Diary of Anna the Girl Witch 2: Wandering Witch

by Max Candee

  We packed for a long journey.

  “Can’t the bears take us again?” Lauraleigh asked.

  “Best to let them rest,” Uncle Misha said. “This is berry season. Bears need to pack on the weight now to get through the long winter. Another journey now will set them back in their feeding. But I have just the solution. Mama Bear and her cubs cannot help us, but the grizzlies can.”

  Now I knew Uncle Misha was being silly. There were no grizzly bears in Siberia. But when I told him that, he only smiled knowingly and threw his pack over his shoulder. Lauraleigh and I followed him around the back of the cabin. For the first time, I noticed a new shed built of rough timbers. Uncle Misha pulled open the door, which rolled up like in a garage. Inside were two green, mud-spattered ATVs.

  Uncle Misha beamed proudly. “Grizzlies!”

  “You mean the Great Trapper rides an ATV?” Lauraleigh said with a grin. “Wouldn’t that shock our friend Gavril!”

  “Uncle Misha!” I protested. “You hate technology! You always told me it makes people lazy. And now you don’t just have a radio and a fridge, but ATVs?” I was actually more shocked than I sounded.

  Uncle Misha grinned.

  “It does make you lazy,” he said. “It leaves you with no actual connection to the land. You cannot feel the slow growth of the seeds beneath the snow and the soil when you ride such machines. But sometimes…” and he waggled his thick eyebrows, “they are useful. Besides, I am old. I am allowed some comfort and a little music. Not to mention some inconsistencies. It is the best thing about getting old.”

  “Monsieur Michel!” Lauraleigh exclaimed in a sharp tone that sounded so much like Sister Constance that I gaped. Then she grinned. “I do believe, sir, that you are a terrible rogue.”

  Uncle Misha grinned back again and did not deny the charge.

  After a quick driving lesson for Lauraleigh, I hopped on the ATV behind Uncle Misha and wrapped my arms around his waist. Starting right from the back of the shed, Uncle Misha had already carved a path through the thick trees. The four-wheelers plowed steadily up the steep hill.

  “We can’t go over the mountain!” he yelled over the noise of the engine. “The path gets too rocky. We’ll have to skirt around the side!”

  Soon our path leveled off. The ATVs were faster than bears, faster than horses too — I felt a sudden pang, thinking about Dushá and Kísa. I hoped they had returned safely to Anton’s barn.

  Before the sun hit high noon, we had already made it to the other side of the mountain. We stopped to drink from our canteens. After the constant roar of the engines, the silence of the forest was unsettling.

  “Unless she has moved — and I have no reason to think she has — your grandmother lives in a ravine just over that ridge,” said Uncle Misha.

  I nodded as if he were just talking about the weather, but my stomach was a jumble of knots.

  I jumped when a man stepped out from behind a tree and walked right through one of the ATVs. He looked shimmery, like from an old movie, and pale. The apparition didn’t stop to notice us but just kept walking. He had a confused, angry expression on his face — an unsettled one. Not a twig moved as he melted into the shadows between the trees.

  I gasped. “A ghost!”

  Lauraleigh grabbed my arm. Though apparently she couldn’t see the ghost, my alarm at its sudden appearance terrified her.

  “This one got far. I fear we will be seeing more of these before the end of this journey,” said Uncle Misha. “We must hurry!”

  We jumped back on the ATVs and drove in the same direction as the ghost had gone. We didn’t see him again. Neither did we see any sign of wildlife. I expected the loud engines to scare off everything but the wolves, but even the White Horseman and his pack were strangely absent. I started to hope that we’d reach my grandmother’s house without any fuss.

  I should have known better.

  We raced along a riverbank. A field of wildflowers rolled down to the river on our right. The forest still crowded the far side of the bank, and the river headed toward the opening of a steep ravine.

  Uncle Misha stopped his ATV, and Lauraleigh pulled in beside us.

  “Her house is in that ravine.” He pointed to where the river disappeared between two massive outcroppings of stone. “We cannot take the ATVs in there. She will hear them. And we will have to move slowly, checking for traps along the way.”

  But Uncle Misha made no move to get off the ATV.

  “What are we waiting for?” I asked. I wanted to get this over with. Now that we were so close, I wanted to meet my grandmother, for good or ill.

  “Ah, Malyshka, have you forgotten everything I taught you?” asked Uncle Misha. “We are always both the hunter and the hunted. Never forget that. Even when your prey is within sight, stop and test the wind. Make sure that some other bigger predator isn’t waiting in the shadows.”

  So we waited. Uncle Misha’s eyes were focused on the ravine. And just when I thought he’d have to give up, I heard the sound of hooves clattering over stone.

  “This way!” Uncle Misha fired up the ATV and pointed to the open field. The ATVs strained up the steep bank; then they burst onto the field. I chanced a glance behind us and saw the three Horsemen riding out of the ravine. One was all in black, with a long ponytail flying behind him. One was dressed only in red, with a bushy beard like a lion’s mane. And the other was the White Horseman, the white wolf. Their nimble horses had no trouble with the steep bank, and they were soon galloping across the field in our wake.

  Birds scattered before us. We bounced over hillocks and into crevices until I thought my teeth would be jarred loose from my head. We nearly tipped over on one bump, and Uncle Misha slowed down. With her knuckles white on the handlebars and her expression bleak, Lauraleigh kept her grizzly close. But the horses could leap over all the obstacles that were impeding us. They were gaining on us.

  Though the jarring of the ATV was painful, I couldn’t help but turn in my seat and watch our doom speed toward us. The three Horsemen were only a couple of hundred meters away. Their horses — black, red, and white — foamed at the mouths. Then they were fifty meters away. I could see the ferocious grimace on the Black Horseman’s face. Probably he still hadn’t forgiven me for breaking up his little business of selling children into slavery. Then twenty meters away.

  They were going to catch us!

  The ATV leaped out of the field and onto a solid dirt road. Uncle Misha hollered with glee. He revved his engine and we sped off, leaving the Horsemen in the dust.

  After quite a ride, we rounded a corner and stopped.

  “You all right, Lauraleigh?” I asked.

  She nodded. Her entire body was visibly shaking. “I thought they had us for sure!”

  “They might have three horsepower altogether,” said Uncle Misha with a grin, “but my grizzlies have forty-five horsepower apiece. They will not catch us now. Come on. Blackwood Castle is not too far. We can stop there for the night.”

  * * *

  To call Blackwood a castle was generous of Uncle Misha. Once it might have been a beautiful and forbidding structure, but now it mostly resembled a pile of rubble with turrets. Sometime in the last century, most of the great arched windows and doors had been bricked up. We parked the ATVs in a space that had probably been the keep but which was now crowded with brambles. An ambitious sapling had grown through the gate into the watchtower above. Crumbled stones littered the ground.

  Something in the air made me nervous. Not the obvious aura of death and ruin that surrounded the site. Something else. I … felt the hum of magic here. Old magic. It made my fingers tingle and the hairs on the back of my neck stand at attention.

  Uncle Misha tried the main door, a massive oaken plank bound in iron. It moved only a few inches when he shoved. Stones and leaves showered him from above and he jumped back. The lintel above the door was crumbling to dust.

  “We’d better find another way in,” he said.

  I wasn’t
convinced that we should stay among these ruins at all, but around the back of the manor, we found a cellar door in surprisingly good shape. It didn’t even squeak when Uncle Misha pulled it open.

  “Come on,” he said. “I expect we have been heard by now.”

  We followed him into the dark cellar.

  “Heard? By whom?” I asked. “The vultures who’ll pick our bones when we die in this place?”

  Lauraleigh snorted back a laugh.

  “Do not be dramatic,” Uncle Misha said. “I have stayed here many times. We will be most welcome.”

  A huge black beast jumped from the shadows and flattened Uncle Misha onto the dirt floor. I saw a flashing of sharp white teeth and a spray of drool. Magic flared in me; it had become instinctive. But before I could zap the creature, Uncle Misha laughed.

  “Koshmarik! Get off, you great oaf!”

  The beast — called Little Nightmare, no less — had Uncle Misha pinned under two massive paws and was licking his face with a tongue as big and slimy as an eel.

  “What is that?” Lauraleigh asked, her voice squeaking with tension.

  My hands shook with unreleased magic. How close had I come to killing a friendly beast out of fear? Had I forgotten Uncle Misha’s talent with animals, forgotten that he was the Great Trapper and did not have to fear them? I was trembling; I’d have to control myself better.

  “It’s a hellhound,” said a sharp voice from the darkness. “Given to me as a pup from the Eater of Death himself. Let the poor man up, Koshmarik.”

  The hellhound stepped off Uncle Misha and he stood up, wiping the creature’s drool from his face and shirt. The beast was as tall as my shoulder, with patchy black hair and a grotesque face, like a cross between a monkey and a bulldog. His tongue lolled happily from his black lips, and drool puddled at his feet.

  “Your breath has aged like fine cheese,” Uncle Misha said, patting the hound on his head. “And how have you fared this past winter, Egor?”

  A small man dressed in rags came out of the darkness to shake Uncle Misha’s hand heartily.

  “As well as ever, old friend. Glad to see you still alive and kicking, Misha. So many of the old gang are gone now … so many gone.” Egor’s eyes glistened a bit, but his smile showed several crooked yellow teeth. He was bald on top, but long wispy white hair hung down from his chin and the back of his head.

  “It is still good to be alive,” Uncle Misha replied. His words were strangely formal, and I wondered if this was a traditional greeting between the two men.

  “So who have you brought us for a visit?”

  “This is my niece, Anna Sophia. And her friend, Lauraleigh.”

  Egor looked way up to take in Lauraleigh’s height and grinned. She was at least a head taller than he was. He took her hand and bowed as low as he could over it, which wasn’t much, and gave it a dramatic kiss. She gave him a nice smile, although I could tell she understood very little of what was going on. Uncle Misha and his friend were speaking Russian.

  Egor took my hand and a spark of magic shot between us. I jerked my hand back, shaking away the sting.

  “Oho!” he said. “You brought a witch to visit me! How delightful. We’ll have to put out the good china for certain.” He hurried away down a long tunnel that I had only just noticed as my eyes grew accustomed to the dark cellar. Koshmarik bounded after his master, and we followed.

  After a few steps, the tunnel changed from a dirt passageway to a stone-lined corridor. Every ten paces, strange blue torches burned without smoke in iron holders along the wall. The floor sloped upward at a steady angle.

  “He lives in here?” I whispered in French. “Is it safe?”

  “The ruins keep all but the most determined tourists away,” Uncle Misha said. “Egor likes his privacy. I assure you the inner keep is quite safe. Old magic holds up these walls.”

  We emerged from the dark tunnel into a courtyard. Egor had made an effort to keep this one clear of weeds and brambles, but the small stone huts that had once been the smithy, the stable and other essentials of castle life had fallen into rubble. Egor walked past these ruins without a glance and led us into a tower and up its unending spiral staircase. I was nearly winded by the time we reached the top. He swung open another huge oaken door and closed it behind us with a chilling thud, after which he dropped a heavy plank into place across the door.

  I looked nervously at Uncle Misha, but he seemed unconcerned that we were essentially prisoners of this strange little man. The room was round and cluttered with shelves of books and trinkets. On a table in the center sat a large scale, a telescope, and several other pieces of equipment that would have looked at home in an alchemist’s lab.

  “Well, let me just clear this mess, and we’ll have some dinner, yes?” Egor waved his hand, and all the junk on the table disappeared. After an initial surge of panic, my mind settled down. Of course, Egor just cleaned the place up, I thought; I must have simply glanced away.

  Another jiggle of his fingers, and platters of food appeared along with jugs of beer and water, plates, and cups. With a final twitch, he set a roaring fire in the hearth.

  I blinked. “You’re a wizard!” I exclaimed. My memory was desperately trying to serve up images of Egor cooking in the hearth, although I knew the new memories weren’t real. But my mind seemed in urgent need of logical explanations.

  “Of course I am,” Egor said. He paused, looking at me with a smirk before adding, “Although it doesn’t take much to master such things. It’s all here.” He patted his stomach. “The timeless intent.”

  I didn’t understand what he meant, although I did recognize that magic came out of the pit of the stomach. Mine did too.

  “You don’t understand, huh?” he asked with a smile.

  I shook my head. “I’m confused. It’s like my brain is trying to explain things. Things I know didn’t happen.”

  He clicked his fingers as though looking for words. “How can I say it simply? See, time is that illusion people have. Mirage. Hocus-pocus.”

  I rolled my eyes — not to annoy him but to play along. I was starting to like this strange little man. “Right.”

  He composed an exaggerated frown on his face, teasing me. “Time doesn’t exist,” he said slowly. “It’s just a marker of sorts, separating one event from another. So when I would like hot food on my table, the power of my intent travels back in time. It’s like an arm of pure energy, reaching out from my belly button. Et voilà! It turns out I had already cooked all this food just before you came. On that fire.” He nodded toward the roaring hearth.

  “You did?” I asked with some relief. “You cooked all this?”

  Egor gave me a happy wink and smiled. “I love cooking.” He bowed and performed a series of gestures welcoming us to the table. His moves were decidedly medieval in their complexity. “Now let’s eat before you tell me why those three Horsemen have parked themselves outside my keep.”

  I translated for Lauraleigh, and we ran to the window and peered through the shutters. Sure enough, three horses — black, red, and white — and their riders were in the yard where we had left the grizzlies. The Horsemen sat in their saddles, unmoving, watching the keep.

  “How did they find us?” I asked.

  “Those metal beasts you rode in on are hard to miss,” Egor said. “They leave a stink a kilometer long and tracks that are easier to follow than a railway.”

  “I hoped they would not find us so soon,” said Uncle Misha grimly. “I wanted to be away from here before they tracked us.”

  “That’s always your problem, Misha,” said Egor. “You forget that others can track as well as you.” His words sounded harsh, but his eyes sparkled as if he’d told a great joke. “Remember that time I stole a beard hair from that old wizard? What was his name?”

  “Bogumil,” Uncle Misha said with a shy grin.

  “Right! And you said he’d never find us in the forest? Ha! That old codger tracked us within half a day. Gave us such a hiding with h
is magic cane, even my father felt sorry for us — and he was never one to go lightly with the cane!”

  “I remember.” Uncle Misha rubbed his backside as if it still pained him.

  “What did you need the beard hair for?” I asked.

  “For a spell, of course,” Egor said, and stuffed a whole pickled egg in his mouth.

  “Young wizards think they can boost their magic by adding the hair of a more potent witch or wizard,” said Uncle Misha. “But if you ask me … it is all show. The real power comes from inside you, not from some old grump’s hair.”

  Egor nodded along in agreement, but his mouth was too full to speak. He looked well satisfied with my uncle’s explanation.

  “Didn’t you say using magic makes you grow old?” I asked Uncle Misha as I tried to study his friend without being too obvious.

  Egor swallowed his egg, winked at me, stopped my uncle with a gesture and said, “Well, it can, if you’re foolish enough to use too much of it. See, there are many ways to build up your strength, but you can only keep so much energy at once. Or you’ll explode like a balloon! So you have to use it at some point. But if you try to use more than you have — well, the magic must find the energy somewhere, and so it takes it from your life and youth. And oops, suddenly you look like old Boney Leg! And there’s no going back from that.” He chortled.

  “And if you’re not that foolish?” I asked.

  Egor licked his fingers with gusto and said, “Then you use other ways to build the energy. Like I do. But let’s leave this topic for now. Enjoy your food.”

  Uncle Misha sipped his ale. The drink smelled of honey. “Well, I am sorry to bring trouble to your doorstep again, Egor,” he said.

  “It’s no matter. A little excitement is good for my blood.” Egor tossed a large shank of meat and bone on the floor. Koshmarik pounced on it and started gnawing with great snuffles and snorts.