Free The Fierce Reads Anthology by Anna Banks Page A

yesterday’s lemon cake before her. Nadya shrugged. As she reached for the cream, she heard a soft sound, a gurgle. She looked at Vladchek, but the bear was fast asleep, snoring softly.
    And then she heard it again, a gurgle followed by a plaintive coo. From inside the oven.
    Nadya pushed back from the table, nearly knocking her chair over, and stared at Magda, horrified, but the witch did not flinch.
    A knock sounded at the door.
    “Go into the larder, Nadya.”
    For a moment, Nadya hovered between the table and the door. Then she backed away, pausing only to grab hold of Vladchek’s collar and drag him with her onto the top shelf of the larder, comforted by his drowsy snuffling and the warm feel of his fur beneath her hands.
    Magda opened the door. The wax-faced woman stood waiting at the threshold, almost as if she were afraid to move. Magda wrapped her hands in towels and pulled open the oven’s iron doors. A squalling cry filled the room. The woman grabbed at the doorposts as her knees buckled, then pressed her hands to her mouth, her chest heaving, tears streaming over her sallow cheeks. Magda swaddled the gingerbaby in a red kerchief and handed it, squirming and mewling, into the woman’s trembling, outstretched arms. “ Milaya ,” the woman crooned. Sweet girl. She turned her back on Magda and disappeared into the night, not bothering to close the door behind her.
     
    The next day, Nadya left her breakfast untouched, placing her cold bowl of porridge on the floor for Vladchek. He turned up his nose at it until Magda put it back on the stove to warm.
    Before Magda could ask her question, Nadya said, “That wasn't a real child. Why did she take it?”
    “It was real enough.”
    “What will happen to it? What will happen to her?” Nadya asked, a wild edge to her voice.
    “Eventually it will be nothing but crumbs,” said Magda.
    “And then what? Will you just make her another?”
    “The mother will be dead long before that. She has the same fever that took her infant.”
    “Then cure her!” Nadya shouted, smacking the table with her unused spoon.
    “She didn't ask to be cured. She asked for a child.”
    Nadya put on her mittens and stomped out into the yard. She did not go inside for lunch. She meant to skip dinner too, to show what she thought of Magda and her terrible magic. But by the time night came her stomach was growling, and when Magda put down a plate of sliced duck with hunter’s sauce, Nadya picked up her fork and knife.
    “I want to go home,” she muttered to her plate.
    “So go,” said Magda.
     
    Winter dragged on with frost and cold, but the lamps always burned golden in the little hut. Nadya’s cheeks grew rosy and her clothes grew snug. She learned how to mix up Magda’s tonics without looking at the recipes and how to bake an almond cake in the shape of a crown. She learned which herbs were valuable and which were dangerous, and which herbs were valuable because they were dangerous.
    Nadya knew there was much that Magda didn’t teach her. She told herself she was glad of it, that she wanted nothing to do with Magda’s abominations. But sometimes she felt her curiosity clawing at her like a different kind of hunger.
    And then, one morning, she woke to the tapping of the blind crow’s beak on the sill and the drip, drip, drip of melted snow from the eaves. Bright sun shone through the windows. The thaw had come.
    That morning, Magda laid out sweet rolls with prune jam, a plate of boiled eggs, and bitter greens. Nadya ate and ate, afraid to reach the end of her meal, but eventually she could not take another bite.
    “What is it you want?” asked Magda.
    This time Nadya hesitated, afraid. “If I go, couldn't I just—”
    “You cannot come and go from this place like you’re fetching water from a well. I will not have you bring a monster to my door.” Nadya shivered. A monster. So she’d been right about Karina.
    “What is it you want?” asked Magda again.
    Nadya thought