Hammer of Witches by Shana Mlawski Page B

me out of my trance. “How can I be late?” I said over my shoulder. “I’ve never even met you before!”
    In answer the woman wiped the bottom of her large nosewith one of her curled fingers. She unwrapped the final scarf from her head, revealing white, corkscrewing hair that gave her the look of an elderly medusa. Sniffling, she motioned toward one of the chairs around her table and said, “Have a seat, have a seat.”
    I obliged, and she sat in the chair across from me, the dwarf with liver spots on her drooping cheeks. “Are you the Baba Yaga?” I asked her.
    “I see you brought the ifritah with you,” she answered, her voice both sympathetic and teasing. “You poor dear,” she said to Jinniyah. “Did Amir leave you behind again?”
    Behind me Jinniyah sat on the ground on her knees, focusing tearfully on a knot in the wood floor. “Please don’t say that,” I said in a low voice to the Baba Yaga. “She’s really sensitive about him. It hurts her feelings.”
    When the Baba Yaga laughed, her neck inflated like a frog’s. “Feelings! What feelings? That girl is a figment, my boy! A mere wisp of air, a daydream! Oh, I’ve no doubt she’s told you she’s a genie. But she’s not even that. A half-genie. Half-human. Can’t even grant her own wishes.”
    The witch’s voice was so mocking, so easily cruel, that I shot right up from my seat. And before I knew what I was saying, I heard myself shout, “Well, you’re not anything special, you jealous old witch!”
    Regret immediately took me by the throat and pushed me back down in my chair. Why had I done that? The womansitting in front of me was supposedly a master of Storytelling. Who knew what awful spell she was about to cast on me?
    But the crone’s sea-green eyes merely flashed at me. “‘Jealous’?” she repeated, carefully weighing the word. “Interesting. Young men usually ask me to answer their questions, not the other way around. Tell me, boy. What is it, exactly, that I am jealous of?”
    I didn’t know what would be worse: to answer or not to answer. I glanced back at Jinniyah, cleared my throat, and mumbled, “Her youth.”
    The Baba Yaga’s eyes became narrower, and the thin line on her face ticked up into a wide, evil V. “So you are clever, son of al-Katib. Take care that your cleverness is not your ruin.”
    In punctuation, a strong gust of wind threw open one of the cabin’s windows and brushed away the light of the nearest candles. “There is a story from my village about cleverness,” the Baba Yaga said. “It is about a king who had three daughters, and on their thirteenth birthday, he asked each of them to make a wish. The first daughter, a raven-haired girl, wished for beauty, and she grew up to be the most beautiful woman in the land. The second daughter, a fair-haired girl, wished for love. When she was older she married a prince and had many children, each of whom loved her more than anything in the world.
    “But the third daughter, the scarlet-haired child . . . she was like you, son of al-Katib. She wished for cleverness. Whenshe was older people would come from all over the kingdom to ask her questions, and she would always have the perfect answer for them.
    “One day a prince came from afar, seeking a bride. Every woman he met he would ask, ‘Fair lady, what is the fastest thing in the world?’ Many beautiful women considered the question and gave answers such as ‘a horse’ or ‘an eagle.’ But the scarlet-haired daughter knew the real answer. ‘The fastest thing in the world,’ she said, ‘is the human mind.’ The prince married her then and there, and they enjoyed several happy years together.
    “Little did the scarlet-haired princess know that her wish had also been a curse. Soon she realized that, every time she was asked a question, a new wrinkle would appear on her face, and a new spot would appear on her skin. By the time she was married five years, she already looked like an old