he had forgotten completely that it existed until this very moment.
For one horrible instant he wondered if Baba Yaga had somehow put a bomb in that bag, so that Ivan really had carried it onto the plane. But no, Katerina was right, it couldn't have been an explosion. The bag was just an oversight.
An oversight? "Katerina," he said, "shouldn't Aware have told me that I was leaving that bag on the plane?"
"Yes," she said, looking as worried as he felt. "But I didn't notice you put it in the overhead, or if I did I forgot - that shouldn't have happened, either."
"And I didn't remember it for two days. Just as well - if I'd thought of it while they were questioning us and blurted something out about leaving one little bag on the plane, they would never have let us go."
Katerina slipped Aware off and looked at it. "This has to be the charm that let you notice the Pretender was there, or at least notice that you were being kept from noticing. So why didn't it make us aware that we were leaving the bag?"
"It makes no sense for the Widow to let us go, but keep our bag," said Ivan.
"Maybe it does," said Katerina. "Tell me everything that was in the bag."
He sat down and methodically wrote down everything. Nothing offered the slightest clue as to what Baba Yaga might have wanted with the bag, until Ivan remembered one last item. "I put that message from Baba Tila in there, too," he said. "Along with the gifts for Marek and Sophia. Because I wanted to ask them about it."
Katerina thought about that for a few minutes. "So, whatever that message meant, the Pretender just took it to Taina."
"How did she even know I had it?" asked Ivan.
"Who says she did know?" said Katerina. "We still don't know who the message is for, or who it's from. It might have nothing to do with her. But if it's supposed to be delivered to somebody in Taina, putting it on a plane that the Widow took back with her is the only way it could ever be delivered. Since you and I certainly couldn't have taken it with us."
"So we're back to your theory that some fate is helping us."
"It makes me wonder if maybe we should have stayed on the plane."
"No," said Ivan. "Absolutely not. The Widow doesn't control the bridge. That's why we have to get to Taina that way. On the airplane, even if she took us there, we'd arrive as her prisoners."
"Yes, you're right," said Katerina.
"That bag I left on the plane, that message - I just hope it was some kindly fate helping us. Because if it wasn't, then the likeliest outcome is that my boneheaded blunder might cost us dearly somewhere along the line."
"Your blunder? Give me my share of the credit."
They went to the airport early. Some of the same clerks were on duty, watching Ivan and Katerina very carefully, but treating them with more politeness than usual, which, at Kennedy, isn't a hard standard to surpass. Ivan and Katerina were, for their part, just as careful as before, but this time there was no sign of danger, before and after they boarded the plane.
It began to look as though Katerina might be right, that Baba Yaga had disappeared right along with that first plane, back to the ninth century. Which meant that maybe they wouldn't have to worry again until they crossed the bridge.
They were so relaxed, they even slept on the flight. And when they finally got to Cousin Marek's house, exhausted from travel and from too much alertness, he confirmed it for them. "She's no longer in this world. But when she left, she didn't leave alone."
"So she took the passengers with her?" asked Ivan.
"They're all back there, where she is," said Marek. "Poor things."
"What can we do? How can we bring them back?"
"Two ways," said Marek. "First, you persuade old Yaga to send them back."
"All right, we'll do that," said Ivan.
Katerina looked at him as if he were insane.
"I was joking."
"What's the other way?" Katerina asked Cousin Marek.
"Break her power," said Marek.
"Bring me the broomstick of the Witch of the West," said Ivan.
"What?"
"A movie. The Wizard of Oz. The only way to break her power is to kill her, isn't it?"
Marek shrugged. "That would certainly work. But I can't tell you that it's the only way."