, all she had to do was mention it to one visitor and another would bring it.

  After her first visitors, Serafina had decided on some rules. She would invite guests into her cottage if they were polite. Only one person was allowed to come in at a time. She would set aside the normal rules of hospitality and offer her guests a drink or something to eat only if she wanted to. Both she and the guest would sit down before she asked for their question. And finally, she would not discuss one guest with another.

  Even when Serafina didn’t have visitors, her days were full. She took the responsibility of caring for the cat and house seriously, feeding the cat before she ate her own meals, cleaning the woodstove, restocking the basket beside it with logs, sweeping and dusting the cottage, and oiling the gate when it squeaked. Part of her hoped that by doing her best to fulfill her duties as Baba Yaga, she might be able to go home sooner. Another part of her enjoyed the responsibility of having her own home and making her own decisions. She might have been lonely if it weren’t for the company of the cat and the skulls. Although the cat remained aloof at times, the skulls grew friendlier the longer she was there.

  One morning Serafina was collecting berries from a thicket near the cottage when she felt as if someone was watching her. She turned around but didn’t see anyone. Then suddenly there was a flash of brilliant blue, a whisper of pale pink, and a flicker of lilac. Serafina blinked, and when she opened her eyes, she was surrounded by a group of curious fairies. Not wanting to startle them, she held her breath as they drew close enough to touch. They hovered, just inches away, examining her as if she were a new species of flower. A hint of a breeze rustled the leaves, a tree branch creaked, and the fairies flew off in a whirl of color.

  “I wonder if I passed the inspection,” Serafina murmured as she returned to the berry patch.

  Later that same day she was setting a jug of cider on a shelf when she decided that it was time to take a look at a few items in the cupboard a little more closely. Although she’d already searched through the cupboard more than once, she hadn’t examined every single jar and bottle. There was one in particular that was worrying her. It was a black jar with a white skull painted on it. Lettering that was almost too small to read ran across the bottom. “What is this?” she asked, holding up the jar so Maks could see it. “Is it poison?”

  The cat stopped licking his side long enough to glance her way. “I haven’t seen that jar in years. That’s skull polish. It cleans the skulls and makes them show up better in the dark.”

  Serafina squinted at the lettering. “‘For best results, use once a month.’” She pried open the waxy lid and peered inside. “It’s almost full.”

  “The skulls don’t like bei
ng polished. A couple of the Baba Yagas tried to use it, but never more than once.”

  Serafina shook her head. “Like it or not, if those skulls are supposed to get polished, I’m going to do it. These should work,” she said, taking some rags from the cupboard. “Do I have to leave the polish on for a minute or two, or should I wipe it off right away?”

  “I don’t know,” said Maks. “That’s never been an issue.”

  The cat followed Serafina out the door, lying down in a patch of sunlight to watch her. “Good luck!” he called as she approached Boris.

  “What does he mean by that?” the skull asked Serafina. “Are you going somewhere?”

  “Just to see you. I have a treat for you today. I’m going to polish you until you gleam.” Tucking the jar lid in her pocket, she used a rag to scoop out a dab of polish and reached toward Boris.

  “You’re not getting that glop on me!” the skull declared. Rocking from side to side on his post, he turned his face away.

  “That’s fine. I’ll start with the back of your head,” Serafina said, and slapped him with the rag. “Then you don’t have to see it.”

  “No!” cried Boris. “Don’t touch me!”

  “I already have,” she said, rubbing the polish on his smooth surface.

  “Ha-ha! Boris’s getting polished!” chortled Yure.

  “Be quiet, you brainless bonehead!” Boris shouted.

  Serafina put another dollop of polish on Boris. “Don’t worry,” she told him. “I’ll polish Yure next.”

  “Nooo!” Yure wailed. “Not me!”

  “This is horrible!” Boris cried. “This is torture!”

  “Oh, my. Look at that!” Serafina said, wiping off some of the polish.