I had been in Baba Yaga’s house for almost ten days. Three days addled and tripping over my once nimble feet, two days learning how to behave as a woman of my new age, four days waiting for mail that would not come, and seven nights awakening to the sounds of a young woman crying her heart out in the rooms below mine.
That night, I did what I had never done before and knocked on a mortal’s door.
“Who is it?” she answered, her voice hardly more than a rough whisper. I could hear the dog snuffling beside her.
“Are you all right?” I asked her. “Can I be of help? Your tears have drawn me here . . .”
Whatever else I meant to add was interrupted by the door being violently flung open. The girl stood before me, her green hair like a patch of forest grass that had not been rained upon in days. She was wearing only a long shirt with nothing under it, and she smelled ever so slightly of mold. Along the side of her neck I saw the mark of trouble etched in her skin. Swaying, one hand clutching the door as though she might fall, she closed her eyes.
“Perhaps I could make you some tea . . .” I reached out a hand to steady her.
Her eyes snapped open and she backed away from me in alarm. “Go away, get out of here. I told you before just leave me alone. All of you, get out of my life.” She shut the door hard in my face and I heard her retching on the other side.
I stood there perplexed. I had never spoken to the girl, yet she spoke to me as if she knew me. I was ruffled, my pride insulted at being confused with someone else, someone clearly undesirable. But what could I do? My help had been refused so I returned upstairs. She has the dog, I thought, and put her out of my mind.
* * *
THE FOLLOWING DAY WAS FULL of sun so I went in the afternoon to a coffee shop where I knew I could purchase a meal “to go,” then took myself to a nearby wooded park. I sighed as I sat down, not even minding the dampness of the grass beneath me. Reaching into a paper bag, I took out a little bundle wrapped in white paper and opened it with curiosity. All I could recall in the busy crush at the coffee shop counter was asking for something named “5,” and that it contained cheese and no animal flesh.
I smiled down at the sight of two slabs of brown bread, thickly buttered, layered with green sprouts, tomatoes, ruby onions, and slices of golden cheese. In my pocket I had two peaches that I had purchased the day before at the Co-op, and in the other pocket, three buttery sugar cookies, also from the Co-op’s bakery.
I felt elated basking in the late summer sunset, buoyed by an unexpected rush of happiness. Everything seemed more important, more precious, and more beautiful for its fleeting temporal nature. I watched young couples walking together on the little paths, suddenly aware of how many children and infants there were in this world. And how few had been in mine. Two towheaded girls, dressed in bright pink T-shirts proclaiming them “fairy princesses” skipped in front of their parents, stopping every now and then to pick the last of the dandelions, which they waved around as if they were wands capable of granting wishes.
Perhaps, it will not be so bad to live here, I thought. I inhaled deeply, smelling the fusty dampness of the earth, the sugary sweetness of the little girls, the dusty fur of a dog that stopped to sniff the uneaten sandwich on my lap. There was chatter and talk all around me; the scolding of a squirrel, the squeals of delight as children ran through the park, the insistent calls of their parents reining them back to their sides. Someone was singing—or perhaps it was the noise that seeped through those little white buds the students liked to wear in their ears.
And then abruptly, I heard a familiar voice, sharp and unhappy, pitched like a magpie defending its nest. It was coming from just behind me, back in the shelter of the trees. I turned my head to the side, not wanting to let on I knew they were there. I needed to see them first, believe with my eyes what my ears had revealed.
The three were sitting on the ground beneath the spreading branches of an old oak, its leaves already turning rusty brown. Though they were wearing more clothes—mostly dirty T-shirts and torn bluish trousers—I knew them at once. The boy had the same dark hair shaved close to his scalp in spiral patterns. The girls wore their hair in thick-snarled plaits, tied off with beads and bits of black feathers.
I turned back to watch the passersby on the sidewalk, but tuned my ear to the squabbles of the three behind me. Why are they here? I had left them far behind on the edge of the forest that rainy night they pushed me toward the iron dragon, fleeing as soon as Baba Yaga grabbed my wrists. How did they know where to find me?
I heard them quiet down as the tips of my ears flickered, catching the sound of their voices. It is no good, I thought, they will leave if I don’t stop them. I bundled up my lovely sandwich back in its wrapping, grabbed my paper teacup, and stood up. Behind me there was silence.
I smiled broadly and walked briskly toward them. The grass was moist and springy beneath my feet. They looked startled and rose as a group, prepared to flee.
“Wait!” I called. “Don’t go. I bring a gift.”
They hesitated, the smaller girl pulling on the oldest boy’s T-shirt. As changelings they had learned long ago in the Greenwood to live on almost nothing but air. But human children needed more to sustain them and I knew they would remember the taste and pleasure of food. I handed the boy my white bag and he snatched it from me as though I might change my mind. He put his face into the bag and sniffed. The others stared at him expectantly. He motioned them to sit down and took out the sandwich. As the girls watched, licking their lips and wiping their dirty fingers on their even dirtier clothing, the boy carefully tore the sandwich into three sections, leaving one for himself and handing out the other two pieces.
I sat down on the ground beside them and pulled out the two peaches from my pocket. I split them into halves and gave them to the children. The older girl squealed and snatched the sweet fruit from my hand. But the smallest child, the girl with the heart-shaped face, reached out a grimy hand and patted the hidden lump in my pocket.
I laughed and withdrew the cookies for them. Then I presented the children with the half-filled cup of now cold tea and they passed it around, swallowing quick sips in between bites of bread and cheese, fruit and cookies. I leaned back, quietly waiting for them to finish eating.
It did not take long, and looking almost abashed at the eagerness with which they had accepted the gift of food, the eldest boy lowered his head.
“We are in your debt,” he said softly.
“Not at all,” I replied. “You have already helped me once before, that night—”
“Shhh. Don’t speak of that,” he said, darting glances over his shoulder to be certain there was no one to hear our conversation.
“Why are you here?” I asked, lowering my own voice. “How did you find me? And why would the Queen wish to spy on me? Except to convince herself I am as miserable as she hoped?”
“Too many questions,” the boy said.
“We are to watch . . . and wait . . .” said the older girl. Her long narrow face ended with a pointed chin but her golden eyes were large and round as an owl’s.
“For what?”
“For what comes of it,” she shrugged, and retucked a black feather into her braid.
“Comes of what?” I asked, growing more confused and alarmed.
“They are looking for it,” the little girl said, licking the last of the cookie crumbs off of her palm.
“For what? And who’s they?” I asked.
The boy gave a coarse laugh. “Riddles are not meant to be answered like tallying sums in a shopkeeper’s ledger. Though you appear old and plump as a vintner’s wife, you’ve not lost your true nature to seek beneath the signs. Use it instead. We’ll give you no more, for it means danger for us.”
They stood and I did too, albeit with more effort. The boy reached down a hand to help me. They may have been half wild, but they still remembered the rules of hospitality. I wished at that moment that I had more food, anything to keep them close and talking to me. But I knew I had nothing left to give them but one rare and private thing.
“I trust you,” I said to the boy, who seemed to be the leader. His brown eyes widened with surprise. And it was true. I saw them—like me—as outcasts longing to return home. We were all pieces of a game, not certain of the hands that moved us. Mice hiding in the pantry of big cats. And mice need to stick together. I leaned forward to the boy, and spoke my true name into the shell of his ear.
His eyes glistened for a moment before he blinked it away. He turned to leave, and then as if thinking twice about it, he abruptly turned back and leaned in close. He closed his hand around my ear and whispered his own name, Awxes.
I touched his shoulder, grateful for the gift. Whatever else they were doing here, I believed they meant me no harm.
I watched them depart, strolling through the shadows of the trees until they melted into the green leaves. And as I walked back toward the path, I heard the harsh cawing of crows and saw them break through the canopy of tree branches to streak above me, their black wings stark against the fading sunlight.
I walked home in the encroaching twilight, the newly lit streetlamps casting shadows across the sidewalks and streets. A chilly breeze rustled through the trees. I could smell rain approaching, only moments away, and hurried my steps. By the time I turned down Farewell, I was shivering in a brusque wind that rifled through leaves and caused the branches to moan and saw against one another. I dashed into the house as the first heavy spatters fell from the sky.
For once the house was quiet. No troll music, no barking dog, no crying girl. I walked up the steps and got halfway up the first floor, then stopped and turned around. It was a vain hope, but I wanted there to be a letter. I wanted to feel my sister close to me.
I looked at my black letterbox, and through the opening spotted the envelope. Trembling I fetched it out and saw the words written in delicate lines across the front. At first, I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry to see the name I had chosen written there and in the corner, hers—“Mabel Farmer.” I burst out laughing. We sounded like nothing more than a pair of milk cows. I pressed the letter to my breast and mounted the stairs, desperate for news.
* * *
LATER, SITTING IN THE KITCHEN, lit only by a single candle, I replied. Outside the rain lashed the windows, a dismal harbinger of the coming autumn. I was wrapped in one of Baba Yaga’s woolen shawls, a pot of strong tea to hand. The cat slept on the chair curled into a knot, with her tail firmly pressed over her face. I was grateful when the hands suddenly appeared, the feminine hand in a lacy fingerless mitten, and showed me how to send heat into the little vents near the floor. The house slowly warmed, but I could not remove the chilled sorrow from my heart. I tried to put my muddled thoughts into words that might enlighten Serana but not reveal too much—for I thought of the changelings somewhere outside, huddled in this cold rain, and I didn’t want to say anything that might bring them harm.
Folding the letter, I slipped it into an envelope and put a stamp on it. I wrote down Serana’s address, feeling how odd it was that there was this place I had never seen, that held the body of my sister. I could not imagine how she might look standing in a room of such a place, staring out the windows and searching for my face.
Much later I got into bed, pulling the coverlet over my shoulders and up to my ears. I was almost asleep when I heard the girl below me crying again, her long sobs wrenched from deep within a wounded heart. And try as I might, I could not imagine what horror coiled so deeply in her breast.