Page 81 of That Ain’t Witchcraft

“No, I’m serious here,” said Sam. “What just happened? Small words, please, and remember that I’m strong enough to twist your heads off, so maybe try to explain before the urge to do some twisting overwhelms my patience.”

“That’s very violent,” said Fern.

“It’s been a violent sort of week,” said Sam.

“Ghosts are flexible when they’re new; they’re also, as a rule, weak,” said Mary, letting me go and turning toward Sam. “They have one big flash of power, and then they fade. That’s why most hitchers start by getting themselves a ride home, and most ever-lasters start by finding their way back to campus, but then no one sees them or hears about them for years. It’s because they’re lost in the twilight, gaining strength, deciding what kind of ghost they’re going to be.”

“Wait,” I said. “That’s not how Aunt Rose tells it. She says she was a hitcher the second her neck snapped.”

“She was. But saying she was a hitcher only gives you the broad shape of the spirit. There are a million different ways to be anything.”

“Like how a derby player can be a jammer or a blocker or a pivot, and still be a derby girl,” said Cylia slowly.

Mary nodded. “Exactly. Rose is the kind of hitchhiking ghost she is because of choices she made after the road shoved her into a category.”

“Still not understanding,” said Sam.

“I am a crossroads ghost,” said Mary. Her words were calm: her expression was not. Rage and resignation warred for ownership. “Nothing’s going to change that. The first bargain any crossroads ghost makes is with the crossroads proper. They offer us what we think we want, and we take it, and then we’re stuck. They offered me the chance to go home and take care of my father. He wasn’t well, you see. I was all he had. So I died, and I rose, and I went home, and the crossroads left me there, because they wanted me to see that all mortal flesh decays. They wanted me to lose him and turn bitter and be truly theirs. Maybe I would have. Maybe I should have. But Frances Healy needed a babysitter, and she asked me, and I was human enough to say yes, and so—during my malleable period, when my choices could still change me—I went home with her. I started taking care of her daughter.”

“You were already a kind of caretaker,” I said. “You were supposed to take care of the crossroads. Now you’re … you’re a babysitter ghost. Like, literally. God, that sounds ridiculous.”

“As a wise woman once said to me, it only sounds ridiculous because you’re not used to hearing it,” said Mary, with a hint of a smile. “You’re a girl who throws fire, lives with talking mice, and loves a shapeshifting monkey. I think ‘ridiculous’ is a concept for other people.”

“Who controls you, if you’re a babysitter and a crossroads ghost at the same time?” James asked.

“In this circle, I control me,” said Mary. “Take me outside and it changes. I don’t know why you called me back from the void, and don’t think I’m not grateful, but I don’t know what good it’s going to do. As soon as the crossroads realize I’m here, I’m gone.”

The void. That was why she’d looked so terrible when we pulled her out. Without access to the power of her connection to the crossroads—and presumably, her connection to my family—she had become a spirit with nothing to haunt, and started consuming herself. It was a chilling thought. What would have happened to her if we hadn’t called her back when we did?

Nothing good, that was for damn sure.

“We need you,” I said.

She looked at me. “Why? I can’t tell you anything you don’t already know. The crossroads may not know where I am right now, but they will, and their rules still apply.”

“We found a loophole.”

Mary blinked. “Go on.”

“Sally went to the crossroads because she wanted to make a deal that would get James out of New Gravesend,” I said. “They took her bargain. They took her. But she didn’t get James out of town.”

“I’ve never even been to Bangor,” said James.

“That may be intentional,” said Mary. She hesitated before saying, “The crossroads don’t … they don’t like sorcerers very much. They’ll do what they can to keep them contained.”

“So we’ve gathered,” I said, fighting the urge to look at James. I needed to tell him what I’d learned from his father—but not here. That was a conversation that could happen inside the house. “If the crossroads took payment without giving him a bus ticket or something, the deal wasn’t fair. That means James can appeal. We need a ghost if we’re going to make that appeal, however. We need someone who can represent us when we make our claim.”

Mary went very still. Finally, in a low voice, she asked, “What are you planning to do?”

“Stop this. Stop all of this.” I walked back to the edge of the circle and stepped out, bending to retrieve the jam jar James had prepared. The ragged edge of a label clung to its side; the glass smelled faintly of strawberry.

I held it up for her to see.

“Will you help us?” I asked.

Mary bit her lip as she nodded.

I leaned over the edge of the circle, put the jam jar down, and pulled my hand back. The air shimmered as Mary dissolved into a thick mist and flowed through the jar’s open mouth, filling it with what looked like a slow-moving dust devil made of glitter, like the sparkle of broken glass on pavement. I leaned in again, this time to put the lid in place.