“You said we had a long walk ahead of us,” Shew licked her lips, tempted to taste the house.
“That’s strange,” Cerené said. “It should have been. I guess the house changed places just as the Schloss does. I told you it’s haunted. I even heard there was a doorway inside that transports you straight to the Schloss.”
“Let’s go,” she dashed in front of Cerené toward the candy.
“Wait! It’s messing with your head,” Cerené ran after Shew, slapping her hands before reaching for the house. “Did you hear me?” she shook Shew harder. “The house is messing with your head. Once you eat from the house, you will faint. I just told you that.”
Shew felt as if waking up from a dream within a dream. She blinked twice to make sure she was herself again. The house surely had and effect on her.
“What does she need all those children for?” Shew asked.
“Like I said, she eats them, mostly the boys,” Cerené pulled Shew away from the doorstep. She crouched so they wouldn’t be exposed if someone opened the door. “As for the girls, you should be able to guess what she does with the young, ripe and beautiful ones.”
Shew took a moment to think about it. She gasped as the answer hit her.
“Yes,” Cerené nodded. “She sends them to the Queen, your mother, to feed on them so she can stay beautiful forever,” she made a silly face when saying ‘beautiful.’ “That’s horrid,” Shew gazed at the door over Cerené’s shoulder.
“What’s not horrid in your family?” Cerené shrugged her shoulders. “No wonder you’re called the Sorrows.”
“Again, I’m not insulted in any way,” it was Shew’s turn to shrug her shoulders.
“News has been exchanged in Sorrow recently about a number of peasant girls disappearing in the Schloss,” Cerené elaborated. “So the Queen came up with the plan to use Baba Yaga’s hunger for young people to supply her with plenty of them. Once the Queen drinks and bathes in their blood, she sends the bodies back to Baba Yaga to stew them and eat them. Baba Yaga likes the flesh but spits out the bones.”
“Baba Yaga? What an unusual name,” Shew remarked.
“Of course she has to have an unusual name,” Cerené said. “She eats children!”
The two girls started laughing.
What’s there not to laugh about, Shew thought. This whole dream with Cerené was made of mountains of silly upon mountains of sillier, mixed with a great deal of blood and scary stuff. It was just like life in the Waking World, a set of unfortunate incomprehensible happenings that made no sense. The best way to come back at life is to laugh at it.
“I heard her name resembled the voices she makes when chewing,” Cerené elaborated. “Baba is the sound she makes when she gulps: babababa! And yaga is the sound she makes with her mouth when she tries to chew the bones: yayayaga!”
She also noticed Cerené’s laugh was more infectious and bigger than anyone she had ever met. She laughed as if it was her last day on earth. Her mouth stretched, and her eyes became bigger, her two cute dimples showed from underneath the sticky ashes—and of course, her freckles popped out.
Looking down the hill, Shew noticed a small village in the distance, “do the people in the village down there know about this house?” Shew wondered.
“I don’t think so,” Cerené said. “They are nice people. The village is called Furry Tell. There is a funny story behind the name—“
Suddenly, the door of Candy House sprang open.
13
A Sack Full of Dead Children
A nose appeared from behind the door.
It was a crooked nose, bigger than the biggest carrot they’d ever seen, and slightly dented in the middle. Baba Yaga’s deformed face came after, creeping out under the thin beam from the pumpkin lantern above her. Her face reminded Shew of crumple pies, covered with bumps and sticky juice. Baba Yaga’s face looked like a face someone had nibbled on many times.
“It’s her,” Cerené whispered, shivering and holding Shew’s hand. “The shawl she wears is made of cracked children’s bones.
“Don’t worry,” Shew said.
Shew watched as Baba Yaga began to step out of the house. She walked as fast as a dead turtle. Her body was round, like a cauldron with a head. Her feet protruded from under her feathery cloak. Shew gasped as she noticed Baba Yaga had chicken legs and chicken feet! She thought they must have been the creepiest feet in the world.
“Why is she taking so long to come out of the house?” Shew whispered, noticing that Baba Yaga, with her crooked nose and chicken legs, looked like a giant evil bird.
“It’s the sack that’s slowing her down,” Cerené whispered back. “The sack on her back is full of sedated girls. She’s on her way to the Queen.”