Lost Destinies

↳ 32: Friends Until The Money's Gone

"Just what do you think you're doing?"

Fifteen-year-old Ramona Swan startled, causing her elbow to bump against a vial that hit another vial that resulted in a domino tower of clattering glass. Frantically she scrambled to catch them and put them all back where she'd found them, spilled potion pooling on the shelf and dripping to the floor in the process. "Um—" She righted everything, straightened, and wiped accidental splatter off her eyebrow, inadvertently knocking off her hood. Baba Yaga raised a crooked brow. The girl had stubble for hair, one of those random Fairytaletopia oddities making it blond and black—not patchy, just split down the middle—a plain face and wide dirt-brown eyes. She narrowed her gaze at the girl's pockets. Stuffed.

"You'd better not even be thinking about stealing from my store." Baba Yaga snatched her by the arm and dragged her away from the potions display. "Dump your pockets, kiddo. What, you think this is amateur hour?"

The girl bared a big, toothy grin. "Alright. Sorry." She turned out her pockets, and items hit the floor—nothing in particular, all seemingly collected at random.

Baba Yaga would've given her hair a good yanking for even trying, but there wasn't much of anything left to yank, so she grabbed her ear instead. "What's your name, girl?" she demanded.

To her astonishment, the failed thief just laughed. "Ramona. Pleased t'meet ya."

"And where you from?"

"Why, I've just taken a nice road trip from Snow. Nadezhda Penitentiary," she replied promptly, pointing to her shaved head.

Baba Yaga let go, a frown curling her lip and pushing up her hooked nose. "That's an adult prison."

"Well, y'see, in West Snow, they don't got any prisons for the kiddies! Just toss all the villains in together an' hope they don't kill each other, that's what they say. Don't mind. Made plentya friends. Only eight months in, anyway! Had my birthday an' everything. Tell you the truth, I don't even remember what I stole... s'pose it doesn't matter now."

Baba Yaga stared at the little girl like she'd grown a pair of centaur legs and started doing a jig.

"Hey, you don't think you can help me find something, can you?" Ramona went blabbering on. "I'm looking for healing stuff. It's my wings—I think I'm sick. See?" She held out one of her stilted, spotted brown wings, and Baba Yaga realized that she was leaving trails of splotchy feathers everywhere. "Usually I put these away in my back, y'know, nobody wants to be an ugly freak, but they hurt lately. I thought maybe there's some magic whatchamacallit that can help?"

Now curious, Baba Yaga bent down slightly to examine the wing, plucking off a feather that had been ready to fall. "Ah! You're not sick, kid. You're molting."

Ramona made a face. "Molting?"

"That's what I said. Happens to plenty o' people with wings or scales or lizard's tails. Those'll probably grow out to be nice and white soon, and much stronger, too. You're not a freak—you're a fairy. Now, what kind, I'm not sure, but you do remind me of these beautiful water nymphs that went extinct a while back. White hair, and in the enchanted lakes under the moonlight, they glowed." She looked over at Ramona again and wrinkled her nose. "Eh. Maybe not."

Ramona put her hands on her hips. "Well, can you help me or not, old bat?"

"Old bat?"

"Let's just say back in Jacksontown we would've sacrificed you to the Harvest Pit! Or maybe you're thirty and just had a terrible plastic surgeon, whaddo I know?"

She scowled. "You know, kid, you've got a mouth on you."

Ramona beamed. "I like you. At Nadezhda, they would've put me in the electric cell already! Hey—here's the good news: you don't look a day over seven hundred and twenty-five. Say, you think you'd let me work here? Looks like a nice place. I haven't got much money and I'm kinda stranded here until I find a car. I don't know much about magic, but I can clean stuff!"