he happened to be trapped in a particular place. Standing right where he had stood when he first boarded this plane, to put his carry-on bag of books in the overhead compartment.
He opened the compartment door. He pulled down the bag.
"Are you going to read to me?"
As he opened the bag, Ivan knew what he was looking for. What this whole business had been orchestrated in order to accomplish.
He had a message to deliver.
He pulled the slip of paper from the bag. It still said what it had said before. Ivan was disappointed. He had half-expected that when it was in the presence of the one who was supposed to receive it, new words would appear. But it didn't happen.
Still, this was his last chance. If it wasn't for Bear, Ivan wasn't going to live to deliver it to the intended recipient anyway.
"I think this is for you," he said.
Bear cocked his head to look at it. "I don't think so."
"I think it is," said Ivan. "A message from someone in my time to someone here. The old hag didn't know it, but she brought this plane here solely so that this note would travel back in time, eleven hundred years, so you could have it here today."
"What good is a note like that to me?"
"I don't know," said Ivan.
"Give it to me."
Ivan held it out toward one of Bear's huge paws.
"What, are you blind? Do you see thumbs on my paw? How exactly am I supposed to take that tiny piece of paper?"
"I don't know," said Ivan.
"My mouth," said Bear disgustedly.
Ivan raised his hand, offering the note to the open mouth of the bear, knowing that if he felt like it, Bear would take his hand as well.
Instead, Bear took it between his lips. Then a bit of his tongue came out, tasting the comer of it.
"Delicious," said Bear.
He sucked the paper into his mouth, chewed it slowly, and swallowed.
Now I'll never deliver the message, Ivan thought.
Then Bear stood up so suddenly he hit his head on the ceiling of the plane. He roared, and roared again. And again. And again.
Why didn't he speak?
Bear began slashing the upholstery of the chairs. He rampaged through first class, then back into business class, seemingly oblivious now to Ivan, who followed him, fascinated and appalled by what seemed to be rage. Yet through it all, though Bear roared again and again, he said not a word.
And then, suddenly, he turned toward Ivan and clambered deftly over the seat backs and in a moment he had Ivan pressed to the floor in the aisle, looming over him. He opened his mouth and lowered it toward Ivan's head.
Katerina, if only you survive, it's all been worth it. It was not teeth that touched him. Only a huge tongue lapping his cheek, almost pulling half his face up with it. And another lick.
He's saying thank you. He's thanking me because... because... the note wasn't a message at all. It was the spell of unbinding. It was the spell that set Bear free of Baba Yaga. That's why he wasn't speaking - he had lost her gifts as well as her chains.
"You're free, aren't you," Ivan said.
Bear roared triumphantly in response, then overleapt him on the floor and began pawing at the airplane door.
Ivan got up, wiping the bear slobber from his cheeks, and made his way to the door. The spell on it was gone. He opened it, but before it was even a quarter of the way up, Bear shimmied out through the opening and landed on the ground, rolling in the meadow.
The door opened the rest of the way. Ivan could see a campfire, then another. Dozens of them in the meadow.
Whose? Baba Yaga's army? Ivan had seen them run away.
Ivan lowered himself from the airplane and dropped to the ground. Just in time - the moment he got to his feet, he heard a rush of air and a clap of thunder, and the 747 was gone.
He walked across the meadow to the fires. As soon as people saw him, they began coming up to him, touching him, greeting him. We saw you go into the big white house with her. We thought you were dead. How did you get away? Is she still there? Where did it go?
"No, she's not there. She's back at her fortress now, and Katerina's there, and we have to go and finish the job, we have to rescue Katerina."