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CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

“ W ell, the two of you certainly seem to have made yourself at home in my hut.”

The brisk, feminine voice woke me from a sound sleep and I realized I wasn’t in bed alone, like I had been my entire life. Instead, I was curled up naked against Rath’s side.

The big Orc was still asleep but he had one long, muscular arm wrapped around me protectively.

“Did you enjoy sleeping in my bed?” the voice asked.

Turning my gaze from Rath, I saw that someone was sitting on a stool in the far corner of the room.

It was an older woman and she was dressed elegantly in a long, flowing red gown and matching golden jewelry.

Her hair was pure silver and swirled up into a dizzyingly high tower piled atop her head that made me think of pictures I’d see of Marie Antoinette before the French Revolution.

“Uh…Baba Yaga?” I sat up and pulled the sheet up to my chin, trying to be sure I was covered. I wished now that I had put my t-shirt back on before going to sleep, but it was too late now—I was naked in front of the most powerful witch in the world.

“Yes, that is my name. You should know since your companion shouted it into the wind to force me to see the two of you,” she snapped. “But maybe you expected someone more like this?”

Suddenly, she shimmered and changed. Instead of the elegant court lady, a crooked old woman with a humped back and a hooked nose was sitting on the stool. She was dressed like a Russian peasant woman with rough, hand-woven clothes and a wooly shawl around her hunched shoulders.

“Or this?” Baba Yaga shimmered again and became the Wicked Witch of the West from the Wizard of Oz. Her skin was green and her hat was tall and pointed. Her black gown clung to a gaunt frame and she laughed menacingly—the signature witch’s cackle.

“Heee-he-he-he-he-he-he!”

“Stop!” I put a hand out. I wished Rath would wake up—how could he sleep through all this?

Baba Yaga shimmered again and this time she was nothing but a golden light, floating in the air above the wooden stool she’d been sitting on.

“Just trying to give you what you expected,” her voice said. “You humans have such strange expectations.”

“Aren’t you human too?” I asked.

The ball of light shimmered and became the first woman again—the one in the ruby red gown with the towering hair.

“I haven’t been human in centuries, child,” she said, looking down her elegant nose at me. “Which is one reason I find dealing with your kind so very tiresome.”

“Well, I’ll never bother you again if you’ll just reverse the spell my mother had you put on me,” I said.

“Ah, the binding.” She nodded thoughtfully. “I take it you want to be unbound?”

“Yes, please!” I nodded eagerly.

“But you are halfway unbound already. You could not have defeated my Hydra, otherwise. And as for that lust potion you brewed—poor Fendal is still fucking themselves as we speak.”

I took it that “Fendal” was the Two Natured One she had sent to try and persuade us to turn back.

“I’m, uh, sorry about that,” I said. “But I still want to be all the way unbound. It’s not just my magic this spell is affecting. I also can’t talk to anyone I don’t know. And, er, it’s messing with my personal life too.”

She arched one elegant silver eyebrow at me and nodded at Rath, who was still asleep beside me.

“You don’t seem to be doing too badly.”

“I can’t…can’t go all the way,” I said, feeling frustrated. “I’m still a virgin! A shy, self-conscious virgin with a serious social anxiety problem—all because of the binding you put on me when I was just a little girl! This binding has made my life a living hell—I want it off!”

It occurred to me belatedly that I shouldn’t have been so blunt, but I was angry, damn it!

All the times I’d come home crying after being teased at school, all the lonely years I’d spent with no friends and no one to love me, all because I couldn’t talk to anyone—they all rushed up on me at once like a wave that nearly drowned me in misery.

Baba Yaga didn’t look angry, though—despite the fact that I was practically shouting at her. She looked thoughtful instead.

“Are you quite certain you wish to be completely unbound?” she asked me. “You don’t even know why your mother begged me to bind you in the first place—or why she paid such a high price. Every drop of her magic she gave to me. She didn’t even save enough to keep herself healthy.”

“Is that why she died of cancer?” I asked, my mouth suddenly going dry. “Because she gave you all her magic?”

“I would imagine so.” Baba Yaga shrugged, as though my mother’s death was of no consequence to her.

“No witch of a line as powerful as the Pruitts dies of disease. They simply fade when they are ready—it enables them to plant their spirit in the place of their choosing. As your Grandmother did, I believe.”

“My Grandmother was against the binding,” I said, remembering what Goody Albright and Madam Healer had both said.

“Yes, she was,” Baba Yaga agreed, nodding. “The question is—which of them did you trust the most?”

“I…I don’t know,” I confessed, frowning. “I know that both of them loved me…”

“They did indeed. And they loved each other, but this issue drove a wedge between them that nothing could overcome,” she pointed out.

“Your Grandmother felt you would become a powerful enough witch to deal with and perhaps even end the curse that is on your family. Your mother, however, had only recently lost your father—who was her Heartmate—and she did not believe you would be able to. She never wanted you to go through the pain she went through herself, and so she begged me to bind you—bind you and put a memory spell on you to make you forget all about both your Grandmother and Hidden Hollow, where she lived. She knew if you ever returned, the binding would begin to unravel—as it has.”

“But my Grandmother’s will brought me back here,” I said.

Baba Yaga nodded.

“And she paid the price for you as well—in her own way.”

“What do you mean?” I asked, frowning.

“I mean that your Grandmother knew the only magic strong enough to bring you here and begin unraveling the spells I had placed on you was that of a last will and testament. She allowed herself to fade so that her will would have the power to bring you here. Because she believed you would grow strong enough to break the family curse.”

I felt a stab of sorrow. So both my Mom and my Grandma had allowed themselves to die for my sake—and it all went back to the damn curse!

“What is the family curse?” I demanded. “What’s so bad that it would make my mother give away all her magic and have me bound in a way that made me miserable all my life… and cause my Grandmother to let herself fade so her will could bring me back to break it?”

“That, I cannot tell you for the secret is not mine to share,” Baba Yaga said sternly. “But I will tell you that you can find the answer somewhere in your Grandmother’s house.”

“But where in her house?” I asked, thinking of the black door with the red X which was sometimes there and sometimes not.

“In a place where you can find both good and evil—both harm and healing,” Baba Yaga said mysteriously. “That is all that I may say.”

“Can I go back and try to find it so I can make an informed decision before I choose if I want to be fully unbound?” I asked hopefully.

She shimmered and became the Wicked Witch of the West again who glared at me.

“Certainly not! You and your Orc have bothered me enough—I refuse to have more dealings with you. Decide right now—do you wish to be unbound or not?”

“What will it cost me?” I asked. “Are you going to take my magic too?”

“There is no cost—not in the way you’re thinking, anyway,” she told me, becoming the old peasant woman again. “Though if the curse finds you, you will pay in ways you never intended.”

I wished she would stop talking in riddles.

“How can I make a decision when you won’t tell me what’s at stake?” I demanded. “When I don’t even know what the family curse is in the first place?”

She shrugged again.

“That’s not my problem, little witch. I’m willing to do this one favor—to unbind you once and for all and let your magic free. If you refuse me now, you will never find me again and you will remain at least partially bound forever. So make your choice—I grow weary of this game.”

I wanted to say it wasn’t a game, but I could tell she was getting irritated and impatient. I looked at Rafe, wishing I could ask his advice, but the big Orc slept on.

“Rafe?” I nudged him with my elbow but he only snorted and turned on his side.

“Don’t bother—his sleep is enchanted. He will not wake until I leave,” Baba Yaga informed me. “Is he your Heartmate?”

“I don’t know what that means, exactly,” I said uncertainly. “I mean, I like him a lot but we just met a few days ago.”

“If you have no Heartmate and take care not to get one, you should be safe from the curse,” Baba Yaga said. “So answer me now—do you wish to be unbound or not?”

A thousand thoughts raced through my head.

I thought of my mother’s desperate actions—actions she apparently took to shield me from harm.

And I thought of the miserable life I’d had, filled with social anxiety caused by my Selective Mutism.

The image of the black door with the red X flashed through my mind as well.

But then I remembered that my Grandmother hadn’t wanted me bound.

She’d had faith in me—she’d thought I could break the curse, whatever it was.

“I choose to believe that my Grandmother was right,” I told Baba Yaga, lifting my chin. “She thought I could deal with this, and I will. So yes—unbind me.”

“This is your final choice, then?” she asked, raising her eyebrows. She had become the elegant court woman in the red gown again.

“Yes.” I nodded. “Unbind me.”

“Very well. I wish you the joy of your decision.”

She waved a hand at me and spoke some words under her breath.

Suddenly, I felt as though someone had dipped me in a big vat of fizzing liquid—tiny bubbles were popping all over my skin. At the same time, the world was whirling around me and I didn’t know which direction was up and which was down.

Then—strangest of all—I felt like someone was cutting something off me. It was like I had been wearing an invisible corset all my life, wrapped around me from my throat all the way down to my mid-thighs and now an invisible hand with invisible scissors was cutting it away.

“Oh!” I gasped and my voice came out so loud— as though I had shouted instead of just gasping.

“You are free, little witch,” I heard Baba Yaga’s voice say, though I couldn’t see her anywhere. “Do not come crying to me if the curse finds you.”

Then she was gone—and so was the bedroom and the whole hut for that matter. I found myself standing upright, fully dressed, on the road that led to Hidden Hollow.

I had made my choice and now I was free…or so I thought.