Page 56 of Into The Green

But Doyle was wrong too.

Because Cece was scorned.

And I had been the one to do it.

THIRTEEN

Cece

I may or may not have had to stifle a scream as I turned back. But as I did, all I saw was a woman with slightly graying hair and kind honey-brown eyes. "You're welcome," she said, giving me an almost maternal smile and moving to the side with an arm held out, inviting me in. I swallowed hard, trying to reinforce my shield and moving to do so.

I stepped into the small cabin to find, well, what sort-of confirmed my suspicions about a healer or medicine woman. The walls were lined with drying herbs and flowers. There were mortars and pestles in varying sizes strewn about and dozens of mason jars filled with spices and, well, other things I didn't want to think about as they looked like maybe they were body parts of small animals. It was small and cramped with a makeshift kitchen area directly to the left with a fireplace used for cooking. The center held a small, ancient-looking dining table. To the right was a seating area with worn, mismatched furniture.

It was quaint, dated but in a charming, old world kind of way.

But that wasn't what had me taking a step back. That was the fact that six women were in the small space. They were all of varying ages. The youngest must have been a teenager still, the oldest had the look of skin stretched over bone and sinew, her gray hair just tufts on her head. All were dressed in modest brown dresses that reached their ankles, mostly shapeless, obviously meant for function and not fashion.

Each of them was set to a certain task. Some were grinding things, another was cleaning, one was stuffing things into satchels, one was mixing something on the fire. My stomach growled at the idea of actual cooked food, but I knew I couldn't eat there. I knew I would have to tough it out.

Everything seemed rather... normal. The women seemed happy, one humming a song softly as she dusted surfaces.

Then, like a bell was struck, every head snapped up and looked in the direction of the small hall where two doors were situated. The furthest one opened and I could hear footsteps, pounding like the bass beat of my heart in my chest.

I wasn't sure what I had been expecting, something supernatural. Maybe with funny colored skin, wings, weird eyes, talons. I had no idea. I hadn't been expecting a crone. Really, that was all that came to mind when the woman came into the room. She was a perfect representation of a crone with her slight body in long, draping fabrics, her endless mass of wavy, dry gray hair, her keen bright blue eyes, her bent hands with darkened spots, and the wrinkles that seemed to be enveloping her entire face. If you looked closely, there was a faded blue crescent moon shaped tattoo whose points disappeared into her hairline at the top of her forehead.

"What'd he do?" she asked, her voice a bit croaking. It should have been an offensive sound, but I somehow found myself drawn to it instead.

"What did who do?"

"You can't cross the spells around this ground if you aren't upset with a man you care for," she explained. "Who is he and what did he do?"

"Oh," I said, shaking my head a little. "Really, it's nothing. Not even worth talking about. I'm actually here because I'm lost. I was, I guess... under some kind of spell, following this flickering light that led me here."

The crone shook her head, rolling her eyes like she was sick of the shenanigans as she shuffled toward her kitchen. "Will-o'-the-Wisps, always thinking they're funny."

So that was a Will-o'-the-Wisp. No wonder Drake had used that as the excuse for why I was on Winters land. It truly was uncontrollable. I had been helpless but to follow.

"Don't suppose you'd let me offer you tea?" she asked, pouring herself a cup of hot water from a small pot hanging in the fireplace then reaching into a tin on a shelf above the fireplace, taking a handful of something and dropping it right in the water, no satchel, no steeper, nothing. She shuffled over toward her table and gestured for me to sit across from her. "I'm Baba Yaga," she said with meaning though it meant nothing to me.

"Ah, I'm... Cece."

"Celestine," she corrected. "And that is a hunk of jasper situated against your breast. Try to tell me you aren't here because of a man. A man with the same name as that gemstone, perhaps."

"A gnome gave it to me," I said, uncomfortable with how much she knew.

"Even more damning. Tell me about Jasper."

Not sure it could actually cause any harm and wanting to placate her so she didn't get pissed off, I shrugged. "He's the brother of my best friend. She's... lost in The Green somewhere so we have been looking for her. It hasn't exactly been an easy task so far..."

"Not if that ankle, those ribs, and that face have anything to say about it," she agreed, letting out a gravely, rough noise that I didn't know how to interpret. But then a second later, one of the women shuffled over, the one who seemed like a teenager, and reached for my ankle. "Let her," Baba Yaga told me, waving a hand. "She will set it so you stop making it worse. Now, back to this Jasper. He's not just the brother to your best friend, is he?"

"Really, it's nothing. We made out twice and then..." I clamped my mouth shut, embarrassed.

"Then?" she prompted, sounding bored. "He took your innocence."

I snorted hard, laughing a little nervously. "Yeah, no. That shipped sailed back in freshman year."

"Changeling," Baba Yaga observed, brows knitting.