Baba watched out the open front door as his taillights vanished into the darkness. For a moment, her mind followed him, imagining a fantasy world where she drove off to deal with a Baba Yaga call, coming home to a little house with welcoming lit windows and someone to talk to who didn’t occasionally breathe fire by accident. In this illusionary dreamworld, a child’s laughter echoed in the distance, chasing a ball with a giant white dog.
Chudo-Yudo tugged on her pant leg and said irritably, “You’re letting all the rain in. And I’ve been talking to you for five minutes. Where is your head at?”
She closed the door regretfully on her foolish fancy and went over to plop down on the couch. “I was just thinking about how we were going to capture Maya,” she lied.
“Uh-huh.” Chudo-Yudo plopped down beside her, his head leaning against one thigh. “You were thinking about the hunky sheriff. I don’t blame you. If I weren’t a dragon, and a male one at that, I’d be drooling over him myself.” He lifted his muzzle to look at her. “So what are you going to do about him?”
Baba sighed. “Probably something truly unwise.”
“Excellent,” Chudo-Yudo said. “About time. No one should be wise all the time. Not even a Baba.”
TWENTY-ONE
BABA SWUNG HER leg over the BMW’s shiny black leather seat and started into the town’s only grocery store. The Airstream’s refrigerator was still filled with beautiful, glistening red cherry pies—all very good, but not what she wanted for breakfast. So she figured she’d make a quick run into Dunville to stock up before setting out on her mission to watch over little Kimberly.
She brushed against an older woman with tightly curled, improbably orange hair as they passed each other, and started to apologize. The woman’s face suffused with anger as she recognized Baba, and she shoved past with a snarl and a muttered, “Some people.” Baba tried not to react, but she could feel her jaw tighten.
Walking around with her basket over one arm, head held high, and shoulders braced, she watched as a man she’d successfully treated for a nasty personal infection ducked around a corner to avoid her. It would have been nice to believe it was out of embarrassment, and not a fear of being seen in her company, but she wasn’t that good at deluding herself.
The only friendly face she saw belonged to Jesse, who waved at her from the cereal aisle before being pulled back into a debate between little Trudy and Timmy over the virtues of Cocoa Puffs instead of homemade granola. Otherwise she was either ignored or scowled at.
Soft background music followed her, and the air was scented with the aroma of fresh bread and pungent local cheeses. She’d loved this tiny mom-and-pop store when she’d first gotten to town, finding excuses to come in even when her refrigerator wasn’t playing games. Todd, the proprietor, had gone out of his way to welcome her, and his plump maternal wife June had insisted Baba try a homemade cookie from the bakery counter she manned with the enthusiasm of a woman who lives to feed others.
But once Baba reached the front counter and placed her purchases down by the cash register for the clerk to ring up, Todd came bustling hurriedly out of the back room, his normally friendly face closed and resentful.
“You’re not welcome here,” he said, pushing the teenaged clerk rudely out of the way and scooping Baba’s groceries off of the counter and into the garbage can underneath, as if she had contaminated them beyond saving by her very touch. “You should be ashamed of yourself, coming into a place like this where decent people shop.” His scowl made him look like the monster he obviously thought Baba was. “Children come in here, for god’s sake. Get out. Get out right now and never come back. And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll get out of town too. Your type isn’t welcome here.”
Baba could feel her face freeze into a mask of calm indifference. “As you wish,” she said. “I’ll just take my business elsewhere.”
A purplish-red flush spread from collar to bald pate, following the trail of his righteous anger. “No one in this town will serve you,” he hissed. “Everyone knows what you are. Witch.” He hissed the word. “You tricked people into buying your fake sideshow medicines, and then poisoned them with the stuff. And nobody thinks it is a coincidence that all these freaky things have been happening since you got to town. The Franklins who live down the road from me, their cows dried up for no reason. If they can’t sell milk, they’ll lose their house, their land, everything.”
“I didn’t do that,” Baba said softly, knowing he wouldn’t listen. “I wouldn’t do that.”
The once kind man pulled a baseball bat from behind the register, obviously kept there in case of would-be troublemakers. He brandished it in her direction with shaking hands. “Get out of my store!” he shrieked.
Baba walked away and didn’t look back. She’d lost her appetite anyway.
*
BACK AT THE Airstream, there was still pie. Lots and lots of pie.