Page 58 of Into The Green

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Jasper

I could sense the cottage as I got closer. The air was harsher, the woods more inhospitable, like everything around me was warning me to turn back before it was too late. And as much as I wanted to, I couldn't. Cece had charged into a fucking dungeon then sacrificed herself when she got hurt to save me. I couldn't repay that by leaving her in Baba Yaga's clutches.

Little was known about the women who went in and didn't come back out again. Rumors had always abounded about family members looking for their loved ones for decades. If they did eventually reappear, they were changed women and wouldn't speak of their time with Baba Yaga.

It was hard for me to accept that Cece would ever fully turn on me, no matter how shitty I had been. She wasn't that kind of woman. She was the type to save her pride and act like nothing bothered her. She wasn't a vengeful woman. All that being said, I had no idea if Baba Yaga used some kind of persuasion to get men's names out of the women so she could enjoy her sadistic torture of them. It wasn't that I didn't think many of the men deserved it. When it came to horrific acts, fae had humans beat by leaps and bounds. Even the Light fae were capable of worse evils than most humans could even conjure up for entertainment in their sick movie franchises.

So, yeah, maybe the existence of Baba Yaga was a good thing for womankind because some men deserved her particularly inventive forms of torture. But some did not mean all. And I wasn't sure that Baba Yaga was capable of making that distinction. No one ever spoke of their encounters with her. For all we knew, she was a fully vengeful creature, not able to differentiate between the severity of crimes.

And that was absolutely fucking terrifying.

I came upon it twenty minutes later, it feeling all too soon. I felt no more prepared to act than I had when I walked away from Doyle. What the fuck could I even do?

The cottage was small and aged, looking like, because it probably had, been there since the beginning of time. It looked like a healer's hovel. Inviting and serene even in the hard early morning sun.

I took a deep breath and moved toward it and outstretched my hand to where her land started, ready to snatch it back at the first sign of trouble. My finger felt the buzz of some sort of spelled forcefield, electric, a little uncomfortable, but not painful. But when I tried to force more of my arm in, it shocked me hard enough for my entire body to jolt as I wrenched backward to inspect my hand.

The skin was red and warm, but not damaged.

"Jasper?" an unfamiliar female voice called, making my head snap up.

I'd never seen the woman before in my life. But that didn't stop me from recognizing her. It was in the white-blonde hair, in the sharp features, in the long and lean body, the light eyes. There was no mistaking her for anyone but who she must have been: a close relative of my mother. If age was anything to go by, like a sister.

"That's me," I agreed as she approached, her drab brown shapeless dress doing nothing to mask the grace with which she did so. "And you are?"

"Oh," she said, rushing forward, reaching past the field and grabbing my hands, squeezing them hard enough to hurt. "Oh, my baby. My dear, dear boy. I never thought I would see you again!"

She threw herself forward, wrapping her arms around me and squeezing me with every bit of strength in her thin body.

What the fuck?

--

Cece

We were in the middle of a conversation when suddenly Baba Yaga went rigid, every muscle in her already contorted body tightened. Her hands slammed down on the surface of the table, grabbing the sides as her head snapped up toward the ceiling, her eyes going whitish.

"Don't worry," the oldest woman, shy of Baba Yaga herself, said as she walked over, moving to wipe the spilled tea off the tabletop. "She's having a vision. She'll be back to you in a minute."

"You're sure?" Baba Yaga asked the ceiling of the cottage, body starting to shake violently. "Yes. Yes, I will." Her head snapped down, chin tucked to chest as she drew a raspy breath, her body slowly starting to relax. Her gaze slipped to mine, all the white haze gone. "You are in serious danger in The Green. The nightmares," she said as if to confirm to me that she knew what she was talking about. "They have been worse. You're remembering them when waking now, yes?"

"Yes," I said, belly tightening.

"Because, as you've surely figured out by now, they aren't nightmares."

"They're memories," I said with a nod.

"The closer you get to the Dark realm, the stronger they will get, the more you will remember. These are things best left buried. For your own safety and for all those you have begun to love."

"You mean Jade?"

"Jade," she said with a wave of her hand. "Your Jasper. The nymph-mutt," she said, meaning Doyle. "That barguest. Even that draca and the shy girl with the heart of a warrior," she said, meaning Jasper's sister Amy. "They are all in danger if you unearth what has been hidden, hidden for reasons you can not even begin to understand. You will live. And they will live to regret ever having met you."

"Why would anyone use them against me? I'm no one."

Baba Yaga gave me a humorless smile, the kind you might give a child who is being particularly dense. "Your friends," she started, "do they have forcefields that pop up around them when they are in danger? Do they turn into a living, breathing, chemical burn when they touch the skin of an enemy? Do random creatures give them gifts? Can they block out a much older fae from entering their minds? Or are they maybe just a little more loving, a little more brave, a little more charming?" she asked, obviously knowing the answers. I hadn't thought of it that way. I figured there were other things that Jade, Jasper, and Doyle had power-wise that they didn't use. "You see, surely you have found with your nymph-mutt, that the longer you are in The Green, the stronger your natural skills and urges get. Celestine," she said, leaning slightly across the table as if what she was about to say was gravely important, "you don't want to see what you might become if you continue this mission of yours."