He shrugged his pudgy shoulders and jammed his thumbs under his overalls. “All right, but I’m tellin’ ya, he’s takin’ ya for a sweet ride.”
“Then consider me his willing passenger,” I said on a chuckle as I reached for the beautiful antique doorknob I’d driven all the way to Portland for because Win absolutely had to have it.
“Oh! Almost forgot. There’s a lady in there waitin’ for ya. Dresses like she’s on her way to a Duran Duran concert. Popped up outta nowhere, too. Went to use the facilities, coulda sworn I locked the front door and bam, there she was. Nice enough, though, and darn sharp to look at. Seemed pretty harmless and said she wasn’t budgin’ an inch ’til she saw your pretty face. You want I should go in with ya?”
My stomach somersaulted in a nervous lurch. I only needed to hear the Duran Duran part of Enzo’s explanation to know who waited for me inside, and she was anything but harmless.
Baba Yaga was here.
Yay.
Baba had a penchant for anything from the ’80s, her all-time favorite era, according to her. Leg warmers, dog-ear teased hair on either side of her head, Aqua Net, leopard leggings, ripped sweatshirts and row after row of bangle bracelets were her jam.
Patting Enzo on the shoulder, I shook my head. “No. You go give two thumbs up to Driveway Guy so he can get started right away and I’ll handle my guest. Thanks for watching out for me, though.”
“Made ya a pot of coffee. Got a new brew the other day. Heavy on the hazelnut with just a hint of dark-chocolate roast.”
Pinching his cheek, I smiled at him. “You are my dream man, Enzo. Will you marry me?”
He grinned, wide and facetious. “Ya think the missus’ll mind a sister-wife?”
I giggled in response, pushing open the heavy door. As I stepped into the entryway, now light and airy with new walls painted in a pale lemon and reclaimed dark wood flooring, complemented by white crown molding, I inhaled. Setting my purse down on the small table next to the stairs, I let the beauty of my surroundings soothe me.
I loved the bright, cheerful entry with its multicolored stained-glass window above the hulking door Enzo had taken such pains to restore, the winding staircase leading to my future dream bedroom, the light infusing every corner of the space.
“Am I hearin’ right? Is the old bat here? Like here-here, in Ebenezer Falls?” Belfry asked.
I scooped him out and nodded, tucking him onto my shoulder. “She is. She probably wants to see you, buddy. You know how much she likes to check up on her subjects and be treated like one of the people.”
Belfry bristled, the hair on his tiny body standing on end. “Why would she wanna see me?”
“Because you still serve her, Bel, and she’s always been hands-on, and you went through a trauma just the way I did. I have no affiliation to her anymore. Which means she has no power over my mortal butt. So what could she want to see
me
about? Has to be you she’s checking on.”
“I take it this is the fearless leader you spoke of who shunned you?” Win asked.
I took a deep breath and nodded. “
Ex
-fearless leader, and you take it right.”
“Shall I make myself scarce? Do you wish to speak privately? Or do you want me to pull the old ghost routine? Shake the table? Flicker the lights? Hold that thought. I know. Why don’t I open and shut the fridge door? I’m getting quite proficient at it. Just ask Bel.”
“The truth, Boss! Winterbutt totally held the door open long enough for me to see the moldy sliced ham you bought a hundred years ago for sandwiches you never ate in favor of chocolate Pop-Tarts.”
Shrugging my shoulders, I shook my head. “Nope. There’s
nothing
I haven’t told you at this point and nothing I want to hide.”
“Poke, poke, poke,” he teased.
Feeling prickly, I got saucy. “Well, it’s true. You know almost everything there is to know about me.”
“All right then, I’ll come with. I’ll be with you the whole way. If you need my assistance, simply say the word.”
I’d never tell him, but I took comfort in knowing Win had my back. That he’d be right in my ear if I needed him.
How did you make chit-chat with the woman who’d once been your esteemed ruler after she’d blatantly sided with an angry, spiteful, deader-than-a-doornail, no-good warlock and his fellow council members?
Not only sided with them, but didn’t say word one in my defense when said no-good, wife-abusing warlock literally slapped the witch right out of me in a fit of rage after I’d dared intervene in his private family matter. And all this after he’d nearly killed his wife and son while I tried to stop him.
That was exactly how I’d ended up back in my old hometown of Ebenezer Falls. Not just because I had nowhere else to go. But because I’d tried to help an abusive, power-tripping warlock’s son in the most frightening moment of his young life and in return, I no longer had my powers, my friends, or my life.
My
old
life. My new one was shaping up quite nicely, thank you, and if Baba was here to check on the debris she’d left in her wake, I’d tell her so. I was never a very outspoken witch. I played by the rules. I was loyal to the coven even when I thought something wasn’t totally fair.
But no more.
Squaring my shoulders, I took my time getting to the kitchen, parsing my angry thoughts, trying to form them into cohesive sentences.
But I just couldn’t. Now that the eleventh hour was here, and I was about to face the person who’d technically agreed I deserved to have my powers taken from me, I found I had only ugly things to say.
Which meant I’d better say nothing at all.
“
S
tephania, it’s so good to see you,” Baba Yaga said, her beautiful, ageless eyes sparkling. She sat at the new breakfast nook table Win had made me fly in from France. The distressed, creamy-white top and chunky legs stained a deep walnut for contrast fit perfectly in the area by the tall windows overlooking the Puget.
She held a mug of coffee courtesy of Enzo and tipped it at me in a salute of sorts.
“
Your name is Stephania?”
Win squealed in disbelief, his peal of laughter squeaking in my ear. “
Stephania
? I guess I don’t know everything about you,
Stephania
, because I certainly didn’t know your full name wasn’t Stevie.”
“Hush, Win,” I said before I realized I was doing so.
“Also, bloody hellfire. How could you fail to mention the woman I’m supposed to despise in BFF solidarity was so beautiful? You really are a beast master,
Stephania
,” he teased.
I did realize Win was trying to lighten a very heavy situation in typical Win fashion, but the mention of BY’s beauty made me want to poke his eyeballs out. I was at the stage where I was so angry with her, if she just sat there and did absolutely nothing but breathe, it would make me homicidal.
Clenching my hands together, I cracked my jaw. “I repeat, hush, Win.
Please
.”
Baba Yaga’s head tilted then, the sun streaming in from the windows gleaming on her shiny hair. Instantly, the scent of Love’s Baby Soft, her favorite perfume, whispered under my nostrils. “Who’s your friend?”
“I don’t have friends anymore. You saw to that.” My words were stiff, yet I’d managed to spit them out anyway.
I wanted to scream and yell and force her to tell me why she’d let that son of a butt scratcher steal my powers, or why she’d let the council lob me out of Paris like a tennis ball, but my pride and lots of cuss words got in the way.
“Hey!” Win protested, still trying to make light. “What am I, haggis? I’m your friend. I’m gobsmacked you’d not declare as such. Hmpf.”
Baba smiled at me and winked the girlfriend wink. “And he’s British. Sexy.”
My eyes narrowed at her and her neon-pink scrunchie and zebra-striped leggings, making them a haze of mixed-up colors. “You can hear him?”
Her perfectly plucked eyebrow rose playfully. “Of course I can. He sounds divine.”
“Thank bloody God someone thinks so. You have no idea how underappreciated I am, Miss Yaga.”
“The question really is, how can I still hear him, Baba? You know, me being powerless now,” I blatantly taunted.
She smiled, wide and beautiful. “The world does have its mysteries. It’s magical, isn’t it?”
My teeth clenched so hard, I was well on the way to breaking them, but I kept my mouth shut. Bel technically still belonged to the coven. I was desperately afraid she’d take him away from me. Going by coven law, I have no need for a familiar anymore. She had the power to relocate him, or rehome him with someone who needed spiritual and otherworldly guidance. I’d die if she took him, so the last thing I should be doing was calling her out.
Belfry tucked closer into me when Baba took note of him on my shoulder. “And Belfry? How’s my favorite familiar?”
Bel quivered, his tiny wings shaking against my neck. “I’m peachy-fine, and I’m here to tell you, if you came to try and take me away from my girl, forget it. Hear me, Maleficent Two? I stay here with Stevie or things are gonna get real hinky. You’re not stickin’ me with some newb lunatic who doesn’t know her wand from her arse! We’ve been together a long time, me and my Stevie-girl, and it’s stayin’ that way.”
Baba threw her head back and laughed, revealing her creamy throat. “Feisty as ever. I’d never take you from Stephania, Belfry. Surely you don’t think that of me?”
“I think all sorts of things about you,” he growled.
But I tapped his head with a gentle finger. “Behave, Bel. Have some respect.”
Bel still had to answer to Baba, even if I didn’t. I didn’t want him punished for putting on this show in my defense, and I definitely didn’t want to lose the only living family I had left aside from my flighty mother.
Baba’s shoulders lifted and sagged as she sighed, her eyes taking in the view of the boats bobbing on the Sound, the sun sparkling like dancing fairy wings on the calm waters. “It’s lovely here, Stephania. Simply lovely. What a wonderful way to enjoy a cup of coffee, watching as the boats sail about. How lucky are you to have come into such good fortune?”
It was all I could do not to snatch her cup from her and throw it against the windows.
Now my teeth clenched together tighter. “Oh, I’d definitely say luck was what landed me here.”
Yes. I realize I was being sarcastic after I’d just told Belfry to squash it, but the resentment I thought I had a good grip on was seeping into my every word as Baba sat here in my kitchen, like nothing horrific had ever happened between us. It was sticking in my craw, worming its way into a bloody wound, reopening it just enough to make it seep.
Cupping her chin in her hand, she eyed me. “I know you struggled after you left Paris. I’m just happy to see you’ve landed on your feet.”
I think my eyeballs almost popped out of my head. But “struggled” was like calling the
Titanic
disaster a “small boating accident”. So I sort of lost all that cool I was hanging on to so tightly.
“
Struggled
? Is that the right adjective to use after being fired from my job, having to sell all my belongings because I had no income and very little savings, booted out of my apartment and my
town
? Then to top everything off, I was shunned. Just thrown out of the coven as though I’d never even existed. No warning, no explanation, just end of days for loyal, helpful, rule-following
Stephania
Cartwright. For doing nothing more than trying to help a little boy whose mother is so sickly brainwashed from her dead husband’s verbal and physical abuse, she somehow managed to talk her own child into telling the council nothing happened the night his father nearly killed them both?
Struggled
is the best you got?” I squeaked, my legs shaking.
Win was there again, his warm aura slipping into my space. “Don’t antagonize, Dove. For Bel’s sake.”
Baba looked at me for a long time, or rather what seemed like a long time, without saying anything. As though she were sizing me up like some prized hog at the 4-H fair.
She didn’t flinch, she didn’t speak. She just looked at me. For far longer than I was comfortable. So I broke before she did. It was time to get down to brass tacks. I didn’t have to bow and scrape anymore because she wasn’t the boss of me.
All right, wait. That’s unfair. She’s never made anyone bow and scrape, but Mother Earth here always felt like a warm hug when I was part of the coven, like I could tell her anything and she’d listen to my problem, and I hella resented her for turning her back on me when I’d needed her support and understanding the most.
“Why are you here, Baba? I don’t owe you anything. My powers are long gone. I turned in my wand and my Book of Spells. If you’re not here to take Belfry, what’s left? Did I forget something? What else could you possibly want after you let the council take everything I ever had
away
?”
When Baba finally spoke, her tone was soft, almost tender, her beautiful eyes gentle and calm. “I don’t want anything from you, Stevie. Just your happiness and your safety, and it seems as though you’ve found both. You look beautiful. I like that you’ve let your hair grow out a bit. It’s flattering. All of this pleases me more than you’ll ever know.”
Pleased her?
Pleased her?
Really?
I know I was gawking at her in my outrage, my jaw unhinging and scraping the floor. But how was it that my happiness and safety were suddenly of primo concern to the great and wonderful BY? Now? Almost two months after I’d been kicked out of my life, she was checking on me?
There were a million things I wanted to say right now, but none of them would come out without some choice words bandied about, and I couldn’t think straight enough to keep from sounding like some caveman grunting out incoherent sounds.
So
Win
thought, and even spoke for me. “Er…Miss Yaga? Is that how you wish to be addressed?”
“It is, delicious man,” she purred, twisting her ponytail around her index finger.
“I’m going to hazard a guess here and walk out on a ledge and say Stephania’s still a bit raw after the
incident
. Should she say something to ruffle your lovely feathers, I do hope you’ll take that into account. She did, after all, lose her powers. The heart and soul of her very being.”