Babayaga

chunk of steel, right? But like so much else, they are very wrong, guns are not important; they are stupid. But…” She held up her finger to make a point, then suddenly went back into her carpetbag, searching and digging until she came up with a box. “Bullets yes, bullets are important.”
    “What do you have a gun for? What do you shoot?” asked Noelle.
    “Oh, I’ve shot lots of things. Mostly food, animals, some troublemakers,” said Elga. “The other day, I had to shoot a stupid pig to shut up his big pig mouth. I was careful, though, I only used one bullet, see?” She pulled at the loading gate on the gun, unslid the rod, and the chamber popped out. Noelle could see it was full of bullets except for one empty casing. Elga popped the empty casing out, took a bullet from the box, and refilled the chamber. “First, I walked into the man’s store and put the gun right up to his head and pulled the trigger. No chance of missing there. Then, to be sure the idiot stayed quiet, I cut out his tongue.”
    “Ew, what did you do with it?”
    “Mmmn, well, um, tongues are tender,” said Elga. “They taste good in a nice meat stew.” She chuckled, set the gun down on the bedside table, and went digging into the bag again.
    Noelle knew she should be frightened or shocked, but instead she was numb to all these new surprises. She simply took them in. She had been sleeping for much of the last day, still exhausted from her baptism in the hotel bath. Each time she had awoken, the old woman had been sitting by her side, stroking her hair and rambling on with strange lessons. “Listen now, where other people see trees, you should see fire, and if they look up to the mountaintops, you watch their feet.” And then: “Men are like lakes, broad, big, and easy to navigate; women are rivers, small, narrow, with deep, twisting currents.” And then: “Reading is important, but all kinds. When we learned how to read words, we forgot how to read dirt.” Sometime in the middle of the night, Noelle had awoken briefly to hear her still talking: “Remember, the earth is angry, it bristles with weapons. So don’t be slow, seize them, rip them up from the soil, and shove them right into your enemy’s throat.” Noelle had fallen back to sleep and dreamt of being a ballerina standing at the barre again, practicing her demi- and grand-pliés until her blistered feet were soaked in blood. When she awoke it was still dark and the old woman was looking out the window muttering at the night sky. “They think by reaching the moon they will discover some big truth. Idiots. They go so far for what? For handfuls of dust. If you want the moon’s secrets, ask a fish.”
    Noelle noticed that the rat came and went, disappearing for hours at a time through a small crack in the baseboard. Every time Max returned, Elga fed him some breadcrumbs. The final lesson she had said that day was: “You will find each time you use your power, it hurts. Like a giant fighter with big fists punching you. The pain is good, though, it feels like”—the old woman paused to search for the right word—“… I do not know.”
    It was the next evening that Noelle learned her first spell. It was after room service had arrived and Elga had washed down a dozen escargots with a bottle of Riesling. After a long burp, she walked across the room and put the empty wineglass on the mantel. “There, see that?”
    The girl nodded.
    “Make it vanish.”
    Noelle looked at her, bewildered. “How?”
    The old woman took a vial of pink-colored sand out of the pocket of her dress. “You clap some of this, and when you do, you tell it to go away.”
    “The glass can hear me?”
    “How am I supposed to know what a glass hears?” Elga scoffed. “I’m not a glass, stupid. Just try.”
    The girl held open her hand and Elga poured the sand into her palm. Then Noelle stared at the wineglass for a moment, trying to concentrate on it. It seemed odd and impossible, but the old woman was insistent. Giving the glass as evil a glare as she could muster, Noelle clapped the dust together in her hands and shouted, “ Disappear! ”
    It vanished. The mantel was bare. Noelle did not have time to be amazed before the nausea came up fast and she retched onto the rug. Elga sat down beside her and patted her leg. “Good, good. Don’t worry about that,” she said, nodding toward the vomit on the floor. “The maid will get it.” Then Elga took the Riesling bottle again and