Page 27 of That Ain’t Witchcraft

“Are you going to kill me? Should I be getting ready to defend myself?”

I hesitated. Salvation came from an unexpected source.

“Of course she’s not going to kill you,” snapped Sam. “What the hell kind of people do you think we are? We didn’t have to tell you any of this. And if she’d been planning to kill you, believe me, you’d be dead.”

“That isn’t as much of an endorsement as you think it is,” said James.

“Except for the part where he’s right,” I said. “Seriously, James, if I’d been planning to kill you, why would I have told you about it? You were already primed to believe whatever I said, because you want someone who understands what’s going on, who knows how to say ‘sorcerer’ without turning it into a Dungeons and Dragons joke. All I needed to do was tell you I was scared of the crossroads and ask for your help. I told you the truth. That means something.”

“Maybe it means none of you are very good liars,” snapped James.

“Oh, to hell with this,” said Sam, and stood, shifting and blurring as he did, until there was an anthropomorphic monkey where the man had been. Still shirtless, which provided an excellent view of the lines of fur running along his spine and the sides of his shoulders. And a lot more relaxed all of a sudden—something James didn’t seem to properly appreciate. He was staring at Sam, eyes even wider than before.

Sam leaned forward, resting his hands on the table, tail curled high in what I recognized as a display of dominance, like a biker flexing in the parking lot. Everything about his posture was informing James in no uncertain terms of who the winner would be if things got physical.

Too bad any fight they had wouldn’t restrict itself to the physical. Sam could hit harder and move faster than a human, which just meant James could freeze him more quickly than he could the average boxer. I put a hand on Sam’s forearm, indicating that I wanted him to stay where he was.

Sam either didn’t notice or didn’t care. Eyes narrowed in frustration, he said, “Annie isn’t lying. If you think she is, you know where the door is. And if she were lying to you, you’d never know. Believe me.”

“You’re a monkey.” The statement was almost flat, divorced from all emotional response. That made sense, since James was clearly on the verge of freaking out.

“I’m a sylph,” said Fern, not to be outdone.

“I’m not a monkey, I’m a fūri,” said Sam grumpily. “You’re a monkey, too, if you think I am. We’re both primates. I’m just a primate who can swing from trees and then go sit on airplanes.”

“Airplanes?” asked Cylia.

“Some seats were not designed for people with tails.” Sam managed to make it sound like some dire pronouncement, heralding the fall of nations.

I swallowed my laughter. It would have hurt his feelings, which was really too bad. A little levity would not have been welcome right about then. “Sorry about the limitations of human ingenuity,” I said.

“Forgiven.” Sam wrapped his tail loosely around my waist, still staring at James. Again, I had to swallow laughter. “So are you going to call me a monkey again, or are you going to listen?”

“You’re not human.” James turned to Fern. “You’re not human either. A … sylph? Aren’t those air spirits?”

“Sort of,” she said, with a broad shrug. “I can make myself lighter or heavier when I need to. It’s easy.”

“This is too much.” James looked back to me. “All of this is too much.”

“This is life,” I said. “Why do you hate the crossroads so much? Unless you were leaving something out before, they didn’t kill your mom. And you don’t seem civic-minded enough to be this upset about them just existing.”

“I don’t make friends easily.” James made the admission slowly, as if it pained him.

Sam snorted. I rewarded him with a light elbowing. He snorted again, this time at me, and rubbed the spot where my elbow had hit his side.

“You’re not alone in that,” I said.

“Hey, I make friends just fine,” said Cylia.

“I don’t,” said Fern.

James looked down at his long-neglected coffee. “I was a smart kid, and I was a hurting kid, and I was a little bit of a know-it-all. It was the easiest way for me to cope with what I was going through. I studied hard. I got gold stars and my teachers admired me and my peers knocked me into mud puddles and called me names. All of them hated me … except Sally.”

“Sally?” I prompted.

He glanced up and smiled, suddenly vulnerable, suddenly achingly sad. Or maybe not so suddenly. The roots of that sorrow were traced all through the lines of his face, growing in the fertile soil they found there.

“She was in my second grade class. We’d never really talked—like I said, I didn’t make friends easily, and Sally was pretty and funny and everybody liked her, and I knew better than to get too close unless I wanted to get my ass kicked. And then one day I was sitting on a bench reading, and this kid, Billy Maxton, he ran up and pushed me to the ground and started kicking me.” A note of wounded confusion slipped into James’ voice, all the harder to hear because it was so familiar.