Terrel thought about this for a moment. "Whatever," he said.
"So you should go now," said Piotr.
But Terrel wasn't done. "What about the kite, Ivan? You want to take it up?"
"Later. Tomorrow. You going to be in town for the Fourth?"
"You kidding? We never go anywhere."
"Tomorrow, then. You get it up and bring it over here, we can fly it from our yard."
"If he's not blind," added Piotr.
Terrel seemed excited. "Any chance of that?"
"Don't get too thrilled about the idea," said Vanya dryly. "Blind people are only interesting for the first ten minutes."
"He's joking," said Esther.
"So was I," said Terrel. "I better go now. And, uh... thanks." He took the kite and trotted out of the yard.
When he was gone, they were silent for a few moments, until Piotr set down the dog's corpse. Then he sighed. "Well, that's one less yipping pest."
"That dog died for me," said Vanya. "Speak no ill of him."
"He was talking about Terrel," said Esther. "And it wasn't a nice thing to say."
"Maybe I was talking about Ruthie," said Piotr.
"Oh," said Esther.
"I think my eyes are OK now," said Vanya. "Hose down those brownies. Dilute them into the lawn."
"It's going to be a bad day for the earthworms," said Piotr.
"Was it the Bitch Widow who put her up to it?" Vanya asked in proto-Slavonic.
"I think she lied to Ruthie about what the potions would do. The chicken was obviously supposed to be a love potion."
"What about the wasp?" asked Vanya.
"The Widow's familiar," said Esther.
"So is she dead now?"
"The wasp is. But the Widow is still ruining perfectly good air by breathing it."
Piotr brandished the can. "Your magic may be good for some things, but it was Johnson and I who stopped the wasp."
Esther hugged him. "Even though you don't understand all that we do, Piotr, you stood beside us when it counted."
"I feel like I just won a joust," said Piotr.
"Good lance work," said Ivan.
"I can't believe she found a way in," said Katerina.
"There's always a way in," said Esther. "Always."
"I hope so," said Vanya. "Because somehow we've got to return the favor and get past her defenses."
"You'll do it, too," said Esther. "But the picnic strategy is out."
They laughed. Nervously.
Baba Yaga
That afternoon in Tantalus the fire department was called out seven times, and not one of the fires was a false alarm. No one died, but five houses, a gas station, and a barn were lost. Every one of the fires was obviously arson, even without the presence of detectable accelerants, because they started in such impossible places. But no one saw anything suspicious before or after the fires, and after this one night of rage, the arsonist never struck again in Tantalus.
14
Fireworks
Katerina could hardly bring herself to eat supper that night. Not that she wasn't hungry—she was. But they had come so close to dying. The food here was already strange. None of it looked like anything. Everything was flavored with something else, so nothing tasted like itself. She hadn't really had much appetite since she left Sophia's house. And now Baba Yaga had found a way to get curses past the perfect protection of Ivan's mother's house.
Using Ruthie wouldn't be tried again. But Baba Yaga would find someone else. That boy, for instance. He was seething with resentments. Right now he seemed to like Ivan and his parents, but that could change, if Baba Yaga enticed him the right way, or fooled him about what he was doing, the way Ruthie was deceived. Or it might be Piotr himself, or Mother; every day they left the house to work, to shop, to run errands. Who knew what they might bring back with them? What familiar? What curse concealed in papers in Piotr's briefcase? Or in the grocery bags that Ivan helped Mother bring in from the car?
It was just a matter of time.
What was this food? Mother said it was potatoes, sliced thin, with a cheese sauce. But nothing looked or tasted like cheese, and she had no idea what potatoes were. Everything felt strange in her mouth.
She ate it anyway, chewing methodically. When one is at war with Baba Yaga, it's good to do it on a full stomach. You never know when the crisis might come, and you have to be at full strength.
But what strength did they have? All these tasks that Ivan had been working on, the gunpowder, the alcohol, the bombs, the Molotov cocktails—what good would such mechanical things do against magic? Yet Mother had such faith in them that Katerina went along.
And... there was the killing of the wasp today. That stream of liquid, and the wasp went down and died. A creature sustained as a familiar was very hard to kill. So maybe there was something to it after all...
He could have died. A bite of that piece of chicken, and he would have twitched himself to death within a few minutes. Not really my husband yet, but the only one I'll ever have. No child in me yet to inherit.
The time for waiting is over. Leaving the marriage half-done was supposed to keep Baba Yaga from attacking Taina. But it only provoked her all the more to attack Katerina and Ivan. And without Katerina, Taina was lost.
"You don't like it?" asked Mother.
It took Katerina a moment to realize what she was asking. Oh, yes. The potatoes. Or no—Mother had just offered her another platter. Of something. Stuff. It looked like strange turds on the platter, from some large, possibly sick animal.
"Salmon cakes," said Mother. "I make them myself, but not too spicy this time, I notice you don't like them spicy."
Katerina had learned the Ukrainian word spicy very quickly, after her first taste of jalapeños. Piotr and Ivan only laughed at her as she panicked, looking for water, something to stop the burning in her mouth. They made her eat bread, which worked much better than the water. "I forgot," said Ivan. "I forgot how hard it is to get used to the American way of cooking."
"Not as hard as the Jewish way of cooking," said Piotr.
Ivan rolled his eyes. "Kosher is good, too. Just different."
"Everything carried to extremes. The rabbi who made Jews keep two kitchens—I hope God has a special place in hell for him. What an absurdly elaborate effort, just to make sure you never accidentally boil a baby goat in its mother's milk!"
"I never made you eat kosher," Mother reminded him mildly.
"So we slip now and then," said Piotr. "For company."
Ivan laughed. "I think Katerina would have preferred kosher."
That was back when she first came here. Now she was more used to the flavors, and some were good—cinnamon, nutmeg—though Ivan loathed nutmeg and wouldn't eat anything in which it was detectable. Still, each new food was an unpleasant adventure. Couldn't they just leave meat in its natural form now and then? Couldn't bread look like bread, a fish like a fish?
"What's troubling you?" asked Piotr. "It's not the spiciness of the food."
"No, it's just... it's time to go back."
Piotr nodded, but his eyes teared up. It seemed to surprise him, how the emotion came so quickly to the surface. "Sorry," he said, dabbing at his eyes. "What a baby! But everything is so strange where you come from, this business of witches. Today I faced the worst thing in the world—to see your child die. I keep seeing him out there, like Edwin, limp, cold, empty. I held the dog and I thought, it was supposed to be Vanya. I gave the body to Mrs. Sprewel, and she burst into tears, sobbing, and I thought, that would have been me, grieving. How do I know I'll ever see you again, Vanya, once you leave?"