Chapter 13
Seminole Mill
Two days later, it was time for the trip. I was ready, wearing the new clothes Lisa had gotten me, having memorized their names: jeans, a T-shirt, and a hoodie. She insisted I needed to wear clothes that would help me blend in. On my feet were sneakers that had now replaced my bast shoes.
“Ivan, call me as soon as you get there,” Lisa told me as I mounted Harry. It was completely dark, only a sliver of the crescent moon in the nearly black sky.
“I will.” I nodded. Harry gave Lisa his usual scowl, but I chose to ignore it. “Let’s go, Harry,” I ordered the horse, hugged him, and we were off.
Harry and I had flown around the area quite a few times, and we knew the general direction of the Seminole Mill, but we hadn’t made it all the way there for the fear of being noticed by Quinn.
The inn was located right over the river, in a mountainous area surrounded by lush vegetation.
I estimated it would take us no more than an hour to get there and expected the flight to be smooth.
All our provisions had been secured on Harry’s second hump, and on my back I was carrying a backpack with the essentials.
“So, what’s your plan with Lisa?” Harry asked as soon as we’d taken off.
“What do you mean?” I leaned closer so that Harry could hear me.
“I mean, the two of you clearly have something going on.” The pony turned back to look at me.
“Harry, please just focus on the flight. It’s dark out,” I shrieked. I wasn’t ready to discuss Lisa and my feelings for her with the pony.
Lisa was a beautiful woman and possibly the magical fairy-tale Vasilisa. She had everything going for her. And I was just a dimwit. The best I could hope for was to fulfill my end of the bargain and then for Lisa to help me capture the Firebird. After that, I would never see her again.
Lisa had warned us to be careful and not to miss the Seminole Mill Bed-and-Breakfast, and I knew what she meant the second it popped into view.
It happened unexpectedly, the building almost entirely hidden by the tall trees that grew around it.
Harry and I were flying very low, just over the treetops, when we spotted the inn.
“This was a bad idea. Look at this place. It looks so creepy. And without me, how would you even get here?” Harry grumbled as he paddled his hooves, maneuvering so that we could land.
“Thank you, Harry. You’re the best pony there is,” I complimented the horse, hoping to get his spirits up.
“I am certainly the dumbest, to agree to this quest and to trust Lisa after she asked for the impossible,” he complained.
I was about to retort, but he neighed and dived for the ground, almost kicking me over his head.
Fortunately, I didn’t tumble over, and we landed in a meadow with a clear view of the inn.
To my utter surprise, the Seminole Mill looked almost exactly like the mill in my village.
The house, which I recognized immediately from Lisa’s description, had been painted a dark shade of burgundy and stood over the mill.
It was where the bed-and-breakfast was located.
I felt a knot form in the pit of my stomach. This was where Quinn lived. The dangerous ex-husband. The evil man who had tricked poor Lisa and kept her property. I straightened up. I was the only person who could help her. Lisa had told me this herself. I needed to rise to the challenge.
“All right, Harry, this is it,” I whispered into the pony’s ear. “Let’s find you a good place to hide, shall we?”
“Yep,” Harry noted gravely. His ears were moving, rotating back and forth, his eyes focused inward. It was a sure sign Harry was anxious, and I also tensed, a sense of foreboding overtaking me.
“Harry,” I started to say, but the pony stopped me with a quick neigh.
The door of the inn opened, and a man stepped out onto the porch.
From the description, he looked like Quinn, Lisa’s evil ex-husband.
He was tall and broad-shouldered, with reddish-blond hair.
His face had stubble on it, as if he’d just started growing a beard, and he was wearing strange-looking fabric trousers with pineapple designs on them, which I recognized right away.
Along with the mangoes and oranges, pineapples were the new fruit I’d discovered in Virginia.
On the man’s feet, I saw bright-orange shoes with tiny holes. The man rubbed his stomach, revealing reddish-blond hairs, and walked back into the house. “This must be the guy,” I noted to Harry, and Harry flared his nostrils in disgust.
“Why did we get into this, exactly?” he asked, giving me a side-eye.
“Lisa will help me as soon as we get the deed. And the guy doesn’t look so bad.
Come on, Harry. Let’s go find you a hiding spot, and then I’ll check into the inn and then…
” My voice trailed off. Now that I’d seen my opponent, the prospect of securing the deed looked more challenging than I’d imagined.
“Sure, let’s go.” Harry turned and started toward the wooded area.
We walked in silence until we found a nice hiding spot.
It was a meadow surrounded by tall shrubbery, with lush green grass.
I saw Harry’s eyes light up, though he said nothing, maintaining his grumpy demeanor.
“This looks all right,” he said, casually picking off a few strands of grass and chewing them slowly, savoring what was likely a delicious snack.
“I suppose I won’t have to eat that many pellets quite yet. ”
“Will you be okay here? I’ll try to do everything quickly. Please don’t worry.”
“I won’t, as long as the wolves don’t come for me.”
“The wolves? Are there wolves? I thought they were all gone.” I opened my eyes wide.
“Just kidding. We don’t have any wolves left in Virginia, remember?”
“I think it’s the strangest thing that people would kill off all the wolves. Wolves are so important. They are the protectors of the forests.”
“I don’t mind.” Harry frowned. “The fewer wolves, the better. I don’t know if I could ever live back where you’re from.”
“Listen, Harry, let’s make sure, if anything goes wrong, you bray three times to call and warn me. All right? And if anything happens to me and I need your help, I’ll whistle.”
“Got it.” Harry turned and focused his attention on the lush grass of the meadow.
* * *
Walking confidently down the path, I did not realize it was still very early until I’d turned the corner and saw the flashing sign with the name of the establishment shining brightly in the night. I looked up at the sky; the crescent moon was just about to set on the horizon.
The only sound was that of my footsteps on the gravel pathway. Since I’d arrived in Virginia, so many things had become familiar to me, and gravel was one of them.
A bird chirped, and it reminded me of home.
I wanted to be back in my village, to see Papa, to embrace my brothers.
If only I could go back in time and restart the morning that had led me to Baba Yaga’s hut.
I reached into my pocket and felt the Firebird’s feather.
A realization hit me: It was the feather that had started everything.
If only I hadn’t found it that day, hadn’t claimed it.
But then I wouldn’t have met Lisa, I thought. Would I have done things differently if it meant not meeting her? I knew I had been falling for Lisa. My feelings for her were deeper than I should have ever allowed myself to feel. For what future could I offer her?
Though it was early, I decided not to delay my arrival and walked up the three steps to the front door, which was painted bright red. I pulled on the door handle. It opened with a screech, and I stepped inside.
Immediately, the front door slammed shut behind me with a loud thud.
I shuddered, expecting the owner to come tumbling down the steps, but the inn was eerily quiet.
Realizing I was in a hallway with three doors, I oriented myself.
A wooden side table with a red lamp stood by the wall to my left, and I saw a leather-bound black book sitting next to a stack of brochures with a photo of the inn.
“Welcome, Guest” was written on its cover. I opened the book. “Please leave us a review,” it read in cursive on the first page. The rest of the book was otherwise empty, and I turned to the brochures, opening one of them.
Inside, there was a history of the Seminole Mill.
A water mill, it had been founded in 1780, I learned, and stood on a creek.
The Seminole Mill had been a fixture of the community and the largest mill in central Virginia until a hurricane had torn through the area in 1969, when it had stopped operating.
I wonder what happened to the miller and his family, I thought and looked around. Something about the place unsettled me, though I couldn’t explain why.
A realization hit me: When Harry and I had approached the mill, we had not seen a creek, nor had we even smelled one.
I could usually tell if there was a body of water nearby, having spent my whole childhood tending horses.
What happened to the creek? How could it have disappeared completely?
It must be a special kind of creek that doesn’t smell, I decided, and found the idea at least somewhat reassuring.
Fighting the urge to run away, I tried to stop the panic from rising.
I still needed to check in to the inn as a regular guest, as Lisa had instructed me to do.
I patted my pockets and felt the paper money Lisa had given me, remembering how we had counted it together and her instructions to be careful and to treat it just as I would gold coins.
Then, I reached for the door to my right, expecting it to lead to the reception, but found myself in the bathroom instead.