by Max Candee
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “There’s no time for that.”
“Anna, this is important. You can’t risk letting the darkness take you over! What have you done?”
“Done?” I snapped. “I haven’t done anything. All I’ve done is to stop my grandmother from eating my best friend. I don’t see what’s so dark about that.”
Koschey looked shocked. “What’s going on?” he asked.
Quietly, I told him everything that had happened. I tried to stay calm, but from time to time, my voice trembled with rage.
Koschey listened carefully, sometimes shaking his head. “This isn’t good, malyshka,” he said once or twice. “Not good at all.”
When I finished the story, I asked, “So what do I do?”
“Clearly, you have to save your friend,” said my father.
“So I have to bring back your heart?”
“That may be the only way, yes,” he said. “I need to think.”
“There isn’t time to think,” I retorted. “I don’t know how long Baba Yaga will be gone, and I don’t want her to see us talking.”
“Anna … be careful. This anger in you, it’s dangerous.”
I looked at him. “The anger is helping me focus,” I said, realizing it was true. “The anger’s the only way I’ll get this done.”
“Anna, that will only make the shadow grow.”
“I’m not doing it for me; I’m doing it to save Lauraleigh. And you!” I shouted. “Why does it matter how I do it so long as I do it?” I took a deep breath. “Where do I find your heart?”
He laughed mirthlessly. “Do you really think I know? There have been years during which I could have gone and picked it up, if I knew. I didn’t. The only person who knew was your mother.”
“And she’s dead,” I snarled. “Because of her. And because of you.”
That hurt him, I could tell. Maybe it would make him snap out of it and tell me something useful.
“So how do I find your heart? Or is there some way I can trick her?”
“I don’t know if we can trick her. But … it might be possible. You’d just have to give her something else.”
“What is there that looks like a heart? This isn’t Snow White. I can’t just give her an animal heart and hope she won’t notice.”
He smiled. “No, you can’t,” he agreed. “Our hearts don’t look like that when we take them out. But…” He paused, thinking. “There’s somebody you need to talk to,” he said. “His name’s Vodyanoy. He’s a water spirit who lives in a marsh nearby, and he may be able to help.”
“How? And why?”
“I don’t know how, exactly. My thoughts are muddled in here, Anna Sophia. But he was a friend of your mother’s; he might know something. Maybe about how to find my heart. Maybe some way to trick your grandmother. Your mother may have left him some clue, I don’t know. As to why — because you’ll tell him I sent you and you’ll remind him that he owes me.”
Despite myself, I was interested. “What does he owe you for?”
“Hmm? Oh, nothing major. He lost the last time we played cards, and he hasn’t paid up yet.”
I stared at him.
“Immortality gets boring sometimes, Malyshka,” he said with a slight grin. “You have to do something to pass the time.”
“So I go see him, and he’ll help?”
“I hope so, Anna, I hope so. I hope he can. Certainly, you won’t be worse off.”
“All right. I’ll go see him then.” I prepared to close the door.
“Anna…” said Koschey. “Please, I need to tell you something important.”
“What?”
“Be careful. I don’t just mean of the creatures in the forest, though many of them are not friends of Baba Yaga or me and may want to hurt you if they find out you’re related. And I don’t just mean of your grandmother. Be careful of yourself.”
“What do you mean?”
“Be careful of how you act. Try not to be angry. Try not to hate. Don’t dwell on these things. Try to think of why you’re doing them. For your friend. For her goodness. For the love of your mother.”
“Mother’s dead,” I said in a dull voice. “And it’s Granny’s fault.”
“Yes. But don’t think about those things, Anna. Because then you’ll act in rage and spite and the shadow will grow.”
“I’m not just going to forget what she’s done, Dad. I’m not going to forget that I never had a mother because of her. I’m not going to forget that she wanted to eat Lauraleigh.”
“Anna … you hurt yourself when you think like that.”
“But it lets me do magic,” I whispered. “And I’ll need that to find your heart.”
“Yes, of course,” he replied. “You understand how that works now, don’t you. When you’re filled with hate and anger, you can turn that into magic. But it works the other way too, Anna, and that’s the important thing to remember. When your soul is filled with love and caring for others, you can create magic too. Concentrate on that. When you need to use magic on this quest, think of Lauraleigh, not your grandmother. Or else the darkness may take you.”
I didn’t want to hear that.
“Does it matter where the magic comes from, so long as it works?” I said.
“It does, Malyshka. It does to me. Because I don’t want to see your soul growing dark like your grandmother’s. It should be light, the way your mother’s was…” He hesitated. “Maybe you shouldn’t go.”
“I have to,” I said. “I’m not letting her get away with it.”
“I already lost your mother to death,” Koschey said sadly. “I do not want to lose you as well… to the darkness, to Baba Yaga.”
“Well, I’m sorry I don’t want to let her eat my friend!” I shouted. “I’m very sorry that I don’t like that you’re locked up in a cage. What does it matter if my magic’s angry or not if I’m using it to help other people, Dad? What’s so terrible about being angry if it helps me get you out of here? Or would you rather I just left you chained up and helped Granny roast my friend? It’s not going to happen, Dad!”
I had my hand on the door to the room. I recalled something Sister Constance used to say, something I’d always hated to hear but which I understood now.
“I’m doing this for your own good,” I said, staring directly at him. And before he had a chance to reply, I slammed the door in his face.
Chapter 19
Dear Diary,
It’s so strange, being out of Baba Yaga’s hut. I’m not even sure how many days I spent there, especially with my mind and memories being so fogged up by her all the time. Sometimes when I was there, it really felt like I had lived there my entire life. And then suddenly I got to leave. It’s amazing the things I’d forgotten existed beyond the fence of skulls.
Everything seemed so bright once I’d left. It was as if I could see clearly again, notice things again. After I’d walked under the trees for a while, Dad and Baba Yaga began to seem unreal. How could a man be locked in a cage behind a magic door? That’s not how the world works!
If I hadn’t been flying in a bucket with a mop as a tiller, for a meeting with a water spirit, everything that had happened since I’d returned to Siberia would have seemed a dream.
* * *
I spent most of the evening in the kitchen, making sandwiches for my trip with the help of Granny’s hands. Once she came back, she didn’t help. She just sat around looking at me. I wasn’t sure why she did that or why I had expected anything different.
In the morning, I packed everything that I might need into my bag, including the box Baba Yaga had left out for me. I took the mop and bucket out of the closet and went out onto the porch. Granny followed, looking depressed. She seemed old and drawn again as when I’d first arrived, as if she were tired of life and all it involved.
“You’re leaving me all alone,” she suddenly said, “just like your mother did.”
That was beyond absurd, and she knew it. “I’ll be ba
ck,” I said. “With what you asked for. And things will be all right then, won’t they?”
She grunted. Then unexpectedly, she pulled me into a hug. “I’ll miss you, vnuchechka,” she said, sounding like she was on the verge of tears.
“I’ll miss you too, Granny,” I said. It wasn’t a complete lie. A small part of me would miss her, miss those moments when we had just sat around drinking tea or talking about random things and pretending to be a normal family. I’d never had that before. There had been moments in Baba Yaga’s hut when, even though she was stealing my energy, I’d found out what it must be like for people who aren’t orphans.
But I still couldn’t forget what she’d done and what she’d threatened to do.
“Remember,” I said, “you promised to keep Lauraleigh safe—”
“I will, I will,” she said. “You don’t need to worry. And when you come back with what I’ve sent you for, we’ll set her free and let her go back to Geneva and its boys and its clothes and its mobile phones and all the other vain stuff she fills her pampered little head with.”
She sounded so much the crotchety old woman that I smiled a little.
“She’s not like that, Granny,” I said. “She’s kind, and she’s not pampered. She lived in the orphanage with me. And she doesn’t need material things to be happy. Why, she followed me here just because she wanted to backpack around the world. She was quite happy to sleep on the ground.”
Baba Yaga chuckled. “That just proves my point,” she said. I must have looked confused, because she went on, “If she wasn’t pampered, she wouldn’t do that. No one chooses to be uncomfortable unless they know they can go back to being comfortable whenever they choose.
“Do you think anybody who has really been homeless would give up the chance of a soft bed to go wandering through Siberia? It’s only the privileged who decide to do things like that, Anna Sophia. Just like it’s only the well-fed who can decide to starve. All those supermodels on the television, nothing but bones; they choose not to eat because they could eat if they wanted to. They torture themselves and decide to be hungry.
“Do you think anyone who’s actually starving cares about how much cholesterol is in an egg if they’re given a chance to eat one? Do you think they care about how great their food tastes, so long as it’s there?”
I’d never thought about that, and I couldn’t find an answer. Even though I was sure that none of it applied to Lauraleigh.
“I’d better go now, Granny,” I said. “I don’t want to waste any sunlight.”
“Yes, that’s likely for the best,” she said. “Come, kneel down for your old granny’s blessing before you go.”
I felt I could trust her at that moment, and I knelt. Baba Yaga put two fingers on my forehead, and then she breathed toward me as if she were whispering the single long syllable, “Shooo…”
I felt warmth trickling through me as if I’d just drunk a whole pot of hot tea at one sitting. I could feel magic tingling as it spread all the way from my stomach to the ends of my fingers and toes and the roots of my hair. I was soon feeling as good as I ever had, and I prepared to stand up and thank my grandmother, but she went on breathing out. It was like an endless sigh, and I felt my energy growing, becoming stronger than ever, far more powerful than the burst I’d almost used against the Montmorencys. But it was completely under my control. It felt wonderful.
At last, Granny stopped.
“There,” she said roughly, “a little bit extra. Just a little gift from Granny…” She sounded sad and old, and as I looked at her, I realized she seemed weaker and more ancient than I’d ever seen her. “And the ghosts won’t bother you for a few days.”
I jumped up and hugged her.
“Let’s sit on the road, as the old Russian tradition tells us,” she said with an undertone of sadness.
We sat down on the porch and held hands. I went through a quick mental checklist, making sure I hadn’t forgotten anything.
After about a minute, Baba Yaga sighed. “Now go,” she said.
“Thank you, babulya,” I whispered, and I meant it. Then I slung my backpack over my shoulders and stepped into my bucket. I grabbed hold of the mop.
Whatever happens, bucket, I thought, take off properly. I can’t fail in front of Granny.
I needn’t have worried. The magic was so strong in me that I had hardly thought of the word Fly before I rose into the air and started moving toward the forest.
I looked behind me. Baba Yaga’s hut was already growing smaller, and she was just a small, shrunken, hunched-over figure holding a cat in her arms. Then she was just a speck. Then even the hut disappeared behind the trees — and I was free.
* * *
I didn’t actually fly for that long. It was too tempting to set down among the tall trees and walk. I hadn’t realized how much I’d enjoy doing that, seeing what flowers there were, what grew in the shade. Or maybe it was just the fact that I could walk wherever I wanted without a skull looking at me, a cat turning into a hare, or my having to pretend to Granny that I’d lost my memory. And with my memory truly restored, it was also comforting, like being a little kid again. I remembered walking like this with Uncle Misha and him telling me about the flowers and the animals and the birds. Sometimes I’d go and play with my foster siblings, the bear cubs, and Mama Bear would look after me. Sometimes she would catch me with a paw and give me a rough tongue bath when my face had gotten too dirty from stuffing berries in my mouth and getting them smeared all over me.
I wondered how Uncle Misha was. He still had to be in Blackwood Castle with Egor. But were they worried about Lauraleigh? They had to be. Where had the Horsemen captured her, anyway? I thought I had asked Granny to pull them back from the castle although now I wasn’t sure that she actually had. Had Lauraleigh been foolish and wandered off? The more I thought about it, the more worried I became. Uncle Misha would be going wild, having promised me he’d keep Lauraleigh safe.
If he and Egor were still alive, of course.
I have to finish my mission before he and Egor do anything silly, I decided. For a moment, I toyed with the idea of going to find them. After all, I had my bucket, didn’t I? Surely they’d have some advice. Especially Uncle Misha. He could tell me how to find a marsh in a forest.
As I was considering whether this would take too long — the Horsemen or the ghosts might still be around the castle —I was suddenly distracted by some desperate bird chirpings. Confused, I looked around and saw a small bluebird flying frantically in circles over the same spot in the grass. She was staying dangerously low. I hadn’t seen any other birds flying that low; they all seemed to be staying up in the tree canopy.
Carefully, I set down my things and walked toward the spot, trying not to startle the bird. The bird’s chatter increased; it seemed quite panicked as I got close, and it even tried to dive-bomb me a couple of times. When I was able to peer at the spot it was circling over, I understood why. There was a helpless little chick in a nest on the ground. It must have been blown off a tree by the wind or knocked off by a predator or something. The bluebird had to be its mother. No wonder she was panicking!
I had to help. Kneeling down, I extended my hands to pick up the nest, but the mother started screaming even more and flew down to try to peck at my fingers.
“Ow!” I shouted. “Ow! I just want to help, honest! Please don’t hurt me. I’m just trying to help.”
As I was thinking how ridiculous it was to try to speak with a bird, I noticed that she’d stopped pecking at me. She hovered in front of me and chirped quizzically.
Could she understand me?
“What can I do to help?” I asked, focusing my mind on my words, willing the bird to understand. I felt the familiar warm tingle of magic as I spoke.
The bird gave a delighted burble and fluttered her way over to a nearby tree, looking back at me as she did so. Then she settled in the crook of two branches and looked at me pleadingly.
“You’d like me to put the
nest there?” I asked. “Is that it?”
She called out, giving me her approval.
“All right,” I said, and cradled the nest in my hands. “There you are, little fellow,” I said, thinking waves of reassurance at the squawking, flightless chick in the nest. “No need to worry; I’m just going to take you to your mother.” After a moment or two, it calmed down.
Reaching the tree, I secured the nest where the mother bird tapped with her beak. She cheeped happily.
“There,” I said. “Well, I’d better be on my way.” I turned and started walking back to where I’d left my things.
To my surprise, the bird followed me, chirping insistently. It was like she was thanking me. I felt warmth and lightness fill my whole being.
“It was nothing, birdie,” I said. I extended my hand and smiled, not really expecting anything. To my surprise, the bluebird hopped onto my index finger. I laughed. “We have to help each other out, don’t we?”
She titled her head in an inquisitive attitude.
“Oh! No, no, you don’t have to do anything!” I said. “Unless… You don’t happen to know the way to Vodyanoy’s marsh, do you?”
The bird let out a piercing call and flew off my finger. She flew a few steps ahead of me; then she set down on a branch and looked back. She flew another few meters and did the same thing.
“I should follow you?” I said.
She trilled at me.
“Wait, wait a moment,” I said, laughing. “Let me get my bucket! Then I can fly along with you. It will go faster!”
I ran to my things, slung my backpack on again, and hopped into the bucket. A moment or two later, I was flying just behind the bird. It was all so utterly unreal that I couldn’t stop giggling.
After about fifteen minutes, I was sure I was totally lost in the woods and would never find my way back again, but I didn’t care. There would always be ways to find Baba Yaga, no doubt!
Finally, the bird let out a long call and began to circle down toward the ground. I followed her and soon saw the reeds and rushes of a marsh. I settled my bucket down by its side.
