Babayaga

The stubborn chef threw up his hands. “I have said no, and little girls need to learn that no means no.”

“No only means no until you say yes,” she said with a smile.

He returned to the onions he had been mincing.

Noelle thought for a moment, wondering what Elga would do in this situation. “Hmmm, well, I am sorry,” she finally said, looking around the kitchen. “The chef at my father’s house would cook it for me. You know, his kitchen is a lot like this, only a little bigger.” The hotel chef kept chopping at his onions. “He is an old chef, Louis is his name. Sweet Louis,” she continued. “I think he has grown half blind and now Papa does not like his food at all, he says his broths are flavorless and watery and his roasts are so dull even salt cannot help them.” The chef slowed, listening as Noelle spun her story. “Yes, it won’t be long before Louis is gone and Papa needs a new chef. Have you ever been to Monte Carlo?”

The chef put down his knife and came over to the girl. “How do you want your egg?”

“Cooked on both sides, but keep it runny, and then put it on a slice of dry white toast.”

He took it from her hands. “You are a silly little girl. I will put it between two pieces of toast, then you can eat it like a sandwich.”

“Thank you.” She curtsied and the chef shook his head.

A few moments later, she carefully carried the fried-egg sandwich on its white china plate down the long, high-ceilinged hallway back to her suite. There, she hopped into the big, comfortable velvet chair and gave the chicken a conspiratorial wink before opening her mouth wide and taking her first bite.

Within seconds she was lying in convulsions on the floor, kicking her legs spasmodically, flailing her arms, and snapping her neck back and forth. Her eyes had rolled up so that only the whites showed and her veins bulged and pulsed out from her skin as the visions flooded her mind with the force of a storm’s foaming waters breaking through an overwhelmed dam.

Over the next two hours, in the muscular thrall of this unrelenting seizure, Noelle saw many things, but she did not see the beekeeping boy.

VI

Will was in Detroit. He wasn’t sure how he had gotten there, but it was a sunny day and he was walking down Congress Street toward Woodward Avenue. There was the Guardian Building straight ahead, with the classical Buell Building towering up on his left. He could smell the yeast from the Stroh’s brewery and hear the distant clickety-clack of a streetcar traveling down Michigan Avenue. Then Will stopped, puzzled. On the corner where the Ford Building should have been there stood a weathered saltbox farmhouse with white clapboard siding. A little beyond that a Holstein cow grazed on a patch of grass by the intersection with Griswold.

The screen door of the farmhouse slammed opened and Oliver’s friend Jake stepped onto the front porch. He had a cup of coffee in one hand and a copy of Le Figaro under his arm. He gave Will a friendly smile and waved. Will did not know what to make of this and stood there dumbfounded. He got that he was experiencing some induced form of dreaming (he knew the electric trolleys on Michigan had been out of commission for years now), but it came with a tangible sense of reality that confused him. Jake gestured for Will to come over to the house and then disappeared back inside. Unsure what to expect, Will crossed the street, walked up the flagstone path, climbed the creaky porch steps, and followed Jake into the dark, old home.

Entering the parlor, Will immediately smelled bacon and heard the telltale spitting and sizzling sounds of frying fat coming from a room in the back. Going down the long shotgun hall, he came out into a low-ceilinged kitchen, where Jake had all the gas burners on the cast-iron stove cooking, with scrambled eggs in the wide skillet and tomatoes and thick slabs of bacon on the grill. “I didn’t really have time to make anything fancy, the boys only called a few minutes ago to tell me you were coming. But bacon’s good, right? That’s honestly the only food I miss from the States. America sure knows how to make bacon.” He took a plate from the cupboard and, piling the eggs on high and topping it with the mix from the grill, set it on the small table in front of Will. “Eat up. It’s hot and delicious.”

Will did not know why he felt so comfortable; perhaps it was the odd familiarity of being back in Detroit, or the safe, comforting reassurance of knowing he was in a dream. He sat down and dug in. The food was delicious. He hadn’t realized how hungry he was, he could not remember the last meal he’d eaten. “Where are we?”

“Good question,” said Jake, pulling up a chair across from him. “Simple answer is that we’re in a mix of your mental landscape and mine. Very confusing to move through at first, and tricky to get orientated in, but you get used to it. But basically, like I said, we’re wandering around in a blend of my subconscious and yours.”

“How’s that work?” Will asked, taking another bite.