He settled himself and the owlet in front of the south-facing window, his attention half on the feeding and half on the bright stars of the cool night sky. Once he’d thought heaven was up there somewhere. Now it was just a cold and empty void, much like his soul.
A nip from the owlet’s tiny beak forced his attention away from the stars. For such a tiny ball of fluff, it seemed very determined to live. Maybe a little of that would rub off on him. He could only hope.
* * *
BELLA STOOD UNDER the fire tower in the moonlight, watching Sam feed the tiny owl. Even from a distance, his tenderness toward the bird was obvious. As was his suffering. She didn’t really understand what had pulled her here in the first place, but she could practically feel his grief and pain sliding down from the tower like a shadow.
“There are reasons you don’t get close to Humans,” she reminded herself, not worried about anyone else overhearing her scold herself out loud. At this time of night, there was no one else around. Just her and a tormented man feeding a tiny owl.
But despite the reminder, she couldn’t stop herself from sending out a sliver of magical energy, letting it float up on a wisp of fog. A few minutes later, she could see Sam leave the window, and a few minutes after that, the lone dim light went out as he settled back into bed.
Bella stood guard under the tower for another hour, as still as a statue. But if anyone had asked her, she couldn’t have told them why.
* * *
THE NEXT DAY, Bella pulled out all the stops. Magically speaking, that is. She gathered together the basics—candles, incense, herbs, and crystals—and placed them in careful order on top of her portable altar. Then she added three small additional items, all gifts given to her by the Riders over the years. A dainty green and white porcelain teacup Gregori gave her to celebrate the day her mentor retired and the caravan became officially Bella’s. A golden necklace that Day bestowed upon her for some birthday or another. And a polished piece of red agate that Alexei picked up somewhere on his travels and gave her because he said it reminded him of her hair.
Now she would use the agate, and everything else, to find her lost friends.
Of course, she had tried magic initially and it hadn’t worked. But that had been a simple finding spell. This was something that went a step further, reaching deep inside to find the ties that bound them all together with love and shared experiences. It was a little risky, because it tapped into the core of her own essence, but desperate times called for desperate measures, right?
As the first rays of dawn slid through the open window, Bella cast her circle, lit the candles and the incense, and said the spell that would send a tiny sliver of her soul out searching to find Day, Sun, and Knight, wherever they were.
Except that it didn’t work. Yes, her consciousness rose from her body and followed the light up into the sky. It meandered here and there, giving her a bird’s-eye view of nesting birds, a small herd of deer drowsily cropping grass in a small meadow, and even a mountain lion slinking along a shadowy path. But every time she tried to redirect her energy to find one of the Riders, she ended up circling aimlessly, following her own depressing thoughts as they spiraled ever inward.
In the end, she had to admit defeat. She didn’t think the Riders were dead; she wouldn’t let herself think that. But wherever they were, it wasn’t accessible through this kind of spell. She didn’t know if they were blocking their connection to her for some reason, or if something or someone else was. All she knew was she wasn’t going to find them this way. The sputtering candles, drowning in pools of melting wax, pretty much epitomized the way she felt.
* * *
BELLA SAT ON the steps of the caravan, sipping a cup of strong tea (Russian Caravan, delicious for both its taste and the irony of its name) and trying not to panic. The strong morning light streaked the clearing, making the surrounding trees seem even taller and darker and casting interesting shadows. None of which contained the answers to her problems, alas.
A sudden stinging sensation jolted her out of her reverie, and she glared at Koshka until he removed his sharp claw from her thigh.
“What the hell was that for?” she demanded to know.
The dragon-cat plopped down on the step next to her, causing what felt like a small earthquake.
“I asked you a question three times and you didn’t answer,” he said. “So I figured I’d get your attention another way. We don’t have time for your brooding.”
“I’m not brooding. I’m thinking deep thoughts.”
“Right,” he said. “Deep thoughts that are depressing and worrying you. They have a word for that, you know. I think it’s, um, let’s see . . . brooding.” He lifted one hind leg and licked it thoroughly, the feline equivalent of a frustrated eye roll.
“I’m just a little concerned, that’s all,” Bella said. “The Queen of the Otherworld gave me an assignment: find out where that message came from and if it has anything to do with the Riders. So far, I haven’t made any progress, and in case you haven’t noticed, the Queen does not react well to people failing to do what she asks of them.”
Koshka dropped his leg back down with a thump and head-butted Bella gently. She almost fell off the stairs, but appreciated the supportive gesture anyway.
“You’ve only been on the job for a few days,” he said reasonably. “And you’ve been out looking during all the daylight hours there are.”
“Yes, but I haven’t found anything. No clues as to the origin of the message. No sign that the Riders were ever in this area. Nothing.” She sighed. “If I don’t come up with something soon, the only thing I’ll be looking for is a new career.”
Koshka smirked at her. “Yes, but you found an attractive Human in a tower. That’s very appropriate in a fairy-tale kind of way.”
Bella flushed. “Oh shut up. There’s no fairy tale here. I just keep running into him in the forest.”
“Uh-huh. And now he has to make you dinner sometime.”
“I was kidding about the dinner. But it makes sense to keep in touch with him,” Bella said, not sure if she was justifying it to Koshka or to herself. “He sees all kinds of things from the top of that tower and talks to the locals more than we do. Maybe he’ll come across something that can help us.”
“Hmph,” the cat said. “Nice rationalizing. But I’m not sure you need him to talk to the locals for you. Something tells me you’re going to get the chance to do that for yourself sooner than you think.”
For a moment, Bella couldn’t figure out what the heck he was talking about, but then she heard what his large, tufted ears had picked up on already—the rumbling sound of multiple vehicles making their slow progress down the bumpy access road that led to various camping spots throughout the national park they were in. The vehicles could be on their way to someplace past where she was parked, of course, but she didn’t believe in coincidences.
It looked like they were about to have company.
* * *
A MOTLEY COLLECTION of cars and trucks came to a stop about six yards from the caravan, and an equally motley assortment of people piled out of them. Bella counted a dozen in all, mostly middle-aged or older, although there was one young man who looked to be about nineteen who lent a supportive arm to a tiny elderly woman with wispy white hair and gnarled limbs. Eight men and four women, all wearing well-worn practical clothes and the distinctive air of people who worked hard for a living. The old woman wore black from head to toe, with the exception of a colorful embroidered shawl she had tied around her shoulders despite the warmth of the summer day.
Bella flashed for a moment on the story Barbara had told her of her latest adventures and the angry mob of locals who had come to drive her out of town. But these people seemed more wary than irate, and as far as Bella knew, she hadn’t done anything to attract attention, either good or bad. So it was with more curiosity than concern that she stood
up and walked down the steps of the caravan to greet her visitors, Koshka trailing along behind her as unobtrusively as was possible for a dragon disguised as a gigantic cat.
“Good morning,” she said. “Can I help you folks?”
One man stepped forward, clearly nominated to be the spokesman for the group. He was strongly built, with graying brown hair and a neatly trimmed beard, and despite his plain jeans and scuffed work boots, he had an air of quiet authority about him.
He took off his baseball cap and held it politely in his hands before saying, “My name is Bob Winterholler. My brother-in-law was one of the firefighters who was here earlier this week. He told me he met an old lady at this caravan, and I was wondering if it would be possible to speak to her.”
“That’s interesting,” Bella muttered under her breath.
“Told you so,” Koshka said in a smug tone. “Didn’t I tell you you’d probably been Called here?”
Bella scowled at him. After all, there could be a perfectly reasonable explanation for why this group of people had come seeking some old lady they’d never met. Maybe they were selling Girl Scout Cookies. Or passing out religious pamphlets.
“Shut up,” she said.
“Excuse me?” Bob looked taken aback.
“Oh, sorry, not you. So, um, was there some particular reason you wanted to talk to her?” Let it be pamphlets, let it be pamphlets.
The elderly woman hobbled to the front of the group; the youth with her, a grandson or even great-grandson maybe, seemed to be supporting most of her weight, but she still stood up as straight as her bent back would let her.
“We believe that she may be the one that we seek,” the old woman said. “The one called Baba Yaga.”
Dammit. Why couldn’t it have been pamphlets? Bella felt the mantle of her office settle over her with the weight of history and eons of belief, as the air in the clearing grew thick with magical potential.
“And why do you seek the Baba Yaga?” she asked. From here on in, there was a proper ritual to things. It was tradition, and tradition was the rule.
A slight widening of the creases around the old woman’s eyes said she recognized this.
“There are always fires in this area, and sometimes they are bad,” she said in a thin, strong voice, a little querulous with age. “But this year there is a wrongness about them. Some are normal, but others seem to start out of nothing. They threaten the trees and the land, and all those who must fight them, many of whom are family to one or another of us.”
“We had a fire a month ago that charred damn near half my ranchland,” one man said. “I lost over a hundred head of cattle, and the firefighters barely stopped it from taking my house.”
“What does this have to do with the Baba Yaga?” Bella asked.
Bob indicated the entire group and the old woman in particular with a wave of his hand. “We’re all local, descended from Russian-German families. Most of us grew up hearing stories about Baba Yaga, although I have to admit that until recently, that’s all we thought they were. But when the fires started, Mrs. Kneis told us that she could sense something unnatural in them. It’s a gift she has, you see, and we all respect it, and her. So when she told us we should call the Baba Yaga to help us, well, we did.”
A few of the others looked slightly embarrassed, as though realizing how silly it sounded when spoken out loud, but Bob didn’t seem at all fazed, and cast an affectionate look toward the woman he called Mrs. Kneis.
“When Mike, my brother-in-law, told me he met a little old lady in the woods in a strange traveling house, we all thought that maybe it was her—Baba Yaga—come to answer our prayers.”
Bella sighed. “Baba Yaga isn’t someone you pray to, you know. She’s not a goddess.” Maybe once, way back in the history of the world. But not now, and not for a long time. Now she was mostly just one of a few overworked magical women who would really rather not grant boons to worthy seekers if it was at all avoidable.
“We do not seek a goddess,” Mrs. Kneis said, taking another unsteady step forward. “We seek the Baba Yaga and ask for her aid. Is she here?” She stared defiantly into Bella’s green eyes with her own watery pale blue ones, as if daring Bella to deny it.
She needn’t have worried. She’d used the right words in the right way, and Bella had her role to play. The ground shivered slightly, and a faint mist surrounded the clearing as destiny settled over them all.
“I am she whom you seek,” Bella said. “I am the Baba Yaga.”
NINE
THERE WAS A buzzing hum as the group discussed this among themselves, clearly not buying it.
Bob cleared his throat. “Uh, not to be rude, miss, but we’re looking for the Baba Yaga. The old woman the guys met the other day, not her assistant or kin, or whatever you are.”
Koshka smothered a chuckle, which ended up sounding a little bit like he was about to cough up a hair ball (not that dragons did such a thing, no matter what form they happened to be wearing). “I love this bit,” he said.
Bella didn’t. She longed for the good old days when if you said you were the Baba Yaga, everyone took your word for it, by golly. Not that she’d been around then, but still, it must have been nice.
She turned to Mrs. Kneis, certain that if anyone in this crowd knew how things really worked, it was her. “Grandmother,” she said, using the term as a polite title, as people did in the old country. “Perhaps you would like to explain it to them?”
The old woman smiled, her wrinkles falling in on themselves like old linen sheets piled on a bed. “Baba Yaga doesn’t have to look like a crone, although she often takes that form since everyone knows that us old ladies are full of wisdom.” She turned her head to look at Bob. “You think all lumberjacks have to be big and burly, just because you are?”
“But the woman my brother-in-law met was old. He said so,” Bob insisted. “This can’t be her.”
Bella thought it was probably lucky he was dealing with her, and not Barbara, who tended to be a bit on the cranky side and not very patient with Humans. Or anyone else, for that matter, although these days she made an exception for her new husband, Liam, and their adopted daughter, Babs. Still, they’d wasted enough time. She looked down at Koshka and winked.
“Oh my,” she said loudly. “How very rude of me, keeping such an esteemed elder standing in the hot summer sun.” Bella looked at Mrs. Kneis with a smile. “Can I get you a chair?”
The old lady nodded gratefully. “That would be much appreciated. I’m afraid my legs aren’t what they used to be, and my poor great-grandson must be getting tired of holding me up.” The youngster protested, and she patted his arm.
Bella’s smile widened as she snapped her fingers and transported a small green and pink tufted chair from inside the caravan to a spot about a foot to the left of Mrs. Kneis. Bella was a little afraid she’d give the poor woman a heart attack, but Mrs. Kneis just sank onto the seat gratefully. Big Bob, however, gave out a satisfying high-pitched shriek, and a few of the others gasped audibly.
“Now that we’ve established my credentials,” Bella said briskly, “we should probably get on to the bargaining part of the program. That’s when you tell me what you want me to do for you, and what you’re willing to give me in exchange for my help.”
“You’re not going to ask for one of our firstborn children, are you?” one woman asked in a trembling voice.
“Not usually,” Bella admitted. “Unless you happen to have one that likes to clean and doesn’t eat much.”
They all looked at one another and shook their heads.
Bella sighed. “Fine. Then no, no children. The traditional choices are accomplishing three impossible tasks, or a year or two of servitude, or giving me your most precious treasures—you know, things like that.”
“Oh right,” Bob said. “Mrs. Kneis told us about that. We put together as much um, treasu
re, as we could.” He went back to his truck and pulled out a small wooden chest that looked like it had been in someone’s family since before they emigrated to America, then came back to stand in front of Bella.
She opened the lid and looked inside at the assorted accumulations of a number of lifetimes. There was a roll of paper money, which probably represented every spare penny they could put together between them. She ignored that, reaching her hand inside to finger a gold watch, a necklace decorated with a pretty amethyst pendant, what looked like a genuine Fabergé egg that someone really should get authenticated, and some other interesting odds and ends.
Finally, she pulled out one object, a simple wooden comb, meticulously hand-carved with figures of tiny rabbits and birds and decorated with a few small seed pearls and shiny crystal beads. Its monetary value was probably less than anything else in the box, but Bella had a feeling that to its owner, it was priceless.
She smiled down at Mrs. Kneis, sitting in Bella’s battered pink and green antique chair as if it were a throne, and leaned over a little to bring them closer to the same level.
“This is lovely. Is it yours?” Bella asked.
“It is,” the old woman answered, reaching out the tip of one gnarled finger to touch it gently. “My husband made it for me when we were courting, back in the days when people did such things. He didn’t have much money, so it’s not really valuable. Not like some of those things in the chest there. But it was the first thing I ever owned that wasn’t a hand-me-down from one of my sisters or just something practical for everyday use. And he put so much love into it; I figured maybe it would be worth something.
“My Henry’s long gone now”—she patted her sparse white bun held up with simple black bobby pins— “along with most of my hair, I’m afraid. Better to add the comb to the treasure chest, I thought, although most here figured it wasn’t worth the bother.”
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