Wickedly Ever After: A Baba Yaga Novella

by Deborah Blake

  “I always have a plan,” Barbara said. “Well, or something that might, with a bit more thought and a lot of luck, become a plan. You know, something plan-adjacent.”

  “You keep saying that like it is a real thing,” Liam said. “So what is the plan?”

  “It’s not so much a what as a who,” Barbara said.

  “A who?” he said.

  “Gesundheit,” Barbara said, and Chudo-Yudo snickered.

  Babs looked confused and Barbara said to her, “You know the answer to this. Who do we know who lives by the ocean and spends a lot of time in the water? We saw her on our honeymoon trip after Liam and I got married. And then went back for her wedding.”

  The little girl’s face lit up. “Oh, Beka! She is the Baba Yaga with the pretty yellow hair whose hut is a painted bus. I liked her. And Chewie.” Chewie was Beka’s Chudo-Yudo, an immense black Newfoundland. He and Barbara’s Chudo-Yudo were best buds. “Do we get to go see her again? I liked the ocean. It was cold and very wet and the waves knocked me over once, remember? They have salt in them. I would like to go to the ocean again.”

  Liam laughed and he and Barbara smiled at each other. That was more words than Babs usually said in an entire day. (Being raised by a crazy woman who hid you away from everyone else could really stunt your social skills.) Apparently the ocean—and Beka and her dragon-dog—had made a big impression.

  “That’s a great idea,” Liam said. His face fell. “But when we drove the Airstream out to California on our honeymoon, it took weeks. Admittedly, we were stopping all over the country to show Babs her new land, but still, we don’t have enough time to get to Santa Carmelita and back in two weeks. Especially since we’ll still have the other two impossible tasks to do even if Beka can help us with this one.”

  “You worry too much,” Chudo-Yudo said.

  “What the rude dog is trying to say is that the Airstream is magical. It may look like an Airstream trailer pulled by a silver Chevy truck, but deep down it is still the same enchanted hut on chicken legs that the old Baba Yagas used to travel through the vast forests of Russia and its Slavic neighbors. It doesn’t use gas or follow the same rules as actual mechanical devices,” Barbara said. “Or the same roads either, for that matter.”

  “I don’t understand,” Liam said. “We traveled on regular roads on the last trip.” He pushed away his cookie as though the conversation was making his stomach hurt. He’d done a good job of adjusting to Barbara’s magical life, but sometimes she wondered if he would be happier with a normal woman. Luckily, he never showed any signs of coming to his senses.

  “That’s because we weren’t in a hurry. If I have to get from one part of the country to another rapidly to deal with a crisis, the Airstream seems to sense it and gets me there faster. The only way I can explain it is to say that it takes shortcuts that don’t show up on any map, slipping through the folded edges of someplace that abut on the folded edges of elsewhere.”

  Liam rubbed his forehead. “You know, as an explanation that leaves something to be desired. Like, I don’t know, any kind of sense.”

  Barbara shrugged. “It’s magic, not physics. Mostly it can’t be explained, it just is.”

  “Technically, most physics can’t really be explained either,” Chudo-Yudo pointed out.

  “Not helping,” Liam said. “So how long do you think it would take us to get to Beka in California from here in upstate New York? Using the fold-y shortcut thing.”

  “I’m guessing two or three days,” Barbara said. “If we took turns driving. The Airstream kind of drops in and out of real roads, so even though it knows where it is going, it is always a good idea to have someone at the wheel.”

  Liam looked a little pale. “You’d let me drive the Airstream? Is that even allowed?”

  “As long as it is okay with the Airstream it is. And it knows you’re a part of me now.”

  A slow smile crept over his face like the sun coming out from behind the clouds. “I am, aren’t I?” he said and scooted his chair close enough to be able to wrap his arms around her and give her a slow, deep kiss.

  “Ugh, stop that,” Chudo-Yudo said. “There are impressionable dragons in the room. And Babs.”

  Barbara gave Liam another kiss and then pulled back, laughing. “Silly dog. I guess we’d better go pack whatever we’re going to need and hit the road.”

  “Right now?” Liam said. “Shouldn’t we wait until morning and start out when we’re fresh?”

  She shook her head. “The people of the Otherworld are very literal. If the Queen said two weeks, she meant two weeks from the moment she spoke. We’ve already lost part of a day. And we have no idea how long it is going to take up to figure any of this out, even if Beka can help. I don’t think we have any time to waste.”

  Babs tapped Barbara on the arm, looking serious. As usual. “Barbara?”

  “Yes, honey?”

  “Can we bring the cookies?”

  “Of course we can.”

  “And Chudo-Yudo?”

  “I wouldn’t consider going without him.”

  “And my sword?”

  Liam winced and Barbara bit her lip to keep from laughing.

  “Sure,” she said. “Cookies, a dragon-dog, and a sword: what every well-equipped little girl takes on a journey.”

  “Remind me to sign her up for the Girl Scouts when we get back,” Liam said. “And I guess I better call Nina at the station and tell her she’s going to need to arrange a replacement for me for the next two weeks. It looks like we’re taking a road trip.”

  ***

  Four days later, not long after sunrise, Beka opened her door and said, “Hey! What are you guys doing here?”

  Chewie stuck his large head around her legs and said, “They’re going to think you’re not happy to see them, with a greeting like that.” He and Chudo-Yudo rubbed noses affectionately, tiny flames dribbling out of their nostrils.

  “Oh, sorry! That’s not what I meant. I was just surprised,” Beka said, giving Barbara a big hug and then giving one to Liam for good measure. Little Babs still wasn’t very comfortable with being touched, although she would occasionally pat Liam or Barbara on an arm or shoulder as a way of showing affection, so Beka just smiled at the girl.

  “You were here not that long ago. I thought you were planning to stay home for a while. You weren’t Called out here on some kind of a mission, were you?” Beka looked around as if some catastrophe might be lurking around the corner. “I figured if anything came up around here, I’d be Called to handle it.” Uncertainty lurked in her blue eyes.

  Barbara wasn’t much more of a hugger than Babs was most of the time, but she knew that Beka had struggled to build up her confidence after her mentor, Brenna, had purposely torn it down. She put her arm around the younger woman. “Quite the contrary, actually. We’ve come to you for help.”

  Beka’s eyes widened. “You did? Wow. I guess you’d better come in and tell me all about it. I’m sorry you missed Marcus, but he’s already taken the fishing boat out for the day.”

  “Can we go sit by the ocean?” Babs asked. “We have to talk about the ocean anyway.”

  “You do?” Beka smiled at Babs and then looked at her adoptive parents. “Is that okay with you? We should be able to find a place to sit by ourselves. It’s early enough in the day that it’s mostly only surfers and a few people walking their dogs.”

  “I am not wearing a leash,” Chudo-Yudo said warningly.

  Barbara rolled her eyes. “As if I’d try to put a leash on you. I might as well just set myself on fire and cut out the middleman. This is California; you’ll be fine. Just stick close and try not to scare the natives.”

  “I don’t care about him scaring them,” Liam muttered. “As long as he doesn’t eat them.”

  Chudo-Yudo sniffed. “Take a bite out of one hunter and everyone holds it aga
inst you forever. I was friends with that deer and the guy was trespassing on our land. Jeez.”

  “Huh,” Beka said. “At least Chewie has never tried to eat anyone, although he has been known to shower everyone in a ten-square-foot area when he shakes the water off his fur.”

  “I would rather eat s’mores,” Chewie said with dignity. “People taste bad.”

  Liam rubbed one hand over tired eyes. “I’ll tell you what. The first person who gets me a cup of coffee can eat anything or anyone he or she wants.” He yawned.

  Beka laughed and snapped her fingers, producing a steaming cup. “Here, take mine. I’ll pack us up a little breakfast picnic and we can go sit on the beach and eat while you tell me what brought you all the way out here that you actually think I could help you with. This ought to be good.”

  ***

  “Well, that’s bad,” Beka said when they’d finished telling her the story of the Queen’s challenge. “And it doesn’t bode well for me and Marcus when I go to her to ask for the same favor. Three impossible tasks in two weeks? That’s harsh, dude.”

  “That’s the Queen for you,” Barbara said. She licked a bit of cream cheese off of one finger and dusted bagel crumbs onto the sand. In deference to the California heat and the beach, she’d traded in her usual black leather for a long cotton batik skirt and a cropped red top that made her cloud of black hair seem even darker.

  “She’s as volatile as she is beautiful. I’ve seen her be incredibly kind and generous, but she can also be cruel. I’d been hoping for the first one this time, but . . .” She sighed, laying her head on Liam’s shoulder for a moment.

  Liam placed a light kiss on her forehead, keeping his eyes on Babs’s tiny figure as she played by the edge of the waves. Her narrow face, with its pointed chin and snub nose, wore a slightly less solemn expression than usual as she ran in and out of the frothing water. Chewie stood guard a few feet away, the water-loving dragon-dog ready to race to the rescue if the girl was surprised by an unusually large wave.

  Barbara’s heart swelled so much it felt as though it would burst out of her chest. She’d never expected any of this strange and unfamiliar familial joy and the thought of losing it, too few years down the line, gave her an unaccustomed feeling of panic.

  “So that’s the story,” she said. “We thought that maybe you might be able to help us with the first task, since you’re so in tune with the ocean.” Hope threatened to swamp her like one of the waves farther down the beach.

  Beka looked thoughtful, pushing her waist-length straight blonde hair out of the way as the wind blew it into her face. Her long tanned legs stuck out in front of her, toned by hours of surfing and swimming. “Catch the song of the ocean in a bottle,” she repeated. “I don’t know how to do that.”

  Barbara’s breakfast turned to stone in her stomach. “Oh. Well, it was worth a try.”

  “No, no,” Beka said. “It’s okay. I’m pretty sure I know someone who will, and he owes me. But we’ll have to wait until dusk to ask him.”

  “Really?” Liam said. “You know someone who can do that? Who?”

  ***

  The King of the Selkies walked out of the waves as the sun was sinking below the horizon. Four tall Selkie men followed him, an honor guard more than an actual one, although they looked fit and alert enough to take on anything that came. All the Selkies had straight dark hair and brown eyes and smooth, pale skin that gleamed like the inside of an abalone. The King wore muted browns and grays like his men but his bearing and piercing glance would have made his rank clear, even if the scepter he carried did not.

  The two Baba Yagas and their dragon-dogs walked down to meet the Selkies; Liam had stayed at the bus with Beka’s new husband, Marcus, and Babs, who had nodded off over her dinner after a day spent playing in the water, despite her eagerness to meet the King. The women bowed slightly to the King, who tilted his head in return. The Baba Yagas had always been held in great esteem by the sea peoples, the Selkies and the Mer, but after Beka had saved their underwater home from destruction and cured the folks who had been poisoned by the same source that had contaminated their refuge deep under the sea, the King treated her almost as an equal.

  “Baba Yaga,” he said to her in his resonant voice. “You sent a message that you needed me and so I have come. We owe you a great debt and if there is anything at all I can do to repay it, such a thing is yours to command.”

  “I would not command,” Beka said, a quiet dignity changing her from the hippy surfer chick she normally seemed to be into the powerful witch she actually was. “But I do ask most humbly if perhaps you can somehow help my friends. You promised me a boon, once, if I ever needed one. Their need is great, and if you can do the thing they require, it would repay the debt between us in full.”

  The King looked thoughtful. Those of the Otherworld, even the few paranormal races who had been forced to stay behind when all the others retreated to the greater safety of the place far from Humans, truly disliked owing favors to anyone. Even those they liked and respected.

  “If it is within my power, Baba Yaga, you may consider your wish granted. What is this boon you need for your sister Baba?”

  Barbara took a step forward. “The High Queen has given me three impossible tasks to fulfill if I am to be allowed to wed my mate, Liam, in the eyes of the court and share with him the Water of Life and Death, which Beka once used to save your people.”

  The King, a wise and long-lived creature who had ruled his people for many, many years, gave Beka a keen-eyed look. “This would affect you and your mate as well, would it not? Since he, too, is Human, I assume that your need for the Water would be the same.”

  Beka nodded, a trifle grimly. “Indeed, we suspect that the success or failure of Barbara’s mission may well decide Marcus’s fate as well—although the Queen has not given me the same ultimatum, so we can’t know for sure.”

  “Ah,” he said. “So we might be able to give you a gift almost as great as the one you gave to my people. That would be a right and fitting thing. What is it you need, exactly?”

  Barbara took a deep breath. “The first task is this: to catch the song of the ocean in a bottle. Is such a thing even possible?”

  To Beka’s and Barbara’s surprise, the King threw back his head and laughed, a sound a bit like the barking of a seal. They exchanged glances.

  “This is amusing to you, Your Highness?” Beka asked.

  “I beg your pardon, Babas,” the King said, amusement still coloring his face. “I do not mean to make light of your request; I am aware of its importance. But I must tell you, this boon you ask, it is too small. It cannot even begin to pay off our debt to you, although of course I am happy to be able to grant it.”

  Barbara leaned forward eagerly. “You can do this? Really? I didn’t even realize the ocean had a song, nonetheless that you could actually catch it somehow.”

  The King gestured at one of his guards; the two spoke briefly in low tones, and then the man dove cleanly into the water, vanishing beneath the waves. When Beka started to ask a question, the King just held up one hand. Wait.

  They stood on the beach in silence for about a half hour, watching the moon rise to glisten off the water. Finally, a dark head surfaced with a splash and the Selkie waded back ashore, something clutched in one pale hand.

  He handed it to the King, who in turn handed it to Beka. She held it up so Barbara could see too. It was a large beautiful shell, its peach and pink interior peeking out from a creamy exterior. In the bright moonlight it seemed to shimmer with an opalescent gleam.

  “It’s lovely,” Beka said. “But how is this the song of the ocean?”

  The King chuckled. “Among the Humans, they have a myth that if you put your ear to certain shells, you can hear the sound of the waves inside. It was shells like this one from which that story sprang. In our kingdom under the sea, our wizards capture the
singing of the whales and the melody of the waves and all the other myriad sounds that make up the background harmony of our world, and they attach it to these shells. Every once in a while one of them would wash up upon the shore and be found. Here, listen.”

  Beka put the shell up to her ear and a look of pure delight crossed her face, her eyes closing and a dreamy smile lingering on her lips. “That’s amazing,” she whispered.

  Barbara was dubious. She, like most other people, had tried once or twice to listen to a shell, but all she ever heard was a faint whooshing sound. So when Beka handed over the gleaming, slightly pointed object, she didn’t have very high expectations.

  “Go on,” Beka urged. “It’s like nothing else you’ve ever experienced.”

  Barbara raised one eyebrow at her enthusiastic young friend but did as she was told. What she heard took her breath away. It was indescribable; like the sweetest harmony in the world, with undertones of solemn bass that sang a mournful counterpoint. She felt as though every emotion she’d ever known was reflected back to her in the song in perfect balance and unearthly charm.

  “That’s incredible,” she said, feeling a single warm tear slide down her face. “A true gift indeed.”

  The King beamed at them, pleased with the reception his present had received. “There you are then. All you have to do is find a large enough bottle to fit it in; I’m sure that Beka has some lovely decorative ones she’s picked up on the beach over the years. Use your magic to transport the shell inside the bottle and you will have what you needed—the song of the ocean.”

  “I am very grateful, Your Highness,” Barbara said.

  “As am I,” Beka added.

  “It is little enough after all you did for me and my people,” the King said. “It is my honor and my pleasure to grant your request. I wish you luck with the rest of your tasks, Baba Yaga.”

  With that, he turned and walked back into the ocean with his men. In a moment, they had vanished into the sea, and a moment after that, five sleek seals could be seen bobbing on the water as they headed for home.