by Jon Etter
Ginch and the Professor looked at each other and shrugged. “We no know a place like that,” Ginch said shaking his head. Suddenly, his eyes widened, and he snapped his fingers. “I know—we take-a you to see the Baba Ingas! If anybody know a place like that, it’s-a the Baba Ingas!”
In which Shade meets and annoys
the Amazing Baba Ingas . . .
Before we get started on this chapter, I’d like to let you know that it features a witch. I tell you this in the hopes of managing your expectations a little. While it is perfectly natural for you to get excited about the appearance of a witch—what with their known tendencies to fly on cleaning equipment, eat suitably plump children, and live in edible houses (which has always seemed ill-advised to me, but to each their own, I suppose)—you should know better than to expect anything other than disappointment in this dreadful tale. And disappointing she will no doubt be.
“Here?” Shade asked, gazing skeptically at the run-down shack that squatted, seemingly on the verge of collapse, at the furthest edge of Gypsum-upon-Swathmud. Its foundation was surrounded by a ring of straw and sticks that looked like a giant nest. A weathered sign in front read:
THE AMAZING BABA INGAS
fortunes told!
futures foreseen!
official documents notarized!
The Professor pointed and nodded.
“This is-a the place—home to the mystical, majoostical Baba Ingas!” Ginch declared grandly. The pixie placed his battered top hat over his heart.
Shade crossed her arms. “This feels like a scam.”
“After all we do for you, you think we would-a scam-a you?” Ginch asked indignantly. The Professor gave her a hurt look, dabbed at his eyes with a handkerchief he pulled out of his sleeve, and then blew his nose noisily into it.
“Absolutely.”
The brownie and pixie shrugged. “Okay, we would,” Ginch conceded while the Professor nodded energetically. “But we no scam-a you here. The Baba Ingas knows everything there is-a to know about everything. You just go in and ask-a. We wait-a right here for you.”
“You’re not coming in?” Shade asked, suspicious.
“The Baba Ingas, she prefer to talk-a the one-on-one so there’s-a more room for the spirits to come in the hut and tell-a her all that’s-a hidden.”
“Slug snot,” Shade said.
“Fine, you tell-a the Baba Ingas that youself,” Ginch replied as he and the Professor gave Shade a shove through the bead curtain hanging in the hut’s doorway.
Shade stumbled into a windowless room filled with a pungent haze of incense smoke where a hundred candles burned, all of them bloodred. Flickering flames caused glass jars filled with snakes and lizards and spiders and all manner of animal and unidentifiable pulpy things to glow. Shadows of the dried plants and animal feet and bones hanging from the ceiling danced in the gloom. In the center of the room was a round table covered with a black table cloth embroidered with arcane symbols. On the table sat a crystal ball, glowing eerily.
A door hidden by one of the many multicolored drapes lining the walls creaked open to reveal a hunched old pechish woman (pechs being, as I’m sure you know, very similar looking to us, only shorter—four feet tall on average—and much stronger and magically inclined) wearing a loose peasant dress as crimson as the candles, a wide gold sash covered in jingling coins encircling her waist, and an ivory shawl draped over her shoulders. A strip of red cloth was tied over her eyes. “You come seeking answers,” she wheezed in a thick accent as she slowly approached Shade. “I, ze amazing Baba Ingas, haff zem.”
“Yeah, we’ll see,” Shade said, smirking.
“Yes, ve vill,” Baba Ingas replied in her weak, cracking voice as she sat at the table. “Sit and hold out your hand.”
Shade snorted and did as the pech asked. The fortune-teller took Shade’s hand in hers. “You . . . seek somezing . . .”
“Wow,” Shade said flatly.
“Somezing . . . you’ve lost . . . or haff never had . . .”
“Gee, there’s no way you could have ever guessed something like that.”
The old witch frowned. “To do zis, you are prepared to go on great journey—”
“Which you can easily tell by the fact that I’m wearing traveling clothes—”
“And how am I supposed to know zat ven I’m blind!” Baba Ingas snapped.
“Blind my Aunt Fannyfeather, you fraud!” Shade laughed. “I mean, how exactly are you supposed to read my palm or use that stupid crystal ball if you’re blind?”
Suddenly the table started to rattle and shake and a loud rapping came from underneath. “Your impudence has angered ze spirits, little sprite!” Baba Ingas cried. “Ze only zing zat might appease zem—”
“You’re doing that with a toe-ring, right?” Shade asked as she peeked under the table cloth. “Yep, there it is. And, yes, the table legs are different lengths to make it easy to move around, just like I read in that chapter of Erik the White’s A Magician Among the Spirits. Oh, that lantern mounted on the bottom is clever though—I wondered how you were making that ball glow.”
“Okay, listen you little creep,” Baba Ingas growled, her accent vanishing. “If you think you can come in here and completely donkle with me then—”
“She’s-a with us! Ha-ha! She get-a you good! I no think-a you can-a dupe her and-a you can’t!” Ginch laughed as he and the Professor clattered through the beaded curtain. The Professor slapped his knees and then clutched his belly as he mimed laughter. A glare from Baba Ingas made him stop and try (mostly unsuccessfully) to keep a straight face.
“Watch it, Reginald,” she said, taking off her blindfold and sweeping off her white wig to reveal chin-length black hair. Without what Shade could now tell were fake warts and makeup wrinkles, she would be quite an attractive fairy. “Remember I’ve known you since before you started using that ridiculous fake accent.”
The Professor pointed at Ginch, who had stopped smiling, and soundlessly laughed at him. “’Ey, there’s-a no need to get-a personal here! We got-a the business to conduct.”
Baba Ingas took out a long-stemmed pipe and lit it with one of the many candles in the room. “On the table.”
Ginch and the Professor put the rings that Spratling and Schlumberger had given them on the table, and then pulled out another twelve rings, six bracelets, nine necklaces, a couple pocket watches, and three gold teeth.
“Hey, most of that’s from Spratling and Schlumberger’s,” Shade said. “I can’t believe you stole from them after they gave us presents!”
“We no steal-a from the kobold and the dwarf! We steal-a these from the Pryright before he get arrested, so it’s-a okay.” Ginch turned to Baba Ingas. “She get-a the Pryright arrested today.”
Baba Ingas looked impressed. “She did, eh? Good riddance. He gave us decent crooks a bad name.” Baba Ingas took a silk bag out of a nearby dresser and counted out some gold and silver coins, which she stacked on the table. “Twenty gold, ten silver for the lot.”
Ginch shook his head as the Professor swept the coins into a pocket in his baggy pants. “Twenty-five.”
Baba Ingas frowned and flipped another gold coin at them. The pixie held his pants pocket wide, and the coin clinked down in it. “Twenty-one, but only because Pyrite gone opens up a few . . . business opportunities for me. So what’s the story with your new partner here? Pretty smart for a sprite, aren’t you?”
“Pretty lousy for a witch, aren’t you?” Shade fired back.
“I was always better at performing than magic. Used to do an act with my two sisters: the Sisters Baba. Ever hear of us?” Shade shook her head. “Figures—you’re too young. Now my oldest sister, she’s really the magician of the family. Yaga used to do this bit with a trained hippogriff, a wheel of Wensleydale cheese, and a pair of long underwear that—”
“That’s-a the great story,” Ginch interrupted, “but the little Sprootshade here—”
&n
bsp; “Just Shade.”
“That’s-a what I say. So the little Sprootshade here wants-a the books.”
Ingas nudged the Professor. “Did you show her Pick a Pocket?” The Professor nodded.
“No. I’m not just looking for a book. I’m looking for a place where there are lots of books. Books to fill a lifetime! Somewhere a person can read to her heart’s content for the rest of her life without people bothering her.”
Baba Ingas studied Shade as she puffed on her pipe. “Grew up around books, did you? How many?”
“Seventy-four.”
Ingas whistled. “Rare for someone not of a noble family to have that many books. Shame they all burned.”
Shade started. “How did you—?”
Ingas blew a smoke ring. “Doesn’t take a witch to know when someone’s lost something, and unfortunately when books get lost, it’s to fire and stupidity more often than not. As far as what you’re looking for, there are a number of nobles, mostly elves, with big private libraries, which they’ll only let their own families and friends see. And as far as the great independent libraries, folks’ve been burning them down for centuries.”
Shade felt crushed. “So you’re saying there’s nowhere I can go?”
Baba Ingas’s eyes softened She drummed her fingers on the table and pursed her lips. “There is one place. Maybe. Before the last war, there stood three vast repositories of books and scrolls maintained for the use of scholars, witches, warlocks, learned nobles, and officials of the Seelie Court. Two were destroyed, but the third library, as far as I know, survived.”
Shade’s heart raced—she needed that library. “Where is it?”
Baba Ingas arched an eyebrow and casually blew a smoke ring at Shade that made her cough. “Why should I tell you? What’s in it for me?”
“I . . . I could tell people you’re a fraud if you don’t.” Shade crossed her arms, trying to look tough.
Ingas’s eyes narrowed. “You do that, and you’re liable to have a most unfortunate accident around here.”
“’Ey, ladies, there’s-a no need to get-a nasty!” Ginch declared as the Professor took out a whistle, gave it a loud tweet, and held up his hands in front of the two. “Now, Ingas, she’s-a no gonna grass you out. And she did-a just help get rid of the Pryright, which should mean-a the money in-a you pocket, eh?”
Baba Ingas looked back and forth from Ginch to Shade and drummed her fingers on the table. “All right! But only if you give me all the rest of your Pyrite loot.”
Ginch and the Professor held out their arms and looked confused. “What-a you talk? We no know-a—”
“The rest. Now.”
“Fatcha-coota-matchca, strega!” Ginch said. He and the Professor shoved their hands in their pockets and slapped a few more rings and bracelets on the table.
Ingas held her hand out in front of the Professor’s face. “All of it.”
The Professor smiled sweetly then gently spat a sapphire ring out on her palm.
“All right, then. The library lies due west, along the seacoast,” Ingas said as she wiped off the Professor’s ring. “To get there, you’ll have to brave the dangers of the Grim Forest, then follow the coast until you come to the Marble Cliffs. The library, if it still stands, will overlook the sea from the cliffs’ highest point. I can’t guarantee it still exists, and I can’t guarantee you’ll be allowed entrance if it does, but that’s your best bet of finding what you’re looking for.”
“Thank you,” Shade said, taking her hand. Baba Ingas’s whole body went rigid, and her eyes rolled back in her head.
In a ghostly voice, she sang:
Offer shelter to the spent,
When threatened do stand tall,
Return the stolen innocent,
And have forgiveness for all.
A dangerous path lies before you,
Hidden strength follows behind,
In time, if you earn your due,
That which you seek, you shall find . . .
The song complete, Baba Ingas’s body relaxed. She pulled out a chair and collapsed into it. “See, I’m not a total fraud,” she groaned, rubbing her temples. “Now beat it—the spirits say you’ve got to head out tonight if you want to succeed. And Ginch, the next time you and the Professor bring me someone looking to do anything other than fence stolen goods, I’ll get my hut up on its chicken legs and have it stomp you to death!”
“And now that we help-a you out, we wish-a you well,” Ginch said as he and the Professor both tipped their hats to her.
“You’re . . . you’re not coming with me?”
The Professor whistled, waved his hands, and shook his head. “Oh no,” Ginch said firmly. “What-a you do sounds-a like the trouble. Plus we got-a the business to—”
Somewhere off in the darkened town, Shade heard someone yell, “Find those two crooks! Search every inch of the this place! We’ll kill ‘em!”
Ginch and the Professor exchanged a worried look then turned to Shade. “You know what? For you, little Sprootshade, the business can wait. Now run! Run from-a the business!”
The Professor and Ginch grabbed their hats and dashed off into the western darkness. After a moment, Shade, partly terrified and partly relieved, ran off to join her new travel companions. Whether to or from certain doom, she wasn’t sure.
In which a forest is braved, a
beast is saved, a road is semi-paved,
and a Wild Hunt does
something that, regrettably, does
not end in “-aved” . . .
The three fairies ran and ran into the countryside until they were far, far from Gypsum and set up camp for the night.
“’Ey little Sprootshade, did Baba Ingas speak-a the truth?” Ginch asked as he warmed himself by their campfire. “Did alla you books burn up?”
“Yeah,” Shade said, frowning at the flames. “The stupid thistlepricks in my village burned my house down with their stupid fireworks.”
Ginch and the Professor’s eyes widened. “And what’s-a the village you from?”
“‘Pleasant Hollow.”
The two crooked fairies looked at each other. “Well, look at-a the time! Goodnight!” Ginch and the Professor threw themselves on the ground, put their hats over their faces, and immediately made loud snoring noises.
Shade took out Radishbottom’s book and looked at it. Books have never let me down, and while some of the stuff in you has helped, there’s stuff that you don’t cover and stuff you just plain get wrong. If I can’t completely trust what you and other books tell me, what can I trust?
The next morning, the three walked to the edge of the Grim Forest, its immense trees looming before them. A chill breeze blew, making Shade and the others shiver.
“You sure you wanna go in-a there, little Sprootshade?” Ginch asked uneasily.
Shade hesitated. No doubt you’ve read stories about kind, happy fruit trees that allow children to play in them, enjoy their fruit, and even perhaps be so selfless and so lacking in self-esteem as to sacrifice their very limbs and trunk for some child’s selfish desires (thus preventing other children from having the chance to enjoy the kind little trees’ generosity, but I digress). The trees of the Grim Forest were most decidedly not that kind of tree. These were immense, stern trees—their leaves and trunk so dark as to almost appear black—that seemed to threaten to break your limbs if you dared climb them, give you a bellyache if you dared to eat any of their fruit, or make a pup tent out of your skin and bones if you dared to even think about making a cottage or boat out of them.
“Yes,” Shade said quietly but resolutely as she hid her trembling hands in the pockets of her jacket. “We have to. Baba Ingas said that the way was through here.”
Ginch and the Professor sighed. “All right. You grow up in-a the forest, so you lead-a the way.”
It was true, Shade had grown up in a forest. The Grim Forest, however, was about as different from that forest as on
e forest can be from another. Think of the forests that sometimes crop up in your nightmares on those nights when you decide not to read Nanny Pleasantry’s Tales of Virtue, Inspiration, and Personal Improvement right before bed and instead pick up your older brother’s dog-eared copy of Bloodcurdling Tales of Torture, Terror, and Unpleasant Disembowelment. Those dark, sinister forests where the leaves blot out the sun in the day and the moon in the night, where the roots trip your feet and branches scratch at your face for daring to trespass there, where every sound seems to be a shriek or a howl or a death rattle, where predators feast and little children have no hope of brave hunters or kindly fairy godmothers arriving at the last minute to save them from the wolves or the witches or the monsters or the trees themselves. The Grim Forest was that kind of forest.
The three trudged through the forest’s undergrowth, which, fortunately for them, did not amount to much. With the sun’s rays so thoroughly blocked by the dark canopy of the towering trees, little grew upon the hard earth of the Grim Forest. Still, Shade and the others often stumbled in the dark shadows of the place as they constantly looked around them, unnerved by the feeling that somebody or something was watching them at all times.
After hours of hard walking, Shade pointed to a place where the trees thinned out. “Hey, what’s that up ahead?”
They hurried over to this break in the trees to discover a hard-packed dirt road. Bits of gravel suggested it had once been better maintained, and weeds growing in patches here and there showed it was now rarely used. Shade looked up and was actually able to see the cloudy gray sky above them.
“It’s-a part of the King’s Highway!” Ginch said happily. “Let’s-a take it! I could-a kiss it, but it’s-a the road and that would-a be gross . . .”
Shade had never seen the King’s Highway before, the Merry Forest being a fairly isolated place, but she had read about it: a series of roads established by King Ethelred the Wise long ago to help merchants drive their goods to market, troops mobilize for battle, and the king travel and oversee his kingdom as completely and knowledgeably as possible. “It is headed west,” she said. “We could stick with it as long as it keeps going that way.”
