by Matthew Cody
Carter wasn’t fast, but he decided it was time to make a run for it, anyway.
“Wait!” called Bandybulb from his little cage. “Take me with you! Please don’t leave me with her.”
Carter paused, frozen between the instinct to flee for his life and the desire to help someone in need.
Shutting the door softly, he turned and quickly made his way to Bandybulb’s cage. There was an obvious door mechanism, but he couldn’t find a latch to open it.
“Thank you, thank you,” said Bandybulb as Carter fiddled with the cage door. “Grannie Yaga keeps me around because she says Bandybulb makes her laugh, but she has fearful eating habits.”
Carter was still struggling with the little cage when the hut’s front door swung open. “Too late,” cried Bandybulb as he slumped back down in his cage.
In hobbled a hunchbacked old crone with a nose so long and so crooked that it dipped past her chin. She leaned on a cane as thick as a cudgel and carried a lumpy sack slung over one shoulder. She didn’t look particularly strong or dangerous, but Carter had read enough stories to know better. You could never underestimate the witch in the woods.
For a second, Carter looked past the old woman and into the woods outside the door. He probably wouldn’t have made it anyway, he thought. He doubted he was fast enough to outrun even an old woman.
The old woman, who had to be Grannie Yaga, smiled a toothless smile at Carter and slammed the door shut behind her.
“Ehhh,” she mumbled as she pulled out a long key from her apron and locked the door with a heartbreaking click.
Carter’s hand drifted to his belt. He still had his knife there, at least.
Then Grannie Yaga tossed her sack onto the table and crossed the room to her rocking chair. Carter noticed for the first time that there were two pairs of fake teeth, like dentures, hanging from pegs next to the chair. One set looked made of wood. The other, rusty iron.
Carter felt Bandybulb tense up as the little creature pressed his face to the bars of his cage and whispered, “You better hope she chooses the wooden ones!”
Grannie Yaga paused in front of the teeth and glanced back over her shoulder at Carter. She chuckled as he took an involuntary step away, backing himself right into the wall. The windows were barred, and the door was locked. There was nowhere else to go. Carter was as trapped as Bandybulb in his cage. He gripped the hilt of his knife, hard.
Then Grannie Yaga reached up and snatched the wooden teeth off their hook. There was a disgusting sucking sound as she fitted the awkward artificial teeth into her mouth.
“Now, that’s better,” she said, turning back around. “You can let go of that knife for now, sweet boy. These wooden ones is for talking. The wooden ones is, anyways.”
Grannie Yaga plopped down heavily in her rocking chair and smiled. Somehow Carter found the courage to speak. “How did I get here?”
“Ooh, are we playing questions and answers, then?” said Grannie Yaga. “Fine. You asked first, so Grannie will answer first. You was found sleepwalking in the woods, and I brought you here safe and sound before any ogres could step on you. Now’s my turn. What’s your name, sweet boy?”
“Carter Weber,” answered Carter.
“That so?” said Grannie Yaga. “You sure? Doesn’t smell like your name.”
“I’m sure,” said Carter. It only just occurred to him that maybe he should have lied about his name, but it was too late now, anyhow. “Is it my turn to ask a question?”
She nodded.
“Are you going to eat me?” He figured he might as well get to the point.
Grannie Yaga broke out into a hideous cackle. It sounded like someone shaking a string of tin cans. Bandybulb covered his little ears and hid his head. “I ain’t done it yet,” she said. “Could have made sweet meat pie from my sweet, sweet boy or stolen the breath out a your body and jarred it up tight like jam. Still might, if you don’t watch your manners. But as you see, my oven’s cold yet, and Grannie’s good teeth are hung on the wall.”
She patted the cast-iron stove behind her, and Carter was relieved to see that it wasn’t lit. The cauldron, on the other hand, did have a small flame beneath it, and he could see the occasional frothy bubble rise up from the top of whatever foul brew she was cooking in there. Luckily, it was a small cauldron and there was no way Carter could have fit inside it. Not whole, anyway.
“So you be polite and proper and Grannie won’t need her good teeth,” said Grannie Yaga, gesturing to the rusty iron pair hanging behind her. “But now’s my question. Where’s your sister?”
“What?” said Carter before he could stop himself. “How did you know I have a sister?”
“Ah, ah,” said Grannie Yaga. “My question still. Your answer.”
“Fine,” said Carter. Maybe it was for the best that he hadn’t lied about his name. Grannie Yaga seemed to know more about him than she let on. Maybe she was testing him, seeing if he would tell her the truth. “I don’t know where she is. The last time I saw her was in Shades Harbor.”
“Ooh, so he lured you out of the ghost village but left your sister behind,” said Grannie Yaga. “That’s interesting, that is.”
“Who lured me? Are you talking about the Piper?”
“Yes,” she said, clapping her hands together. “Grannie’s question again.”
“Wait,” said Carter. “I didn’t mean—”
“My question,” she said, and this time there was a dangerous edge to her tone. Carter shut his mouth and waited. Better to let her ask him another question than to make her angry, he supposed. He didn’t know what she had planned for him, but whatever it was, stalling seemed to be a good idea.
“Grannie’s question is, would you like to hear a story?” she asked.
Carter wasn’t sure he’d heard her right. That was not a question he’d been expecting. “A story? Yeah, okay. I guess.”
“Good. This story is known by many names, but Grannie calls it ‘The Two Magicians.’ ” Grannie Yaga rocked in her chair, grinning. “It is a grand and proper tale, so I’ll speaks it proper for you now:
Once upon a time, an old peddler and a young piper sailed together across the great Sea of Troubles. For long days and nights, they tossed about on that lonely ocean. Some days the wind refused to blow and the water was as still as glass, and when they stared at it, all their worries were reflected back at them. At night, terrible storms would threaten to tear their boat to pieces and drown them both. But during the day, the piper played music to keep their spirits up. And when their boat was battered about in the storms, the peddler tied himself and the piper together with such strong bonds that neither fell overboard.
After many months of hardship, just when they thought the Sea of Troubles would finally swallow them whole, the peddler spotted a lone, distant island. Though the ship was nearly falling apart beneath their feet, they raised the sail, and when the wind gave out, they paddled with their hands, and when the ship itself gave out, they swam. Though they very nearly drowned, the two washed up on the new shore and found there a great green country.
The air was warm and the sun shined most every day, and the nights never grew all the way dark. The peddler set out at once to map their new island home, and in his travels he discovered a magnificent road that stretched from one shore to the other.
For a time, the young piper traveled with the peddler, and the peddler revealed himself to be a great magician, and taught the piper the ways of magic. They befriended an elf princess in a deep forest, and they traded with the kobolds. But though the piper had traveled far from the sea, when he was quiet, he could still hear the waves and he could not forget the vast and terrible waters he’d sailed.
A sadness overtook the lad, and he left the peddler’s side and drifted alone into dark places. There he found the shunned creatures, the witches, the demons and the monsters that hid in the dark, and these beasts taught the piper many lessons he had never before learned. But he played music to soothe their hateful
souls, and in return, they gifted him a magic pipe that made him a powerful magician himself.
Ages passed, and the peddler still walked his road and was content. But the piper never forgot his sadness, and he was much changed. He carried his demons with him wherever he went, and he set his monsters loose on any that angered him. He grew spiteful and jealous of others’ happiness.
This caused a terrible battle between the two magicians, between master and apprentice. The piper and the peddler met on the field of battle, and though the piper had grown strong, the elf princess lent her power to the peddler, and the piper was defeated. As punishment, they took his magic pipe and locked him away in a black tower where no one would find him.
The piper was defeated, but it had come at a cost. Though the Sea of Troubles was long gone, it left new troubles in its wake:
To the piper was left the trouble of Vengeance Denied.
To the peddler was left the dual troubles of Responsibility and Regret.
And the magical land began to darken, and all was not well.
“And that,” said Grannie Yaga, “is all Grannie knows of the tale, though it’s not, I suspects, the end. He hates it when anyone tells this particular story, and there’s few these days who will dare, so you consider this a gift from your Grannie Yaga.”
The old witch leaned forward in her chair. “You see, it’s like the story says—some troubles can’t never be forgotten, and woe be to them that try.”
Carter watched the old hag rock back and forth. His father told stories. Carter told stories, and he knew well how stories were often true without being factual. Truth got to the heart of something, like a problem or a feeling, even if the tales one told to explain that truth were all made up. It was true that you shouldn’t stop to talk to a stranger in the woods, even if that stranger wasn’t really a wolf.
Grannie Yaga’s story had the ring of truth to it. The piper of the story had to be the Pied Piper of Hamelin. The peddler was the same mysterious person who’d made Lukas’s map, and it was his road they’d been following. And Emilie had mentioned that the elves had a princess who never left her castle. So these three were connected in some way, and what’s more, they’d been friends. But what was fact and what was true?
“That was a good story, Grannie Yaga,” said Carter.
“What a proper, sweet boy you are,” she answered.
“But now I get to ask a question, because I think we skipped my turn.”
Grannie Yaga leaned forward in her chair. “I’m not sure I wants to keep playing.”
“Just one more,” said Carter, eyeing the old witch warily. “My question is, are you going to let me go?”
“Go where? Should I let you loose in the Bonewood?”
“If, maybe, you could point me in the direction of the Peddler’s Road…”
“The Peddler’s Road?” Grannie Yaga rose up out of her chair. “Didn’t Grannie’s story teach you anything? That magician is an idiot. Grannie and the Peddler have a history, a long history. Today he walks that nasty road of his, keeping my lovely forest boxed in, won’t let it grow. Course, you know there’s a whole village of tender young children like yourself just across the river, but the Peddler won’t let Grannie anywhere near them.” Grannie Yaga leaned forward on her cudgel and smiled, showing every last one of her hideous wooden teeth. “And once upon a time that old rascal stole Grannie’s magic map and the prophecy that went with it, did you know that? Cheated her in trade, he did. But Grannie will have her revenge, yes she will. Soon. Very soon.”
Carter felt the color drain from his cheeks. Lukas told them that the Peddler had gotten the map from a witch in the woods. Grannie Yaga must’ve been that witch, which meant that the prophecy was also hers. Had they been following a lie?
Grannie Yaga snatched up her sack from the table and held it over her simmering cauldron. From where he was standing, Carter couldn’t see the contents as she emptied them into the pot, but the underside of the bag had soaked through with something wet and fearful-looking. The witch muttered over her brew, and it began to shimmer with an unhealthful greenish glow.
“I knows you can hear me,” she said, staring into her pot. “I told you to trust your Grannie, and now what I saw is coming to pass. The boy is here with me. What will you give me for him?”
Nothing answered, at least nothing that Carter could hear, but Grannie Yaga grinned and nodded. “Done,” she said. “I suppose we’ll come to you, seeing as you’re not going anywheres! Don’t worry, we’ll be there quicker than a dead man’s sigh.”
The light faded from the cauldron, and Grannie Yaga took up her stout cudgel and whacked it against her iron pot three times. It clanged loudly in Carter’s ears, but before the ringing had stopped, he detected another sound, a low groan like creaking wood. Then the floor beneath him started to tilt, and Carter had to throw out his hands to keep from falling over. He grabbed hold of the window bars for balance, and as he looked outside, he saw that their little hut was actually rising up off the forest floor, standing tall on two enormous legs.
“To answer your last question, boy,” said Grannie Yaga. “I am not letting you go. There’s someone special wants to see you, and he’s been waiting a long, long time.”
The hut swayed precariously, and jars and pots began sliding across the table. Bandybulb rolled about helplessly in his cage as Grannie Yaga’s hut began walking through the forest.
“Better take a seat,” said the old witch, cackling again. “It can be a bumpy ride!”
“Why would he go in there?” Max was asking. “Why on earth would my brother wander off into such a terrible place?”
Lukas didn’t have an answer. If only he knew, if only any of them knew what had driven Carter into that horrible forest. There was sorcery at work here, and whatever dark power had pitted itself against them, it wanted Carter most of all.
Lukas cursed himself for a fool. He had promised Max that he’d look after her brother, and while he’d been asleep, for the few hours each night that Lukas let his guard down, Carter had been kidnapped. Lukas had failed. Leon wouldn’t have failed. An Eldest Boy deserving of the title would have found a way to keep Carter safe, even against an enemy that haunted their dreams.
But this wasn’t a time for self-pity. Lukas was sure that Carter hadn’t run away of his own volition. Though they were following only one set of tracks, Lukas suspected that poor Carter hadn’t been alone, not really. Something was pulling him along, drawing him near until…
The boy’s tracks ended at a wide creek bridged by the Peddler’s Road. It might have been a pretty spot once, but the creek now belonged to the Bonewood. The spread of that evil forest had reached this far, and the underbrush of twisting vines and thornbushes stretched out onto the Peddler’s Road as if seeking to strangle it, to choke it until there was no road left—just Bonewood. But the road endured still, and the forest could spread no farther. The bridge was derelict, and crumbling in places as the unwholesome vegetation worked its way into the cracks and seams, slowly pulling it apart. The creek beneath was filled with murky, noxious water. It looked deeper and more menacing than any creek had a right to be, and yet it was here that Carter had left the road.
Lukas studied the trees, looking for any sign of the boy’s passing, while Paul stared worriedly down at the black creek water. Lukas knew what the scout was thinking, although he would not speak his fear out loud. If Carter had fallen in there, they’d never know it. Lukas tried not to imagine what might be living in there.
“Can you track him?” asked Lukas.
“I can try,” said Paul. “But the Bonewood isn’t like other forests. It will work against you. Cover up tracks and mislead you on purpose.”
“What are you saying?” asked Max. “Are you saying these woods are alive?”
“All woods are alive,” said Paul. “This one’s just meaner than most.”
Their quest was falling apart around them. Lukas had barely been able to look Max in the eye ever s
ince they’d discovered Carter was missing. Her brother was brave, as brave as anyone Lukas knew, but bravery was rarely enough when you were alone in the wild.
“All right, then,” said Lukas, drawing his dagger. “If Carter went into the Bonewood, that’s where we go, too.” He turned to Max. “I won’t bother asking you to wait here.”
“You’d have to tie me up first,” she said.
Lukas had lost his rope back at the troll bridge, or else he would have considered it. Out there in the Bonewood, it would be hard enough searching for Carter without having to keep an eye on Max as well. It was said that a witch hunted in those trees and ogres roamed about, squashing anyone they happened upon. Max wasn’t behaving rationally—one look at her ruined feet was proof of that. But then, Lukas wondered what he would do if the person he cared for most suddenly went missing.
They hadn’t taken more than a few steps off the road when they heard the sounds of something approaching. They were distant noises at first, like something huge stomping through the forest. Whatever it was, it was getting closer.
“Ogres?” asked Lukas, eyeing the trees.
“Maybe,” Paul answered. “Hope not.”
Lukas held his dagger in front of him, as if the small blade would do any good against something that could make that much noise. “Everyone hide!” Lukas said. “Find cover!”
But it was too late. From the trees came bursting a sight that might have been comical under different circumstances. A rickety old hut on top of a pair of enormous clawed chicken legs. Bone wind chimes dangled from the hut and made a sound like a children’s rattle as the shack swayed back and forth on its spindly legs.
The hut creature reared backward as it “saw” Lukas and his friends scrambling for cover, and from within came a horrible shrieking laughter. “Ooh, what’s down there?” cried the voice. “Morsels for Grannie? Be a nice boy and fetch Grannie her good teeth, would you dear?”
