by Karah Sutton
Before her was a clearing she’d never seen, on the crest of a small hill. Rock structures twice the height of a grown human towered over her, seven in all, watching her like stone spirits. The smell surrounded her, thicker than fog. A crack and a snap split the air. And then the witch was before her.
Baba Yaga.
Zima had never seen her, but there was no mistaking the cane in her bony hand and the smell of magic clinging to her like smoke. Her skin was as rough and wrinkled as the bark of a pine, and what little gray hair she had stuck out in all directions from her head like many twigs forming a crown. Stone-gray teeth punctured shriveled gums.
Go away! barked Zima. Keep away from me! She panted, struggling to force each breath through her tightened throat. But as she prepared her front paws to run, the witch made a gesture. Roots sprang up from the ground, ensnaring Zima’s legs. The more she pulled at them, the tighter they wound around her.
“Silence, pup,” the witch said calmly. “I take as little pleasure in speaking to you as you do to me.”
The witch could speak the language of wolves.
But Zima’s amazement was short-lived, and she answered with a growl.
I am not falling for your tricks.
The distrust between the wolves and the witch went back hundreds of wolf generations. No wolf ever interacted with the witch without walking away changed. At least with a human you could search for a knife or an arrow. But the witch’s magic was hidden, and could be used for any number of devious purposes. You are worse than a human, Zima said through bared teeth.
The witch let out a thunderclap of laughter. “Oh ho, am I? The humans setting traps, chopping down trees, lighting fire to your home? You say I am worse?”
Baba Yaga glided closer to Zima, her footsteps silent, her skirts dragging across the ground. “It is the humans that worry me,” she said, tracing a gnarled finger along the top of her cane. “I came here because I have a task to give you.”
A spiteful retort froze in Zima’s throat. She coughed and spluttered in surprise.
Baba Yaga took advantage of Zima’s silence to continue. “I am the guardian of this forest. You would be serving not just me, but the forest itself, through your delivery of what I need.”
She seemed to have no doubt that Zima would say yes. Certainty twinkled in her eyes. But the witch was trying to trick her, of course she was.
I do not believe you. I know you have been following us, I have smelled you. Zima stared at the witch, taking in the wrinkles of her lips, the purple flecks in her eyes. The realization hit her. The humans in the forest, the witch tracking her pack—they were linked. You are working with them.
Baba Yaga let out an amused cough. “Stop talking nonsense!” She jabbed her cane at the ground. “How can I side with them, when they pose as much danger to me as they do to you?”
Zima had to fight to ignore the witch’s words. She tried to wrench her paws away from the ground. But the roots held fast. She lost her balance and tumbled forward, her snout slamming into the dirt. Still, her paws didn’t move.
I do not care what you want. I will not help you, said Zima, her growls muffled against the ground.
The witch’s lips hardened into a thin line. “Fine, then. But it is not only I who you betray with your refusal.” Her mouth curled into a smile, revealing those gray teeth, jagged as knives.
Baba Yaga struck her cane into the ground. To Zima’s surprise and wonder, a giant stone bowl floated toward them from just beyond the crest of the hill. Baba Yaga climbed inside the bowl and seated herself, her knobbly knees jutting out on either side. “Come to me when you change your mind,” she said. The stone bowl took flight, skimming along the ground and carrying her out of sight.
Zima’s legs trembled, but she forced herself to stand. The witch’s words clung to her bones like moss on stone. There was something evil in them.
The witch had a plan. And Zima had narrowly escaped being part of it.
Nadya swallowed. Steady breaths…she just needed to find something familiar. Something she had marked on her map that would help her find her way home.
Tears stung her eyes, but she fought to hold them in. How was she supposed to run away through the forest if she couldn’t even find a path to her own village? She stamped her foot. She would find her way back, just to prove that she could. And if she couldn’t, the orphanage wasn’t a home to her anyway, so what did it matter if she never returned?
“Lost, little one?” a voice boomed.
Nadya whipped around. Before her was a man on horseback, his shadow sharp in the light of the newly risen moon. A fur cloak clung to his arms and shoulders like ivy.
As her eyes adjusted, it took Nadya a moment to tell where the fur of the man’s cloak ended and his pointed black beard began. At last, she recognized the angular features of Tsar Aleksander. His dark eyes glittered in the shadows, heavy black brows arching above them.
No, no, anyone but him. Nadya’s stomach churned as she imagined the smug look of satisfaction that would drape itself across Katerina’s perfect face when Nadya was returned to the orphanage by the tsar himself.
She turned away. She could pretend she hadn’t seen or heard him.
The golden bridle on his horse jangled, sending musical tones ringing through the grove.
“I asked, ‘Are you lost?’ ” said Tsar Aleksander. His deep voice was warm; his tone had a hint of amusement.
She gritted her teeth and turned around, remembering at the last minute to give a formal bow, her hand on her heart. His eyes fell on the hem of her skirt, and she remembered the dirt smudges.
A desire gripped her to pretend she had nothing to be ashamed of, not the state of her clothes or getting lost in the woods. With a lift of her chin, she raised her eyes to meet his. “Just making my way to the village, your illustrious highness,” she said.
“I thought as much,” he said, and the starlight danced across his cheeks and the bridge of his sharp nose. “My dear Katerina sent me to look after you.” He shook the reins, and his horse trotted forward, closing the distance between them. “She knew you would be in the forest somewhere, despite her advice never to enter this dangerous place.”
Nadya sighed. Of course Katerina would send someone to look for her. “Katerina worries more about the forest than I do,” said Nadya, hoping it made her sound brave.
The tsar chuckled. “In that, Katerina and I are the same. It is why I have planned the great hunt for the day after our wedding.” His black horse shifted its balance, as though the tsar’s words made it uneasy. “The forest must be tamed.”
She had already heard him brag before about the hunt, in one of his visits to Katerina since the announcement of their upcoming wedding. “The greatest hunt anyone has ever seen,” he’d called it, then vowed, “I will burn back the forest that has crept ever closer to the castle these many years.” Nadya clenched and unclenched her jaw. She didn’t like the sound of it at all, but she also knew the tsar would never change his mind just because she disliked it.
Tsar Aleksander extended a hand toward her from his towering position in his saddle. His black sleeves shimmered with gold-threaded embroidery. “Come, little one,” he said, “I’ll take you home.”
Nadya winced at “little one,” but said nothing.
He swung her up behind him in the hard leather saddle, the fur of his cloak cushioning her against his back. She wrinkled her nose. The tsar thought that hunting animals made him a conqueror of the forest. But he didn’t know the forest like she did. Even if she had gotten lost just this one time.
Together they rode back, the tsar following some invisible path. Nadya tried to remember the turns they took, and each unusual rock or tree they passed, so she could add them to her map. At last, the trees thinned and the village opened out before them, a series of crooked wooden houses fighting to stand upright among a lumpy chain of hills.
The orphanage stood closest to the edge of the forest, no welcoming warmth drifting f
rom the stone oven in the kitchen at the back, no laughter or music flowing through the cracks in the wooden walls. Only thin blankets and stringy stew that could barely fill a hungry belly. For a moment Nadya enjoyed the warmth that came from riding behind the tsar. Katerina was going somewhere she’d never be cold or hungry, or so tired after a day’s chores that she nearly fell asleep while trudging up the stairs to bed.
After the tsar had helped her down from the horse, Nadya turned to bow at him as he dismounted. There was a rustle of skirts and a soft footstep that could only mean one thing. “Nadya, you know better than to go wandering off into the forest by yourself. If Baba Yaga found you for her dinner, you would have no one to blame but yourself….”
Nadya turned to face Katerina, quick to hide her injured hands in the folds of her skirts.
In the soft moonlight Katerina seemed even more beautiful than usual. Though her blue sarafan and headdress were as plain as the clothes of all the orphans, Katerina’s were cleaner and crisper than Nadya’s. Somehow Katerina always managed to avoid getting any dirt on her at all. It was no wonder the tsar had chosen her to become his tsaritsa—it was a fairy-tale story of the orphan girl from the woods becoming royalty that would be told by firelight for years. The tsar held to an old forest tradition that anyone who gave him a gift that he deemed worthy would be honored with a royal favor. When he visited the village, Katerina offered him one of her beautifully woven cloaks, soft as a feather and more intricate than a spider’s web. In return he named her to be his bride.
Katerina knelt so that her eyes were level with Nadya’s. The smooth expression broke with a crease across her forehead as her large eyes bored into Nadya’s. “Who will look after you when I go away?” she said, and Nadya couldn’t miss the hint of true concern that weighed down her words. “Mrs. Orlova can’t watch after you like I do.” She glanced at their mistress, watching them with a frown from the doorway. The old woman didn’t dare to snap at Nadya in the tsar’s presence.
Ignoring the warmth of Katerina’s hands on her arms, Nadya said, “I’ll be fine. I don’t need anyone.” But that was a lie. She didn’t want to be alone; it was just her only option.
The soft, searching look in Katerina’s eyes continued for another moment before she stood and said, “And, dear, what have you done to get your dress so filthy?”
There it was. Perfect Katerina once more.
Nadya looked away toward the forest, dark tree branches beckoning her with long twig fingers.
From the shadows, a single glowing eye stared back at her.
Baba Yaga wove through the trees in her stone bowl like a leaf carried on a stream. Behind her she dragged branches to sweep away the track left by the drifting and dragging of her stone mortar and pestle through the dirt. The ancient bowl didn’t navigate as smoothly as it once did, and she had to keep her legs tucked in so they wouldn’t knock into the trees.
It was no wonder she avoided leaving her hut any more than she could help it.
A bear paused in tearing at brambles to watch her fly past. His paws flexed and she urged the mortar to fly faster. She had no time for him.
The mortar gave a shudder, as though asking her which way to turn.
The witch lifted her nose into the air, sniffing. The smell of magic had always guided her, the delicious scent of earth and moonlight forming a path through the forest. But her nose could not find the smell. She sniffed again, searching for the flowers and feathers that floated on the breeze. For the blood of humans, the most pungent scent of all.
Nothing.
She would have to find her way through memory alone. Her thin fingers were sharp as they rubbed her eyes and nose while the mortar continued to fly. She was getting old. Her senses weren’t what they used to be. Her eyes were simply tired, but her nose—it seemed to have lost its use entirely.
Come to think of it, she couldn’t remember the last time she’d smelled death, or even anything at all.
The thunder of Grom’s heavy paws signaled his approach. Relief lit his face as he saw Zima, but it was quickly replaced by a frown. What happened? his voice thundered at Zima. Where is the human?
Leto arrived, just in time to hear Grom’s question. He stood close behind their brother, his sides expanding with deep breaths after his run, waiting for Zima’s answer.
Zima bowed her head. She couldn’t bring herself to tell them that she’d let the human escape. They’d once been inseparable, she and Grom. But on the longest day of the year a fire had spread, killing both their parents.
Their mother and father had ordered Zima and Grom to get the younger pups away from the danger. They obeyed, carrying Leto and Potok as far as they could, waiting in safety for their parents to follow the scent trails they’d left behind.
Their parents never returned.
After that, Grom stepped up as leader of the pack, and the five moons since had seen more humans in the forest setting traps and tracking their pack. Grom wasn’t Zima’s friend anymore, he was her guardian. Stern and distant, he moved with an intensity that made Zima’s legs quiver. Her heart ached at what she had lost—not just their parents, but her closest companion.
Now, at the thought of admitting she’d spared the human, it felt like she’d made the wrong choice. She’d been too weak to go through with it.
But at least she had refused to help Baba Yaga. That much she could be proud of.
The witch appeared—Baba Yaga, Zima said.
Grom’s ears twitched in surprise while the rest of his body grew stiff with alarm. Baba Yaga, here? he asked. He glanced around the clearing, as though expecting the witch to emerge from the trees at any moment.
She came to assign me a task, Zima said. Then she couldn’t help but feel pleased with herself as she added, But I refused her.
She waited for Grom’s approval, a sign that she had done well.
Grom’s expression was rigid, immovable. He turned to Potok, who had crept close to stand at Zima’s flank. Go. Back to the home place, he said. Potok flinched but obeyed. Grom then turned to Leto. And you. I need to speak with Zima alone, he said. Leto followed Potok from the clearing as though he’d just been given a stern lecture.
Grom stomped to the far side of the clearing. The earth trembled under his muscled frame. Tell me what happened, he said, everything.
Zima tugged her claws through the dirt. Telling the whole story meant admitting that she’d let the human go. She began with her and her younger brothers tracking their final meal before starting the trek toward the home place. But when it came time to explain how she had hesitated to kill the human, Zima choked. She couldn’t face Grom’s disappointment. So instead, she slid straight from when she crouched, no farther than a leap from the human, to when she’d detected the smell of magic.
She’d never kept the truth from him before. Ever. It felt like it confirmed all the distance that had grown between them since the fire. Like a canyon, it opened out before her, and soon it would be too far to jump across.
When she got to the part where she accused Baba Yaga of siding with the humans, Grom let out a growl. Zima stopped, her mouth still open, startled into silence.
The witch spoke to you, and instead of running away, you spoke back? Grom said. There was a dangerous rumble in his throat.
I tried to run, but she used her magic to hold me to the ground, Zima said. She demonstrated the way her paws had been ensnared. I could not move!
Grom thought on this for a moment. The witch uses words to distort and confuse, and now it seems she can force you to listen. He began to pace back and forth across the clearing, moving so swiftly that his paws left barely a trace in the dirt. What has she done to you? Did she turn you against us?
No! Zima said. She said she was in danger from the humans, just like we are.
Grom froze, and Zima realized immediately that she’d said something horribly wrong. This is how she tricks you. You should have called me as soon as you smelled the witch, but you did not. And then you f
ailed to kill a human.
So he knew, without her telling him. Zima pawed at the ground in shame.
You let your fears possess you. You will never protect this pack until you control them. There was something in the curve of Grom’s forehead and the stiffness of his shoulders that she had never seen before. Something between anger and heartbreak. He let out a sigh. And, he said, you kept the truth from me.
I was ashamed, said Zima. It was wrong—
Humans lie. The witch lies. Wolves do not lie.
Zima opened her mouth to speak again, but Grom silenced her with a glare more piercing than a hunter’s knife. I wish our parents were here, he said. I do not want to punish you. They would know if you…But he stopped, not finishing the thought.
If I what? Zima asked.
Grom shifted, his paws planted firmly on the ground, the way they might when he faced a threat.
And Zima realized. She was the threat.
…if the witch cursed you, he said.
No! Zima said, shock and hurt rippling through her fur. I would have known, I would have felt it if she tried to curse me!
Would you? said Grom. I cannot take that risk.
It was a mistake, said Zima, I know that now. But it was a choice, I made a choice—
Grom turned away from her, swiping a paw across his ears. Quiet! he said, cold and sharp as an icicle. I need to think. I must decide what to do. He resumed pacing.
Zima clamped her mouth shut, but she wanted to argue that she had chosen not to kill the human because she’d thought that that was the right thing to do. It had nothing to do with witches or curses. It was Zima, only Zima, trying to make the right decision. Because the forest was becoming more dangerous for their pack than she had ever known. First the humans, now a witch—threats were circling like birds of prey. Zima thought of the fox in the snare. Her pack was no match for the weapons of humans, or the powers of the witch. If she’d killed the human, it might have prompted an all-out attack from the village. At least now they had a chance to decide what to do next.
