Wickedly Ever After: A Baba Yaga Novella(8)
***
Four days later, not long after sunrise, Beka opened her door and said, “Hey! What are you guys doing here?”
Chewie stuck his large head around her legs and said, “They’re going to think you’re not happy to see them, with a greeting like that.” He and Chudo-Yudo rubbed noses affectionately, tiny flames dribbling out of their nostrils.
“Oh, sorry! That’s not what I meant. I was just surprised,” Beka said, giving Barbara a big hug and then giving one to Liam for good measure. Little Babs still wasn’t very comfortable with being touched, although she would occasionally pat Liam or Barbara on an arm or shoulder as a way of showing affection, so Beka just smiled at the girl.
“You were here not that long ago. I thought you were planning to stay home for a while. You weren’t Called out here on some kind of a mission, were you?” Beka looked around as if some catastrophe might be lurking around the corner. “I figured if anything came up around here, I’d be Called to handle it.” Uncertainty lurked in her blue eyes.
Barbara wasn’t much more of a hugger than Babs was most of the time, but she knew that Beka had struggled to build up her confidence after her mentor, Brenna, had purposely torn it down. She put her arm around the younger woman. “Quite the contrary, actually. We’ve come to you for help.”
Beka’s eyes widened. “You did? Wow. I guess you’d better come in and tell me all about it. I’m sorry you missed Marcus, but he’s already taken the fishing boat out for the day.”
“Can we go sit by the ocean?” Babs asked. “We have to talk about the ocean anyway.”
“You do?” Beka smiled at Babs and then looked at her adoptive parents. “Is that okay with you? We should be able to find a place to sit by ourselves. It’s early enough in the day that it’s mostly only surfers and a few people walking their dogs.”
“I am not wearing a leash,” Chudo-Yudo said warningly.
Barbara rolled her eyes. “As if I’d try to put a leash on you. I might as well just set myself on fire and cut out the middleman. This is California; you’ll be fine. Just stick close and try not to scare the natives.”
“I don’t care about him scaring them,” Liam muttered. “As long as he doesn’t eat them.”
Chudo-Yudo sniffed. “Take a bite out of one hunter and everyone holds it against you forever. I was friends with that deer and the guy was trespassing on our land. Jeez.”
“Huh,” Beka said. “At least Chewie has never tried to eat anyone, although he has been known to shower everyone in a ten-square-foot area when he shakes the water off his fur.”
“I would rather eat s’mores,” Chewie said with dignity. “People taste bad.”
Liam rubbed one hand over tired eyes. “I’ll tell you what. The first person who gets me a cup of coffee can eat anything or anyone he or she wants.” He yawned.
Beka laughed and snapped her fingers, producing a steaming cup. “Here, take mine. I’ll pack us up a little breakfast picnic and we can go sit on the beach and eat while you tell me what brought you all the way out here that you actually think I could help you with. This ought to be good.”
***
“Well, that’s bad,” Beka said when they’d finished telling her the story of the Queen’s challenge. “And it doesn’t bode well for me and Marcus when I go to her to ask for the same favor. Three impossible tasks in two weeks? That’s harsh, dude.”
“That’s the Queen for you,” Barbara said. She licked a bit of cream cheese off of one finger and dusted bagel crumbs onto the sand. In deference to the California heat and the beach, she’d traded in her usual black leather for a long cotton batik skirt and a cropped red top that made her cloud of black hair seem even darker.
“She’s as volatile as she is beautiful. I’ve seen her be incredibly kind and generous, but she can also be cruel. I’d been hoping for the first one this time, but . . .” She sighed, laying her head on Liam’s shoulder for a moment.
Liam placed a light kiss on her forehead, keeping his eyes on Babs’s tiny figure as she played by the edge of the waves. Her narrow face, with its pointed chin and snub nose, wore a slightly less solemn expression than usual as she ran in and out of the frothing water. Chewie stood guard a few feet away, the water-loving dragon-dog ready to race to the rescue if the girl was surprised by an unusually large wave.
Barbara’s heart swelled so much it felt as though it would burst out of her chest. She’d never expected any of this strange and unfamiliar familial joy and the thought of losing it, too few years down the line, gave her an unaccustomed feeling of panic.
“So that’s the story,” she said. “We thought that maybe you might be able to help us with the first task, since you’re so in tune with the ocean.” Hope threatened to swamp her like one of the waves farther down the beach.
Beka looked thoughtful, pushing her waist-length straight blonde hair out of the way as the wind blew it into her face. Her long tanned legs stuck out in front of her, toned by hours of surfing and swimming. “Catch the song of the ocean in a bottle,” she repeated. “I don’t know how to do that.”
Barbara’s breakfast turned to stone in her stomach. “Oh. Well, it was worth a try.”
“No, no,” Beka said. “It’s okay. I’m pretty sure I know someone who will, and he owes me. But we’ll have to wait until dusk to ask him.”