Beka pondered. “Well, we could probably use the little cove where Marcus and I fought with Kesh. If he thought it was isolated enough to risk meeting his followers there, it would probably be a safe place to leave the canisters for a few hours until they could be picked up by a cleanup crew.” She would be very happy when the containers were back in the hands of people who knew how to deal with them. Without using magic, that is.
She gave Chewie the directions so he would know how to get there, and reminded him to try and keep a low profile when he made his multiple trips back and forth between the trench and the cove. It wouldn’t do to suddenly have a whole bunch of people report seeing a flying sea dragon, all on the same night.
Her companion batted long lashes at her, his brown eyes open wide. “I’m always careful,” he said indignantly. “Besides, if someone sees me, I can always just eat them.”
Beka was almost completely sure he was joking.
* * *
IT WAS NEARLY dawn when the door of the bus opened and a tired-looking dog padded in. Even for a supernatural creature, it had been a long night. Beka, who had been sitting in the dimly lit kitchen nursing a long-cold cup of tea, got up to give him a big hug around shaggy black shoulders. His dragon hide should have repelled any residual radiation, but she would have hugged him even if he glowed in the dark.
“Thanks, Chewie,” she said. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“You would have figured something out,” he said, yawning wide enough to show off all his sharp white teeth. “What are you still doing up?”
He sat down at her feet, so large that his eyes were almost on a level with hers, even in that position. “Are you worrying about cleansing the trench? That should be a piece of cake now.”
Beka laughed. “I don’t know about a piece of cake, but I spent most of the night looking through some of my basic spells and figuring out how to adapt them for this, and prepping something special to use to contain the radiation. I’m actually feeling pretty confident.”
Chewie raised a furry eyebrow. “Well, that makes for a nice change. And it’s about time. So what’s the matter?” He cocked his head and gazed at her in the diffuse light of the single lamp she’d left on. “You look sad. Are you sad?”
She clenched her fingers together, feeling foolish, and stared at the floor instead of meeting his eyes. “You’re going to think I’m crazy,” she muttered.
“So what else is new?” the dog asked, head-butting her knee until she met his eyes. “Spill it, sister.”
“You watch too much TV,” she said. “Listen to you talk.”
“Hmph, Listen to you not talk. Are you going to tell me what’s wrong or not?”
“It’s about being a Baba Yaga,” she said.
Chewie dropped to the floor with a thump, hiding his head under his paws. “If you’re going to start in on that bit about not knowing if you are good enough, or thinking maybe you don’t want to be a Baba anymore, I swear to Belobog, I am going to gnaw off my own ears so I don’t have to listen.”
“Nice to know I can always count on you for sympathy, big guy,” Beka said with an ironic chuckle. “And in fact, no, that’s not it. Kind of the opposite.”
“Huh?” He picked himself up again, apparently done with being a dragon drama queen for the moment. “Color me confused.”
Beka didn’t blame him. She was confused as hell herself. That was part of the problem.
“If I’ve learned anything these last few weeks, it is just how much I do want to be a Baba Yaga,” she said. “Coming so close to losing it really made me see that this is what I was meant to do. As much as I’d like to have a child of my own, I realized I can help so many more children if I am a Baba. And I even think I might be good at it, with a little less avoiding trouble and a little more practice.”
Chewie snorted. “I don’t think you need to worry about avoiding trouble. It always seems to find you if you’re a Baba Yaga.” He tilted his head. “You’re not still worrying about the Queen taking away the job and giving it back to Brenna, are you? Because last I heard, Queen Morena still wants to ask her some pointed questions about the possibility she was working with Kesh, and no one has seen hide nor frizzy hair of her. Besides, you’ve already cured the sick sea people and captured Kesh. Once you cleanse the Merpeople and Selkie’s home in the trench you will have done everything the Queen asked of you. You should be fine.”
Beka took a deep breath, feeling as though her heart were breaking in two. The air felt too thick, and gravity too heavy. “I don’t think I’ll ever be fine again, Chewie. I’ve done something really stupid.”
His eyes widened. “You didn’t lose the freaking Water of Life and Death again, did you? I’ve only been gone for a few hours!”
Beka laughed, sniffling at the same time. “No, no. The Water is safe and sound, locked up in the cupboard where it belongs.”
“Holy Hekate,” the dog said. “If I weren’t immortal, you probably would have given me a heart attack. So what have you done that is so stupid?”
She bit her lip. “I fell in love.”
“And this is bad how?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Beka kicked him lightly with one bare foot. It hurt her foot, as usual. You’d think she’d learn. “I’m in love with Marcus. I realized it earlier, when I saw him coughing up blood.”
“How romantic,” Chewie said sarcastically. “You’re even weirder than I thought.”
“You know what I mean,” she said. “While the fight with Kesh and his followers was going on, I was mostly too busy trying to stay alive to worry about Marcus. Besides, he’s the toughest guy I’ve ever known. It mostly didn’t even occur to me to be concerned until after it was all over, and then he seemed to be okay, other than some relatively superficial wounds.”
Beka gritted her teeth, remembering the moment when she’d looked up and seen the ominous sign. Even now, her stomach flip-flopped in horror. “Then I saw him coughing up blood and knew he was really hurt. And it hit me that I couldn’t even imagine living in a world that didn’t have him in it. I love him, Chewie. I love him so much it makes my heart hurt.”
Chewie scrunched up his muzzle. “So, that’s good, right? I mean, I’m not an expert on Humans, but I’m pretty sure he likes you too. I saw that kiss on the beach tonight; that didn’t look like indifference to me.”
A single tear slid down her face, like the first raindrop that heralds the oncoming storm. She brushed it away without even really noticing it. “Don’t you see, Chewie? Marcus may like me, but he doesn’t like the magical world, or any of the things about it. He couldn’t even decide if it would be worse for his father to be dead or to become a Selkie. If I choose to stay a Baba Yaga, I’ll lose him. But if I give up being a Baba Yaga to be with him, I’ll lose so much more. Including you.”
Chewie licked her hand, shoving his big head under her arm for a rare affectionate cuddle. “You never know, Beka. People can surprise you.”
“Sure,” Beka said, feeling more tears prickling behind her eyes, hot and full of pressure, like a geyser ready to burst through to the surface. “They can. But most of the time they do exactly what you expect them to.”
“Really?” Chewie said, sitting back and looking at her pensively. “Because you know, I would have sworn that if I came back from hours and hours of heavy labor on your behalf that you would have gone to the trouble of getting a little snack out for me. You know, like a T-bone steak or a couple of whole chickens. And yet, here we are, sitting around talking about some guy who may or may not love you back no matter what choices you make, and surprise—there’s no snack!”
Beka gave him a watery smile, knowing he was trying to distract her, and letting him succeed, at least for the moment. She’d get through the last of her tasks and deal with it all then. For now, she had a dragon-dog to feed. And as he’d so forcefully reminded her, that always came first.
“How about a steak and a couple of chickens?” she asked as she
got up to walk to the refrigerator. “Would that be enough of a snack for you?”
“Maybe,” Chewie answered. “What else ya got?”
Beka snapped her fingers, and a plate full of s’mores appeared from where she’d hidden them in the bedroom. “Surprise!”
Chewie gave her a huge lick, practically a one-dog bath. “Dude, that’s what I’m talking about. Forget about that Marcus—he smells like fish anyway. Stick with dragons; they’re way more reliable.” He sat down and started happily munching, blowing tiny sparks at each s’more to warm it up.
Beka patted him on the head and got the remainder of his food out before she went to bed to rest up for what promised to be another long day. She didn’t expect to sleep though. Not when all she could think about was Marcus’s face when he said, “It was bad enough to find out there was such a thing as magic.”
Should she give the magic up? Could she?
TWENTY-NINE
THE LATE MORNING sky was pewter gray, a color that matched Beka’s mood so well she almost thought she’d summoned it up. Storms flickered farther down the coast, visible over the vast, open expanse of the water, but so far the only thunder in the bay came from the sound of her heart when she saw Marcus waiting by the Wily Serpent.
Why did he have to be so handsome? She should have turned him into a toad after all. Toads didn’t have broad shoulders and strong chests, and muscles on their muscles. Toads didn’t have one wavy lock of brown hair that refused to curl in the direction of all the others, or hazel eyes that were as changeable as the sea.
Those eyes looked tired, as if their owner had gotten about as much sleep as she had. He helped her on board without saying much and went off to start the engines and take them out of the harbor.
His father came out of the cabin, his face pale and pensive, and walked over to stand by the rail with Beka.
“So,” he said. “Selkies and Mermaids. And witches. He wasn’t making any of that up, was he?”
“I’m afraid not,” Beka said.
They stood there in silence for a moment, then Marcus Senior said, “I saw one once, you know. A Mermaid.”
“What?” Somehow Beka had expected more resistance to the idea.
“When I was a young man, the ship I was crewing on got caught in a storm,” he said. “I thought I saw this woman in the water, pointing us away from the rocks. The captain laughed at me, but he listened anyway, and steered us safely past. I used to tell the boys about it, when they were young. I’d almost forgotten, until Marcus came and talked to me last night.”
Beka didn’t know what to say. For the first time since she’d met him, Marcus Senior looked every year of his age, plus some. The skin hung loosely on a frame that had once been as muscular and broad as his son’s, and his face was the color of chalk. His hands, leaning on the rail for support, trembled slightly.
“It’s beautiful,” she said. “The Selkie’s kingdom under the sea. It’s different from up here, but it is really beautiful.” She wasn’t trying to persuade him—just reassure him, if she could.
“I’d be amazed if it wasn’t,” he said, looking out over the surface of the ocean, its greens and blues muted by the overcast day. “There isn’t anything about the ocean that I don’t find beautiful. Even after it killed my son, I couldn’t stop loving it.”
He didn’t meet her eyes, almost didn’t seem to be talking to her at all. She thought he was just thinking out loud, but she was wrong.
“I knew Marcus was right, you know,” the old man said abruptly. “He told me that the man I’d hired was unreliable. Flaky, he said. A stoner. Whatever. I knew, but it was hard to get people to work on boats in them days; all the kids who grew up on the water were leaving to work behind desks in the city, instead of following in their fathers’ footsteps like they used to.
“I let the man stay, so I could keep the boat running, and feed my children. Give them a livelihood they could hold on to. And my youngest son died, and I lost the older one anyway. It was all for nothing.”
Beka knew the old man wasn’t looking for sympathy, but she slid her hand over to cover one of his nonetheless. “Not for nothing,” she said. “When you needed him, Marcus came back.”
He gusted out a sigh that was lost on the freshening wind. “He did. And I thanked him by being the same grumpy bastard he ran away from in the first place. To be honest, I didn’t want his help. Didn’t feel like I deserved it. In a way, it felt like the cancer was my punishment for letting his brother die. I had nothing to lose anyway.”
Beka gave his hand a squeeze, feeling the finger bones fragile under hers. “Only now you do.” She knew how he felt.
“I can’t tell you what to do,” she said softly, as the boat slowed near the spot where she would be diving. “Or what the future holds.” She laughed, only a little off key. “I’m afraid I don’t know the answer to that one either. All I can tell you is that you need to make the decision that is right for you, without guilt or recrimination. I’m pretty sure that Marcus has forgiven you. Maybe it is time for you to forgive yourself.”
* * *
THE UNDERWATER WORLD was silent and peaceful, enfolding her in its grace and ethereal loveliness the way it always did. Kelp forests taller than a house undulated in the mischievous currents, and tiny, brightly colored fish played hide-and-seek within their welcoming fronds.
Today there were no sharks; the only enemy was invisible and much more deadly, invented by men who had no place in these waters, and brought here by one who had forever forsaken his.
Beka intended to clean up the mess he’d made.
No matter what happened after today, she needed to finish what she had started that day on the beach when Boudicca and Gwrtheyrn had asked for her help and she had given them her sacred promise in return.
So much had happened since then, she hardly felt like the same woman who had made that promise. Still, it was up to her to fulfill it, and prove—not just to the Queen of the Otherworld, but more importantly, to herself—that she had the skills and power to make her worthy of the title Baba Yaga.
She floated weightlessly in the murky perpetual twilight of the ocean, as deep as she could safely go. The bulk of the trench lay beneath her flipper-wearing feet, but if what she had in mind worked the way she intended it to, that wouldn’t matter.
From out of the waterproof bag she’d carried down with her, she pulled out the enchanted sphere she’d been up half the night creating. It looked as light and delicate as a soap bubble, but it was created from the essence of the element of Air, which could uproot huge trees and tear the roofs off of buildings when it chose to.
It would be strong enough. And so would her magic.
Beka let herself sink into a semi-trance, her breathing slowing until her heart seemed to beat in rhythm with the sea’s own pulse. Slowly, she reached her magic out and began to gather the impurities from the water around her. Like limitless fingers of light and energy, the rays of magic drew radiation out of the water and into the glistening iridescent sphere, where it took on almost a solid form, swirling and glowing. No longer bound by fatigue and self-doubt, she finally let her powers soar.
More and more she pulled, from farther and farther away, until she was gathering in not only the radiation from Kesh’s toxic canisters but also the scattered remnants of Fukushima’s disaster.
As the enchanted sphere filled, it glowed brighter and brighter, until its presence lit the ocean like a beacon of hope. In the distance, Beka saw a Mermaid floating by; she couldn’t be sure, but she thought it was the same woman who had come to her for help on that fateful day. She waved, hoping the Merwoman understood the meaning of a thumbs-up. Not that it mattered. It was already obvious that she would have good news to impart to the King of the Selkies and the Queen of the Mer when she saw them later.
She’d done it. The water below was as clean and clear as it ever had been, and the water people could return to their homes. Their long nightmare was over.
*
* *
MARCUS COULD TELL that Beka had succeeded as soon as she pulled her mask off. Her smile could have lit up a day even gloomier than this one, and triumph exuded from every pore. He helped her over the side of the boat, wincing away from the bright light of the globe she carried tucked under one arm.
“What’s that?” he asked, not sure he wanted it on his father’s boat.
Beka followed his glance and mercifully stowed the glowing orb away in her bag. “That’s all the radiation that used to be in the water,” she said, as if that was a good thing.
“Jesus Christ!” Marcus took a step away from her, and even his father looked alarmed, for all that he was already dying. “Is that safe?”
Beka smirked. “Safer than your driving,” she said. But she took pity on them and added, “No, seriously, the sphere is completely impermeable; it only takes things in, and doesn’t let them out.”
“Oh.” Marcus let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. “That’s good. What the hell are you going to do with it?”
“I’ll take it with me to the Otherworld when I go to see the Queen,” she said, like other people mentioned they were going to Santa Carmelita to catch a movie. “There are creatures there who will consider it a tasty treat.”
He was never going to get used to all the weird.
“Great,” Marcus said. “That’s just great. You did it. I’m so proud of you.”
And he was. So why did his heart feel like he’d swallowed fifty pounds of lead?
Standing there in her wet suit, hair dripping seawater onto the deck below, she looked just like the crazy surfer chick he’d pulled out of the ocean not so long ago. But she wasn’t the same girl at all. She was so much more—and so much more to him—than he would have ever dreamed possible. And way out of his league. It was almost enough to make him wish he didn’t know who and what she really was. Not quite, but almost.
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