Whichever one she chooses will suit me fine, thought Baba Yaga.
The next morning, Ruth woke up to find all her hair lying on her pillow. The mirror confirmed it: She was bald as an egg. She screamed. She wept. She resolved that she was going to get back at Ivan, because somehow this crowning misery had to be his fault, too. She wouldn't have had a perm and a dye on the same day if it hadn't been for him!
Out in the woods, where Baba Yaga was catching insects and killing them for the magic they held in their tiny bodies, Baba Yaga sensed Ruth's rage and horror. This time the curse wasn't just a bit of extra fun. Within hours, Ruth would fish the potions out of the trash in her car. For in Ruth's mind, her baldness was also, however indirectly, Ivan's and Katerina's fault, and someone was going to pay, one way or another.
13
Picnic
Ivan saw his bags in the corner of his room. He hadn't unpacked, not even a toothbrush, since Mother had a new one waiting for him in the bathroom when he got home, and there were plenty of clean clothes. But the dirty ones in the suitcases needed washing. He wasn't even sure why he had been reluctant to unpack upon arriving. This was his home; and yet he felt as if he were only here in transit. He was married now; that meant he could never be more than a visitor in his parents' home.
He tossed the bags on the bed and opened them, pulling out the tightly rolled clothes. He couldn't remember now which were dirty and which were clean—Mother would insist on washing them all anyway, and this time he'd give in and let her. Into the laundry basket went the clothing.
Onto his desk went the books, the papers, the notes. His dissertation. His future? Not likely. It would be too hard, to devote a year or more to writing as if he were still as ignorant as any ordinary scholar. It was bad enough that dissertations all had to be written in the miserably pedantic language of scholarship; to have it be false as well would be unbearable. Did it even matter? He had to go back to Taina with Katerina, and if he lived he would be king there, at least in name. As a career choice, it was generally regarded as ranking somewhere above professor. Not to him, though, having no inclination for it.
I belong in neither world now—each has spoiled me for the other.
The bags were empty. On impulse he lifted each one and shook it. A slip of paper floated down and slid under the bed.
He fell to his knees, suddenly filled with urgency. He knew at once what this paper was. It was the note that had been left in Baba Tila's window. He was home now, and Mother had been Baba Tila's pupil. Now he understood what she had been learning. Maybe the note would mean something to her.
But Mother was as baffled as he had been. She and Katerina both looked at it; Mother held it up to the window, passed it over a flame, even laid it gently on a bowl of water, to see if some other message became visible. Nothing. It continued to say, simply, "Deliver this message."
"And you found it in Baba Tila's window?" Mother asked again.
"Between the stones, where she left notes for you before."
"I wasn't her only student."
Ivan shrugged. "It's not as if there weren't several years for someone else to find it."
"It's simple enough," said Katerina.
They looked at her, waiting for the explanation.
"I mean, the message is not for you, or you'd understand it."
"Then I should put it back," said Ivan.
"No," said Katerina. "It was for you to find. It says to you the thing that you must do."
"Deliver it—but to whom?"
Katerina shrugged. "Not to me."
"It can't be anybody in your world—I can't carry anything there."
"Mikola—" Katerina caught herself. "I mean, might it not be for Cousin Marek?"
"I should have thought of it, but it was in my bags, and I hardly opened them. A lot happened between finding this note and returning to Marek and Sophia's."
"It's not for him," said Mother firmly. "Baba Tila had no need of messengers or papers to send messages to the Farmer of the Wind."
"They were... connected?" asked Ivan.
Baba Tila knew Mikola Mozhaiski. Katerina could not help but wonder if Baba Tila and her Tetka Tila—but no, her aunt was not one of the immortals. More likely the name was handed down over the centuries, like the old language. Her language.
"Nothing so marvelous," said Mother. "They used pigeons. Baba Tila loved them." She grew thoughtful. "I wonder what happened to them all after she died."
"Maybe she took them with her," said Ivan.
Mother glared at him. "Don't mock what you don't understand."
"I wasn't mocking."
"The thing is," said Mother, "she probably did. There was a part of her in the birds. They watched things for her, or rather she watched things through them. When she died, it would have left them suddenly empty, or partly empty, and I imagine they died at once. Or soon after."
"How sad," said Katerina. "But how wonderful, to know the flight of birds."
"So we still don't know who it's for."
"You will," said Mother. "Keep it with you."
"On me?" Ivan didn't like that. For some reason it made him nervous, to think of keeping it in his pocket.
"Only if you want to," said Mother. "Near you is good enough. When you find the person you should give it to, you'll know, and then you should be able to get it quickly."
Until I get to Taina, Ivan thought. Then it won't be within reach at all. And somehow I can't imagine that telling the recipient about the message would be at all the same as handing him the actual note.
"I hope I didn't ruin it by letting it float on the water," said Mother.
"It was the flame that worried me," said Ivan.
"Sillies," said Katerina. "If it was made well, neither flame nor water could harm it. And if it was made badly, then it isn't a message of power and it hardly matters."
But all this talk about the message filled Ivan with other ideas. "Isn't there some way we can take things across the bridges, Mother?"
"I should know?" she asked.
Katerina shook her head.
"What if I swallowed something," said Ivan. "Then it would be inside me."
"Don't try it," said Mother. "The rules about such things can be very strict, and it might be dangerous to you if you had anything but food in your body. Any opening of your body."
"These are honest spells," said Katerina. "Made to counteract a deceiver. They work against a deceiver. You see? The Wicked Widow can't use the bridge because she's made of lies, filled with them, covered with them. You don't want to see what would happen if you tried to cross as a sneak or a liar."
Ivan chuckled. "Then we should provide a service, and give certificates to politicians who can cross the bridges."
The Ukrainian word for politician baffled Katerina, and neither Mother nor Ivan wanted to try to explain it.
"You can take only what's in your head," said Katerina. "And in your heart."
"What's in my head is nothing but confusion. And Russian literature."
It dawned on Mother and Ivan at the same time. "Why not learn what you need to know in order to make things there?" said Mother, and Ivan was already nodding.
"Learn what?" said Katerina.
"There are weapons," said Ivan. "Bombs. I think I already have a good idea how to make Molotov cocktails—if we distilled alcohol..."