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Maybe she was right. I would have to think about that… Later…

Zelda led us through a laundromat that smelled like fabric softener and regret, past a bank of dryers that hadn't run a load since the Carter administration, and into a back room that looked as totally unremarkable as everything in front of it.

There were no skulls. Not even one cauldron.

Just a locked door and a very smug look on Zelda's face. I swear, she looked like she'd been waiting for months for somebody to underestimate the place.

"I can't open it," she admitted, before I could get too impressed. "I'm the next in line to be the Baba Yaga… Not the real deal. I don't technically own the Vault yet. We need Carol."

"Who's Carol?" Kai asked, sounding almost as suspicious as the time I made him try my first and only attempt at a soufflé.

Zelda didn’t answer. Instead, she closed her eyes like she was praying for patience, and called out, "Carol!"

Let me say, and I cannot emphasize it enough. There is no way in Heaven, Earth, or Hell to ‘be ready’ to meet the Baba Yaga. Carol is one of a kind in every possible way, and a few not even the Great Goddess herself has imagined.

The ground beneath our feet quite literally shook. I turned, laid my hand on Kai’s arm, and whispered, “Get ready.”

“For what?” He mouthed.

But there wasn’t time or the words for the chaotic, magnificent, earth-shattering entrance of the one and only Witch of All Witches.

In the blink of an eye, the Baba Yaga appeared, and I was sure my hunka-hunka-sparkly Fae King was about to faint. He was nowhere ready for what he saw, but then again, nobody ever was when they came face-to-face with the one and only Baba Yaga.

Not only were her bleach-blonde bangs teased higher than Dolly Parton had ever imagined, but I swear to the Great Goddess, pink Pixies were using them as a skateboard ramp for their annual Muggerfugger Games and Tri-Realm Festival. I had been invited, and in that moment was happier than a pig in mud that I had declined.

She had on at least ten necklaces full of brightly colored beads, gold and silver charms, and a few wooden baubles I couldn’t quite make out the design of. The first one was wound tightly around her neck, and the others flowed down over her décolletage, her boobs, and her flat tummy, with the lowest point of the last one sitting on the waistband of her bright orange and lime green striped mini skirt.

Yes, I said bright orange-and-lime-green striped mini skirt. Carol’s clothes were so perfectly retro eighties that I kept waiting for her to Magick up a microphone on a stand adorned with a myriad of silk scarves and start bopping around as she belted out Cyndi Lauper's 'Girls Just Wanna Have Fun'. Great Goddess knew she was dressed for the part.

She even wore electric-blue Reebok Freestyle high-top tennis shoes with fluorescent pink, ruffled socks. Girl might have been stuck in the 80s, but she was doing it with style.

She looked right at Zelda, and her expression spoke volumes. She'd been personally inconvenienced by our entire existence and was going to turn us all into frogs if we didn’t explain in two point two seconds.

Zelda got as far as, “Umm, hi, I was just…”

“I’ll get to you in a minute,” Carol huffed as she took one long look at me, Kai, Barney, and four dogs, standing in the back of her laundromat like the world's worst house call.

Shaking her head, she turned back to Zelda, slammed her hand on her hip, and flatly stated, "Absolutely not."

"Good talk," I said.

Zelda launched into the explanation with the words flying out of her mouth as her hands flew to and fro as if she was the only air traffic controller at the DFW airport. She explained, in detail, about Margaret, the crown, the Door, the One Below, the ancient Baba Yaga carved into a tomb lid under Hoopingarner House, and everything else she could think of.

All the while, I was sure Carol was going to zap us into oblivion. And then Zelda got to the part about the symbol on the Witch's palm, and I watched all the color drain from the Baba Yaga’s heavily blushed face.

She knew it. Not from any personal experience, judging by the way her jaw tightened.

"That mark," Carol said slowly, "is in the Old Records."

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"Records we're told never to touch. Not unless the world is ending."

"Define ending," I asked.

"Apocalypse."

"Okay, but like– regular apocalypse, or Tuesday in Dragoon Bootay?"