10

Owlyn safely led Cassandra back to Chamber of Mirror. They went through the mirror again, and the last thing the owl said before leaving was, "I'd appreciate it if you washed your face. You look like something a Groundsler dragged in. And remember we are all in a very great deal of trouble if you don't come back."

The bird then turned and flew down the length of the ruined hall and plunged straight into the liquid-like mirror. Cassandra looked around to make sure that she was indeed back to the human realm. To her relief, it was still nighttime. It seemed the World Beyond and her world moved in a different time frame. Nevertheless, she had to hurry home before everyone started freaking out about her disappearance.

Cassandra found her way back to their guest house and sneaked into their room. The first person she woke was Ruslan. He heard her coming through the window, which he had unlatched for her. When Cassandra dropped inside, he threw his arms around her neck.

"Oh Cassandra, you're alive!" he said.

"Shh...of course, I am," she said.

"Did you find the owl?"

"Yes, and not just the owl," she said, thinking about her first encounter with the frog princess and the underground monster. "Anyway, there are too many things I want to tell you, Ruslan, but not now. I need to do chores before everyone gets up."

"Well, you've only been out for an hour and a half."

"Really?" she said and then glanced at the clock on the wall. It was only one-thirty in the morning. "I feel as if I had been in a weird dream for days!"

"I agreed. You should rest. You look like...like..."

"Like something a Groundsler dragged in, I know," Cassandra said.

"A Groundsler?"

"Never mind, I guess I should take some rest first."

Cassandra was so bone-tired after what seemed like a whole night of nightmare and strangeness. She dropped off her backpack and flopped down on her bed then sleep claimed her right away.

The next morning when she woke up, she was almost convinced that it was just a dream.

But at least, everything went smoothly without a hitch. Cassandra went about her chores mechanically. In the midday, the family enjoyed a picnic at the park with the rest of the townsfolk. At dinner, Cassandra ate in a daze. The uncle and aunt noticed nothing. They were busy talking away about their plan to visit some old friends and fussing over the toddlers.

After she bathed the twins and got them into their pajamas, they all went to bed at nine o'clock. Cassandra returned to her room and paced back and forth, frowning to herself. She was debating whether her decision to go back to the World Beyond was the dumbest thing ever. Her cousin looked on from the top bunk with his hands under his chin. By now, Ruslan had heard every bizarre thing about the World Beyond.

"So are you going back there?" he asked. "Aren't you scared?"

"Well, you see, it's not like I have a choice, Ruslan," Cassandra said with a sigh.

"Can I go with you then?"

"Oh no, are you out of your mind? Absolutely not," she said firmly. "It's a wild world, unlike our own, Ruslan. Just think of it as a magical version of the Wild West. I don't even know if I would last long there."

"But do you trust this sorceress princess?" Ruslan said. "What if she is the bad guy?"

Cassandra paused at the question.

Of course, she had thought about it multiple times during their first meeting. But no matter how she tried to view the fair-haired Czarevna as evil, she couldn't form a solid feeling of doubt or suspicion about her. In other words, Cassandra trusted this stranger more than she realized. She knew she had to go back, not only because the princess and her owl were begging-slash-threatening her to, but also because they seemed to know something about her late mother, and why they kept referring to her as a 'seer'.

"Maybe that's what I need to find out," she said more to herself.

~*~

Early in the evening, Cassandra had prepared everything she might need for her journey: a compass, a flashlight, a box of matches, and other survival kits. The moon rose over Krasnoyarsk City in a perfectly round shape. It shone almost as bright as Aunt Klementina's polished China. Cassandra hurried through her chores that night. At eleven o'clock, she was ready to sneak out of the guest house.

She went down the same path towards the castle on the hill. But once there, Owlyn was nowhere to be found. The mirror frame was empty as ever. They had promised to meet at this time, so she decided to wait for the bird. Cassandra had felt some nameless dread all day. She was unable to stand still. She waited until the shadows of her body grew long and thin. Then she heard a sound from behind the stone wall. Her heart leaped to her throat. Cassandra shone her flashlight to where the sound came from but saw nothing.

"Who's there?" she cried in a trembling voice. There was only silence. She thought it was probably some squirrel.

To her relief, the mirror was filled up with brilliant light again. Cassandra heard Owlyn's beating wings before she saw her shooting out of the mirror.

"Hurry, there's no time to delay," Owlyn said.

They both stepped into the mirror. Cassandra felt the same electric sparks on her body. They began to leave the chamber, but then they were stopped by a cry. Cassandra turned and was shocked to find her cousin stumbling down the steps.

"Ruslan!" she cried and rushed to him. "What on earth are you doing here? Why are you following me?"

"I...I...just want to help..." he stammered. "Our...world...is...going...to be...destroyed."

"You are going back home right now," Cassandra said. "This is not some adventure game you play. If you die, you die. We are going to die. Do you understand 'die'?"

Ruslan babbled some unintelligible words as he began to cry. Cassandra felt a terrible pity. A great part of her mind wanted to bring her cousin back rather than wrestle with whatever awaited them in the World Beyond. Another part snapped, "Get on with it."

"Hey children," Owlyn said. "We don't have the time to argue either. The mirror is already closed, but it will be opened again tomorrow, so get on with it."

There was nothing they could do at this point, so Cassandra had to allow Ruslan to tag along. He seemed more excited than frightened. She gripped his hand tightly, fearing that he might wander off.

At last, they found their way back to the Hall of Sirins. Vasilisa was standing by her grimoire among the piles of treasures.

"Wow, is that her?" Ruslan whispered to Cassandra as he looked at the sorceress in her long feathered red cloak. He had never seen anyone so enchanted and majestic. It was hard to believe that she used to be a frog.

Vasilisa turned to them at last. The grim look did not leave her face even Cassandra had arrived just as she promised.

"Who's this?" Vasilisa asked looking at the starry-eyed boy standing there.

"My cousin, Ruslan," Cassandra said. "He followed me right before the mirror closed. Now he's stuck with us."

"Had you really been a frog?" Ruslan asked out of innocent curiosity.

"Yes, that I had," Vasilisa said.

"Wow, that is so cool," the boy gasped. "Sometimes I wish I could turn into a grasshopper or an ant. You know... just to see what is like."

"You would view the world a lot differently, young man," the sorceress replied.

"So how did you change back?" Ruslan asked. Vasilisa and Cassandra exchanged an awkward glance. Neither of them wanted to acknowledge their first kiss. Obviously, that was the only detail that had been omitted from the report.

"I think we better get on with that amulet-making business," Cassandra said with a blushed face.

They all gathered around the grimoire and poured over the pages. And just like the poem from Koschei's chest, the lettering slowly appeared onto the surface for Cassandra. She felt as if she was reading through a thin mist of invisibility, which disappeared whenever she ran her eyes across the book.

"You must copy the spell from it," Vasilisa said to Cassandra, who was squinting her eyes with great concentration. "Try to find the section with the title 'Amulet'."

"Alright."

Cassandra flipped through the pages, describing the contents to Vasilisa to check if she had stumbled across the Amulet's recipe yet.

"This page has several onion-like plants and nude women," she told the Czarevna.

"I think that is the one,"

Cassandra did as she was told.

"But really, why so many nude women in your grimoire?" Cassandra couldn't help asking. But Vasilisa didn't answer her and just went back to pacing back and forth. Ruslan was sitting with Owlyn and the sleeping serpent.

Halfway through copying the spell she stopped and stared, checking her writing several times to see if she got everything down right. It was a strangely beautiful handwriting, not as ancient as hierography but strange and delicate and fluid, reminding her of the Voynich's manuscript. Now she understood why this grimoire was among Vasilisa's great treasures.

"I'm done." Cassandra held up the sheet of paper covered with her own imitation of the sorceress's handwriting. Vasilisa floated quickly to her side and took the paper then read it:

"Noted by the Mistress of the Mirrors. Be drest in pure virgyn garments of from head to heel, and girt with a red girdel of pleached corde, and shodde in blue. Take each ingredient belowe, and put it in a mortar, and grynde it all fine till it be enough. Then bring the powder forthe and put it in a crucible of golde. Add thereto the blood and spittle of ye who would traverse the most dangerous ground. Stir widdershins and wake with the first reflexion of the moonshine. When cool, parte and poure into crystal pendant of gold chain. Wear it at the neck."

Then she went on reading the list of ingredients. It said they need, dwaleberry and red wulfenite, quicksilver and peacock coal, hornblende and wild elephant's ear, stinking smut and bladderwort, fly-club and phoenix feather and sunfish scales and falcon's tooth and a piece of human bone."

"A piece of human bone?" Cassandra cried.

"Well, we all have bones, don't we? It would only take a little one. Like this." Vasilisa grabbed Ruslan's little finger. "This is a nice little bone, just the size..."

Ruslan was now as purple as a beetroot. Seeing his mouth opened to its widest in preparation for a yell, Cassandra pulled him back from her.

"Don't you dare touch him!" Cassandra growled at Vasilisa.

"I'm merely joking, jeez," the sorceress said. "But we need to find these ingredients to make the amulet nevertheless."

"My lady, how are we going to get those?" Owlyn said. "I have flown around in this place countless time. Apart from the treasures, the castle is as bare as a ghost ship, and anywhere in a hundred miles from here is too dangerous."

"Oh well, there's always the obvious solution."

"Which is?" Cassandra asked.

"I have to go into the mortal world."

"What?" they all cried at the same time.

"The human world has everything we need, besides it's relatively safe," Vasilisa said.

"You mean, you're going to come back with us?"

"Correct," the sorceress said. "And you are going to help me find those ingredients."

"Great, this is just great," Cassandra muttered to herself. Now her nightmare was going to leisurely step into her reality, and she wasn't the slightest amused by that.