by Joy Preble
She smiles at me and Tess like we’re supposed to applaud or something. I mean, it’s fitting in a girl-power kind of way, but honestly, she’s as full of herself as Viktor is. And even though I’m still terrified, it just makes me angry.
I push her hand away. “With all due respect, he did manage to trap you here, didn’t he? Compelled you to save Anastasia? And now, since the spell’s still gone all wonky, you’re stuck with him, right? That’s gotta suck.”
Tess elbows me in the ribs. “Isn’t she ticked off enough at us?” she whispers.
Saffron-dress Baba Yaga arches an eyebrow but otherwise ignores our interruption. “He did not believe that a mere girl could ever defeat him. He was the tsar’s first son. How could a sixteen-year-old schoolgirl find a way to undo what he had managed? The ancient prophecies were for fools like his protégé, Brother Ethan.”
The mention of Ethan’s name jolts me, makes me realize that we can’t sit here having story time much longer. We need to find Ethan and Ben. We need to get ourselves out of here.
The witch doesn’t seem to have such a pressing agenda. She keeps rambling. “It is the perfect circle, you see. My power passed through Viktor to a daughter that he never even knew existed. And then to that daughter’s daughter. And down the line to you. His own desire for power would defeat him, and in turn, would lead you to me—to a destiny that Viktor could not even have imagined.”
Won’t anyone ever let go of the whole destiny thing? She stops talking—finally—and begins to whirl and twirl and dance around the clearing. She may be done, but I’m not.
“What about the rest of it?” I call to her. “What about the rusalka? Lily? She tried to come to you too, didn’t she? But you didn’t help her. If you helped Marina, then why not Lily? Lily’s part of Viktor’s bloodline, just like I am. Why did you let her become such a horrible thing if you could have stopped it?” Or could she have? Maybe her help would have just trapped Lily in a different way.
She doesn’t answer. She just raises her arms to the sky. The dense forest spreads open. We move suddenly and without any warning. We’re no longer in the clearing, but in front of Baba Yaga’s hut. In the distance, like it’s behind a gauzy curtain, I see the beach at Lake Michigan. My mother’s still kneeling on the sand, her arms outstretched like she’s reaching for me.
To my right, the stream appears. Had it been there when we arrived? But now it is, winding through the forest, disappearing into the trees. Ben sits next to it, staring into the water. But where’s Ethan?
“Ben!” I run to him. Tess follows at my heels. “Ben! Get up, Ben. Get away from there!”
“I’ve got a really bad feeling about this,” Tess says. “Really bad.”
Ben’s face is as pale as I’ve ever seen it. He looks up at me and Tess as we skid to a stop next to him. “Can’t move,” he says. “I can’t feel my legs. The horseman—the one in black—I think he put some of kind of spell on me. I’ve been sitting here trying and trying to move. But I can’t. He kept asking me what I really wanted. What I most desired. And I kept telling him that I just want to wake up from whatever this is. I just want to go home.”
“Oh, crap,” Tess says. “Ben, is that really what you said?”
As if on cue, Saffron Dress Baba Yaga begins to laugh. “An interesting twist, isn’t it, child? Are you still so torn? Hasn’t the rusalka you seem to care about so much taught you anything?”
“He doesn’t mean it!” I scream at her. “He doesn’t understand all these tricks and games. Just leave him alone! He didn’t ask to be part of this!”
“Neither did you, girl. Is he worth saving? Is he worth the power you have, the power you are yet to receive?”
“Is that what this is about? I can only help people who are worthy of it? Is that what you think? Is that why you didn’t help Lily? Because she wasn’t worth it to you, and somehow, I am? Why?”
“Because you’re stronger. Because you’re like me. You picked this boy because you could live with the thought of him leaving you. And you haven’t truly given your heart to Ethan because you couldn’t live if he left you again. You are the perfect girl for my legacy: true only to yourself.”
“You really don’t know her, do you?” Tess pulls my hand into hers, holds tight. “She’s not like you. Not at all.”
“Ignore her. Help me get Ben up.” Tess and I each link a hand under his arms and pull. We lift him, but his legs just buckle underneath him, and he slips out of our grip and flops to the ground.
Baba Yaga morphs. The good old original stands next to us again—long brown dress, huge horrible hands, gross iron teeth. The black koshka winds around her ankles. He flicks his pink tongue in and out of its mouth, looks at me, and hisses.
“I like you better this way,” I tell her. “At least now, you look like what you are. And Tess is right. I’m not you. I never was. I never will be.”
“Do you give your promises so lightly, girl? Will you dare tempt me by refusing to keep true to your word?”
“So what exactly is drinking from the stream going to do? Let you take little vacations to Maui or something? You and the cat planning on hanging out at the beach and sipping umbrella drinks? I know what I wanted from the bargain. I wanted to save my friends. But what do you want? You’ve given me your little history lesson, so now I think it’s only fair that you tell me. Since you think I’m so worthy and all.”
“Drink.” Baba Yaga points one wrinkled finger at the stream. “Then you will know.”
“Not until I see Ethan. Not until my friends are safe.”
I realize that I’m furious. At Baba Yaga. At Viktor and the rusalka. Even at myself for ending up here with everyone’s lives hanging in the balance. Everything has been manipulated for so long. Maybe even Baba Yaga doesn’t know the truth anymore. But I’m tired of this crazy game we’ve been playing. I don’t want her to ask me any more questions. I refuse to tell her that I’d pick one thing over another. She thinks that I’m like her, but I’m not. I don’t know what I am yet, but I know I’m not that.
Horse hooves sound through the woods. The horseman dressed in white gallops up and dumps Ethan on the ground in front of me. One of his eyes is swollen shut, and there’s an ugly purple bruise on his cheekbone.
I fall to my knees next to him. “Ethan! Oh, Ethan.” I touch my fingertips to his eye. “I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”
He squints and glances around us, then whispers in my ear. “The horseman’s on our side. Just be ready.”
FRIDAY, IN THE FOREST
ETHAN
Be ready for what?” Anne grabs my elbow as I stagger to my feet.
I try to clear my vision. One of my eyes is closed to a slit. Easier if Mistress continues to believe you are weak, the horseman had said. Did his fist hit me? Or just magic? I don’t know. I don’t even know for sure if I can trust him.
But it’s the horsemen who helped us get out of here last time, and it’s this horseman who’s helping us now. They are still not bound in the same ways as Baba Yaga. The Brotherhood’s magic never took them into consideration. It’s our only loophole.
“I think I can get us out of here. But we won’t have much time. We’re going to have to move quickly.”
“We can’t! Ben. He can’t move his legs, Ethan. It’s some kind of spell. Baba Yaga’s paralyzed him or something.”
I turn, horrified, and see that she’s right.
A scrim will appear, the horseman had whispered to me in the forest. Mistress will let them see their world. She doesn’t mean to let them go, just to play with them. To let Anne see her mother, force her to consider everyone who might be hurt by what she does or doesn’t do. As it rises, the magic is at its weakest. You can break through then. But you must act quickly. Before the witch realizes what you are doing.
It appears just beyond the stream now, just as he’s described it. A division between where we want to be and where we are. Anne’s mother kneels on the sand, still reaching for her. Lake Michigan i
s behind her, blue and deep.
“Look.” Tess points toward the lake.
“Oh crap,” Anne says.
And I know in that instant that it no longer matters whether the horseman had been lying or telling the truth. After that, there’s no time to think at all.
In those few seconds as the scrim settles, Lily rises from the lake and walks swiftly toward the stream. Her hair snakes around her. Her dress is soaked and tattered. She presses her hands against the magic that has kept her from us. And in those few seconds, crosses from the real world to the forest and glides into the stream.
“Well, my dear girl. Your Ethan has made quite the error in judgment. Even I don’t trust my horsemen. But it seems that your mermaid grandmother has finally found her way to me. Drink, Anne.” Baba Yaga looms over us, taller than I’ve ever seen her. “You have promised. Once you drink, then you can make all this go away.”
In the middle of the water now, Lily starts to weep. Ben starts to drag himself back toward the stream.
“Stop me,” he says. “Anne, please. Make it stop.”
FRIDAY, IN THE FOREST
ANNE
This is so not good,” Tess says. “What are we going to do?”
The sound of Lily’s pain washes through me and over me and around me and ties itself up with the overriding certainty that if I don’t do something—anything—Ben is going to die again. Only this time, I won’t be able to bring him back because I have no intention of doing what Baba Yaga wants, and once she realizes that, it’s all over.
Unless I find a way to change the odds. The plan hatches quickly—too quickly to be sensible. But what other choice do I have? I won’t let Ben die. I can’t let Ben die. The words loop over and over in my head.
“Help Ben.” I gesture to Tess and Ethan. “Please. Don’t let her touch him.”
“No!” Ethan holds out a hand as if to stop me. “We need to stay together.”
But I can’t listen to him. If I listen to him, Ben might die. So with the sound Lily’s keening cries echoing everywhere, I run.
Behind me, Lily’s voice cracks with tears. “You wouldn’t help me, witch. You wouldn’t let me come to you. But now, here I am.”
I make it across the little clearing, ignore the skulls on the pikes, and dash to the hut door. All I can think is that Lily will kill Ben because she can’t have what she wants. And Baba Yaga—well, she doesn’t want Viktor either, does she? In my dreams, I’ve felt her desire to kill him. It’s what they both want, and I’m just so very tired of being in the middle of it all. All these people have such fierce desires to live forever, but all that ever seems to come of it is death.
If there’s anything left of him, I’ll let Viktor out, do what the rusalka wanted me to do anyway—my crazy birth grandmother, so filled with grief at what she’s lost. If anyone gets that, it’s me. If I really can release him, then that’s what I’ll do. Let the witch and the mermaid fight over him. And while my two highly dysfunctional ancestors duke it out with Baba Yaga, the rest of us can find our way back home.
Like that first time, the hut heaves in and out, in and out, like it’s breathing. The chicken legs scrabble at the ground, and my hand misses the doorknob over and over. I lunge again, grab it, and start to turn. I needed the lacquer box key the last time, but I’m not the same as I was the last time. There’s more inside me, and I hope that whatever it is, it’s enough.
Behind me, Ethan shouts. “Anne! Watch out!”
And then I’m hurtling through the air. I slam to the ground so hard that my breath stops dead in my chest. Baba Yaga stands over me laughing, her sleeves flapping empty in the wind. I gasp. She’s sent her hands to stop me, and they’ve done their job. I only turned the handle halfway. Not enough. Her huge, wrinkled brown hands slide under my body, lift me, and throw me like I weigh nothing at all. I land in the stream facedown. Somewhere above me or maybe behind me, I hear Tess and Ethan and Ben calling my name as I sink beneath the surface of the water.
It’s not real. It’s not real. This is what I keep telling myself as the water filters over me. The stream is shallow. I can’t be sinking this far under. But it feels real—just like drowning.
Somehow, impossibly, Lily is next to me under the water. We are far, far under. I hold my breath. I don’t want to drown, and I don’t want to drink. Either way, if I open my mouth, I’m screwed. I’ll be dead—or I’ll be doing what Baba Yaga wants from me. Will I become her? Take on her powers? But I’ll bound to her somehow, because that’s what I promised, and that’s what she expects to collect. She doesn’t care that Ethan’s told me he loves me. Or that I might like a little time to figure out if I love him back. Or that my mother might have just watched me fall facedown into the water and might now think I’m dead.
“You have no idea,” Lily says softly. She floats in front of me, so close that as her dark hair fans out, it twists itself with mine. “I was no good for your mother. I could think of nothing but Misha—nothing but what I didn’t have. I had gone to find Baba Yaga, and I did not come back the same. She had not granted my wish, and I did not know what else to do. How could you know that kind of loss?”
But I do, I tell her. I can’t say it aloud, but somehow, I think she hears me anyway. I’ve watched my mother suffer. We all have. It’s different, I know. But I think it feels the same. Like a wave my mom and I saw that winter David died, not far from where Mom is still kneeling on the beach right now. It was a wave in winter, frozen near the shore, unable to move.
Lily reaches out one thin arm and strokes it across my hair. Her ruby and pearl fan hair clip slips from my hair and drifts through the water. She lowers her hand and catches it, fastens it into her own hair and leans in very close to me.
“It was only for a second. Just one second. Just one thought as they swam toward me, as I understood what they were. Just one thought that perhaps this was what I wanted, this was better. That I had no choice but to accept. I wanted to take it back as soon as it leaped into my head, but it was too late. The words were on my tongue, and then I opened my mouth, and it all rushed in. The water. The rusalkas’ enchantment. Once I accepted, there was no turning back. Not for me.”
Then fight against it, I tell her with my thoughts. Just this once. Help me. If you hate the witch, then piss her off by pulling me out of here. You’ve lost so much, and I know you don’t have control. But maybe you could control this one thing. And then I can tell Mom what you did. That you did this one last thing for her. That you helped your daughter’s daughter when she needed it.
I’m in her head then, seeing what she sees, feeling what she feels: a tiny, dark-haired baby in her arms. The softness of the child’s delicate skin as she caresses her daughter’s cheek. Her daughter. My mother. She presses her lips to the baby’s head. Tears well in her eyes, fall onto her daughter’s face. I feel the pain—sharp as a thousand knives cutting into my skin—as she hands her daughter to the nurse. The loss is enormous, and for a few seconds, it presses me deeper into the water. Lily clutches at me. Lily, me, the infant that was my own mother years ago—all floating here on the edge of something that none of us can ever truly control.
In that instant, we’re standing together in the shallow water. Lily’s hand is clasped in mine. Ethan and Tess are standing in the grass, holding Ben between them. They jolt forward like statues brought to life when Lily and I appear. Had some magic stopped them from moving?
When Tess lets go of Ben to run to me, he slumps, and Ethan has to pull him up again to keep him from falling.
“Enough,” Ethan says to Baba Yaga. He moves closer to her, dragging Ben with him. “Enough already.”
“Has your mentor taught you nothing?” she says to him. “Viktor can’t ever have enough of anything. But you tell me to stop. You have no more magic, Ethan. You will not win.”
Baba Yaga’s hands skitter about in front of us, splashing the water toward me with their fingers. The witch herself tilts her head and observes me. “Clever girl,” sh
e says slowly. “More clever than I even thought. Blood may be thicker than my water, after all. I am feeling generous again. Although not much.” She nods, and her right hand skitters backward, then turns and flicks one leathery finger in Ben’s direction.
The effect is immediate. “My legs,” Ben says. “My legs!” He pulls from Ethan and walks a few unsteady steps. “The feeling’s coming back.”
This time, I don’t thank her. Correction: I might have thanked her. But then the skulls around the hut start screeching.
We all look toward the hut. Maybe I’d turned that door handle enough after all. And maybe that’s not a good thing after all.
Viktor—the ragged remains of his black leather jacket and expensive trousers hanging loosely—emerges from Baba Yaga’s door. His hair is pure white, his body so thin that I wonder how he’s actually standing, much less walking. He shields his eyes with one hand and surveys the scene in front of him. Then he begins to move. He doesn’t speak, just walks away from the hut and through the fence, steadier with each step. One of the skulls nips at Viktor’s arm, its petrified teeth gripping his elbow. He doesn’t even cry out—he just wrenches his arm away and keeps moving.
“What did you do, girl?” Baba Yaga’s voice slices through me. “It is impossible. I sent my hands! I am still compelled! This cannot be!”
Ethan curses under his breath, Russian, then English, then something else I can’t identify.
The rest happens very fast.
Lily lets go of my hand and walks out of the water. She reaches one thin, pale arm inside the ripped bodice of her gown and pulls out a pistol.