Page 55 of That Ain’t Witchcraft

I promptly vomited on the road, gasping and shaking from the shock of having the agony ripped away. I felt like I’d run a marathon, naked, through a field of barbed wire. The pain in my shoulder was almost incidental, something fleshy and easily ignored behind the worn-down ache that filled my entire body.

“Suffering exhausts a person. So many of the people who come to us are looking to be relieved of pain. We’ve had so much time to study what it does to the psyche of a human being, to suffer without cease. We can give you a lifetime of scholarship on the matter.”

There was a soft scuff in the dirt as the shapeless shadow of the crossroads moved into my field of view and knelt, showing me its absence.

“Is this what you want, Antimony? Do you care so much about a man you just met that you would burn for him forever? Because that’s what waits for you, if you don’t do as we say. Do you understand? Nod if you understand.”

Choking back bile, I forced myself to nod.

The crossroads had no face. It couldn’t smile. Still, it seemed pleased as it rose.

“Good girl. Now, as we finally understand each other, do you want to change anything about your earlier answer?”

I wanted to say “yes.” I wanted, in the craven, cowardly pit of my soul, to tell the crossroads that I’d go back to the real world and snap James’ throat as soon as they released me. Anything to put the fire back into my hands where it belonged and keep the crossroads from using it against me. Anything to get away.

And I couldn’t. Maybe the crossroads hadn’t let me burn long enough to break me, but my stubborn streak has always been a mile wide, and I hate being told what to do. I swallowed hard, the muscles of my throat protesting the motion, and whispered, “No. He doesn’t trust me enough to let me that close.”

“Are you sure?” There was a warning note in the figure’s voice.

Again, the answer rose in my throat, burning like acid. Tell it what it wants to hear, I thought, and “Yes,” I whispered. “He needs to trust me, or all this was for nothing.”

“We can hurt you any time we want to. You understand that, don’t you? We can hurt you, and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. We’re always with you because you belong to us. If you died right now, you’d be as much ours as Bethany is, and we’d burn you until the stars went out to punish you for refusing to behave.”

It didn’t take any effort at all to whimper. A hand caressed my hair.

“Good girl. You’re learning. We’ll see you soon.”

The world blinked, like I had closed my eyes for a long, terrible moment, and the empty road and the corn and the crossroads were gone, replaced by the blackness of the hidden stairwell. I was crumpled on the stairs, not on my hands and knees, but on my side, like a child’s discarded toy.

The exhaustion was still consuming my muscles, making sure I understood that the pain I had suffered at the hands of the crossroads had been very real, and the threat of its return was equally sincere. I pushed myself, shaking, onto my hands and knees, feeling around the wall until I found the rail. There was no smell of vomit. Wherever I’d thrown up, it hadn’t been here.

That was terrifying. The crossroads existed at least partially outside our reality, and they could apparently take me there whenever they wanted to. Was that a forever thing, or a “just until you finish fulfilling your bargain” thing? If it was the former, I was screwed. I could easily see them snatching me off the track or out of my own bed, throwing me into the dirt and setting my nerves aflame.

Which was just one more reason to destroy them. I pulled myself to my feet and resumed climbing the stairs, closing my eyes to make it easier to move through the dark. It’s a psychosomatic thing. People who navigate by sight expect to, well, see where they’re going … unless their eyes are closed. Take sight out of the equation and they move with more confidence, like they’ve already decided that a few stubbed toes are a foregone conclusion.

The rail was surprisingly solid, holding my shaky weight with ease. I climbed until my outstretched hand found another door. Those windows again. If there hadn’t been a door at the top of the stairs, the light would have been able to shine into the stairwell. I opened my eyes. I opened the door.

The missing half of the attic was as open and airy as the half where James was presumably still looking for clues was cobwebby and cramped. I stepped through the door, careful to close it behind myself, and looked around.

Someone had been using this space as a private office once, a very long time ago. A layer of dust covered everything, from the small rolltop desk situated across from the window to the bookshelf positioned to keep it safe from the worst of the sun. There was a filing cabinet old enough to be used for a 1950s period piece, and the usual assortment of knickknacks: a few framed pictures, covered in a layer of dust so thick that their subjects could no longer be seen, a letter opener, and a long-dead plant, its wilted remains draped over the side of a clay pot. The door through which I’d entered was behind me. Another, smaller door was on the wall ahead of me, the base of it raised more than a foot above the floor.

There was nothing about the room to indicate that anyone had been in it for more than a decade. I took a cautious step forward. The last thing my day needed was the sudden discovery of dry rot.

I did not plummet back down to the second floor, or into whatever mysterious oubliette this room’s owner had established to deter intruders. I took one more look around before walking over to the second door, knocking briskly, and pulling it open, revealing what looked like the back of some large, solid piece of furniture.

No handy secret entrance on this side, then. Crap. Voice muffled by the wood, I heard James say, “Hello? Annie?”

“I am a magical talking wardrobe,” I said, too exhausted to do a good spooky voice. “Move me and all your questions will be answered.”

A series of thumps and small noises of complaint marked James’ progress across the attic. The wooden panel blocking my view rocked once before he complained, “It’s too heavy.”

“I have faith in you.”

James scoffed. “That makes one person.”

“Look, I can clap my hands and say I believe in fairies, if that’s what it’s going to take to get you to exert yourself, but I can’t exactly help. Crossbow bolt to the shoulder, remember?” I didn’t feel like explaining my encounter with the crossroads. It already seemed hazy, like a dream I would have been better off forgetting.

There was nothing hazy or dreamlike about the ache filling my body, making it difficult for me to stay steady on my feet. There was a chair at the desk. Fond visions of sitting down filled my head, nearly luring me away from the wardrobe. It wasn’t like I was helping anyway …