A Question of Magic

by E. D. Baker

  “You’ve seen fairies?” Dielle asked, her eyes wide.

  Serafina nodded. “A couple of times. They’re very shy.”

  “Where do you see them? Are there any here now?”

  Serafina laughed. “No, I don’t see them now and I don’t see them very often. When I do, it’s only when I’m outside.”

  “Then let’s go out!” Dielle said, hopping to her feet. “I’d love to see a fairy! Maybe if I’m with you when you see one, I’ll see it, too!”

  “All right,” Serafina said, laughing, “but give me a minute to finish my cider!”

  “You can take it with you!” Dielle said, herding her toward the door. “Here, I’ll take mine, too. We can drink while we’re walking.” Snatching her mug from the table, Dielle hustled Serafina out of the cottage.

  “I don’t think fairies like to go where there are lots of people,” Serafina said, glancing in the town’s direction.

  “Then we’ll go the other way,” said Dielle, turning toward the woods. “We’ll find a place that the fairies would like.”

  They took a well-traveled path into the woods, then followed a deer trail until they reached a meadow filled with wildflowers. “This looks like a good place, wouldn’t you say?” Dielle said, climbing onto a big rock.

  “I’d like this spot if I were a fairy,” said Serafina. She had already finished the cider in her mug and was thirsty from their hike, so when she saw a sparkling brook at the edge of the meadow, she knelt down to fill her mug, then did the same for Dielle.

  “Do you see any fairies?” Dielle asked, looking at Serafina expectantly.

  “Not yet,” Serafina answered with a laugh. “But I do hear voices.”

  Dielle cocked her head to the side and listened. “I do, too,” she said with a sigh. “I don’t think we went far enough into the woods.”

  Serafina wandered toward the sound. Soon the trees thinned out, revealing two men and a wooden boat on the shore of a lake. One of the men was seated in the boat, while the other stood with one foot in the boat and the other on the bank. The man in the boat was struggling with the oars as the boat drifted away from shore. Serafina heard Dielle come up behind her as the legs of the man who was standing spread farther and farther apart. Suddenly he fell in with a splash, his arms and legs thrashing.

  Serafina started to laugh, and when she turned to Dielle, she found her friend laughing so hard that the water she had just sipped from her mug was coming out her nose. The two friends staggered away from the lake, collapsing on the edge of the meadow, where they laughed at the man falling into the water, at the sounds they made when they laughed, and for the sheer joy of laughing.

  “My sides hurt,” Dielle moaned, wrapping her arms around her stomach.

  “So do mine,” Serafina gasped. She squeezed her eyes shut and took great shuddering breaths. When she opened her eyes, she was facing a yellow blossom bending so low it almost touched her face. A tiny man with pale green wings sat astride the blossom, watching her.

  Serafina tried not to move, not wanting to frighten him. “Dielle,” she whispered.

  “What?” Dielle asked, and hiccuped loudly.

  The fairy shot into the air. His wings were just a blur when he flew away.

  “Did you see him?” Serafina asked, sitting up and turning to face her friend.

  “Who, the man in the boat or the one in the water?” Dielle asked, giggling. “Please, don’t get me started again!”

  “Never mind,” Serafina said as she got to her feet. Somehow she couldn’t bring herself to tell Dielle that she had just missed seeing a fairy.

  They headed back to Serafina’s cottage. When they reached the gate, Dielle handed her mug to Serafina saying, “I should go now. Mother will be wondering what happened to me. I’ll come see you again when I can. I don’t suppose you know where you’ll be in a few weeks?”

  “I don’t know where I’ll be from one day to the next,” said Serafina, “but come visit anytime!”

  “I will,” said Dielle. “I promise!”

  The next three days were hectic, with more people coming to see Serafina than ever before. She was thinking about going for a short walk one day, just to get a break, when she heard Boris arguing with someone at the gate.

  “No, I’m not going to let you in without announcing you. She’s in charge here, not you! Baba Yaga! There’s someone here to—Ow! Stop hitting me, old woman!”

  Serafina peeked out the window to see an old woman rap the skull with her cane. The gate swung wide, even though Boris was gnashing his teeth at their visitor. Serafina opened the door just as the woman stomped into the yard.

  “If it isn’t the new little Baba Yaga!” the stranger said, sneering. “I never thought I’d have a question for you, but then we live in unpredictable times, more’s the pity. Invite me inside, girl. There are too many prying eyes out here!”

  “Please come in,” Serafina said, stepping aside to let the woman past.

  Leaning on her cane, the old woman hobbled across the threshold and paused to examine the room. Her nearly black eyes glittered when she took a seat at the table without being asked. Bits of dried grass and twigs stuck out of her filthy long gray hair, whose tangles had knots as big as her fist. One of the knots moved, and bright, beady eyes peered out at Serafina. When the old woman rested her arm on the table, tiny spiders leaked from her sleeve and skittered away. Serafina tried not to wrinkle her nose at the smell that enveloped the woman. It was a heavy smell, like dead mice rotting in the walls of an old house; Serafina wondered if she’d ever be able to get rid of the odor.

  The woman’s eyes darted here and there as if she was appraising everything. Even when sitting, she was in constant motion, her fingers thrumming the table. She was just turning toward Serafina when Maks growled at something outside the door.

  The old woman had a string tied to her finger, and she’d begun to reel it in with her other hand. The string ran across the floor and out the door. As it shortened, it dragged something kitten-sized with matted fur and tiny red eyes over the threshold and across the cottage floor. Maks spit and snarled, swiping at its back without actually touching it. The little animal turned to snap at the cat, revealing sharp, pointed teeth almost too big for its mouth. Serafina could hear Mak’s low growl as he trailed the creature across the room.

  Suddenly the little animal jumped, landing on the old woman’s lap. Reaching into her pocket, the woman pulled out something long and skinny. The creature began to gnaw on it, growling and making slobbery sounds as it chewed. Serafina took a step back when she realized that it was eating an old, dried finger.

  “What did you want to ask me?” Serafina asked the woman.

  “Aren’t you one for getting right to the point!” said the woman. “No social niceties here! Fine, be that way. I came to ask you a question and ask I will, but I’ll say what I’ve got to say first. I’ve lived in the same house just outside Vioska for forty-seven years, and in all that time, my neighbors have learned to leave me alone. We have our occasional tiffs—they wonder where their lost relatives have gone and come nosing around my house, though they’ve never found anything, I’ve made sure of that! And when I need a few ingredients for my work, I sometimes go to them, stingy as they are. All in all, however, we’ve left one another alone. Until now, that is. It seems they have a new sheriff whose nose is bent out of shape over a few missing people. I could have stayed, of course, but they were planning to burn me at the stake, so I slipped away in the middle of the night. Only now I don’t have anywhere to go. So here’s my question—where can I go that I can scare people into letting me do what I want and they won’t be able to do a thing about it?”

  Serafina didn’t want to answer this woman or help her in any way. Even though she tried to keep her mouth closed, her lips parted of their own accord, and she said in her Baba Yaga voice, “In the kingdom of Norovise lies a small village called Pimki. Most of the young people have moved away, leaving only the infirm and elde
rly. No one who currently resides in Pimki can stand against you.”

  The old woman’s eyes lit up. She licked her lips and stood, dumping her odd pet onto the floor. Moving toward the door, the woman dragged the creature on the string, pausing just inside the threshold to size up Serafina. “You don’t look like much, but it occurs to me that you might tell someone where I’ve gone. By all rights I should kill you. I won’t, however, because I’ve heard that anyone who kills the Baba Yaga becomes the next Baba Yaga, and I’m not about to get stuck with the job. I know I’m supposed to give you a gift, so consider your life my gift. If you’re smart, you’ll keep your mouth shut and not tell anyone about me.”

  The woman paused, still staring at Serafina. “Hmm. You don’t look that smart to me, so perhaps I should take one little precaution.” Pulling a crooked stick from the folds of her gown, she pointed it at Serafina and said, “If you tell anyone that I was here or the question that I asked, your tongue will shrivel in your mouth and you’ll never be able to speak again.”

  “I won’t,” Serafina said, and waited until the old woman had gone before adding, “unless someone asks me.”

  After the witch’s visit, dozens of people came to see Serafina, but she waited until a farmer who seemed honest and reliable stopped by before mentioning that the sheriff of Vioska should come to see her. It wasn’t until the end of the week, when she’d almost given up hope, that the sheriff finally appeared.

  “I hear that you want to see me,” the sheriff said, laying his cap on the table as he took a seat. From the condition of the horse he’d left tethered to the gate, it appeared that the man had ridden long and hard to get to her, and he looked grateful when she handed him a cup of cold cider. She couldn’t help noticing that he was only a few years older than Alek.

  “I do, indeed,” Serafina said as she took the seat across from him. “I understand that you’ve had a problem.”

  Ever since she mentioned the sheriff to the farmer, Serafina hadn’t slept well. Visions of her tongue shriveling in her mouth had haunted her dreams, and she frequently found herself pressing her tongue against her teeth and swiping it across her palate. She had no control over what the sheriff might ask; if he asked the wrong question, she fully believed that her tongue would shrivel in her mouth. If only she could just tell the sheriff where the witch had gone without saying anything else, but she was afraid that he’d ask if the old woman had visited the cottage. Serafina’s Baba Yaga voice might then tell him precisely what the witch had warned her not to say. Even though she feared the curse, Serafina couldn’t let the witch do what she had planned. People’s lives depended on the sheriff knowing where the witch had gone.

  The sheriff took a sip of his cider, watching her over the rim of the cup. When he set it down, he nodded and said, “We were about to capture a nasty witch when she suddenly disappeared.” His eyes narrowed as he looked at Serafina. “I’ve heard that you can answer one question with the truth. I know what my question should be. Where did the witch go?”

  Serafina sighed with relief. She wouldn’t have to tell him that the witch had been there or repeat the question that she had asked, either of which would have withered Serafina’s tongue. “The witch has only recently arrived in a small village called Pimki, in the kingdom of Norovise,” she said in her Baba Yaga voice. “Most of the young people have moved away, leaving only the infirm and elderly. No one who currently resides in Pimki can stand against the witch. She will be complacent now and not expecting a young sheriff to lead a score of armed men to capture and gag her before she can cast a spell that would allow her to escape.”

  The sheriff listened intently while she was talking. When she was done, he drained the cup of cider and set it on the table. “I must be off,” he said, picking up his cap. “It seems I’ll be traveling with some friends.”

  “I wish you luck,” Serafina said, following him to the door.

  “And I thank you for your help,” he said, bowing to her as if she were a grand lady at court.

  Serafina smiled as the sheriff walked away. The people of Pimki would soon be safe, and she might be able to get a good night’s sleep now that she knew she was keeping her tongue.

  Chapter 9

  Two weeks later, a messenger arrived at the cottage, bringing a note and a small leather pouch for Serafina. He had already ridden off by the time Serafina opened the note and read:

  BABA YAGA,

  AFTER I MET YOU, I LEARNED THAT I SHOULD HAVE GIVEN YOU A GIFT WHEN I ASKED YOU MY QUESTION. HERE IS THE GIFT, ALONG WITH MY THANKS. WE CAUGHT THE WITCH!

  TOMAN DAMEK, SHERIFF OF VIOSKA

  Serafina untied the string holding the pouch shut and shook a lovely gold brooch into her hand. She admired it for a moment before tucking the brooch back in the pouch. It was probably very expensive, but the only piece of jewelry that really mattered was the heart that Alek had given to her. The brooch was just payment for information.

  Placing her hand on her chest, Serafina felt the gold heart she wore hidden under the neck of her gown. It meant more to her than just a piece of jewelry; it was a sign of how much Alek loved her. Remembering the look on his face when he gave her the token, she felt a pang of longing and tears sprang to her eyes. If only she could see him again!

  Serafina was still standing in the doorway, her gaze fixed on the swaying barley growing in the field across the road, when Maks sauntered out of the cottage and rubbed against her legs. When she didn’t respond, he peered up at her and asked, “What’s wrong with you?”

  “I’m never going to get free of being Baba Yaga, am I?” she asked. “The rest of my life is going to be just like this. I’ll spend my days waiting for strangers to show up, knowing that it’s probably the only time I’ll ever see them. I’ll never again have people I can love or who will love me. And just look at me. I don’t even need a mirror to know that I’m getting old. My hands look like my grandmother’s, and I’m getting pains in places that never hurt before. This can’t last very long, now, can it? If I have to answer questions and age each time I do, my life is going to be awfully short.”

  “Why?” asked Maks, who was watching a butterfly flit across the yard. “All you have to do is drink the tea.”

  Serafina turned to face him. “What tea?”

  “Ask the book how you can be young again,” said the cat, and he scampered out the open door.

  Serafina was muttering to herself about all the things she’d like to do to unhelpful cats when she sat down at the table and reached for the book. Flipping through to the first blank page, she cleared her throat and said, “I get older every time I answer a question. How can I be young again?”

  As the words appeared on the parchment, Serafina leaned closer and read:

  Drink the blue rose tea.

  “Where can I find this tea?” she asked, but no other words appeared. Something niggled at the back of her mind—she was sure she’d seen something somewhere. If only she could remember.

  Serafina let her gaze wander around the room. Where would she put something that she wanted to keep really safe? Although the cupboard was an obvious place to keep tea, would the other Baba Yagas have kept such a special tea with the rest of the food? She’d been drinking some of the herbal teas, but visitors she had spoken with herself had brought most of them and she knew none of those teas included roses in their mixtures.

  Serafina sorted through the shelf that held the old teas first. She found more herbal teas, a small pot of dried dandelions for dandelion tea, some shriveled dried things that smelled vaguely like blueberries, and an old bag of rose hip tea that was moldy and smelled bad when she opened it. There wasn’t much of it, but she had no way of knowing if it had been made with blue roses or roses of a more conventional color, so she set it aside, hoping that it wasn’t what she needed.

  The next shelf down was filled with small sacks of barley flour, wheat flour, and oats. She threw out a sack of ancient dried apples and was about to go to the next shelf when sh
e spied a clay jar with a cork crammed into the opening. Although she had seen it before, she had no idea what was in it. Someone had labeled it at some point, but the writing was in a language she didn’t understand. Turning it over in her hands, she was delighted when she found “Blue Rose Tea” written in a different script at the bottom.

  It didn’t take long to make herself a cup of tea. When it was ready, she sat at the table with the cup and the mirror in front of her. If she was going to change, she wanted to see it happen.

  After taking the first sip, she stared at her reflection in the mirror, but as far as she could tell, she looked just the same. The tea was muskier than she’d expected and left a strange aftertaste in her mouth. If she had been drinking it just because she was thirsty, she probably wouldn’t have had any more, but she wasn’t drinking it for the taste. She took a second sip.

  The tingling started in her fingertips first. She sat back and stared at her hands as the feeling traveled past her knuckles to her wrists and up her arms, making the fine hairs stand on end. The skin grew tauter, and the spots that had appeared on the back of her hands over the last few days disappeared. She took another sip, then another and another, until the cup was empty. In only a few minutes, the tingling engulfed her entire body. When it reached her face, she leaned toward the mirror and watched as the lines beside her eyes and mouth vanished, her skin grew firmer, her eyes grew brighter, and her hair became darker and more lustrous. When the tingling finally stopped, she realized that all her aches and pains were gone. She was young again, though she thought she looked a little older than she had when she first became Baba Yaga.

  Sitting back in her seat, Serafina closed her eyes and reveled in the sensations of being young and healthy. Now she didn’t have to die of old age before she was even fifteen. And there was plenty of tea in the jar. If she was careful with it, the tea should last her a long time.

  Serafina did a little dance when she stood. Her lithe young body could move easily, and the freedom of movement made her so happy that she hummed a merry tune as she began to clean up. After pushing the cork back in the jar, she returned the tea to the cupboard where she had found it, then washed her cup. She was putting it away when something else occurred to her. Now she looked nearly the same as she had before she became Baba Yaga. She could go home and if she told everyone not to ask her questions, she could even have the life she wanted! If she hurried, she could be back with her family soon.