But nothing happened. Katherine glanced down in disbelief and snapped her fingers. Not so much as a spark.
Babs giggled. Barbara was—just for a moment—tempted to join her. Instead, drawing on her superior maturity, she flipped the woman the bird and then looked down at Babs.
“I think our work here is done. Shall we go and see if everything else has turned out as well?”
“Yes please, Baba Yaga,” Babs said in a quiet voice. Her brown eyes held a mixture of fear and hope that Barbara was fairly certain was mirrored by her own amber ones.
They walked down the road, Katherine’s loud curses following them until they were out of earshot.
“You know,” Barbara said. “You could call me Mama. Or Mother. You know, if you wanted to. You don’t have to though.”
Babs gave the matter some thought, her sneakers scuffing up the dusty soil. “I believe I would like that. Mama.” She thought some more. “But sometimes I will still call you Barbara, or Baba Yaga.”
“Whatever you like, little one,” Barbara said, feeling inordinately pleased. Liam would be pleased too. She hoped. If he was at the end of this road, waiting for them. Dread gnawed at her soul like a jackal gnawed on the bones of its prey. Please goddess, let him be waiting.
Every footstep closer made the terror rise higher in her throat so that by the time the Airstream came into sight, she could barely breathe. What if he wasn’t there? What if it had all been for nothing? She tried to pull herself together. She’d found him once, and then again. She’d just keep doing it until they were together. But, oh, how she wanted him to be there.
For a moment, it looked as though her worst fears were true. The silver trailer gleamed in the sun, but there was no one near it.
Then the door opened and Chudo-Yudo bounded down the steps, followed by the most precious sight in the world.
“Hey,” Liam said, looking just the way he had when they’d left. “Did I just hear an explosion? Is everything okay?”
Barbara raced across the parking lot and threw herself into his arms in an uncharacteristic display of emotion. “It is now,” she said, kissing him soundly. She pulled back to take a closer look at his astonished—albeit delighted—face.
“At least I think it is. How are Belinda and Mary Elizabeth? And Mrs. Ivanov?”
Liam took a step back and stared at her with a bemused expression. “Um, fine, I suppose. I haven’t talked to them since we left.” He held her at arm’s length, one big hand on each of her shoulders. “What’s going on, Barbara? You’re acting a little odd.”
“Even for you,” Chudo-Yudo put in. “And you have to act pretty damned odd for anyone to notice.”
“Oh, shut up, you big furball,” Barbara said, but she leaned down and kissed him on his soft black nose after she said it.
“Really odd,” the dragon-dog said, but his tone lacked its usual bite.
“It’s a long story,” Barbara said.
“Very long,” Babs agreed. “And very strange.”
Liam laughed. “Why doesn’t that surprise me? Are you going to tell me all about it?”
“Later,” Barbara said. Right now she didn’t even want to think about it, or how close she came to losing almost everything. “Right now, we have a family vacation to take.”
She turned to Babs and knelt down to put herself at the same eye level with the girl. “Unless this was too much of an adventure for you, and you want to go home. We can always take a trip another time.”
Liam raised an eyebrow, but withheld comment, clearly trusting that she would explain later.
As always, Babs took a moment to ponder the decision. Barbara thought it was probably one of the great ironies of the universe that a woman who tended to simply take action—usually with a certain forcefulness—had ended up raising a child who always thought things through first. She could practically hear the gods laughing.
She didn’t really mind, all things considered.
Babs looked from her to Liam and back again. A tiny hint of a smile played around her rosebud lips.
“You know how sometimes when I work very hard to accomplish a difficult task, you say I have earned a cookie?’ Babs said finally.
“Yes,” Barbara said.
“I think seeing Niagara Falls is our cookie,” Babs said decisively. “This adventure was very hard work.”
“What adventure?” Liam asked, a little plaintively. “I’m pretty sure I’m missing something here. Something big.”
Chudo-Yudo sighed. “We’re not going to like this story, are we? I mean, when we finally get to hear it.”
“Don’t worry,” Barbara said. “It has a happy ending. That’s the only thing that matters.”
“So should we get back on the road?’ Liam asked, clearly resigning himself to remaining in the dark for a while.
Barbara considered his question, and gave him a smile that smoldered with such intensity, it made the sun feel cool in comparison.
“Not quite yet,” she said, not taking her eyes from his. “Chudo-Yudo, why don’t you take Babs for a nice walk? See if you can find the sprite who brought us here and tell him that the problem is solved. I’m sure it will put his mind at ease.”
“A walk,” Chudo-Yudo repeated.
“Yes,” Barbara confirmed. “Maybe take about an hour.”
The dragon-dog rolled his eyes. “Come on, kiddo,” he said. “I know when we’re not wanted.”
He and Babs started off in the direction they’d seen the sprite take, either that morning or many days ago, depending on your point of view.
As they moved away, Barbara could hear their voices drifting back on the wind, one low and deep, the other high and light.
“There is going to be kissing, is there not?” Babs said.
“Yes, I think so,” Chudo-Yudo said in a disgruntled tone. They both made disgusted sounds as they disappeared through a stand of trees.
Liam got a glint in his eye. “Is there going to be kissing?” he asked. He flipped a lock of sandy hair out of his face and straightened up at the thought. Barbara enjoyed watching his muscles move under his tee shirt even more than she usually did. Absence really did make the heart grow fonder.
“Yes there is,” she said. “I’m going to kiss you as though I had lost you forever and miraculously got you back again.”
“That long story sounds as though it is going to be pretty interesting,” Liam said, one side of his mouth quirking up in a grin.
“Not half as interesting as what I’m going to do to you as soon as we get into that Airstream,” Barbara said in a husky voice.
“I love it when you’re wickedly dangerous,” he said, then scooped her up in his arms and carried her inside. Their laughter echoed through the clearing, and then there was silence.
More or less.
About the Author
Deborah Blake is the award-winning author of the Baba Yaga and Broken Rider paranormal romance series and the Veiled Magic urban fantasies from Berkley.
Deborah has also written The Goddess is in the Details, Everyday Witchcraft and numerous other books from Llewellyn, along with a popular tarot deck. She has published articles in Llewellyn annuals, and her ongoing column, “Everyday Witchcraft” is featured in Witches & Pagans Magazine. Deborah can be found online at Facebook, Twitter, her popular blog (Writing the Witchy Way), and www.deborahblakeauthor.com
When not writing, Deborah runs The Artisans’ Guild, a cooperative shop she founded with a friend in 1999, and also works as a jewelry maker, tarot reader, and energy healer. She lives in a 130 year old farmhouse in rural upstate New York with various cats who supervise all her activities, both magickal and mundane.
OTHER FICTION BY DEBORAH BLAKE
Novels
WICKEDLY DANGEROUS
WICKEDLY WONDERFUL
WICKEDLY POWERFUL
DANGEROUSLY CHARMING
DANGEROUSLY DIVINE
DANGEROUSLY FIERCE
VEILED MAGIC
VEI
LED MENACE
VEILED ENCHANTMENTS
REINVENTING RUBY
Novellas
WICKEDLY MAGICAL
WICKEDLY EVER AFTER
WICKEDLY SPIRITED
DANGEROUSLY DRIVEN
Wickedly Unraveled Page 23