A Question of Magic (13 page)

“Do you know where the other Baba Yagas got their tea?” she asked the cat. “Could it have been from the fairy Summer Rose? She said that she was the one who told the first Baba Yaga about it.”

“I think it
was
her,” he said, yawning. “There used to be a lot of the tea, but that jar held all that was left.”

“Oh no!” Serafina said, collapsing onto a chair. “Now I have to find her before I can see Alek! But she said that she was going away. Do you know how to reach her?”

Maks glared at a smudge on his paw as if it had offended him. “I have no idea. No fairy has ever told me her personal business.”

“Would the cottage know if I told it to go to her?”

The cat gave his paw a swipe with his tongue before saying, “Hardly! It's lucky it remembers the places it's already been.”

“Then I guess I'm going to have to find the roses myself. Maybe they sell them in the market.”

“Stranger things have happened,” said the cat. “Although it's very unlikely,” he added under his breath.

Serafina had never told the cottage to change direction once it had started walking, but she thought it was worth trying. It was in midstride when she said, “Chicken hut, chicken hut, go to a town with a market.”

On its next step, the cottage turned just a little but didn't change its pace. It continued walking throughout the day, settling down soon after sunset. Although Serafina couldn't see the town, she could smell smoke from the chimneys and knew that one must be close by.

Early the next morning she put on her second-best gown, collected all her coins, and headed into town. Like Kamien Dom, this town held its market in the central square where two of the larger roads intersected. If
Serafina had looked her real age now, she might have attracted too much attention, but few people spared a glance at the middle-aged woman in ordinary clothes.

It had been so long since she had been away from her cottage that her trip into town was a real treat. She gawked at the peaked roofs and balconies that made this town so different from where she'd grown up and was startled the first time she heard a banner snap in the wind. As she approached the square, she saw vivid red, yellow, blue, and green banners streaming from balcony railings and poles attached to walls. Banners flowed from stalls in the market and from ropes that crisscrossed the air overhead. Serafina even saw smaller versions of the banners woven into girls' hair and wrapped around their waists.

Serafina was in such a good mood that she said hello to everyone who looked her way, not caring that most of the people were being friendly because they saw her as a potential customer. The first farmer she approached was selling onions, garlic, cabbages, and beets from the back of his wagon. His round face was ruddy with a sheen of perspiration from the already-warm day.

“Would you happen to know where I could purchase some blue rose tea?” Serafina asked as she looked over his baskets of produce.

The farmer's friendly smile turned into a smirk. “Do I look like I'm selling tea?”

“No,” Serafina said, wishing she could stop herself, but she was already speaking in her Baba Yaga voice. “You look as if you are trying to sell wilted vegetables you picked three days ago and left in the hot sun. You look tired and bored and ready to go home so you can drink the ale you have hidden in the barrel behind the cowshed on your farm. You also look like you're going to steal eggs from your neighbor because your own hens have stopped laying.”

“Be quiet!” the red-faced farmer shouted, shooting glances at the older man leaning against the next wagon over.

“What did she say?” the other farmer asked, looking incredulously from Serafina to the first farmer.

Serafina hurried away as the red-faced man denied her allegations. She was making her way through the crowd when she heard a scuffle break out behind her. The crowd thinned as people ran to see who was fighting, leaving Serafina alone in front of a farmer's wife holding a squawking chicken. “Is there something I can do for you?” the sweet-faced woman asked.

“No, there isn't. All I want is blue rose tea and you don't know where I can find it,” Serafina said in her
Baba Yaga voice, and was relieved when she didn't say more.

The woman looked thoughtful as she fastened the lid to a crate. “If anyone here knows where to look for a special tea, it would be old Betha. She's down at the end just past the man selling pigs,” she said, pointing.

Serafina could see a small pigpen set up near the end of the row, so she thanked the woman and started walking again. When she heard two men talking in low voices, she glanced their way and saw that they were both watching her. She'd never seen the man with the crooked nose before, but the other man looked vaguely familiar. They kept their eyes on her as she walked past; it made her feel uneasy, so she quickened her pace.

Rounding the pen holding squealing piglets, Serafina spotted one last wagon nestled at the base of a brick-and-mortar wall. Bundles of herbs, both fresh and dried, hung from poles above the wagon. A cleared aisle ran down the center with boxes and clay jars crammed together on either side. A little woman who couldn't have been taller than Serafina's chin stood on the wagon bed, her hands on her hips as she watched the crowd below her.

“Are you Betha?” Serafina asked.

“That I am,” replied the little woman. “If you're
interested in tea, I have teas that stimulate the appetite, teas that settle the stomach, and teas that aid digestion. I have balm, sage, basil, elderberry flower, catnip, hibiscus, fennel, fenugreek, spicebush, dandelion leaves, rosemary, gentian root, chicory root, angelica, lovage roots, marjoram, savory, peppermint, spearmint, dill—”

“But do you have blue rose tea?” Serafina interrupted.

Betha padded down the aisle to a cluster of small boxes and opened one filled with diced bits of a bright red fruit. “I have rose hip tea. I picked the hips myself last fall, then cut them into pieces and dried them. The tea has a nice tangy flavor.”

Serafina felt a spark of hope. This woman might have what she needed! If only the roses were the right color. “And were the roses blue?” she asked.

The little woman reached under her white cap to scratch her head. “I can't say I've ever seen blue roses. No, my rose hips come from dog roses. The blooms are pale pink, not blue.”

“Oh,” said Serafina. “I need blue rose tea, not pink. Do you know if anyone else might have it?”

The little woman laughed. “If I don't have it, none of the farmers here will. They get their more unusual teas from me. And before you ask if they sell blue roses, I can tell you right now that they don't.”

Serafina was disappointed, but she wasn't about to give up. She told herself that being unable to find the tea in one market didn't mean she'd never find it; she'd just have to keep looking.

After thanking Betha, Serafina continued on her circuit of the marketplace. Most of the vendors were selling things they had made, like clay mugs, woven baskets, and leather goods. She was passing a cart where the vendor was selling plates made from a fine, white clay, when the crowd around her shifted, revealing the two men who had been watching her earlier. When she saw that they were still looking in her direction, she began to get nervous. Maybe it was time to go back to the cottage.

Serafina kept an eye on the men and waited until the crowd grew bigger. Slipping behind a large, boisterous family, she started walking. Before she had taken more than a few steps, a hand shot out and grabbed her arm, jerking her to a stop.

“Not so fast!” the man with the crooked nose said, even as he dragged her out of the flow of shoppers. “A friend of ours wants to have a word with you.”

The other man bobbed his head up and down. “He's offered a reward and we mean to get it.”

“I'm not going anywhere with you!” Serafina told
them, trying to shake off the man's hand. “Help!” she shouted. “Kidnappers!”

A nearby vendor had been talking to a customer, but at the sound of Serafina's voice, he grabbed a cudgel he had hidden under his table and came lumbering toward them. He was a big man who reminded Serafina of Alek and was half again as big as either of her assailants. “Let go of that woman!” he roared. The moment he raised the cudgel above his head, the man with the crooked nose let go of Serafina and took off, his friend right behind him.

“Thank you so much!” Serafina said. She rubbed her arm where the man had held her and shuddered when she thought of what might have happened if the vendor hadn't stepped in.

“Glad I could help,” he replied. “No one mistreats a woman when I'm around.”

The vendor was returning to his booth when Serafina rejoined the crowd. The two men were nowhere in sight, but she didn't want to take any chances. She kept an eye out for them as she wove her way through the throng, slipping between carts now and then to lose the men if they were following her.

Serafina hurried down the road, thinking that she
might feel safer once she was back in the woods, but when she turned onto the path leading past the cottage, there were so many places for people to hide that her nervousness grew and she began to jump at every little sound. Chiding herself for being silly, she had just come within sight of the cottage when she heard the snap of a twig and a muffled curse. Serafina began to run.

“Open up!” she shouted to Boris, her feet thudding down the path. “Two men are following me!”

Boris swung the gate open with a loud creak, and Serafina dashed into the yard. She had just reached the door when the men came into sight. Darting inside, she slammed the door shut, shouting, “Chicken hut, chicken hut, take me away from here!”

She ran to the window as the floor tilted below her; she'd grown used to walking on an unsteady floor. One of the men was reaching for the gate, but Boris gnashed his teeth, attempting to bite him. The other man had tried to hurdle the fence, but Krany had snapped at him as he'd gone over, snagging the back of his tunic so that he hung, dangling from the skull's grinding teeth. Yure led the rest of the skulls in screaming threats at the men.

Serafina stepped back as the door slammed open, the bones hurtled over the threshold, and the trunk lid flew
up. Krany was halfway to the cottage when he let go of the shrieking man, who landed heavily on the ground and curled up in a ball as if that would protect him. Serafina smiled at the skulls as they landed on top of the bones, congratulating themselves on taking care of the men.

“Walk gently, house,” she told the cottage, then glanced around the room to see if anything had fallen to the floor and broken. Her gaze landed on the book, lying on the table. Hoping that the book could help her, she took her seat in front of it and opened it to the next blank page. “Where can I find blue rose tea?” she asked.

Serafina held her breath as the page remained blank. Time seemed to stand still as she waited for writing to appear, then suddenly black words crept across the snow-white page, one letter after another.

Blue roses do not exist.

“That's not true,” said Serafina. “I know they exist. I drank a cup of blue rose tea!”

If it had been a person who had told her that there were no blue roses, Serafina would have continued to argue, but there was no arguing with a book. Sighing,
she closed the cover and pushed the book away. At least she knew now that the book wasn't going to help. She'd just have to find the tea or the fairy Summer Rose without it.

The cottage finally settled at the shady bend of a wide, slow-moving river, not far from a good-sized town. While the front of the cottage faced the road, the back where there were no windows was turned toward the water. Serafina couldn't see the river unless she stepped outside, but she found the constant murmur of the flowing water soothing and walked along its banks whenever she had a few free minutes, hoping to run into a fairy who could tell her how to find Summer Rose.

One day Serafina was standing by the riverbank when she saw a group of riders approaching. Afraid that they might be kidnappers, she didn't want them to catch her away from the cottage, so she watched from a copse
of birches, trying to decide if she should go to meet them or hide until they rode off. She was still there when the men dismounted and began to hitch their horses to the trees.

“Don't even think of hitching that beast to my fence!” Boris snapped at a man leading his horse to one of the posts.

Startled, the man jerked back on the bridle. “Did that skull just talk to me?” he asked the men behind him.

Another man stepped forward and Serfina recognized him at once. Toman Damek, the sheriff of Vioska, had come to see her again. While the sheriff told the man where to hitch his horse, Serafina stepped out of the trees and approached her cottage. “Is something wrong, Sheriff Damek?” she asked, meeting him by her gate.

The sheriff nodded toward his men, then opened the gate for Serafina. “I've brought someone to ask you a question,” he said. “This man has been trying to convince me of his innocence but has been unable to offer me any real proof. I explained to him that you will answer the first question he asks you with the truth, and that I would believe whatever you say. He has agreed to use his one question now. However, I need to be present to hear your answer, so he can ask you out here if you prefer. His guards will also remain with us.”

Serafina glanced back at the men and noticed that all but one were heavily armed. The unarmed man was wearing shackles, and he shuffled to the gate with a guard on either side. “We'll stay out here,” she said.

She studied the shackled man as he entered her yard and wondered what he had done. He had a guileless-looking face, and even though he was wearing chains, he walked with his head held high. When she was ready, she looked him in the eyes and said, “Do you understand that you can ask me only one question in your lifetime?” When the man nodded, Serafina said, “What is your question?”