Page 28 of When Among Crows
When they’re all armed and ready, Niko locks the box and leads them back to Broadway, to the entrance of the Uptown Theatre.
The theater has been closed for decades, a former “movie palace” of the ’20s that fell into disrepair in the 1980s thanks to a cold day, a burst pipe, and a distinct lack of funds. At least, that was the public-facing story. The not-so-human denizens of Chicago—even young ones, like Ala—know better: the Uptown Theatre belonged to Baba Jaga, and a dispute with another witch, resulting in a particularly unwieldy display of Baba Jaga’s destructive power, is what caused the shutdown. The echoes of that magic are still obvious to anyone looking for them; the place radiates power, like it has its own pulse. Even the human pedestrians on the sidewalk out front steer their eyes away from it like they know something’s wrong with it, though they obviously don’t know what it is.
The facade is grand, an elaborate five-story display of intricately patterned stone, with four pillars standing above the wide marquee that readsUPTOWN. No one passing byseems to notice as they approach the boarded-up double doors. Niko steps just to the right of them and presses his palm to the stone, five fingers spread wide.
A marble sign appears under his palm, set into the stone. He takes his hand away to let the others read it:
If you see, then you know.
If you know, then you don’t need to see.
Niko looks back at Dymitr, who puzzles over the words for a moment.
“What you need to know is, there’s a door here,” Niko says, tapping the marble. “Any guesses as to how you pass through it?”
“I hate riddles,” Dymitr says.
“Then you’ll hate witches,” Niko says.
The part of Ala’s brain that she trained with Sunday crossword puzzles flickers to life.If you know, then you don’t need to see.
“We walk through with our eyes closed,” she volunteers.
Niko smiles. “Try it and see.”
Ala recognizes the challenge in his voice, and not to be outdone, she steps up to the marble sign, closing her eyes. She steps forward, and the grit of the stone gives way like sand around her body. Passing through the wall isn’t easy—for a moment, as she’s caught between one place and another, she can’t breathe, she feels pressure on every inch of her skin, squeezing her—but then she’s standing in the lobby of the theater, gasping.
The first thing she notices is the smell, musty and rotten.Wet carpet, mold, and broken plaster. But the signs of deterioration are obvious even without her sensitive nose: cracked, peeling drywall on the ceiling, a thick layer of dust over every flat surface, soft materials yielding and buckling with the weight of time as the hard ones stand untouched. The marble floors are intact, though dirty, as are the elaborately decorated walls—pillars on either side of the hall, covered in birds with spread wings and beautiful women in profile; shields and unfurling leaves. At the other end of the lobby are two grand staircases that join beneath three arches. A single chain hanging just above them suggests an old chandelier—gone now, obviously, the chain hanging empty.
The place should be dark. There are no lights that Ala can see, not even emergency floodlights—she suspects that rumors of the theater’s restoration are false, fed by Baba Jaga herself so the city doesn’t tear down the building—but still the walls seem to emanate a warm light, from everywhere and from nowhere. The effect isn’t like lamplight; it doesn’t make the space welcoming. It’s more like the menace of a distant fire.
They walk under the grand stairs and into the main floor of the theater. The distant stage is wide and shallow in front of the diamond-patterned fabric that covers what used to be a movie screen—she’s sure it’s not intact anymore. The rows and rows of seats are so dust-covered and chewed apart by pests that it’s hard to tell they used to be a deep, rich red. The facades on the walls and ceiling are as elaborate as the ones in the lobby, though a huge whitestain, like a salt stain, streaks the left side of the room. The result of the burst pipe—or the scar of old magic. She can tell that in its prime, the theater was a grander, more beautiful place than the Crow. Its deterioration feels like a loss.
The farther she goes into the theater, the stronger the pulse of magic. She feels it pressing against either side of her head like a migraine.
“Is it true what they say about this place, that Baba Jaga destroyed it herself?” Ala says to Niko. “I’ve heard a few different stories, each one wilder than the last.”
Her voice doesn’t echo, though it should. She sounds as quiet and flat as she would in an anechoic chamber.
“I think so,” Niko says, and at Dymitr’s questioning look, he explains: “A witch came to Baba Jaga with a bargain: if she could take something from Baba Jaga without her realizing it was missing, she would receive Baba Jaga’s house. But if Baba Jaga did realize it was missing, she could have the witch’s magic.”
“Her house?” Dymitr asks. “Why would anyone want her house?”
Niko leads them down the left aisle, now out from under the overhang of the mezzanine.
“A witch’s home isn’t a source of power, exactly… more acontainerfor it. Take it, and you take a great deal,” Niko says. “Baba Jaga, as one of the most powerful witches alive, has a correspondingly more powerful house. It’s hard to overstate the audacity of trying to bargain with her for it. It’s like an attempt at a coup.”
Ala runs a fingertip over the back of one of the seats, and it comes away gray and gritty.
“Baba Jaga allowed the witch to enter this theater, which is a secondary…container,of sorts… to take something, anything. The witch disappeared inside for a few hours, and then emerged, smug and triumphant. Baba Jaga searched her with magic and found that she held only what she’d walked in with—no more and no less. She searched the interior of the theater with magic, too, and everything was in place. It seemed that the witch had taken nothing at all.” Niko held up a finger, then turned to point behind him, at the back wall high above them. “But the witch made a tiny mistake. She left a film reel slightly askew, and then Baba Jaga knew—what she took was a matinee showing.”
Ala grins. She likes this version of the story. “Nice.”
“Not nice enough,” Niko says. “Baba Jaga told the witch what she had discovered, and the witch tried to flee before Baba Jaga could take her magic. But you don’t renege on a bargain with Baba Jaga.”
“What happened to her?” Dymitr asks.
“She was ripped to shreds,” Niko says matter-of-factly. He’s walking down one of the rows of seats now, toward the wall with its densely patterned facade. There, in the arch of the exit, right by the edge of the stage, is a skull made of stone, set into the wall. Niko traces the outline of the eye socket with his hard fingernail.
