Page 66 of That Ain’t Witchcraft

“Oh, that part’s easy,” I said. “We just have to convince them I’m there to kill you.”

And then I could deal with the second problem. Because I had the spell, the words and gestures that would hopefully, if performed in a liminal space like the crossroads, use their questionable relationship to reality to rewind time to the point where all the trouble began. The only question was who would cast it, since none of the others had or knew how to use magic, and James was going to be playing witness in the trial that would determine his own future.

That left me, and my magic was currently in the custody of the crossroads. Which meant I needed to find a way to access it while it was being held captive. No pressure or anything. It was just that if I got this wrong, we were all going to die.

Seventeen

“Lord save me from the living.”

–Mary Dunlavy

The dining room of a rented house in New Gravesend, Maine

MY PRONOUNCEMENT FELL INTO the room with all the grace and buoyancy of a lead balloon. If we could have tied it around the crossroads’ metaphorical ankles, our problems would have been over—or at least temporarily confined to the bottom of the lake.

Finally, with a surprising amount of delicacy, Fern said, “So, um, you want us to take you and James to the crossroads at the same time, where you’re going to stab him or something?”

“I shouldn’t need to stab him very much,” I said.

“That’s encouraging,” muttered James.

“Oh, don’t be such a big baby,” I said. “I’m good at stabbing people. I can make it look very violent and impressive without puncturing a kidney or anything.”

He stared at me. “Is this meant to be reassuring? Because if it is, you’re doing it wrong.”

“If we do this right, I shouldn’t have to stab you at all,” I said. “Although stabbing you a little would help, since it would mean I had a knife. Which you could then take away from me, leaving me unarmed.” Unarmed, and going to confront an unspeakable horror on its own turf.

There was a time when I thought I was the smart one in my family. Now I just think I’m the one who was saving up all her stupidity to use it in one gloriously impressive display of What Not To Do.

“I have so many problems with this plan that I don’t think I could list them all even if I wanted to try,” said Sam. “On second thought, no. I really want to try, because this isn’t so much a ‘plan’ as it is the Rube Goldberg version of a suicide attempt.”

“Do you have a better idea?” I asked.

“Yeah. We ward the fuck out of the car and we get out of Maine.” Sam glared at me. “This doesn’t have to be our fight. This shouldn’t be our fight. This is a bad fight, and I don’t like it, and I don’t want you getting hurt.”

“See, that’s the important word here. ‘Hurt.’ Mary’s hurt. Whatever the crossroads are doing to her, it’s not pleasant. Maybe it’s not pain like the living experience it, but it’s not good. So someone I love is already suffering because of all this. James is hurt. When the crossroads took Sally, they hurt him, and he has a right to be angry, and he has a right to want to make them pay for what they did. And while I’m pretty sure you don’t care about either of those things as much as you would if you didn’t feel like I was in danger—and I really love you for caring about whether or not I’m in danger—here’s something you should care about: I can’t live my life behind wards. I can’t be locked in some shiny cage and told that you’ll take care of me.”

I waved my hands, indicating the room around us, the safely warded house with its strong walls and sturdy windows.

“My grandfather made a deal with the crossroads to save my grandmother’s life,” I said. “I don’t know the exact terms he agreed to. No one does except for Mary, and she’s never been allowed to tell us what they were. What I do know is that after he made his deal, he stopped going outside. Not right away, but slowly, staying a little closer to home every day. His world narrowed inch by inch, and by the time the crossroads carried him away, he couldn’t even go down the stairs. Grandma had to carry his meals up to him, because he’d lost everything below the second floor. They crushed him like a rat in a trap, and when that wasn’t funny anymore, they came for him anyway. There aren’t wards to keep the crossroads out. All you could do is break me, so that when they showed up and said, ‘Hey, kiddo, time to pay for fucking with us,’ I’d be grateful for the chance to see the sky again.” I took a breath. “Also, warding a car isn’t like warding a house. I’m not sure it would work, and even if it did, we’d have to take James with us and have him recast the wards every hundred miles or so, which wouldn’t work out for long.”

Sam stared at me for a moment before he shoved his chair away from the table, rose, and walked out of the room. I watched him go, fighting the urge to run after him. Not so I could promise to stay out of danger—that was never going to happen—but so I could put my arms around him and hold on until he realized we were doing the right thing. It was terrible and it was dangerous and it was right.

He was going to be really thrilled when I went looking for Leo.

“This is so much fun, gosh, why did it take me this long to completely fuck up my life,” I muttered.

“I’m the one you’re planning to stab,” said James, a note of wry sympathy in his otherwise dry tone. He was trying to distract me.

I’ve always been happy to be distracted with the idea of stabbing someone. “True enough,” I said, gathering the shreds of my composure into something that could almost pass for cheer. “I bring one knife, I stab you to show the crossroads I’m serious, then you take the knife away. They won’t expect it to be my only weapon. It’s too far out of character.”

James gave me a dubious look. “How many weapons do you customarily have?”

“The family record is fifty-three, currently held by my mother, who is absolutely terrifying and also really good at hiding darts in her hair without scratching herself,” I said. “I mean, we have some apocryphal numbers on Grandpa Thomas, but he’s been missing for decades, and no one is willing to believe anything in triple digits until we’ve seen actual proof.”

“Is disarming the traps a mating ritual for you people?” demanded James, aghast.

I winked broadly. “Indiana Jones ain’t got nothing on someone who successfully dates a member of my family.”