Page 83 of That Ain’t Witchcraft

Cylia and Fern frowned in eerie unison. It was Cylia who spoke, asking, “Annie? Is this something that should be shared with the entire class?”

“That’s up to James,” I said. “We’ll be back downstairs as soon as we can.”

“All right, then. Who wants waffles?” Cylia spread her hands. “I can twist our luck until it screams, I can do as much as I can to make sure things fall our way, but I can’t make any promises. I don’t have knives, or magic. I can’t fly. I can’t move faster than a speeding bullet.”

Sam rubbed the scar on his forehead left by a Covenant bullet, and said nothing.

“What I can do is make sure we’re all fed and fortified before we go off to tangle with a deathless eldritch force from another reality. So I ask you again, who wants waffles?”

As it turned out, everybody wanted waffles. James and I slipped away while she was whipping up the batter. Hopefully, we’d be back downstairs soon.

Hopefully, this wasn’t the straw that broke the sorcerer’s back.

Hopefully.

Twenty-one

“Nobody’s chosen. Everybody gets to choose. Make the choice that brings you home. We’re not being paid to save the world, here.”

–Jane Harrington-Price

In the upstairs library of a rented house in New Gravesend, Maine, getting ready for an uncomfortable conversation

I’LL GIVE JAMES THIS much: he’d grown up in a house with a father who resented him for existing, had developed sorcery without spilling the beans to any of his classmates or coworkers, and had fallen begrudgingly but completely into our weird little world, and he had done it all with a closed mouth and an open mind. He waited until we were in the library with the door shut before he rounded on me.

“Well?” he demanded. “What now? Are we secretly blood relations, or have you discovered that the ritual to summon the crossroads requires us to get married before we conjure the dead? Or have you decided to kill me after all, and this was your way of getting me alone before you do the deed?”

I blinked. Then, helplessly, I began to laugh.

This seemed to annoy James further, thus proving that he was a sensible man who’d simply had the misfortune to fall in with a bunch of weirdos. I flapped a hand, trying to get my laughter under control. It had a hysterical edge that I didn’t like, especially under the circumstances.

Finally, tears rolling down my cheeks, I managed to make it stop. “I’m sorry,” I gasped. “This isn’t funny, it’s just—the look on your face—” It was all I could do not to start laughing again.

To my surprise, James quirked a small, somewhat wan smile. “Sally said something similar the day she informed me of her intention to be my new best friend. Apparently, I looked like a deer in front of a train.”

“I can’t wait to meet her.” I wiped my tears away, sobering further. “Really, though, I need to talk to you, and I need you to listen to me until I’m done. Okay?”

The smile vanished, replaced by more familiar wariness. “All right. What do you need to say?”

“Your father dropped by.”

James scowled. “I assure you, whatever he told you, it wasn’t on my behalf.”

“I figured, since he started off by telling me not to have any further contact with you. I thought about telling him you were in the boathouse, naked, waiting for me to show up with the maple syrup and the handcuffs, but I was afraid he’d take me seriously and go storming out there to make you put your pants back on.”

James said nothing as his cheeks and ears flared beet red. Laughing at him would have been unkind. I settled for patting him on the hand.

“Don’t worry. I didn’t say it.”

“Thank God,” said James, in a strangled voice. “I think he’d lock me in the attic for a month.”

I paused to eye him. “Do you mean that seriously?”

He turned his face away.

Fuck. “Just so you know, I had already decided I was adopting you and taking you home to meet the rest of the family. I really, really hope you wanted siblings, because you now have two sisters, a brother, a sister-in-law, a brother-in-law, and assorted cousins, aunts, uncles, and other such familial detritus.”

James looked back to me, blinking in slow bewilderment. “Ah,” he said finally. “I suppose I’ll have a busy Christmas.”