Wickedly Magical (Baba Yaga, #0.5)(7)
“Very well,” she said, feeling fate’s steely grip settle like a mantle around her shoulders. “I grant your request.”
Ivan’s expression was a combination of shock, gratitude, and a little alarm. “You do? I mean, thank you.”
“Don’t thank me until it’s all over,” Barbara said grimly. “Something tells me this isn’t going to end well for everyone involved. Someone may get turned into a frog yet.” And that was the good news.
***
After Ivan left, Barbara dug her laptop out from the back of the kitchen cabinet where it lived, finally finding it hiding behind Chudo-Yudo’s extra water bowl, a pile of ancient cookbooks, and a forgotten jar of raspberry jam. At least she hoped it was raspberry jam.
As much as she disliked technology (she still refused to get one of those silly cell phone things), the lure of easy access to knowledge had been too hard to resist, hence the computer. But she used it so rarely, it didn’t make any sense to keep it out in the open.
Still, it came in handy on occasion. Like when she needed to see what she could find out about one Jonathan Bellingwood.
An hour later, she had some interesting facts and a few more questions that even access to the magic of the Internet didn’t seem able to answer.
“Hmm,” she said. “‘Curiouser and curiouser,’ to quote Alice.”
Chudo-Yudo looked up from gnawing on the remains of his bone. There wasn’t much left. “What?”
“It’s a quote from Alice in Wonderland,” Barbara said.
“I know that,” the dragon said grumpily. “I’ve read my Lewis Carroll. I meant, what is so curious?”
Barbara pushed the laptop away and rubbed her eyes. “Well, there is plenty of information on Jonathan Bellingwood. Some articles in the local paper about his ‘spiritual retreat’ as he calls it, some advertisements for talks he’s given, and a couple of the usual unhappy letters to the editor about cults invading the neighborhood. All of which, interestingly, appear to then be retracted by the writer in the following edition.”
She wandered over to the coffeemaker and asked it nicely for a cup of French roast. She got something she was pretty sure was Ethiopian, but at least it wasn’t orange juice. Or a vodka martini. Like everything else in the Airstream, the coffeemaker had a mind of its own.
“So what’s so curious about that?” Chudo-Yudo asked.
“Two things,” she replied, savoring a sip of coffee that only smelled faintly of blue roses, a necessity in a Baba Yaga’s diet. Her sister Baba, Beka, who lived in California, put them in her sushi rolls. Ugh. Raw fish. Barbara thought it was much easier to let the coffeemaker deal with them.
“The first is that Ivan seems to be the only person to have actually had an issue with the man and stuck with it. I found a few reports of parents complaining that their daughters had disappeared into this commune and not come home, but no one else ever seems to have pursued the issue. Unless we’re assuming that all these girls eventually returned, which is unlikely, I’m guessing that our mysterious friend was able to persuade everyone else to do what he wanted.”
“And the second thing?”
“I can’t find any references to Jonathan Bellingwood before about two years ago. There is one article from when he first arrived in DeKalb in which he mentions coming from the Monterey Bay area, but when I looked for information about him there, I came up empty.” She slammed shut the lid of the laptop in frustration and shoved it back under the counter. “Bah.”
“Well, that leaves two options,” Chudo-Yudo said reasonably. He was way too accustomed to her occasional bouts of crankiness to be impressed by them. Besides, any fits of pique not accompanied by gouts of flame were pretty minor in his book. Her other sister, Bella, whose elemental affinity was fire, now she had some impressive shows of temper.
“Oh?” Barbara was annoyed enough, she was even willing to take input from a dog. She hated it when she hit a wall. Unless she actually got to hit a wall in the process. That she kind of enjoyed. “And what would those be, pray tell?”
The dragon-dog held up one black-clawed toe. “One: he was lying about coming from California.”
“Or?”
A second claw joined the first. “Or two: he was there, but either keeping a lower profile, or using a different name. Luckily, we know someone who lives out there who might be able to do some poking around in person.”
Barbara suddenly cheered up, both at the possibility of solving the mystery, and at having an excuse to talk to one of her favorite people.
“Good point, your furriness!” she said, and went to fetch her scrying mirror.
***
Barbara might not have had a cell phone, but luckily, she didn’t need one to talk to one of her fellow Babas. In this case, she was going to try and contact Beka, the youngest of the three Baba Yagas who lived in the United States. While all Babas traveled around quite a bit while taking care of their various duties, they tended to have a one particular place they called home. Luckily for Barbara, Beka liked to park her converted school bus (also once a hut on chicken legs, of course) on a small lot overlooking Monterey Bay.
With the curtains closed against the oncoming night, Barbara placed her scrying mirror—smooth black glass backed by silver that was etched with arcane symbols and ancient runes for communication—carefully on the table in front of the couch. With Chudo-Yudo sitting quietly next to her, she turned off the light and lit a fat yellow candle with a snap of her fingers.