The Invitation (12 page)

She grabbed Tim by the ankles and lowered him upside down out the window. His eyes nearly popped out of his head. The house was on top of a pair of chicken legs. He could see the huge clawed feet as they took great big steps forward.

She's not kidding
, he realized with horror.
There's no way for Rose to find me
.

Baba Yaga dragged Tim back into the hut, banging his head on the windowsill as she did. No matter how much Tim squirmed or kicked or
fought, her strong grip never loosened. It seemed that she didn't feel the slightest resistance.

“You're a thin one, but there's a little bit of meat on those ribs. Good!” she declared, slamming him onto a table and poking his side. She flipped him over and smacked his butt. “Steak on that rump. Good!” When she turned Tim over again, he realized she'd wrapped him in twine. She was tying him up!

“And heart to chew.” Baba Yaga tossed him over her shoulder and carried him to the fireplace. She lifted him up and hung him, upside down, from a hook. “And eyes to suck and tongue to boil and eat piping hot.” She tweaked his nose through the twine.

“I really think you ought to let me go,” Tim said in as reasonable a tone as he could. He hoped being polite might win him some points. Seeing as he was trussed and hanging like a side of beef, he had no other options. Clearly he was no match for her in the strength department. Maybe the kids at home in London were right and he
was
a wimp.

“I'll be back soon, my juicy. Baba Yaga needs vegetables, yes. And herbs and kindling.”

She grabbed a broomstick from the corner and crossed to the window. “Oooh, such feasting I will make. The grease will run down my chin, and I will crack your bones with my iron teeth to suck
the marrow from within.” It seemed she would faint with anticipation. She pulled herself together. “Window! Open you wide!”

The window did as it was commanded. Baba Yaga hopped aboard her broomstick and flew out.

“Oh, this isn't good,” Tim moaned.

“I don't know,” a small voice said nearby. “If she gets some nice crisp carrots, it might make for something quite passable.”

Startled, Tim turned his head. He had thought he was alone in the hut. He found himself staring into the face of a rabbit that was hanging upside down beside him.

A talking rabbit!

“D
ID YOU—DID YOU
say something?” Tim said to the rabbit. He felt foolish even asking the question, but so many strange things had happened so far, why not talking animals? He had definitely heard someone speak, and the rabbit was the only one it could be. Well, the rabbit or the little hedgehog hanging upside down next to the rabbit.

“Tsk tsk tsk,” the rabbit tsk'd between its large front teeth. “You've done it this time, matey.”

“What?” Tim asked.

“He's right, you know,” the hedgehog said in a little squeak of a voice. “You're going to be stew.”

“I mean, me and Master Redlaw here.” The rabbit tipped its head toward the hedgehog. “We're fairly used to the idea of endin' up in a pot.”

“So to speak, Master Leveret,” the hedgehog
said, nodding its prickly head rapidly. “Although mostly us hedge-pigs is encased in clay and roasted in embers.” He stretched his neck in an attempt to bring his face closer to Tim's. “On account of us havin' us prickles,” he added in a confidential whisper.

“Stands corrected, Master Redlaw,” the rabbit conceded. “Stands corrected and grateful to yer, I must say.”

“Um…” Tim began, but then didn't know what else to say so he left it at that.

“Oooooh, blimey,” the rabbit said. “We's forgettin' our manners again, matey. Must be something to do with hanging upside down. All that blood to the tips of the ears.”

“Yes, yes, of course.” The hedgehog nodded enthusiastically. Tim twisted to avoid being pricked by the hedgehog's spines.

“I'm Master Leveret,” the rabbit said. “And this is Master Redlaw.”

The hedgehog nodded. “That's me!”

“We is all she'd caught before she got you.”

“And you might be?” asked Master Redlaw, the hedgehog.

“I'm Tim. Timothy Hunter.”

First a gasp, then both animals chuckled. They looked at each other, and Tim had the distinct feeling that if they were untied—and
human—they'd be slapping each other's backs over the joke they shared.

“A hunter, eh?” chortled Master Leveret the rabbit. “Well, then, this must be a might turnaround for you.”

“Hah! Here's a hunter, and he's the one what's been hunted!” Master Redlaw guffawed. “And caught, I must say!”

“I'm not a hunter,” Tim protested. “It's just my name.”

“Oh, lad, we know all about names. Just so long as you don't hunt hares, I won't make issue of it, laddie.”

“Or hedge-pigs,” Master Redlaw added. “I won't be standing for people who'd be hunting hedge-pigs. Because of me taking it personally, don'tcha know.”

“Well, sure,” Tim said. “I'm taking this pretty personally myself.”

A sudden flutter and a dark shape by the window caught their attention. Yo-yo flew into the hut.

“Yo-yo!” Tim cried.

“It's an owl, Master Redlaw,” said Master Leveret.

“Remarkable,” the hedgehog exclaimed. “That was my thought exactly, Master Leveret. Blow me down, I thought. If that doesn't seem to be an owl.”

“When was the last time you spent any time with an owl?” Master Leveret asked.

“Come to think of it, never. But perhaps—”

“Be quiet, you two,” Tim begged the chattering animals. He turned to address the owl. “Yo-yo, can you get a message to Dr. Occult? I mean, Rose? Tell her—or him—whatever he is now—where I am and to come and get us!”

“Whooo!” Yo-yo replied.

Yo-yo didn't move. He and Tim stared at each other. Tim was the first one to blink. “Well, Yo-yo, go on.”

“What your owl said, if you'll pardon me translaterin' for you,” offered Master Leveret, “is that it's terrible afraid it wouldn't know where to find the lady or gentleman in question.”

“That's what it was a-sayin' right enough,” the hedgehog agreed, nodding vigorously.

“You got all that from ‘whoo'?” Tim asked.

All three creatures stared at Tim as if he were a complete dolt.

Tim flushed. It was bad enough to be shown up in gym class. Being treated like an idiot by a rabbit, a hedgehog, and an owl, well, that was a new and highly unpleasant experience for him.

“Okay, that's what Yo-yo said,” Tim agreed. “Yo-yo, listen, that old woman—”

“She's not an old woman,” Master Leveret interrupted, a long ear twitching.

“She's the Baba Yaga,” Master Redlaw added, as if that meant anything comprehensible.

“Ooooh, she'd spit if she heard you call her an old woman.”

“Fine. That—
Baba Yaga
—wants to eat me.” He heard a sniff and a throat being cleared beside him and quickly added, “Eat
all
of us, that is. She just went off to get some herbs.”

“Probably chives,” said the rabbit. “And thyme. And bay leaves, I expects. And cow butter, for the sauces.”

“We hedge-pigs don't hold with that fancy stuff,” Master Redlaw said disdainfully. “My granny used to say, no one ever used fancy foreign sauces on a hedge-pig. Clay and embers is what you gets, and a little salt, if yer lucky.”

“Can you please be quiet!” Tim snapped. “Sheesh! You'd think you were looking forward to being the main ingredient in a recipe.”

“If she has a good hand with the thyme, I wouldn't mind so,” the rabbit said.

“Don't want any of those fancy foreign heavy sauces,” the hedgehog grumbled. “Not if she knows a thing or two about good eating.”

“Yo-yo,” Tim tried again, “can't you cut the ropes with your beak or something?”

Yo-yo flew in a circle around Tim. “Whoo,” he said.

Tim looked to Master Leveret for translation. “It says it doesn't think so,” the rabbit said.

So this is it
, Tim thought.
I've made a complete mess of things, and now I'm going to be cooked into a stew. Trussed like an animal and heavily seasoned. What a way to go
.

“Yo-yo,” Tim said bravely. “If you see Dr. Occult again, tell him I'm sorry I stepped off the path. And that I wish I'd never started on this magic stuff. And tell him to say good-bye to my dad for me. And Molly. She can have my entire comic book collection. She should like that. Okay?”

“Whoo.”

“It said, fair enough,” said Master Leveret. He sounded sad, and Tim wasn't sure if the rabbit was feeling sorry for him or if Master Leveret was translating the owl's feelings along with his words.

“You know,” Master Redlaw ventured. “There is a remarkable peculiar thing about yon hootyowl.”

“You mean it bein' out in the daytime when everybody knows owls is nighttime folks?” asked Master Leveret.

“Why, that's exceedin' perspicious of you. But no. What I was thinking was more in the nature of
the chain wrapped around itself that is out of the ordinary.”

“It's just a chain we got at the market,” Tim explained. “Nothing special. Yo-yo picked it out from a pile of junk.” What did any of this matter anyway? he wondered. Were they just keeping themselves entertained until the Baba Yaga came back to cook them? If so, maybe they could come up with something a little more distracting.

“‘Just a chain'?” said Master Redlaw. “That's Empusa's Infinitely Extensible, that is! Now there's a thing. Empusa's Infinitely Extensible Chain a-wrapped around an owl!”

“What are you talking about?” Tim asked.

“Famous it is, matey!” the hedgehog exhorted. “One of Empusa's lost treasures, right up there with the Drum Unescapable, and the Heliotrope Gamahaean Union.”

“Well, paint me pink and call me a noodle,” exclaimed the rabbit. “If I didn't completely miss the point of what you was getting at earlier. You must think me a right old puddin' head.”

“Think nothing of it, Master Leveret,” said Master Redlaw graciously. “Us hedge-piggies are natural born thinkers.”

“So is this going to rescue us?” Tim asked. Hope was returning, even if the circulation in his arms wasn't.

“No, laddie, no. I can't with all honesty say that it will,” admitted the hedgehog.

“But it's a definite something to tell yer grandchildren, eh, Master Redlaw?” The rabbit ahemed and then affected a very pompous tone: “‘Coincidentally, the very same day I was popped into a cookpot I discovered Empusa's Infinitely Extensible Chain on an owl.'” The rabbit laughed. “Now that'd be some story.”

“Although, that being said,” Master Redlaw offered, “if that there owl was to fly down to the underside of the Baba Yaga's little hut, and if it was to wrap the chain around the legs of the house…”

“And wrap 'em and wrap 'em and wrap 'em, it being infinitely extensible, like…” said Master Leveret, his ears waggling in excitement.

“Until—thump—over it'd topple,” cheered the hedgehog.

Tim's eyes widened as he understood what the animals were suggesting. It might actually work!

“And then we'd just need to figure out how to undo all these knots. And then us'd all climb through a window and we'd be off into the long grass and gone before you could say Januarius Gammadion Fontarabia Dagonet Knipperdollings,” continued the hedgehog.

“Just the ticket!” said the rabbit.

“Brilliant!” Tim exclaimed. He faced the owl. “What do you think, Yo-yo? Can you do it?”

Yo-yo gave a little hoot, and hurried out the window in a flurry of brown-tipped feathers.

Tim wished he could see what was happening. Were the little animals right? Was that junky chain really some incredible special extensible thinga-ma-whazits—and their way out of this mess?

The rabbit and the hedgehog must have been thinking along the same lines. They had actually stopped talking, waiting to see what would happen. Their big round eyes just stared at the window.

Then the whole house came to a sudden, bone-shattering stop.
If we were in a car
, Tim thought,
we'd all have whiplash!
With a sickening, lurching motion, the house tumbled sideways to the ground, making an enormous crash that Tim imagined could be heard through all of Faerie.

Tim landed hard, slamming into the floor, all the air knocked out of him. But then he realized three important things: (1) He wasn't dead, (2) his glasses were still in one piece, and best of all, (3) the crash loosened his ropes enough to free his hands!

Yo-yo swooped back into the hut, hooting with
obvious pride. Tim twisted his face up from the floor.

“You did it!” he cheered Yo-yo. “You stopped the house! And look!” He wiggled his fingers at Yo-yo. “Help me get out of these ropes.”

Yo-yo tugged and Tim squirmed, and finally the bindings broke apart. Tim leaped up and scouted around the little hut. Everything—furniture, tools, odds and ends—had all slid down to one side. It was quite a mess. He spotted what he was looking for. “Perfect!” He grabbed a sharp knife and cut down the rabbit and hedgehog. “There you go,” he said.

“Thanks ever so,” said Master Redlaw the hedgehog.

“Yes, much obliged,” added Master Leveret the rabbit.

Yo-yo hooted from the windowsill.

“Beggin' yer pardon,” said the rabbit, “but the owl says we ought to get out of here something rapid. She's coming back.”

“Then let's go!” Tim carefully climbed out of the toppled hut. Master Leveret and Master Redlaw crept out behind him and jumped down to the grass.

“My house!” Baba Yaga shrieked above them. “What have you done to my poor house?” She circled overhead on her broomstick.

Tim picked up Master Redlaw and ran. Master Leveret bounded beside them, and Yo-yo flew.

“I'll eat them alive!” Baba Yaga screamed.

“Come on, laddie,” the hedgehog encouraged from under Tim's arm. “Keep it up! Keep running.”

Tim tripped over a gnarled root. He sprawled face forward on the ground.
What is it about this place?
he thought.
I'm not this clumsy at home! Are the trees out to get me?
He tried to stand but discovered his ankle was tangled in some vines.

Master Redlaw had gone flying when Tim fell. “Need some help, lad?” the hedgehog asked, crawling back toward Tim.

“No!” Tim shouted. “Run! Get out of here!”

“Are you—” Master Leveret began.

“Just go!”

“On your insisterance,” said the hedgehog.

“Wouldn't want to upset the lad,” added the rabbit.

Master Leveret dashed into the bushes. Master Redlaw crept into the tall grass. Tim was glad that at least the little critters had escaped.

Tim tried to crawl, shaking his leg, desperate to untangle his ankle from the snarl of vines.

“Whoopsie!” Baba Yaga cackled. Tim could hear that she was much closer. Just a few feet away. “Now up we gets, laddie. Come on.”

Slowly, Tim turned to face the hag.

And discovered Rose standing between him and Baba Yaga.

“Out of my way, woman!” Baba Yaga shouted. “That brat is my dinner. And he's hurt my little house.”

“Timothy is under my protection in this realm,” Rose answered calmly. “I charge you to trouble him no more.”

“He's mine! And you dare order me? Why I should—”

Rose cut her off. “I know your true name,” she declared. “Do you want me to shout it now so that all the animals of the forest, all the birds of the air, every passing nixie and goblin will know it too? Your name will be as common as crabgrass. Would you like that, Baba Yaga?”

“You're lying!” Baba Yaga shrieked. “You do not know my name.”

“Perhaps. Do you wish to find out how loudly I can shout?”

Baba Yaga seemed to shrink a little. “No,” she grumbled, her voice low. Her broomstick dropped a few inches.

“Then do you discharge all obligation and lien on the boy?”

“I do.” Baba Yaga was positively sulking.