Page 49 of That Ain’t Witchcraft

“That doesn’t hold for crossroads ghosts,” I said. “Mary lied to me all the time when I was a kid.”

“And she’s still your friend?” asked Sam.

“She was my babysitter, and my parents wanted me to have a few years where I thought Santa wasn’t real.”

“You mean where you thought Santa was real,” said James.

“I meant what I said,” I replied.

Cylia shuddered. “Gift-giving asshole,” she said.

Sam and James exchanged a look, united in their confusion. It was nice for them to have something to bond over. If Sam started getting squirrelly again, I’d be sure to drop something about the Easter Bunny into conversation. That would keep them busy for a while.

“Maybe that’s why they have the crossroads ghosts,” I said, letting the topic of beloved holiday figures who were secretly terrifying slip to the side. “I mean, something had to control the crossroads before the change, but whatever it was would have been making the deals, not brokering them. On the other hand, having something with a friendly, nonthreatening face that can lie to people … that’s valuable if you’re some kind of nasty that feeds off human misery. Or whatever it is that the crossroads feed off of. I wish to hell Mary were still here. She might be able to answer some of these questions.”

Or she might not. The crossroads had always kept a tight leash on what she could and couldn’t talk about, and she had tried so hard to be careful. Well, look where that got her.

“I don’t like being the designated ignorant person, but I’m going to step up and take one for the team,” said Sam. “What does any of this matter? Why do we care whether or not the crossroads can lie?”

“We care because if they could lie, they’d be offering James a way to get Sally back if he promised not to hurt them. Hell, maybe they’d be making him a new Sally. My maternal grandfather was dead for a while, and he got better, but he’s not the man he was before his murders.” Resurrect the shell of Sally and shove Bethany inside; trust James to ascribe any strangeness to the aftereffects of trauma. It wasn’t an elegant plan. It was a functional one if the crossroads could lie. “That also means when they told Mary—and then Bethany—that he scared them, they meant it. The answer is here.” I waved a hand, indicating the books around us.

“Okay, but … where?” Sam scowled at the book in his hands. “We’ve been going over these for hours. There’s nothing here but a lot of desperate people making stupid deals and getting lectured about it by whoever wrote the thing down.”

“Good question.” I sat up to get a better view of James. “Are you sure all the books are here? Your mom didn’t keep a private library at home?”

“My parents were basically a redneck Bewitched,” said James grimly. “My father never wanted to hear a word about magic, not even when she was trying to warn him that it can be hereditary. There’s no way she would have kept things at home. He would have found them.”

I frowned.

My family is big into taking notes. We have the mice to recount what they see and experience, providing an absolutely invaluable service, especially when you’re on the road and it’s not safe to write things down. But nothing will ever replace the journal as a source of wisdom for future generations. My grandfather, like most sorcerers of his generation, even created his own grimoire, recording as much as he could about who he was and what he knew how to do.

Of course, he did most of the writing while he was still working for the Covenant, which meant he was creating a written record of all the reasons they should really burn him at the stake. So he’d learned how to do things in code, and how to hide them.

James’ mother had been a sorcerer.

“Change of plans,” I said and stood. “Fern isn’t going to be the make-believe girlfriend.”

“Oh?” said Cylia.

“Oh, no,” said Sam.

I flashed him a wry smile as I leaned over and kissed him on the forehead. “At least it’s not Leonard?”

Sam groaned.

Fern took the news of being released from her pretend relationship with relief, since pretending to date James would have involved leaving the house—something she wasn’t currently inclined to do. She also took her share of the research seriously, producing several pages of tightly-spaced notes that didn’t tell us anything we didn’t already know.

Sam leaned against the doorframe as I laced my skates, arms folded, scowling. He really was excellently suited to looming.

“Is this a jealousy thing?” I asked, keeping my eyes on the knot I was attempting to tie. “Because if you’re going to be the kind of boyfriend who gets cranky every time I look at another guy, we may need to have a conversation that’s going to make us both really, really unhappy.”

“It’s not a jealousy thing,” he said, and he sounded like he meant it. “I’m not going to pretend to like it, but you took a crossbow bolt to the shoulder rather than let me get hurt. I think I’m an asshole if I ask for more proof that you’re sticking with me.”

“So what is it?”

“It’s a ‘some Covenant fucker is out there with a crossbow, and he might shoot you again, and when you’re pretending to be some other dude’s girlfriend, I can’t come with you to keep you safe’ thing.” Sam’s scowl deepened. “You can ask me to do a lot of things, and most of them I’ll probably go along with, because I know you do what you do for a reason. But you can’t ask me not to worry about you.”

I tied off my skate with a tight knot and stood, testing my balance before gliding over to Sam and leaning up to press a kiss to his cheek. “I won’t ask you not to worry about me. I’ll ask you to spare a little worry for anyone who decides I’d make a good target. I’d hate to go to prison for murder.”