Haunted (23 page)

Anne

This is
so
not good,” Tess says. “What are we going to do?”

The sound of Lily’s pain washes through me and over me and around me and ties itself up with the overriding certainty that if I don’t do something—anything—Ben is going to die again. Only this time, I won’t be able to bring him back because I have no intention of doing what Baba Yaga wants, and once she realizes that, it’s all over.

Unless I find a way to change the odds. The plan hatches quickly—too quickly to be sensible. But what other choice do I have? I won’t let Ben die. I can’t let Ben die. The words loop over and over in my head.

“Help Ben.” I gesture to Tess and Ethan. “Please. Don’t let her touch him.”

“No!” Ethan holds out a hand as if to stop me. “We need to stay together.”

But I can’t listen to him. If I listen to him, Ben might die. So with the sound Lily’s keening cries echoing everywhere, I run.

Behind me, Lily’s voice cracks with tears. “You wouldn’t help me, witch. You wouldn’t let me come to you. But now, here I am.”

I make it across the little clearing, ignore the skulls on the pikes, and dash to the hut door. All I can think is that Lily will kill Ben because she can’t have what she wants. And Baba Yaga—well, she doesn’t want Viktor either, does she? In my dreams, I’ve felt her desire to kill him. It’s what they both want, and I’m just so very tired of being in the middle of it all. All these people have such fierce desires to live forever, but all that ever seems to come of it is death.

If there’s anything left of him, I’ll let Viktor out, do what the rusalka wanted me to do anyway—my crazy birth grandmother, so filled with grief at what she’s lost. If anyone gets that, it’s me. If I really can release him, then that’s what I’ll do. Let the witch and the mermaid fight over him. And while my two highly dysfunctional ancestors duke it out with Baba Yaga, the rest of us can find our way back home.

Like that first time, the hut heaves in and out, in and out, like it’s breathing. The chicken legs scrabble at the ground, and my hand misses the doorknob over and over. I lunge again, grab it, and start to turn. I needed the lacquer box key the last time, but I’m not the same as I was the last time. There’s more inside me, and I hope that whatever it is, it’s enough.

Behind me, Ethan shouts. “Anne! Watch out!”

And then I’m hurtling through the air. I slam to the ground so hard that my breath stops dead in my chest. Baba Yaga stands over me laughing, her sleeves flapping empty in the wind. I gasp. She’s sent her hands to stop me, and they’ve done their job. I only turned the handle halfway. Not enough. Her huge, wrinkled brown hands slide under my body, lift me, and throw me like I weigh nothing at all. I land in the stream facedown. Somewhere above me or maybe behind me, I hear Tess and Ethan and Ben calling my name as I sink beneath the surface of the water.

It’s not real. It’s not real
. This is what I keep telling myself as the water filters over me. The stream is shallow. I can’t be sinking this far under. But it feels real—just like drowning.

Somehow, impossibly, Lily is next to me under the water. We are far, far under. I hold my breath. I don’t want to drown, and I don’t want to drink. Either way, if I open my mouth, I’m screwed. I’ll be dead—or I’ll be doing what Baba Yaga wants from me. Will I become her? Take on her powers? But I’ll bound to her somehow, because that’s what I promised, and that’s what she expects to collect. She doesn’t care that Ethan’s told me he loves me. Or that I might like a little time to figure out if I love him back. Or that my mother might have just watched me fall facedown into the water and might now think I’m dead.

“You have no idea,” Lily says softly. She floats in front of me, so close that as her dark hair fans out, it twists itself with mine. “I was no good for your mother. I could think of nothing but Misha—nothing but what I didn’t have. I had gone to find Baba Yaga, and I did not come back the same. She had not granted my wish, and I did not know what else to do. How could you know that kind of loss?”

But I do
, I tell her. I can’t say it aloud, but somehow, I think she hears me anyway. I’ve watched my mother suffer. We all have. It’s different, I know. But I think it feels the same. Like a wave my mom and I saw that winter David died, not far from where Mom is still kneeling on the beach right now. It was a wave in winter, frozen near the shore, unable to move.

Lily reaches out one thin arm and strokes it across my hair. Her ruby and pearl fan hair clip slips from my hair and drifts through the water. She lowers her hand and catches it, fastens it into her own hair and leans in very close to me.

“It was only for a second. Just one second. Just one thought as they swam toward me, as I understood what they were. Just one thought that perhaps this was what I wanted, this was better. That I had no choice but to accept. I wanted to take it back as soon as it leaped into my head, but it was too late. The words were on my tongue, and then I opened my mouth, and it all rushed in. The water. The rusalkas’ enchantment. Once I accepted, there was no turning back. Not for me.”

Then fight against it,
I tell her with my thoughts.
Just this once. Help me. If you hate the witch, then piss her off by pulling me out of here. You’ve lost so much, and I know you don’t have control. But maybe you could control this one thing. And then I can tell Mom what you did. That you did this one last thing for her. That you helped your daughter’s daughter when she needed it.

I’m in her head then, seeing what she sees, feeling what she feels: a tiny, dark-haired baby in her arms. The softness of the child’s delicate skin as she caresses her daughter’s cheek. Her daughter. My mother. She presses her lips to the baby’s head. Tears well in her eyes, fall onto her daughter’s face. I feel the pain—sharp as a thousand knives cutting into my skin—as she hands her daughter to the nurse. The loss is enormous, and for a few seconds, it presses me deeper into the water. Lily clutches at me. Lily, me, the infant that was my own mother years ago—all floating here on the edge of something that none of us can ever truly control.

In that instant, we’re standing together in the shallow water. Lily’s hand is clasped in mine. Ethan and Tess are standing in the grass, holding Ben between them. They jolt forward like statues brought to life when Lily and I appear. Had some magic stopped them from moving?

When Tess lets go of Ben to run to me, he slumps, and Ethan has to pull him up again to keep him from falling.

“Enough,” Ethan says to Baba Yaga. He moves closer to her, dragging Ben with him. “Enough already.”

“Has your mentor taught you nothing?” she says to him. “Viktor can’t ever have enough of anything. But you tell me to stop. You have no more magic, Ethan. You will not win.”

Baba Yaga’s hands skitter about in front of us, splashing the water toward me with their fingers. The witch herself tilts her head and observes me. “Clever girl,” she says slowly. “More clever than I even thought. Blood may be thicker than my water, after all. I am feeling generous again. Although not much.” She nods, and her right hand skitters backward, then turns and flicks one leathery finger in Ben’s direction.

The effect is immediate. “My legs,” Ben says. “My legs!” He pulls from Ethan and walks a few unsteady steps. “The feeling’s coming back.”

This time, I don’t thank her. Correction: I might have thanked her. But then the skulls around the hut start screeching.

We all look toward the hut. Maybe I’d turned that door handle enough after all. And maybe that’s not a good thing after all.

Viktor—the ragged remains of his black leather jacket and expensive trousers hanging loosely—emerges from Baba Yaga’s door. His hair is pure white, his body so thin that I wonder how he’s actually standing, much less walking. He shields his eyes with one hand and surveys the scene in front of him. Then he begins to move. He doesn’t speak, just walks away from the hut and through the fence, steadier with each step. One of the skulls nips at Viktor’s arm, its petrified teeth gripping his elbow. He doesn’t even cry out—he just wrenches his arm away and keeps moving.

“What did you do, girl?” Baba Yaga’s voice slices through me. “It is impossible. I sent my hands! I am still compelled! This cannot be!”

Ethan curses under his breath, Russian, then English, then something else I can’t identify.

The rest happens very fast.

Lily lets go of my hand and walks out of the water. She reaches one thin, pale arm inside the ripped bodice of her gown and pulls out a pistol.

“Do you recognize this?” she calls to Viktor. “It’s what you used to kill my Misha. You destroyed everything. You took all I had—even what was yet to be mine.”

She shoots. The bullet plows into the left side of Viktor’s chest. He staggers. If he screams, I don’t hear it. Clutching his heart, he falls to the ground, then lies very still. Blood oozes out from under his hand. For a long few seconds, everything goes white. No sight. No sound. Just the pounding thought that Lily has taken her vengeance, and I have helped her do so.

“Is he dead?” Tess screams while Ethan pulls me out of the water.

Ben’s voice edges on total panic. “She shot him. She shot him. And she still has the gun.”

Baba Yaga howls in what sounds like true pain. She stands between Lily and Viktor, her head turning toward one and then the other like she’s really not sure which direction she needs to go.

Lily rocks back and forth, the gun still in her hand. Her eyes close, and she begins to weep. “Can I see her now?” she says to no one in particular. “Have I earned her back? He’s gone. He’s gone.” She continues blindly rocking. Her finger’s still on the trigger. “She wouldn’t help me. Look at me. Look at what I’ve become. I was a mother. And now I am only this.” Eyes still squeezed shut as if in pain, she waves the gun.

Which is when I realize it’s pointed at me.

“No,” Ethan says. He’s running before I can even move. Tess screams.

And Ben—well, Ben’s a lifeguard. Even with everything that’s been happening, Ben is quick. It’s what he’s trained to do: save people. Keep them from dying. He moves with Ethan, both of them blocking me as they run.

Lily shoots. Does she mean to? I don’t know. She’s not looking at me, so I will always think she didn’t know what she was doing. That it is only what happens, and not what she means, this creature who used to be human—her grief and pain still are.

I hear a crack as the bullet leaves the gun.

“Anne!” Is it Ethan’s voice or Ben’s? I’m not sure of that either. I only know that they’re both flying through the air to block me, and that in that last second, as everything shifts into slow motion, Ethan shoves Ben sideways. Ben tumbles into me, and we both hit the ground at the same time as Lily’s bullet drives its way into Ethan’s chest. Blood sprays everywhere—on him, on me, on Ben.

Ethan crumbles to the ground. “Anne,” he says. He looks at me with those crazy blue eyes, and then his gaze goes blank.

The gun drops from Lily’s hand. Tess grabs it and throws it into the stream. It floats there for a moment, then sinks quickly to the bottom.

“Are you hurt? Anne? Anne, are you hurt?” Ben wipes his hand across my face, and when he pulls it back, it’s red with blood. “Let me look. Stay still. I need to make sure you’re okay.”

“I’m fine. I’m okay. Ethan—Ben, I’m not hurt. It’s Ethan. Ben, you have to help him. Ben! Please!” On the ground next to us, Ethan makes a horrible gurgling sound and tries to sit up.

“Get the horseman to help you,” he says so softly that I can barely hear him. Blood trickles out of his mouth. “He promised me. He…” Ethan’s eyes flutter closed. His chest heaves, and then it’s barely moving.

“Shit.” Ben presses his hand to Ethan’s chest. “We need a doctor, Anne. I think the bullet went right into his heart.”

I hear Baba Yaga chuckle, a deep ugly sound. But she isn’t looking at us. She’s looking at Viktor. I watch in horror and amazement as the first bullet rises out of his chest, the blood trickles back inside him, the wound heals over, and he sits up—very much alive.

He stares at Ethan’s body, then shifts his gaze to me. “Well, well. An interesting turn of events, eh? I see your
zalupa
has taken a bullet for you. But I do thank you for setting me free, whatever your motivations. Obviously, I’ve had time to learn a trick or two during my captivity. Perhaps I have you to thank for that as well. If you hadn’t rescued my darling stepsister, I wouldn’t have had the chance to play the hero, and I wouldn’t have been able to—well, as you can see, there is more than one way to cheat death, is there not? Fascinating, no? And your darling Ethan? I see he still likes to throw himself to the lions. Couldn’t let your lifeguard take the bullet, now could he?”

He makes a low clicking sound with his tongue. The horseman in white gallops to us, reaches down his hand, and pulls Viktor up behind him.

“You can’t!” Baba Yaga stretches out her arms. Lightning sizzles through the air. My brain is thinking,
Ethan, Ethan, Ethan.
Everything is moving too slow and too fast, and I can’t take it all in.

“Ah, Yaga.” Viktor smiles. “You forget. You’ve given the girl part of you. Your power is diminished. And she has no idea how to stop me, does she? Secrets within secrets, eh, Yaga? Isn’t that what you’ve whispered to me? Well, I have a few secrets of my own. Did you think I would sit there with you until I was just another rotting piece of flesh?”

He gives a sharp nod, and the horseman flicks his finger at the stream. The sky tears in two, rips and opens. The horse gallops to the edge, bucks, and Viktor is simply gone.

My head clears. I push Ben aside, press my hand on Ethan’s chest. I will the bullet to come out like Viktor’s did. For a second, I think I feel it happening. Then, nothing. I try again. And again. But it’s as useless as what happened on the beach. My hands are red with Ethan’s blood. And then I know that I don’t have a choice anymore.

Somehow, Lily sees into my head.

“Don’t do it, granddaughter.” She’s in front of me then, her thin fingers gripping my arms.