Haunted

by Joy Preble

  Behind me, someone groans. Ben sits slumped against a thick tree, rubbing his head. No more spell-induced giddiness—just confusion and fear mingling on his face.

  “Ethan.” From the opposite direction, Tess stumbles toward me. She’s barefoot, as are Ben and I. Her blond hair is matted with blood on one side, and she’s sporting a cut over her left eye. “Where are we? What the hell just happened?”

  I stick to the basics. No sense panicking anyone more than necessary. “Baba Yaga’s forest. Anne’s blood was the key. I guess it’s always been Anne’s blood, only we didn’t know it. Some dropped on each of you, then Ben put his hand in the forest, and—well, here we are.”

  “We’re in a witch’s forest?” Ben looks at me as though I’ve gone insane. I have no idea how much he remembers of what’s just occurred.

  Tess doesn’t comment. She just holds out a hand and hoists Ben off the ground. The koshka narrows his gold eyes to thin slits and draws his ears back. Around us, the forest feels close and heavy, so thick with trees and vines that only the barest trickle of sunlight slips through the heavy canopy of leaves and branches.

  “It’ll be okay,” I say idiotically. My hand sinks momentarily into a slimy mass of dead leaves and dirt as I push myself up. “We’ll get out of here. We just need to—”

  “To what, dude?” Ben snaps out of his shock. “Who are you, anyway? And where’s Anne?”

  “She—she’s not with us?” Tess’s voice quavers, then steadies.

  “I don’t think so. She wasn’t—we were all connected, all touching. But not Anne.” I sound more positive about the explanation than I really am.

  Tess puts her hand to her mouth. “She saved me. I almost drowned back there, didn’t I? Anne saved me and now—it was all so fast. The rusalka dragged me under. Oh, my God. I really was dead, wasn’t I?”

  “Yes.” I see no point in lying to her. “Yes, I think you were—mostly, anyway. Both of you, actually. Anne brought you back. She—” My heart sinks. Do I explain the bargain that Anne just made—do I even understand it? What we really need to do right now is figure out if we can get out of here.

  “She what? What did she do?” Ben looks from Tess to me. His tone borders on dangerous, with a little crazy thrown in for good measure. “And where is she? If you did something to her—”

  He lunges toward me, but the cat has other ideas. It swipes at his bare foot with one paw, razor-sharp claws drawing blood. Ben yelps in real pain. The cat flees before any of us can stop it. “Shit! Ow!” Blood drips from the long scratch on the top of Ben’s foot, and when he steps backward, he leaves a dripping trail of blood in the dead leaves. A few feet away, something stirs under the detritus. I see a flash of eyes, a thin, furry body. And I hear the skittering sound of small feet. The smell of dead things around us gets a little stronger.

  “She made a bargain with the witch.” I say it slowly, as though it’s a matter of simple fact, but my pulse kicks in my veins and my heart tightens. “I don’t know exactly what Baba Yaga wants from her in return. But she—she helped Anne save you. It happened very fast. I had no idea that Anne was going to—”

  “She did what? Are you kidding me?” Tess smacks a hand against her forehead. “Oh, Ethan. This is bad. Really bad. How could you let that happen? You came back to help her, and this is what you let happen? How could you? You have some magic left, Ethan. You could have done something. You could have—”

  “I did what I could.” I place a hand gently on Tess’s shoulder, but she shakes it off. “I gave her everything left in me. That’s what brought both of you back from the rusalkas. I gave her all I had. But I didn’t think that she—” I stop. What else is there really to add?

  “You mean we’re here in this place, and you don’t have any magic? Is that what you’re telling me?” She makes a sound that’s part laughing and part crying at the same time.

  “Well, I—”

  “Thank you for not letting me croak, I guess. But seriously, Ethan. We’re in big trouble, aren’t we?”

  I believe we both understand the answer.

  “We need to stop your foot from bleeding.” Cautiously, I approach Ben. The last thing we need right now is for him to—

  His fist slams into my face harder than it had at the lake. “Son of a—”

  He hits me again. This time, I punch him back. My fist plows into his solar plexus, and the force of it sends him stumbling backward. But he keeps his balance and runs at me again, barely deterred.

  “Stop it!” Tess shoves herself between us. “Stop it. This isn’t getting us anywhere. And I think there’s something really creepy under those leaves.” She points to her right, and I see the small furry creature again—a rat of some sort?—its eyes glowing red, and its feet making a scuttling, scratching sound as it dives back under cover, kicking up a residue of dirt and what look like tiny bones as it goes.

  “She’s my girlfriend,” Ben says. “Mine. Not yours. Get it, dude? Whatever all this is, wherever we are, when we get out of here, you need to stay away from her. Wherever the hell it is you came from and whatever the hell it is you think you want from her—well, forget it. She’s mine. I love her, and she loves me. I don’t care what happened before. You left. She started going out with me. Whatever you’ve done to make her head all crazy, you’re going to stop doing it. And you’re going to leave us alone.”

  “That’s up to Anne, Ben. Not you. And I suggest you calm yourself down. We need to get moving. Anne’s going to end up here somehow. That much I’m sure of. Baba Yaga wouldn’t have it any other way. So we need to find her hut, and I think we need to do it before it gets any darker in here. We can talk about this later.”

  This doesn’t make Ben any happier. He shoves himself nose to nose with me.

  Tess yanks his soggy shirt and pulls him back. “Stop it, Ben. Ethan’s right. We don’t have time for this. And he’s right about the rest of it too. It’s not up to you. It’s up to Anne. And she’s not here.”

  “She’s with him now? She was at my freakin’ house last night, Tess. Well, till something happened with her hand. It got all hot—shit, I don’t really know what happened. She was so upset. So what are you saying? She ran out of my place and went to him? Why?”

  Ben looks back at me. I deem it safer to neither deny nor confirm.

  “She can be with anyone she wants to, Ben. Like I said, it’s not up to you. Things happen. Deal with it.” Clearly, Tess doesn’t feel that saying nothing is the way to go.

  “Are you serious? She wouldn’t—there is no way.”

  Ben stalks off, but not far. We can’t see much beyond this small clearing and the shafts of light making it through the canopy of trees are dimming quickly. Night seems to be rapidly approaching—or something that’s mimicking night. The dark will only make things worse.

  “Do you love her?” Tess whispers the question to me, but this doesn’t hide the intensity of her tone. “You better, you know. Because—”

  I’m about to tell her that yes, of course, yes. I do. I love Anne Michaelson beyond all reason. I have no assurance that she loves me back, but I’m a patient man. I’m used to waiting a long time for things I believe in. I’ll wait as long as it takes. She is not someone I will ever give up on.

  Only then I hear the all too familiar whooshing sound overhead. Thunder rumbles, followed by the crack of lightning hitting something not too far from us.

  I look up. The canopy shifts in the wind, and through the opening, I catch a brief glimpse of Baba Yaga’s mortar. But the canopy moves again before I can see if anyone—Baba Yaga? Anne?—is in it.

  “Hey!” The ground underneath Ben shifts. He stumbles but stays standing. The rat-like creature I’d seen earlier scurries from under the leaves and opens its mouth wider than should be possible for a rodent that small and slender. Its tongue—impossibly long and thin—flicks out toward Ben’s injured foot.

  It’s the koshka that intervenes. The cat dashes from whatever dark corner he’s been hi
ding in, hisses at the rat creature, and bares his teeth. The rat freezes in mid-attack on Ben’s foot, then retreats into the leaves. Ben shudders.

  “Gross.” Tess wrinkles her nose. “This place is seriously disgusting. But I think that cat likes you, Ben. That’s good, right?” She directs the last part to me.

  I nod, remembering how Anastasia had thanked the cat when it helped us last fall. Even here—especially here—maybe certain manners still apply. I kneel carefully, holding my hand out, palm up. An offering. A gesture of submission. “Spasiba,” I say softly. “Thank you.” The cat stares, then blinks. Maybe it’s enough.

  Ben gapes at me. “Are you talking to the damn cat? This is nuts. Attacking mermaids and crazy forests and what else? My girlfriend is some kind witch? Are you guys really saying that Anne has some sort of magical power? Shit. This is just a mass hallucination or something.”

  Tess ignores his ranting. “So what now? I really don’t want to stick around here and wait for more creepy rat things to attack us. Eventually, the cat’s going to get bored, and then what? If Anne’s here, we need to find her. I’m not leaving without her. So that means finding the witch’s hut, doesn’t it?”

  Ben rubs his arms with his hands. The air is getting colder. “You really think that’s where Anne is?” he asks. “Because whatever she is and whatever you are, if something’s happened to her—”

  “She can handle herself. She’s really strong, Ben. I know this is all confusing, but trust me—no matter what else happens, Anne’s strong. We’ll find her. And then we’ll all find a way to get out of here.” Tess punctuates her series of pronouncements with a sharp nod.

  “It’s getting darker,” I tell them. “At least it will make it easier to see the lights from Baba Yaga’s hut. That’s what we saw last time—the glow from the skulls on pikes around her hut. We didn’t know that’s what it was, but—the cat helped us. I know it all sounds crazy, but everything works by its own rules and time here. You have to just accept it. C’mon. Let’s see if we can do this. Tess is right. We can’t just keep standing here. We need to move.”

  So we do. The three of us start our trek through the forest. For a while, Tess and Ben keep up a constant patter of conversation.

  “She’s related to the Romanovs,” Tess tells Ben. “Really. Her mom doesn’t know—well, I guess she sort of knows now because of everything—but they are. And Ethan—it’s okay if I tell now, isn’t it, Ethan? I mean, since we’re all stuck here and everything? Ethan was a member of this Brotherhood thing. And he didn’t age for, like, decades, because of this magical spell thing that kept Anastasia—the real Anastasia Romanov—here in Baba Yaga’s. This guy Viktor—he was in the Brotherhood too, and he’s Anne’s great-great-grandfather—well, he found a way to trick everyone and stay immortal if only Anastasia remained in the hut. But Ethan kept trying to find her. And he needed Anne to help him. That was part of the magic. Anne was the one the Brotherhood been looking for. And Ethan found her, and then they used this magic lacquer box to get into the forest and rescue Anastasia, but she wanted to go back and die like she was supposed to, and—”

  “Just stop,” Ben says. He pushes through a clump of small trees and low-lying prickly bushes. His foot has stopped bleeding, but there’s a fresh cut on his arm from pushing aside a branch of a strange-looking tree with sharp burrs along every piece of it. “I don’t want to know. I can’t know this. You guys are insane. That’s all this is. I’m in some kind of crazy nightmare, and you’re all here with me. If I can just wake up, I’ll be back in my room with Anne.”

  Tess shrugs. “I’m just trying to help and—hey, Ethan.” She stops short, sweat running freely down her face, her hair tangled now with burrs and pieces of dead twigs. The light is almost gone, but I can still see the real fear in her face. “Viktor. What about Viktor? He’s here, right? I mean, isn’t that what’s messing with mermaid Lily’s head? That Viktor’s here, and she wants Anne to get him out so she can kill him or something? But is he really here?”

  I push another low-lying branch out of our way and wince as I step on something that feels like gravel and crushed bone.

  “I think so. If she was still compelled to protect a Romanov, then she’s been protecting him. Except I don’t think it’s gone very well.”

  “But he’s not immortal anymore, is he? Like you’re not?”

  “No.”

  “So if Anne does choose—or is forced—to let him out, he can die.” She makes it a statement rather than another question.

  “Yes. He can die. We both can. The rusalka could have her vengeance, if that’s what she really wants. And Baba Yaga—well, I don’t know that part. I guess I’ve never known that part. That’s the problem. Everything I thought was true isn’t necessarily the way I understood it. But I’m thinking that’s the case for Viktor too. He would never have gone into this without thinking he could control it somehow. So if he really can’t…” The thought is unfinished.

  We’re not making much progress. The light is growing even dimmer, and it’s still thundering in the distance. The cat—the koshka—has long since disappeared. I try not to think about what will happen to us if we don’t find Baba Yaga’s hut.

  Eventually, Tess speaks again. “Why do you think Viktor offered himself to Baba Yaga? To make up for what he’d done? I mean, in theory, he’s stuck there forever, isn’t he? Do you think he knew that when he sacrificed himself?”

  I ponder this. Hell, I’ve been pondering it for months now. I think back to the skeletal figure that I saw in the cemetery just a few hours ago—about what he told me. But that’s the thing about sacrifice, isn’t it? You don’t really get to control how it all turns out. You have what I wanted, and I’ve got this, and if there’s a way to fix things—well, I haven’t quite stumbled on it yet. Not that I haven’t been trying.

  “If there’s one thing I know about Viktor,” I say finally, “it’s that he always has a plan. And he always has a reason. Except right now, I’m not sure what it is.”

  Tess sighs and shakes her head. “Typical.”

  I choose not to argue with her. Correction: I don’t have time to argue with her, because from in front of us, behind us, and to our right, the sound of galloping horses fills the air.

  Baba Yaga’s three horsemen thunder upon us in absolute unison—one white, one red, one black, each with a matching steed—the ground heaving and shaking with their approach. The branches and vines that we’ve struggled around seem to float away to give the horsemen space.

  “Hey!” Ben points to the red horse and rider. “I saw you back on the beach. That’s what I saw.”

  The horsemen don’t speak. They just circle around us. Once. Twice. Three times.

  “What do you,” says the horseman in black.

  “Most love,” says the horseman in red.

  “And desire?” finishes the horseman in white.

  “You will tell us,” they chant in unison, their voices resounding so deeply that they fill my chest, my ears, and my head, impossibly loud. The canopy of trees above us quivers and parts. Baba Yaga’s mortar flies swiftly into view. Her enormous hands slide over the edge, and with a strange gracefulness, they plummet down to the forest floor.

  Ben makes a choking sound in the back of his throat. Tess emits a small, high-pitched scream. A bolt of lightning hits a nearby tree, rides its jagged way down the bark, and sets the dead leaves around us on fire. Before any of us can even react, we’re encircled in the rising flames. Ben, Tess, me, and the horsemen. The flames grow higher—a wall of fire trapping us. Heat billows into the air.

  “What would you die for?” asks the horseman in black.

  “What could you not live without?” asks the one in red.

  “What truly lies in your heart?” asks the horseman dressed in white.

  “You must answer. You must tell our mistress. You must not lie.” Their voices boom again, even louder than before. My head is filled with the sound—so much sound that it’s painful. T
ess presses her hands to her ears. Ben does the same.

  “You must tell us. The girl is to learn. Our mistress says you have lessons to teach her.”

  Around us, the flames burn hotter. Baba Yaga’s hands skitter closer to us, rushing around on their ancient, brown, and wrinkled fingertips. The horsemen repeat their words three times. After the third time, they reach for us.

  FRIDAY, IN THE FOREST

  ANNE

  Let them go!” We’re flying through the darkness in Baba Yaga’s mortar, and I can’t take my gaze off hers. “You have to let them go. This is about you and me, not them. You have me. Why do you need them?”

  I want to look over the side of the mortar. I want to jump down and do something. But I can’t. I push every bit of power that I know is inside me to fight her. With my vision trapped, I reach blindly and place my hands on her arms. Then I shudder as I feel the empty flapping of her sleeves where her hands have detached. I know I’m burning her. I know I’m hurting her. But it isn’t helping. Her eyes bore into mine, each pupil a tiny white skull through which I’m being forced to watch Tess, Ethan, and Ben.

  “You must learn. I have told you, daughter. True power comes from knowing. You cannot leave this forest as you are. You have hidden from it for too long. If you will not learn on your own, then you will learn through them—these people you love, the ones in your thoughts, the ones you believe you would do anything for. Would you? You must know. You cannot take what is about to come to you if you do not.”

  I slam my fists against her chest. Her breath is as hot as fire against my face. “I keep telling you. I don’t want it! I’ve never wanted it. I promised you I’d drink, but only to save my friends. So why did you take them? Just let them go.”