Diary of Anna the Girl Witch 2: Wandering Witch

by Max Candee

  My magic made contact with hers, and suddenly my eyes were open again and I was gasping for air as if the wind had just been knocked out of me. All the energy in the atmosphere felt dimmer, more distant. I was all too aware of the wave of Baba Yaga’s power, which seemed to be clamped around my own pounding heart, a long rope lassoed around me and pulling me toward its source.

  I wasn’t even sure that I’d ordered my feet to move. They just did. And I had no doubt whatsoever that we were going in the right direction.

  As we went on, the island grew greener again, as if making up for the stunted place we’d just been through. That didn’t make much sense. But this island spent most of its time being invisible, so I didn’t think much of it, even as the vegetation grew downright lush. There were apple trees and cherry trees, and despite the season, they were in bloom. There were huge rosebushes with bees buzzing around the flowers, and blackberry and blackcurrant shrubs heavy with ripe berries.

  Uncle Misha had taught me well enough for me to know this wasn’t right. The berries shouldn’t have come until months after the trees had stopped flowering.

  I stopped, managing to resist the pull of the magic, and thought. My conversation with Kot Bayun came to mind again. The fact that the plants were wrong for the season was knowledge. What would wisdom be?

  Kot Bayun had said there was danger. He’d said the world was a hall of mirrors and that I had to balance different truths to find my way through it. Here were two truths colliding. First, the flowers were right there and blooming. Second, they shouldn’t be.

  Wisdom would be wariness.

  But I still had to find Baba Yaga’s heart. All I had to do was follow the trace of the magic. I just had to be more careful as I did so.

  That was when I heard the laughter, soft and light, chiming like bells. It was a sound I’d heard before. But where? And what was it doing here?

  It was coming from the same direction in which the magic was pulling me.

  “Squire? Knight?” I said. “Could one of you fly ahead and see if it’s safe, please?” I wasn’t exactly afraid, but I was definitely feeling cautious.

  Squire flew down, set the mop on the ground beside me, and went on ahead. He came back soon, waving excitedly. I didn’t understand what he meant, and I wondered if I should get him a pen and paper, but he beckoned me on. What had gotten him so agitated?

  I moved forward with great care. Squire grabbed the mop and followed me.

  The silvery, tinkling laughter grew louder as I advanced, still tracing that flow of Grandmother’s magic. I wish I could remember where I heard it before, I thought. But then we crested the hill, and I knew.

  Over the hill, there was a hollow, covered with soft grass and flowers and more blossoming fruit trees. In its very center sat a large, shining gemstone, sparkling with violet light as the sun played on it.

  A charoite. Of course — like the one I’d seen with Lauraleigh on my way to Uncle Misha’s all that time ago. And the laughter — that was the Mountain Mistress.

  I walked cautiously into the hollow. I knew I had to be careful not to disturb the stone. Otherwise, the Mistress might think I wanted to steal it, and I didn’t want to find out what she did to thieves she caught. I’d already gotten on the bad side of one magical creature today, and I didn’t want to push my luck. For all I knew, she’d be able to neutralize my magic too, and then where would I be? It would be silly to fail now when I was so close to my goal.

  Which I was — wasn’t I? I felt around. The band around my heart seemed to have loosened. It wasn’t pulling me anymore. Strangely, even though there was still a lot of magic in the air, it didn’t feel as heavy — or as much like Baba Yaga’s.

  This was weird. I hadn’t walked past where the heart was hidden, had I? That wouldn’t make any sense. But then again, a lot of things here didn’t make sense.

  I laughed. Trying to make sense of a magical island! Most things in my life hadn’t made sense for the last few months.

  Well, I can’t wait here forever, I thought. Something is going on.

  I took the apple out of my backpack and placed it on the ground. “Take me to Baba Yaga’s heart,” I commanded.

  But the apple didn’t move. It didn’t even spin.

  The laughter was back, close to my ear, mocking. I flushed. It sounded too much like Kot Bayun.

  “Look, don’t worry,” I snapped. “I’m not going to steal your silly stone. What would I do with it, anyway?” I was not in the mood to deal with any more sarcasm. “I’m just looking for one thing, and then I’ll go and leave you to do whatever it is you do.”

  That just made the Mistress laugh again.

  I tried to ignore her and focus. Kot Bayun had confirmed that Baba Yaga’s heart was on the island; the magic had definitely led me here. So why couldn’t I find it? Why was I standing here, being mocked by an invisible voice I hadn’t heard since—

  Wait.

  What was it Gavril had told us about charoites? That they were rare? Yes, but there was something else.

  They were so rare that they could be found in only one place on the planet. In an area of just a few square kilometers.

  I looked around.

  A gemstone that was hundreds, if not thousands, of kilometers from where it should have been. Fruit trees that were blossoming at the wrong time of the year. Roses when there shouldn’t have been any. The Mountain Mistress far from her own mountains. An island that shouldn’t have been here, but was.

  “The world is a hall of mirrors,” Kot Bayun had said.

  “None of this is real,” I realized with a gasp.

  I didn’t notice I’d spoken aloud. But the effect was immediate. I experienced a terrifying crash and a burst of light so bright, I closed my eyes. And when I opened them again, all the green was gone: the trees, the grass, the flowers, the bees, everything. Nothing was growing here. The hollow was just a crater of blackened rock, surrounded by the ghostly remnants of fallen trees. It was as if some huge bomb had exploded, knocking down everything that grew and poisoning the land so that nothing could ever sprout here again.

  And in its very center, bright among the tarry blackness of the rock, just where the charoite had been, was a pulsing white-and-violet glow.

  I had no doubts at all. I had found Baba Yaga’s heart. It was just lying there, right where she had thrown it all those centuries ago when she had torn it from herself. An act of magic so powerful and desperate that it had marked the land around it, leaving it desolate and barren.

  And coming from the hollow was a soft sound I couldn’t quite make out. It wasn’t laughter.

  Very, very slowly, I began to move toward it. I didn’t know if there were other defenses around it, though I didn’t think so. The thick fog of magic seemed to be gone.

  As I stepped onto the black stone, it was as if I’d stepped into the land of the dead. There were no insect sounds, no birdsong, no breath of wind; even the sky had somehow become overcast without my noticing. In that gray-and-black world, there was nothing; nothing but the beat of the violet light and that soft, inescapable sound that I recognized as I drew closer.

  Weeping. Terrible, heartrending, despairing weeping, the sobs and crying of grief beyond imagining. It was worse than anything I’d ever heard, worse even than Mei’s crying in the Montmorency dungeons.

  It hurt to listen to it, and I felt my own throat growing tight and tears welling in my eyes. The quiet mourning went on and on.

  As I listened, it brought back every moment of sadness I’d ever felt. I remembered having to leave Uncle Misha, the first time I’d realized what it meant that my mother was dead, the helplessness I’d felt when I’d discovered what the Montmorencys had been up to. Every unhappy thought I’d ever had seemed to be crowding into my mind, even the ones I’d forgotten long ago, even the silly ones. I felt as if my chest were being flooded, as that steady stream of desperate crying flowed on.

  I fell to my knees, trying to hold back my own tears. How could
anybody have gone on suffering like that? No wonder Baba Yaga had torn her heart out, if it could keep her from feeling that awful grief.

  But she’d left her heart to grieve alone.

  It was a strange thought, but it was enough to break through a little of my own sorrow. Even if it didn’t make much sense, I was thinking of that heart as some small creature, a living thing in its own right. The idea that it had been crying here for thousands of years gave me just enough anger to be able to move again. It was Granny’s fault that it was here, her fault that it was still weeping. Cutting it out had been her first great act of cruelty. I had to get to the heart so I could set things right.

  At that point, I didn’t even remember what I was meant to do. I just knew that I had to get to the heart no matter what. But I was still so overpowered by my memories, by the sound of that crying, that I couldn’t stand up.

  So I crawled.

  On my hands and knees, I managed to crawl toward the light. I was able to get right to its side, to look down at its source. And I gasped.

  The sight of my grandmother’s heart was enough to shake off more of the sorrow I was feeling. I couldn’t help it. It was a lot to take in.

  It looked very much like a charoite, all violet and white, but it was bigger and crystalline. Inside, the light was pulsing to some irregular rhythm, like broken heartbeat or someone’s sobs. There were small droplets of moisture on it, like dew — or tears.

  It was beautiful. Even though it was splintered, lying in two pieces on the rock.

  Vodyanoy hadn’t lied.

  Baba Yaga’s heart was literally broken.

  Chapter 25

  Dear Diary,

  That’s when I had to reread bits of you from the past. Because at that moment, I almost felt sorry for her again.

  But I remembered what Vodyanoy had said about feeling sorry for the girl Baba Yaga had been, not for the Iron Queen.

  So that’s what I’m going to do.

  If Baba Yaga touches her heart again, she will feel thousands and thousands of years of grief fall on her. All at once.

  And I hope it will hurt.

  * * *

  The shock of seeing Baba Yaga’s heart gave me enough strength to stand up. The weeping continued, but it didn’t seem to have the same effect on me anymore. I walked back to the edge of the crater.

  Now I had to get the heart into the box she’d given me. I got it out of my bag; it was a lovely little thing of carved wood. When I opened it, I saw that it was lined with velvet. It was clearly a magical object; I could feel its power just by holding it. There had to be all sorts of enchantments on it, to make sure it could hold Koschey’s heart safely.

  That was when I started to worry.

  Koschey’s heart had to be more powerful than Baba Yaga’s, right? Granny’s had been here on this island for ages. Koschey’s had to be stronger because it hadn’t been out that long, right? So if the box was able to hold Koschey’s heart, it had to be able to hold Baba Yaga’s.

  Right?

  I could trust Granny to have done the enchantments, couldn’t I? I mean, she knew what she was doing when it came to magic, didn’t she? This wasn’t going to be a big risk to me.

  Except I had to get the heart into the box, and I didn’t know how. Even though I was feeling better now, I had no guarantee that I wouldn’t be overcome with grief again if I tried to get close.

  And besides, I couldn’t touch the heart. I’d die if I did. Everyone had seemed to agree on that: Granny, Dad, Vodyanoy…

  Wait a minute.

  How was Granny planning to absorb Koschey’s heart if she couldn’t touch it? She had to have some plan in mind. Was being the most powerful witch in the world enough to reduce the danger?

  I began to panic.

  Was it safe to take Baba Yaga her own heart? Sure, she had never come back for it in all those years, but that didn’t mean anything. My plan was still just something dreamed up by a half-senile old water spirit who had admitted not knowing if it would work. How could I be sure that taking her this heart wouldn’t make things worse?

  She wanted Koschey’s heart because she could get power from it. That meant that hearts held massive amounts of energy. Without his heart, Koschey had been weak enough to be captured.

  That meant that the Baba Yaga I knew, the one everyone knew, the Iron Queen, was just a weak version of what she could be.

  How powerful would she be once she had reabsorbed her own heart? There was no proof that it would hurt her. And even if it did, wasn’t she strong enough to get through it? Just because she hadn’t been able to deal with the grief all that time ago, didn’t mean she wouldn’t be able to now. And then I’d have just made her even more powerful — maybe so much so that she could do without Koschey’s heart. But I’d have broken my agreement with her, and she’d have Lauraleigh in her oven before I could do anything.

  Could I risk that? Did I have to try?

  I wondered what my father’s advice would have been. But then … he didn’t even know about this plan.

  I wondered what Kot Bayun would have said. Something nasty, I supposed. Nothing helpful anyway, even though I was fairly sure he’d know. But he’d be too interested in seeing what I’d do and what would happen to tell me.

  All I had to go on was what Vodyanoy had said and what seemed likely. But I didn’t actually know what would happen when I took the heart back.

  I could imagine Kot Bayun smirking at me. “Would it be wise,” he’d say, “to take this heart to Baba Yaga?”

  “I don’t know,” I said aloud. “I really don’t.”

  But then I realized that I’d asked myself the wrong question. It wasn’t whether it would be wise to take her the heart; it was whether it would be wise to take the risk.

  I looked at the pulsing light. That heart had to contain so much energy; I couldn’t even imagine how much. And if Baba Yaga could absorb that heart as she wanted to do with Koschey’s, who knew what the most powerful witch in the world would do then? Nobody would be able to fight her. Even right now, filled with more energy than I’d ever had, I didn’t want to risk taking her on.

  And that’s when a thought occurred to me.

  People weren’t supposed to touch other people’s hearts. They’d die. But somehow, being a witch, Baba Yaga was planning to manage to absorb Koschey’s.

  Baba Yaga was a witch. I was a witch.

  My own heart started to beat faster as I looked at the center of the crater. I already knew how to feast on other people’s energy. I was overflowing with magical power right now, able to do more than I could ever have dreamed of only a few days ago. Why shouldn’t I be able to absorb Baba Yaga’s heart?

  If I did that, I’d have no more worries at all. I could fly back to her hut and free Lauraleigh in an instant and break Dad out of his cage if I felt like it. I’d be able to make him sit down and listen to me. I could deal with Baba Yaga any way I wanted to.

  I was pretty sure I could even take on Kot Bayun. And I would. I’d teach that stupid cat to mock me, to make me cry. Who did he think he was anyway, talking to me like that?

  I found myself trembling. I wanted to do it. I wanted that power. I wanted to be able to tell Baba Yaga that I’d taken her heart away from her. I felt tendrils of my magic unfurling inside me, darker than usual, the shadow licking its chops. I could have everything if I did this. I’d be able to do anything I wanted, and no one would dare to tell me otherwise. And that was worth the risk of trying.

  I smiled. What did I care about some whining teenager from millennia ago who couldn’t even get over some boy? How stupid had Baba Yaga been back then? She didn’t deserve her power. She didn’t deserve her heart. How much risk could there be? Even if she stopped blubbering long enough to notice what I was doing, what could she do to me?

  I walked firmly into the crater again. This time I felt nothing.

  The two pieces of the heart kept sobbing, sending out their beams of white and violet light in rhythm with t
he sobs, like a light show at one of those rock concerts that would get Granny so riled when she saw them on TV. Who are you to complain about reality stars, Granny, I thought, considering what you were like as a teenager?

  The mix of violet and white is interesting, I thought as I got nearer. The violet was just the shade I’d seen when I was finding the traces of Baba Yaga’s magic earlier; curious that it was just like the purple of a charoite. And the white seemed … familiar. Where had I seen it before, that particular shade of white, glowing like that? It was fairly recently. Was it in a dream? It wasn’t in my everyday life, whatever that was. It sure wasn’t the kind of light that comes from a crystal; it was like what I’d seen when Koschey was talking about—

  I froze.

  I realized what I was about to do. I turned and ran from the crater as fast as I could. Because the white light looked just like my mother’s soul as I’d seen it in Koschey’s mind.

  Everybody had talked about how kind Sereda had been and wondered how she could be Baba Yaga’s daughter. But Kot Bayun had said all of Granny’s kindness was on the island. Of course it was; it was in her heart, and she had passed it on to Sereda all the same.

  And I had been about to take that away.

  Rage at my grandmother exploded inside me. This was what she was turning me into! She was making me into a clone of herself. I didn’t want to absorb her heart, but the shadow inside me, the evil part that was so much like her, did. If I did, I would be acting like her; I’d be doing to her what she wanted to do to Koschey. Just by existing, Baba Yaga was ruining my life.

  I am not going to be like you, Granny, I thought. I’m not going to let you make me into a nasty, miserable old bat like you. You think I’m going to let you make me as evil as you are?

  I’m going to take your heart, all right, but I’m going to use it to destroy you, you cruel, insane witch.

  I looked up at the floating hands.