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“What?” the woman asked, and finally stopped massaging her breast, which was a relief.
“A witch,” Janey said. “You’re wearing a black dress and you have black hair like witches generally do. You also have weird animal friends, and all the stories about witches are from the States. It would be a logical assumption. Witches aren’t real, of course, but you could think you were one anyway. People think all sorts of illogical things, probably because they want to make their life more exciting, and they think science and things in the real world are dull. Wicca is a religion, for one thing, and that’s about witches.”
“I may agree with you about people and their logic skills,” the woman said, “and also that science is more exciting than fantasy, but there are stories about witches in most cultures.”
“No, there aren’t,” Janey insisted. “In all the movies about witches, they talk like Americans. I’ve never seen any movies about witches where people have a regular accent.”
“Why do you think witches would have American accents in the movies?” the woman asked.
“Because they do,” Janey said. “Because they’re American.”
“Where are movies made?” the woman asked.
“Oh.” Janey considered. “Most of them are made in the States, I guess.”
“There you go,” the woman said. “The idea of witches has come from everywhere, though. Europe. The Americas. Africa. They’re not about where you live, they’re more about men’s fear of powerful women, and of the Other. And, of course, everybody’s fear of random harm. We’d all like to make sense of that.” She pulled a plastic bag from her purse as she spoke and tossed a handful of something on the ground a couple of meters away. Peanuts in the shell, that was. The crows, who’d backed off but were still circling, gave some final caws, settled on the ground, cocked their heads, examined Beckett and the kids suspiciously as if expecting trouble, then picked up their peanuts and flew away.
The woman was still looking at the kids, especially Troy, who’d stopped crying but was still sniffing hard and leaning into Beckett. Beckett tensed, ready to hear something about his kid’s timidity, or possibly ready to fight about it.
What she said, though, she said to Troy. “Have you seen birds do something that seemed scary before?”
Troy nodded vigorously, and she asked, “What did they do?” Sounding truly interested.
This was a bizarre conversation. The woman was … well, hot, even in that plain black dress. Her arms were fiercely toned and golden brown, her cheekbones high, her nose long and straight, her eyes a deep brown, her short, wavy hair shining as black as a … well, as a crow’s wing. It was a strong face, an uncompromising face, and she wasn’t quite pretty. Her beauty ran too deep for that, down to the bone structure. Down to the personality, maybe, because she moved like a woman who knew exactly where she was going and how to get there.
Confidence. Purpose. Passion. He didn’t get many lustful shots straight to the groin anymore, but he was getting one now.
Troy said, “They swoop at you, and they can scratch you and knock you off your bike so you fall in front of a car and you die. You have to wear a special helmet with plastic things sticking out so you’re scary and they won’t swoop at you as much, but you don’t even have a helmet.”
Beckett said, “Magpies. In nesting season.”
“Oh.” The woman considered that. “I wouldn’t like a crow dive-bombing me, but Boris and Natasha don’t. They just come for peanuts. Sometimes they bring me presents, too. I have a whole collection of crow-provided small change. Also a few buttons and a screw.” She looked at her watch. “I have to go.” With that, she headed into the building, her calf muscles flexing as she took the steps two at a time. She left with not so much as a flick of her hair, because it settled into place perfectly around her head as if it knew what was good for it.
Beckett set Troy down, and the boy grabbed his leg and said, “Carry me.”
“I’ll hold your hand,” Beckett said. “No worries, though. If the birds come back, I’m taller. They’ll swoop on me first.”
“But I don’t want them to swoop on you,” Troy said.
“They’re not swooping on anybody,”Janey said. “They’re up in the tree. Though you were brave, I think,” she added fairly, “running at them, if you were scared.”
“Too right,” Beckett said.
“I’m not brave,” Troy said. “I asked you to pick me up.”
“Everybody’s scared afterward, once they think,” Beckett said. “The brave part is what you do before you think.”
“Oh.” Troy considered. “Then maybe I was brave.”
“Dad,” Janey said. “Your shirt.”
Beckett glanced down. Well, bugger. His once-white T-shirt was smeared with brown goo and bits of sugary cone. Even as he watched, a messy glob fell off onto the footpath with aplop.
Janey said, “It’s on your face, too.” He put a hand up. Yes, it was, right there on his chin, and he didn’t even have a clean serviette anymore. Also, he couldn’t help but notice that he was almost the only youngish bloke in this town wearing shorts, even on a hot summer day. Apparently the only acceptable uniform in Montana was jeans. Seemed daft to him, and uncomfortable, too, but there you were. He wouldn’t even mention the thongs. Didn’t everybody wear thongs in summer? Socks were hot.
Back in the day, he’d been a fit, sporty Aussie with a surfboard, an endless tan, a cocky grin, and a bulletproof belief in himself. If he’d run up to rescue some girl being attacked by birds, she’d have been grateful, and she’d probably have given him her number, too. Now? He was weirdly dressed and covered with mashed ice-cream cone, his kid had a fear problem, his other kid had a criticism problem, there was some gray amongst the whiskers when he shaved, and the Bird Whisperer had run away from him like she’d seen enough.
He still knew how to surf. He knew how to manage a project, too. He could drive any vehicle and fix most things that broke. He wasn’t a completely rubbish cook, and he wasn’t half bad at sex, at least he hadn’t been back when he was actually having it.
