Page 68 of That Ain’t Witchcraft

I shrugged, trying to sound like I didn’t feel strongly one way or the other as I said, “I never really liked setting things on fire anyway. If it gets rid of the crossroads, it’s worth it.”

I tried not to remember the way my fire had clung to me when I reclaimed it in the hidden room at Lowryland, the feeling that I’d betrayed something essential about myself when I gave it away in the first place. I tried not to dwell on how hollow my bones felt, like there was an empty space inside them where the magic should have been. I’d never wanted it. I’d never asked for it. But that didn’t mean I was ready to lose it.

And none of that mattered. If giving up my magic was the only way to make sure the crossroads stopped ruining lives and destroying families—if it was the only way to keep them from turning me into a murderer—that was what I was going to do.

“We have a plan,” I said, and was proud of the way my voice didn’t shake, not even a little. “Now if you’ll all excuse me, I’m going to go find my boyfriend and shake him until he stops being an asshole.”

I turned and walked out of the room before any of them could object.

Not that any of them did.

The door to the room I was sharing with Sam was open, giving me a clear view of him sitting on the edge of the bed with his head bowed and his hands between his knees. More unnervingly, he was in human form. No tail, no fuzzy cheekbones. Just one Chinese-American man, alone, looking like his heart was breaking.

He didn’t react when I stepped into the room, or when I sat down next to him on the edge of the bed. I bit my lip as I looked at him, unsure of what I was supposed to do or say. This was new territory for me. None of my past relationships, such as they were, had reached anything like this point.

“I sort of hate you right now,” said Sam, voice dull.

“Okay,” I said.

“I was happy with the carnival. I mean, I had to pretend to be human almost all the time, and it was hard to meet girls, and the ones I did meet always freaked out when I got fuzzy, and one chick said kissing me when I had a tail would be bestiality and she didn’t swing that way, but I was happy. I had my grandmother, and the trapeze, and if things weren’t perfect, it wasn’t like they could get any better.”

“Okay.”

“I figured I’d take classes in business management and accounting through one of those predatory online colleges and sell one an old Ferris wheel to pay my tuition debts, and then I’d take the whole thing over when Grandma retired, and she’d sit outside her trailer and yell at me while I tried to work with townies who wanted to be racist assholes because they’d never seen a Chinese person before. And when she died, I’d keep the show going until I found a cousin or something who I could leave it to, and I’d die on the trapeze in front of an audience who’d come to see the oldest flying man in the world, and I’d be happy. I thought I was going to be happy.”

“Okay,” I said, for the third time, because there wasn’t anything else I could say. All the other words were behind a wall of assumptions and costs and consequences, the little realities of moving from his world into mine. He had always been a cryptid. He had always been a target. But before me, he had never known just how big a target he was.

“I was so wrong.” He kept looking at his hands. “I thought I knew what happy was, and I guess I did because I wasn’t miserable. People liked me. My grandmother loved me. She still loves me. She’ll die loving me, even if she never sees me again. I love the trapeze. I did good stuff with the carnival, and I’m not sorry I did it, but I wasn’t happy the way I am when I’m with you.”

I said nothing.

“Even when I’m mad at you, or you’re mad at me, or you do something stupid, like when you ate that gas station sushi and I had to hold your hair back while you threw up in the ditch, even then, I’m so happy it hurts. This isn’t happiness. This is weaponized joy. I’m going to die from loving you too much, and I’m not even sure I’ll be sorry. How is that fair? You didn’t mean to and I don’t blame you, but you’ve ruined me for being happy without you. I can’t do it. I can’t go. I want to, and I can’t.”

“Okay,” I said, one more time, and placed my hand over his.

He was still for a moment before he tilted his palm up to meet mine, his fingers wrapping tight, holding me in place. He still looked human. I knew how tense he had to be to be holding human guise for so long, and it hurt.

“I gave up the carnival for you,” he said.

“I never asked you to. I sort of remember asking you not to.”

“I know.” He was quiet for several seconds. “Could you really not learn to be happy inside the wards? At least for a little while?”

“It wouldn’t be for a little while. It would be forever, or for the rest of my life, anyway, until the crossroads decided to tear them down and kill me. I couldn’t do it forever. I’m not that kind of person. I need to be able to run once in a while if I’m going to enjoy being still. I need to know that when I open the door, there’s going to be a whole world on the other side, not just a linen closet I’ve already seen a thousand times.”

Sam sighed heavily. “I guess I already knew that.”

“Could you be happy if I said you had to stay human for the rest of your life? Not just a few hours when people could see you, but forever? Could you have loved me if I’d looked at you when you weren’t so tense you wanted to scream and said I liked you better the other way?”

“No,” said Sam, in a small voice.

“That’s why I’d never ask that of you.” I allowed the rest of the sentence—the fact that he’d asked exactly that of me—to go unsaid.

The fingers wrapped through mine grew longer, the skin changing texture in a subtle, not unpleasant way. A moment later, his tail wrapped around my ankle, holding me in place. That was all right. I hadn’t been trying to run.

“I hate this,” he said.

“I know.” I leaned over, resting my head against his shoulder, and closed my eyes. “I hate it, too.”