Page 83 of Magic for Nothing

Finally, in a choked voice, I asked, “Did Emery send you?”

“No,” he said. “She’d probably have told me not to come, if she’d known. She thinks I’m at the RV, packing my things. She wants me to ride out of here with the Knowles twins.”

“The Knowles twins . . . ?”

“They run the Haunted House, usually. They own half of it. Well, right now they do. After the insurance pays for us to get a new one, they’re going to own the whole thing. That was their price for going, instead of staying to fight. Not that they wanted to stay and fight. They just wanted to own the Haunted House.”

“They’re probably not related,” I said automatically.

Sam paused, confusion rippling across his face and chasing away any anger lurking there. For a moment, he looked at me like I was just Annie, the girl he flew with, the girl he kissed, the girl who sometimes said things that made no sense at all. “What do you mean?”

“Bogeymen stay home until they get married, so they can pay into the family; odds are good they’re either a young married couple or engaged and trying to earn enough to pay for each other. Owning their own carnival attraction, and all its profits, would go a long way toward securing them a wedding.” Bogeymen never like to feel like they owe anyone anything. There’s a lot of reciprocity in their culture, and a lot of very detailed accounting.

“Okay, that’s weird,” said Sam. The confusion faded, replaced by stony coldness. I ached to see it go. “I wanted to talk to you.”

“So talk. Unless ‘talk’ is your way of saying ‘beat the shit out of you.’ You’ll need to get in line for that.”

He grimaced. “I guess I deserved that.”

“You think?”

“I overreacted before. I shouldn’t have hit you. But you shouldn’t have burned me.”

“I burned you because you hit me.”

“I guess that’s fair,” said Sam, looking down at his feet. “I’m better at holding a grudge than I am at apologizing. Can we be done with this part? Please?”

“I’m a pretty good grudge-holder myself,” I said, thinking of Verity, thinking of slammed doors and icy silences. “Sure. Let’s say just this once, the two grudges cancel each other out.”

“Cool. Thanks.” He looked up. “Do you think this plan of yours will work?”

I closed my eyes. “As long as we’re careful. I think the Covenant will come looking for me when I don’t call, because they consider me one of their own. We’ll fight them. We’ll lose. And we’ll burn the whole place down around our ears.” The inevitable arson investigation would find no accelerants; just the aftermath of an electrical fire that had started in the big tent and managed to spread despite the rain, destroying everything. Emery had shown me the carnival’s insurance paperwork. They were covered thoroughly enough that they’d be closed for six months, tops, while they found and repainted their replacement rides. They might even wind up better off. Buying new would allow them to get equipment that needed less repair than their current worn-down rides and attractions.

Yes, they’d lose the memories and history associated with what they already had. But they’d be alive to make new ones. That had to be good enough.

“Grandma thinks I’m leaving.”

“So you’ve said.”

“I’m not leaving.”

I opened my eyes. It was somehow unsurprising to see that Sam had crossed half the space between us. He was standing there, tail twining and untwining around his left ankle, watching me with that same cold flatness. I thought back on all the times he’d glared at me, or looked at me like I didn’t matter, and realized, with a small flare of hope, that he was nervous.

“Why not?” I asked.

“Because I’m not my mom,” he said. “I don’t run out on people just because things get hard and I might get hurt if I stick around.”

“Sometimes staying is a lot harder than running away,” I agreed quietly.

“Annie . . .” He paused. “Is it still okay to call you that?”

“Yeah,” I said. “It’s ‘Antimony,’ remember? My Great-Aunt Laura was an ambulomancer. She made a prediction that could have applied to either me or my cousin Elsie, about needing to disappear under a name that was ours but wasn’t at the same time. My parents named me ‘Antimony Timpani,’ and Elsie’s parents named her ‘Elsinore Norelle,’ to make sure we’d be able to do what we had to, when the time came.” I laughed bitterly. “When we were kids, we used to bet each other on who it would be. I never thought I’d win.”

“Your parents named you to fulfill a prophecy?” Sam sounded dubious. I didn’t blame him in the least. “Who are you, Anakin Skywalker?”

“I have not brought balance to the Force.” I looked at him. I didn’t feel like I had the right anymore, but that didn’t change the wanting. That’s the real problem with me. I always want something. I want my parents to be proud of me. I want to do things my siblings have never done, things that would make me something more than just the troublesome baby of the family. I want to skate. I want to be right.

I wanted Sam. Life would have been so much easier if I hadn’t. But he’d kissed me, and I’d kissed him, and for a few crystalline moments, everything had seemed like it made sense. Everything had seemed right.