A Question of Magic (9 page)

Serafina sighed with relief. She wouldn't have to tell him that the witch had been there or repeat the question that she had asked, either of which would have withered Serafina's tongue. “The witch has only recently arrived in a small village called Pimki, in the kingdom of Norovise,” she said in her Baba Yaga voice. “Most of the young people have moved away, leaving only the infirm and elderly. No one who currently resides in Pimki can stand against the witch. She will be complacent now and not expecting a young sheriff to lead a score of armed men to capture and gag her before she can cast a spell that would allow her to escape.”

The sheriff listened intently while she was talking. When she was done, he drained the cup of cider and set it on the table. “I must be off,” he said, picking up his cap. “It seems I'll be traveling with some friends.”

“I wish you luck,” Serafina said, following him to the door.

“And I thank you for your help,” he said, bowing to her as if she were a grand lady at court.

Serafina smiled as the sheriff walked away. The people of Pimki would soon be safe, and she might be able to get a good night's sleep now that she knew she was keeping her tongue.

Two weeks later, a messenger arrived at the cottage, bringing a note and a small leather pouch for Serafina. He had already ridden off by the time Serafina opened the note and read:

BABA YAGA,

AFTER I MET YOU, I LEARNED THAT I SHOULD HAVE GIVEN YOU A GIFT WHEN I ASKED YOU MY QUESTION. HERE IS THE GIFT, ALONG WITH MY THANKS. WE CAUGHT THE WITCH!

TOMAN DAMEK, SHERIFF OF VIOSKA

Serafina untied the string holding the pouch shut and shook a lovely gold brooch into her hand. She
admired it for a moment before tucking the brooch back in the pouch. It was probably very expensive, but the only piece of jewelry that really mattered was the heart that Alek had given to her. The brooch was just payment for information.

Placing her hand on her chest, Serafina felt the gold heart she wore hidden under the neck of her gown. It meant more to her than just a piece of jewelry; it was a sign of how much Alek loved her. Remembering the look on his face when he gave her the token, she felt a pang of longing and tears sprang to her eyes. If only she could see him again!

Serafina was still standing in the doorway, her gaze fixed on the swaying barley growing in the field across the road, when Maks sauntered out of the cottage and rubbed against her legs. When she didn't respond, he peered up at her and asked, “What's wrong with you?”

“I'm never going to get free of being Baba Yaga, am I?” she asked. “The rest of my life is going to be just like this. I'll spend my days waiting for strangers to show up, knowing that it's probably the only time I'll ever see them. I'll never again have people I can love or who will love me. And just look at me. I don't even need a mirror to know that I'm getting old. My hands look like my
grandmother's, and I'm getting pains in places that never hurt before. This can't last very long, now, can it? If I have to answer questions and age each time I do, my life is going to be awfully short.”

“Why?” asked Maks, who was watching a butterfly flit across the yard. “All you have to do is drink the tea.”

Serafina turned to face him. “What tea?”

“Ask the book how you can be young again,” said the cat, and he scampered out the open door.

Serafina was muttering to herself about all the things she'd like to do to unhelpful cats when she sat down at the table and reached for the book. Flipping through to the first blank page, she cleared her throat and said, “I get older every time I answer a question. How can I be young again?”

As the words appeared on the parchment, Serafina leaned closer and read:

Drink the blue rose tea.

“Where can I find this tea?” she asked, but no other words appeared. Something niggled at the back of her mind—she was sure she'd seen something somewhere. If only she could remember.

Serafina let her gaze wander around the room. Where would she put something that she wanted to keep really safe? Although the cupboard was an obvious place to keep tea, would the other Baba Yagas have kept such a special tea with the rest of the food? She'd been drinking some of the herbal teas, but visitors she had spoken with herself had brought most of them and she knew none of those teas included roses in their mixtures.

Serafina sorted through the shelf that held the old teas first. She found more herbal teas, a small pot of dried dandelions for dandelion tea, some shriveled dried things that smelled vaguely like blueberries, and an old bag of rose hip tea that was moldy and smelled bad when she opened it. There wasn't much of it, but she had no way of knowing if it had been made with blue roses or roses of a more conventional color, so she set it aside, hoping that it wasn't what she needed.

The next shelf down was filled with small sacks of barley flour, wheat flour, and oats. She threw out a sack of ancient dried apples and was about to go to the next shelf when she spied a clay jar with a cork crammed into the opening. Although she had seen it before, she had no idea what was in it. Someone had labeled it at some point, but the writing was in a language she didn't
understand. Turning it over in her hands, she was delighted when she found “Blue Rose Tea” written in a different script at the bottom.

It didn't take long to make herself a cup of tea. When it was ready, she sat at the table with the cup and the mirror in front of her. If she was going to change, she wanted to see it happen.

After taking the first sip, she stared at her reflection in the mirror, but as far as she could tell, she looked just the same. The tea was muskier than she'd expected and left a strange aftertaste in her mouth. If she had been drinking it just because she was thirsty, she probably wouldn't have had any more, but she wasn't drinking it for the taste. She took a second sip.

The tingling started in her fingertips first. She sat back and stared at her hands as the feeling traveled past her knuckles to her wrists and up her arms, making the fine hairs stand on end. The skin grew tauter, and the spots that had appeared on the back of her hands over the last few days disappeared. She took another sip, then another and another, until the cup was empty. In only a few minutes, the tingling engulfed her entire body. When it reached her face, she leaned toward the mirror and watched as the lines beside her eyes and mouth vanished, her skin grew firmer, her eyes grew
brighter, and her hair became darker and more lustrous. When the tingling finally stopped, she realized that all her aches and pains were gone. She was young again, though she thought she looked a little older than she had when she first became Baba Yaga.

Sitting back in her seat, Serafina closed her eyes and reveled in the sensations of being young and healthy. Now she didn't have to die of old age before she was even fifteen. And there was plenty of tea in the jar. If she was careful with it, the tea should last her a long time.

Serafina did a little dance when she stood. Her lithe young body could move easily, and the freedom of movement made her so happy that she hummed a merry tune as she began to clean up. After pushing the cork back in the jar, she returned the tea to the cupboard where she had found it, then washed her cup. She was putting it away when something else occurred to her. Now she looked nearly the same as she had before she became Baba Yaga. She could go home and if she told everyone not to ask her questions, she could even have the life she wanted! If she hurried, she could be back with her family soon.

Serafina was so excited that she almost blurted out the command, but even as she opened her mouth, she
recalled what had happened the last time she told the cottage to move. This time she remembered to say, “Chicken hut, chicken hut, take me home, but do it gently!”

The cottage rose so smoothly that she barely felt as if it was moving at all. The door was already open when the fence came apart, and the bones flew into the cottage, bringing the skulls with them. Yowling, Maks followed them into the air and through the doorway, landing on the bed.

“What are you doing?” demanded the cat. “You made me drop a nice juicy mouse!”

“We're going home,” said Serafina.

“You could have given me some warning! You look good, by the way. I guess you found the tea.”

“No thanks to you,” Serafina told him.

“What can I say? I'm a cat. What did you mean when you said we were going home? We already are home.”

“I mean my hometown, Kamien Dom. Wait until you meet my family! They've never met a talking cat before. And Alek—”

“I doubt we're going to your hometown,” said Maks. “Old Chicken Legs is a cottage of habit. It likes to go to the same places and rarely goes anywhere new. Most of the places it visits now meant something important to the first Baba Yaga. That was so long ago that
whatever was there might be gone by now, but it goes there anyway. Something pretty powerful is needed to make this hut go someplace different; just asking isn't going to do it. What did you say to it?”

“I told it to take me home,” Serafina said, no longer feeling quite so excited.

“Then I bet it's taking us to Mala Kapusta. That's where it picked you up. It's probably the closest stop to your village.”

“I live in a large town, actually,” Serafina said.

“Well, there you have it! This cottage never goes to large towns. Too many people around. Even in the villages, the cottage times its arrival for after dark so it's already in place when people get up in the morning. Fewer terrified villagers running and screaming that way. The villagers are used to seeing it, just not the way it walks around on chicken legs. Departures can be a different story, though. Sometimes we have to leave in a hurry, and everyone gets riled up.”

“Chicken legs?” asked Serafina.

Maks gave his paw an experimental lick. “Uh-huh,” he said. “I'm surprised you haven't noticed its footprints. Of course, they are big. Look more like ruts than the footprints of a chicken.” The cat gave his paw another swipe with his tongue, then glanced up at her. “I told
you that the first Baba Yaga was a nasty old witch. Long before the fairy put the curse on her, she got into trouble with some villagers. She heard that they were coming to burn her hut, so she grabbed the only animal she could find at the time and used it in a spell. It was a scrawny old chicken, too tough even for the old witch to eat. The spell put the chicken legs on the hut and made them big enough to carry the hut around.”

“So that's why it lurches the way it does,” Serafina said. “I guess it's a good thing she didn't find a frog, or we'd be hopping everywhere.”

Maks licked his shoulder, then glanced up at Serafina again. “Hey, I'm glad I wasn't living with her then, or it might have been my legs that were hauling this thing!” Turning to look over his back, he twitched his tail when he noticed that his fur was ruffled and dirty. “Promise me one thing. The next time you want to pick up and leave, tell me first!”

It was still dark when the cottage settled to the ground. Woken from her sleep, Serafina climbed out of bed and slipped into her prettiest gown. Her heart sang as she brushed her hair until it shone. She was going home today and would see Alek and her family!

Maks watched from the bed while she pulled on her shoes, and she half expected him to try to talk her out of going. He didn't, though, and when she bent down to pet his head, he stood and stalked away.

The sun was just starting to come up when Serafina stepped outside, the few coins she possessed in her pocket. It had been dark the last time she was there, but as far as she could tell, the cottage had come back to the very same place she and Viktor had found it.

“Where are you going so early?” called one of the skulls as Serafina headed for the gate.

“To stretch my legs,” she replied, not wanting to tell them that she was leaving for good. She liked the skulls, but she didn't feel like explaining herself to anyone; she certainly didn't want to argue about it.

“Hurry back,” Boris said as she closed the gate behind her.

Serafina patted the shiny skull and turned toward the Bialy Jelen tavern. If anyone could tell her how she could get a ride to Kamien Dom, it would be a tavern keeper.

Although it was still early, the day promised to be beautiful. The sky was clear and a gentle breeze already carried a hint of warmth. Serafina felt more lighthearted than she had since the day she received her great-aunt's
letter. Grinning, she started skipping down the road, something she hadn't done in years. She stopped, however, when she heard someone chuckle.

A man leading a horse from behind the tavern tipped his hat to her and said, “Good morning, miss. And how are you today?”

“Very well,” Serafina said, and went rigid when she realized that she'd said it in her Baba Yaga voice.

The man nodded and continued on, but Serafina didn't budge. She had felt her clothes tighten just as they had when she first became Baba Yaga. There was no getting away from what had happened to her. Even simple questions made her age. If she went home, people were bound to ask her questions; they would just slip out, unintentionally. She would age then, surrounded by her family and friends. It would be impossible to hide what was happening to her unless she drank the tea every day, and she doubted she had enough to do that for long.