“Catch again!”
Before Ana could even drop the bag, Mikey jumped from his perch. He knocked her backward, landing on top of her as the bag exploded with a bang between them.
Mikey laughed like a maniac as he scooped a handful of orange puffs off the floor and shoved them into his mouth. “We’re a Cheetos sandwich!” he said, sitting on Ana’s belly and showering her with curls.
Ana rolled him off her and started finger-sweeping Cheetos into a pile. “These are Dad’s, you nerd, and he’s coming home right now! You’re going to be in so much trouble!”
Mikey tugged at her arm. “Dad’s coming home? Did the Bruins get him back?”
Ana hadn’t meant to say it out loud until she was totally sure. She brushed Mikey’s hands away and shook her head. “I don’t know. It might only be for Thanksgiving. Just help me!” She dropped a handful of Cheetos back into the bag.
After that, Ana took her job seriously for as long as she could. But the hope had found its way inside her and turned into something like happiness. Before long, even the mess seemed funny, and the whole thing turned into a game. She and Mikey were both stuffing their cheeks with Cheetos and laughing so hard they didn’t hear the car in the driveway or the key in the lock. The first thing they heard was their mom’s voice.
“Ana! Mikey!” she called. “We’re home!”
Right then, Mikey grabbed the bag and dumped all the Cheetos they’d gathered back out and over his face.
An icy draft crawled across Ana’s skin as a tall figure appeared in the doorway.
It wasn’t Dad.
It was Babushka.
Ana
Chapter 4
ANA’S MOUTH DROPPED open. Her last two handfuls of Cheetos fell to the floor, but her eyes were stuck on the figure in front of her. It was like spotting a long, wiry ear hair or watching a croc attack on TV—totally horrifying, but she couldn’t look away.
There she was: Babushka. The hope that had been growing inside Ana shriveled like Babushka’s gray, wrinkly flesh.
Mikey scrambled behind Ana, sniffling and whimpering against the back of her shirt.
Most kids weren’t afraid of their own grandmas, but most grandmas weren’t as witch-like as Babushka. She was tall and thin, but she must have been taller once, because she always curved forward a little, like she was trying to get a better look at you.
Ana had expected a terrible Thanksgiving break, but Babushka brought her own creepy brand of awful. Her hair was white and pulled into a loose bun on top of her head, but there were always strands sticking straight out. It gave Ana the feeling that lightning might strike at any second.
“Babushka is here for Thanksgiving break,” said Ana’s mom. “Isn’t that wonderful?” The way she said it, Ana knew she wasn’t quite sure of the answer herself.
“Where’s Dad?” Mikey was full-out crying now.
Not again.
“Mikhail,” Babushka said, even though nobody who knew him at all called him anything but Mikey. “You sound like osyol. Come hug your babushka. We are supposed to enjoy hugging, no?”
Babushka held out her skinny arms, but Mikey stared at her like she was speaking another language instead of just talking with a Russian accent.
Ana stepped forward to get her hug over with, but Babushka waved her away. “You are too old for hugs.” She frowned. “You fix your hair with eyes closed?”
Ana touched her hair, and even with just her fingertips, she could tell what a mess it was. It wasn’t like she cared, mostly. But she had to admit that when she saw Katie’s perfect braids every morning, a part of her wanted to have somebody take care of her like that once in a while.
Babushka nudged her luggage forward with the toe of her boot. “Show your old babushka how you love her by bringing her suitcase upstairs. But first, clean up this mess.” She waved a gnarled hand at the Cheetos like she was casting a spell, and Ana almost expected them to turn into a swarm of cockroaches or something.
Ana’s mom opened the broom closet and stared inside. She stared a lot lately, especially on bad days, like it took every ounce of energy and every inch of concentration just to do regular things like sweep the floor. But before she could gather enough of either one, Babushka tugged her aside.
“The children will clean the mess. Take me to my room, doch. I need to lie down after such a journey. The pilot was terrible. His landing rattled my teeth loose. And the stingy woman with the snacks! One tiny bag of tiny pretzels!”
Ana winced as Babushka’s boot made an unmistakable Cheetos crunch. Babushka hobbled over to a bar stool and leaned against it as she wiped orange dust from her boot. “My son cannot live in a mess like this.”
“Your son doesn’t live here anymore.” Ana’s mom spoke with so much hurt in her voice it sounded like he’d left them all over again.
Babushka waved a hand. “Yes, he plays for Firebirds now. We will fix this. We will fix all of this.”
“Flyers,” Mikey insisted. Of all that was wrong in this moment, he cared about the name of the hockey team? Babushka eyed him, but Mikey didn’t back down.
“Flyers,” he repeated. “Not Firebirds.”
Babushka leaned toward them.
“Your father told you of firebird, yes? I told him this story a hundred times when he was a little boy. Did he tell you also of Baba Yaga? Of Vasilisa?”
Ana didn’t know who those guys were and she didn’t care, but Babushka just went for it.
“I will tell you the story as my babushka told it to me, and her babushka before her. Long ago in Russia there lived a kind, brave girl named Vasilisa. Her mother loved her very much. But love was not enough to heal the mother’s terrible cough or cool her terrible fever, and she died a tragic, painful death.”
“Wait!” Mikey looked at his own mom with big, sad eyes. “She died?”
Ana’s mom hated stories where the moms were dead or pure evil. She should have been standing up to Babushka, but she looked like she’d already given up. Like today had already been more than she could handle.
“It wasn’t her fault,” she said. She closed her eyes. “Let me help you upstairs, Babushka.”
Babushka thought about that for a second. “Yes, I am still tired,” she said. “But do not worry, Mikhail. I will finish the story later. You will like it. Real fairy tales do not all have perfect endings. Only American fairy tales.” Her mouth curved into a smile as she turned to Ana. “Soon Vasilisa will meet the witch.”
Then Babushka followed her daughter-in-law upstairs, leaving Ana with not just the Cheetos mess, but the upset-Mikey mess too.
Fantastic.
“What happened after that?” Mikey asked. “Ana, what’s the end of the story?”
“The mom comes back to life,” Ana said, wishing things could really be that way. “They live happily ever after. Now start helping.”
What a disaster. Ana couldn’t let herself act like a kid, even for a few minutes, or everything fell apart.
It wasn’t only Cheetos cluttering the floor, though. There were crumbs and scraps and dried-up bits of mac and cheese. This is not my mess to clean up, Ana kept thinking.
With every swipe of the broom, Ana pulled a little harder and got a little madder. Ever since her mom had gotten sad, Ana had been trying so hard to help. Trying not to miss the game and the friends she’d given up.
All that trying and everything kept getting worse. How could her mom have brought Babushka here? Ana didn’t believe for one second that Babushka could bring her dad back. He’d always avoided the old lady just as much as the rest of them.
Ana dumped the pile into the trash. Most of the mess was gone, but it wouldn’t ever be clean for long. She felt Mikey staring as she shoved the broom and dustpan back into the closet.
“What?” she asked, shutting the door with as much slam as she thought she’d get away with. “What do you need now?”
He sniffled and wiped his nose along the cuff of his sleeve. “Is Mom going to die? Is that
why Babushka told that story? Is that why she’s here?”
A small twist of fear tightened inside Ana, but she wouldn’t give it any attention, so it couldn’t come true. Ana knelt to look Mikey straight in the face. “She’s going to be fine. Stories like that aren’t real.”
Mikey climbed onto the table and sat cross-legged, staring at her. “So stories aren’t real?”
“Not that kind.”
He slumped down and propped his chin in his hands. “That’s the kind with magic, though. And happy endings.”
“I guess.”
“So magic and happy endings aren’t real?”
Right then, Ana had a hard time believing they were. But first grade was way too young to give up.
“Hey,” she said. “I didn’t mean that. They’re real. Good things still happen.” She ran a stream of water across a paper towel and wiped Mikey’s face as her mind stretched toward anything that might give her brother a little hope.
Then she had it. Before she could talk herself out of it, Ana grabbed Mikey’s hand and dragged him past Babushka’s suitcase and upstairs toward the one thing she owned that he didn’t know about.
Ana sat Mikey down on her bed. “Close your eyes,” she said.
Mikey squeezed his eyes shut so tight his mouth molded into a fake smile. “Like this?”
“Just like that.” Ana slid her hand under the mattress and found the lump she’d hidden in the bottom corner. “When I say ‘three,’ open them up.”
Mikey’s eyes popped open. “You said three!” He glanced at the scuffed-up hockey puck in Ana’s hands and leaned over to try to see behind her back. “Where’s the surprise? Can I eat it?”
Ana sighed and held the puck in front of Mikey, cupping it gently, like a bird’s nest. “Remember when Dad scored that overtime goal against the Red Wings last season? When we all went to Detroit together?”
Mikey pushed the puck away. “Preseason, Ana. Those games don’t even count. And it has a Red Wings logo. He never even put it in a case like the others.” Mikey scooted back against the wall and started clicking his marbles together. “When we left for the lake, he asked me if I wanted it, but I said no.”
Ana weighed the puck in her hands. It was heavier and dirtier and much more ordinary than she’d remembered. He only offered it to me because Mikey didn’t want it.
When her dad had scored that goal, it had sure felt like it counted, but now she realized Mikey was right. They used a dozen pucks in an average game, and the Bruins played eighty-two games a year. That meant almost a thousand pucks, and this one was preseason. How had she ever thought an ugly piece of rubber was something special?
The puck was totally ordinary, just like Ana was without hockey. Her dad was gone, and he hadn’t even cared enough to give her anything that mattered. Her mom was disappearing too, but not in ways Ana could fully understand. Babushka was here to ruin Thanksgiving. Mikey’s crying might get worse.
No. Ana had to shake this off. She couldn’t be ordinary. It couldn’t get worse. She ran her thumbs across the puck’s dents and scratches. Even if there weren’t happy endings or real magic in the world, Mikey couldn’t know it yet. If she could pretty much be Mikey’s parent, she could be his fairy godmother too.
Or something like that.
“Hey,” she said. “I have a secret. Dad didn’t know it, but he left us with the best puck of all.”
Mikey held the marbles still. He gave the puck a closer look.
Ana lowered her voice. “Remember how you asked about magic and happy endings?”
Before Mikey could ask any questions, Ana spoke her lie. Except it wouldn’t really be a lie if she could somehow make it come true.
“This puck is magic.”
Something flickered inside Ana, and she almost believed her own words for a second.
Mikey sat straight up and grabbed the puck from Ana’s hands. “If you’re trying to trick me, I’ll tell Mom.”
Ana didn’t even know if that was true, since neither of them told their mom much of anything anymore. She missed the days when her mom had been the one to make things magical and her dad had been the one to make things fun. If she had a wish, she’d wish to have that back. She closed Mikey’s hands around the puck and wrapped hers around his.
“Mom doesn’t know, and you can’t tell her. Dad doesn’t know either. But some pucks are. The ones with an M-shaped scratch, just like this one.” Ana nudged Mikey’s fingers aside and showed him four deep gashes that made a perfect M.
Or a perfect W, like, What the heck are you doing, Ana?
“M for magic,” Mikey whispered. He touched the puck like it might be a treasure, so Ana kept going.
“When you have a problem and you don’t know what to do, just hold it between your hands, like this. You whisper what you need help with, and it’ll fix the problem for you. The only catch is, I have to be with you, since it belongs to me.” If this didn’t work, Mikey would figure out pretty quick that there wasn’t any magic, and things would be worse than ever.
Mikey still stared at the chunk of dark, dirty rubber, like he was trying to decide whether he believed.
“Come on,” Ana said. “Try it out. Tell it what’s wrong.”
Mikey closed his eyes and curled his fingers around the puck. “I don’t know how to stop crying all the time. If I never cried again, maybe Jarek would leave me alone.” He rested his forehead on the logo, and his voice dropped to a feathery whisper. “I just want to have happy days again.”
Ana rested her chin on top of Mikey’s head. She could make this happen. Not that she believed in wishes—not really. But she believed in work, and she sure as heck believed in herself.
“You will have happy days again, buddy. Watch.” She took the puck from him and held it close to her mouth. “Now I give it a kiss and whisper the magic spell. But you can’t listen!”
Mikey plugged his ears as Ana gave the puck a quick peck. She pretended to whisper, but really, she was blowing all the warm air from deep inside her onto the puck.
“There,” she said, holding it out to Mikey again. He unplugged his ears, and she nodded down at the puck. “Feel that spot, right on top? How it’s a little warmer and a little wet?” Mikey touched the puck, and his eyes grew wide.
“That’s the magic waking up,” Ana said. “That means it’s going to work. But your problem was a big one, so it might take a while.”
Mikey thought about this. Then his face brightened, and he grabbed the puck back from Ana.
“Hey, I know another one that could be faster! I wish Dad could take me skating. Tonight.”
“Geez, Mikey,” said Ana, taking the puck from him. “It’s not a magic lamp.”
Mikey’s face scrunched up again, so Ana grabbed him into a tight, safe hug.
“Okay, okay. You’re right. That’s exactly the right size of a problem to fix. But I just remembered you can’t make wishes about other people—that’s one of the rules. Sorry.” Ana pulled back and looked him right in the eye. “Even if Dad won’t be there, though, we’re going skating tonight.”
After an uncomfortable dinner of onion stew (Babushka’s favorite) and being told how much colder winters were in Russia (cold enough to freeze onion stew), it was finally time for skating.
Ana went up to her room to send Katie their super-secret signal. “One if by land,” she recited as she shuffled through the junk under her bed, “two if by sea.”
Katie had come up with the idea weeks ago when the whole fifth grade had gone on a field trip to the Freedom Trail. They’d lined up two by two and followed the rows of red brick down narrow roads to the Old North Church.
“We should do that,” she’d whispered as the tour guide told the story of Paul Revere. “Candles in the window for signals.”
They’d worked it all out on the bus ride back to school. One candle meant See if you can come over! (Which was always traveling by land.) And two candles meant Meet me by the pond.
Ana definitely di
dn’t want Katie showing up at her door tonight, and the pond was where they needed to be anyway. Two candles, then. A pair. Mikey would approve.
Ana twisted the plastic flames to turn on the electric candles. As she positioned them on the windowsill, she heard Babushka complaining about all the little things that were wrong with the guest room.
Perfect. That would keep the grown-ups busy for a while.
Still, Ana’s heart raced as she and Mikey tucked their gloves and scarves under the edges of their coats and tiptoed to the back door.
When they were safe outside, Mikey stopped and looked up at Ana. “Are you sure it’ll work?”
“Do you trust the puck?” Ana asked as Katie’s shadowy shape stepped toward them. “If you don’t trust, it can’t work.”
“I trust the puck,” Mikey said, slipping his small hand in hers. “And I trust you.”
But once they’d all gathered at the pond, Ana suddenly wished she had a reason to wait. As her best friend and little brother stood, huddled together and looking at her so hopefully, she asked another question deep inside. Do you trust yourself, Ana Petrova?
The answer had to be yes. It had to be, or none of this would work.
So when Mikey didn’t dare step onto the ice, Ana put her own boot out first. “See?” she said. “Perfectly safe. Come on out. You have to believe!” She held her breath and shifted her weight.
The ice creaked and cracked. Ana made a desperate grab at Katie’s sleeve. Then a shock of cold screamed through her, and they were all in the pond.
Katie
Chapter 5
KATIE CRASHED INTO the icy pond with Mikey on top of her. The cold stole her breath and seemed to stop her heart for a long moment. Her mind froze too, then woke with a sudden shock.
Keep your chest out of the water.
Keep your heart warm.
The thoughts tumbled through Katie’s head as the water rushed in at her waist and soaked through her shoes. She hoisted Mikey off her lap and toward the shore, but the struggle sank her deeper as shards of ice sliced at her wrists. At the edge of her vision, at the edge of the pond, a woman appeared with wild, white hair and a dark, old-fashioned coat. Was Katie imagining things? Could the cold be making her crazy?
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