Orson Card - Enchantment

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?"

"You don't," said Ivan. "But here we're easy targets. The Maginot Line."

Katerina had no idea what he was talking about. But Piotr understood. "I know," he said, "it's right to go. And with Katerina's father in trouble—no, you have to go."

"What I don't understand," said Mother, "is why we can't go, too."

Everyone looked at her in surprise. Piotr immediately thought it was a good idea. Ivan seemed to have doubts, but was slow to answer. It fell to Katerina.

"You're not trained for war," said Katerina. "You're very good—but when the Widow is at her full strength, you're no match for her."

"And you are?"

"I'm the princess," said Katerina. "The hearts of the people are gathered in me. When a king has the love of the people, then whatever he does has the power of the people in it. My spells will have that. I've learned from you, Mother, and that's good. But in Taina, when I cast the same spell, it will have many times the strength than if you were to cast it. Do you understand me?"

Mother nodded, closing her eyes. "I understand, but I can't believe I wouldn't be useful."

"You would be useful to her," said Katerina. "She would use her power to overwhelm you, and then rule you."

"She could never turn me."

"She turned Dimitri," said Katerina.

"Dimitri wanted to be turned," said Ivan.

Katerina shook her head. "No. She lied to him."

"Dimitri wanted to be king," said Ivan. "She can only use the desires already in a man's heart."

"When did you become a scholar of magic?" asked Katerina hotly.

Ivan raised his eyebrows. "I've read every damn thing ever written about the folklore of magic."

"But you didn't believe in it," said Katerina.

"I do now."

"And you've never done it."

"No," said Ivan. "And you've never led an army into battle. And I had never fought a bear before. But go ahead, you're probably right, except if the Widow can force people to want what they never wanted, then who is safe? Whom can you trust?"

His argument was compelling. Baba Yaga hadn't turned many people, and Katerina was sure it wasn't from lack of trying. She could fool poor simple folk, like Sergei's mother, but only in fairly innocuous ways—she could get the old woman to spread false gossip by lying to her. But she couldn't have made her kill. She could get information out of people, but she couldn't make them betray their neighbors. Dimitri did what he did because it was already in his heart to do it.

And nothing was certain in life.

"I have to trust everyone," said Katerina, "and yet there's no one I can really be sure of."

"You can be sure of me," said Ivan.

She looked at him, searching his face. I've known you so little time. The others I knew all my life. The others are my own people. You are a stranger, from a strange time and place. I know what they can do, what they will do. I have no idea of what you are or what is in your hands and heart and mind.

And yet when you tell me I can be sure of you, I am sure.