Free The Fierce Reads Anthology by Anna Banks Page B

of Genetchka dancing, of nervous Lara, of Betya and Ludmilla, of the others she had never known.
    “I want my father to be free of Karina. I want Duva to be free. I want to go home.”
    Gently, Magda reached out and touched Nadya's left hand—first the ring finger, then the pinkie.
    “Think on it,” she said.
     
    The next morning when Magda went to lay out the breakfast, she found the cleaver Nadya had placed there.
    For two days, the cleaver lay untouched on the table, as they measured and sifted and mixed, making batch after batch of batter. On the second afternoon, when the hardest of the work was done, Magda turned to Nadya.
    “You know that you are welcome to remain here with me,” said the witch.
    Nadya stretched out her hand.
    Magda sighed. The cleaver flashed once in the afternoon sun, the edge gleaming the dull gray of Grisha steel, then fell with a sound like a gunshot.
    At the sight of her fingers lying forlorn on the table, Nadya fainted.
    Magda healed the stumps of Nadya’s fingers, bound her hand, let her rest. And while she slept, Magda took the two fingers and ground them down to a wet red meal that she mixed into the batter.
    When Nadya revived, they worked side by side, shaping the gingergirl on a damp plank near as big as a door, then shoved her into the blazing oven.
    All night the gingergirl baked, filling the hut with a marvelous smell. Nadya knew she was smelling her own bones and blood, but still her mouth watered. She dozed. Near dawn, the oven doors creaked open and the gingergirl crawled out. She crossed the room, opened the window, and lay down on the counter to let herself cool.
    In the morning, Nadya and Magda attended the gingergirl, dusted her with sugar, gave her frosted lips and thick ropes of icing for hair.
    They dressed her in Nadya’s clothes and boots, and set her on the path toward Duva.
    Then Magda sat Nadya down at the table and took a small jar from one of the cabinets. She opened the window and the eyeless black crow came to rest on the table, picking at the crumbs the gingergirl had left behind.
    Magda tipped the contents of the jar into her palm and held them out to Nadya. “Open your mouth,” she said.
    In Magda’s hand, in a pool of shiny fluid, lay a pair of bright blue eyes. Hatchling’s eyes.
    “Do not swallow,” said Magda sternly, “and do not retch.”
    Nadya closed her eyes and forced her lips to part. She tried not to gag as the crow’s eyes slid onto her tongue.
    “Open your eyes,” commanded Magda.
    Nadya obeyed, and when she did, the whole room had shifted. She saw herself sitting in a chair, eyes still closed, Magda beside her. She tried to raise her hands, but found that her wings rose instead. She hopped on her little crow feet and released a startled squawk of surprise.
    Magda shooed her to the window and Nadya, elated from the feeling of her wings and the wind spreading beneath them, did not see the sadness in the old woman’s gaze.
    Nadya rose high into the air in a great wheeling arc, dipping her wings, learning the feel of them. She saw the woods spread beneath her, the clearing, and Magda’s hut. She saw the Petrazoi in the distance and, gliding lower, she saw the gingergirl’s path through the woods. She swooped and darted between the trees, unafraid of the forest for the first time since she could remember.
    She circled over Duva, saw the main street, the cemetery, two new altars laid out. Two more girls gone during the long winter while she grew fat at the witch’s table. They would be the last. She screeched and dove beside the gingergirl, driving her onward, her soldier, her champion.
    Nadya watched from a clothesline as the gingergirl crossed the clearing to her father’s house. Inside, she could hear raised voices arguing. Did he know what Karina had done? Had he begun to suspect what she truly was?
    The gingergirl knocked and the voices quieted. When the door swung open, her father squinted into the dusk. Nadya was shocked at