Page 8 of That Ain’t Witchcraft

I did it. I did it to save myself, and to save Sam, who had been swept away by the same roller coaster. I did it for the sake of my family, and because I’d been scared out of my mind by the thought that I would never go home. Maybe my intentions weren’t entirely pure, but I was pretty sure the crossroads didn’t care. They appreciate a little honest selfishness.

They saved my life, and they saved Sam’s life, and they took the fire out of my fingers as collateral against a favor to be performed later. One day soon, they were going to call on me to do something for them, and when they did, I wasn’t going to be in a position to refuse.

I glanced at Sam sleeping in the seat next to me, and felt a deep, fierce possessiveness clamp around my heart, holding so tight that for a moment, I struggled to breathe. It had been worth it. It had all been worth it.

I put my hand on his knee and closed my eyes. Maine. We’d be in Maine soon, and there would be time to rest and regroup and decide what we were going to do next. Cylia’s luck had led us to this house. It would be safe. It would be fine. For a little while, at least, we could stop running.

That idea had never sounded so good.

The car door slammed hard enough to wake me up. Not just me: Sam’s tail tightened around my waist before letting go, disappearing back to wherever it went when he returned to his human form. Therianthropes are walking violations of about a dozen scientific principles at any given time, including conservation of mass.

“Where are we?” he asked groggily.

“Hang on and stay human; I’ll find out.” Growing up with a family like mine means learning how to wake up very, very quickly under pretty much any circumstances, since the alternative could involve getting eaten. I unbuckled my seat belt, opened the door, and stepped out into the pine-scented air of someplace that was definitely not the rolling fields of farm country.

I was standing on a gravel driveway. Trees pressed in on all sides, packed together until they were basically a horror movie waiting to happen. The sky overhead was a dark so deep and clear that it contradicted itself, becoming a virtual sea of stars that glittered, silver-bright, against the blackness. They weren’t the only source of light: the moon was huge, gilding the land in silver and glinting off a distant slice of what I assumed was a lake, since it didn’t look active enough to be an ocean.

At the end of the driveway, a house that could easily have nabbed itself a starring role in Attack of the Return of the Blair Witch: Part III loomed against its background of trees, windows glowing dimly behind gauzy curtains.

Cylia stood in front of the car, harshly lit by the headlights as she exchanged a stack of cash for a set of keys. The man next to her glanced uneasily at me, attention snagged by the motion. Cylia snapped her fingers.

“Eyes here,” she said, not unpleasantly. “Focus on the nice lady with the nicer money. Lovely, lovely money. Three months of wandering-around-Europe money. Is there anything we need to know about the house?”

“The upstairs shower is finicky,” he said. “You have to turn the hot water up twice as high as you think you do. There are snakes in the boathouse, but they’re not venomous, and they’re useful at keeping down the mice. There’s an account that pays the utilities automatically, so there’s no chance of the power being shut off, but it goes out sometimes anyway, when there’s a storm up. Best to keep your flashlights ready to use.”

“Not haunted?” she asked.

He laughed, more nervously than I was comfortable with. “Not so’s anyone would notice.”

In my experience, that usually meant “not haunted, but there’s something unpleasant in these woods that eats people, and I’d rather you didn’t ask me about it.” That was fine. Once we got settled, I had every intention of spending a little time as something unpleasant in the woods. If I found the original unpleasant thing, we could have a contest to determine who was worse. I’d win. I always won.

“Great.” Cylia made the keys vanish into her pocket as she smiled at our new landlord. “Have a wonderful time in Europe. We’ll see you in December.”

“About that … if you don’t mind me asking, what brings you out here? Fall’s not the most hospitable season for visiting Maine.”

“Maine has a hospitable season?” I blurted. They turned to look at me. I shrugged. “Sorry. Just … between the mosquitoes and the snow, I didn’t realize there was a tourist-intensive time of year.”

“We’re here for the leaves,” said Cylia. “We just love a pretty tree, isn’t that right?”

“Sure is,” I said, and bared my teeth in an approximation of a smile.

Cylia lifted both eyebrows in what I recognized as the universal gesture for “get back in the car before you ruin everything.” I got back in the car. Sam, still apparently human, gave me a mistrustful look.

“Is she buying drugs? Please tell me she’s buying drugs, and not selling one or more of us to the local zoo.”

“She’s paying the rent on the house where we’re going to be living for the next few months.” I glanced at the front seat. Fern, who could probably sleep through the fall of the Roman Empire, was still out cold. “Apparently, the upstairs shower is finicky. I’m cool with that, since it implies the existence of a downstairs shower, meaning we have access to multiple showers.”

“Is that—” Sam began, and caught himself. “What am I saying? Of course, it’s safe. Cylia wouldn’t be paying the man if it wasn’t safe.”

Cylia was done paying the man. He waved at her before he walked down the driveway, passing the car without a single look as he receded into the night. Cylia followed him as far as the driver’s-side door, which she opened and slipped through, plopping herself behind the wheel.

“We’ll figure out permanent sleeping arrangements in the morning,” she said. “For tonight, find a flat surface and enjoy getting some rest in a bed that isn’t moving or rented by the hour. Home, sweet home.”

She started the car, and we drove on toward the future, which looked like it might at least have better plumbing than the past.

Three

“If cleanliness is next to godliness, bleach is proof of the existence of the divine.”