That Ain't Witchcraft

by Seanan McGuire

  “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.”

  “Do you really think it’s going to work?”

  There were so many possible variables that trying too hard to think about them made my head spin. If we could get Mary out of whatever void the crossroads had cast her into. If we could convince Leonard he wanted to watch our backs, or at least didn’t want to keep trying to kill us while we were dealing with something unspeakable and awful. If we could get James to the crossroads without anyone getting more than lightly stabbed. If, if, if. There were too many “ifs” and not enough definite objectives.

  Alex would have told me this was a terrible plan. Uncle Mike would have insisted I needed so much more backup that it was better to just wait until he could get here from Chicago. Even Verity would have looked at this idea and written it off as flimsy and half-cocked. But it was what we had, and time was running out; if I didn’t want to add “mystically compelled shut-in” to the list of ways in which I took after my grandfather, we needed to move.

  “I have no idea,” I said.

  There was a pause. “I thought you’d lie,” said Sam.

  “Yeah, well, if this doesn’t work, I don’t want you telling everyone how I lied to you right before the crossroads decided to make my head explode.” I squeezed his hand, eyes still closed. “I love you a lot, you know. I’m not going to be sorry about that, no matter what happens next. I got the chance to meet you, and that would never have happened without everything else. I’m grateful.”

  “I’m not,” said Sam. “I’m pissed. I would never have missed you if I hadn’t met you. I could have been too ignorant to know that I wasn’t really happy up until the day I died.”

  “Would that have been enough?”

  “Maybe,” he said, and pulled his hand out of mine so he could put his arms around me, and he held me. Not for long; not for nearly long enough. But he held me, and I held him, and for a few more minutes, we were okay. We were together. We were going to win.

  For a few more minutes, we were both liars, and that was all I wanted in the world.

  Eighteen

  “A parent’s greatest fear is the idea of burying their children. Everything else is a distant second, and worth forgetting in the face of that unbearable loss.”

  –Evelyn Baker

  Burial Grounds, about to do something very, very foolish

  WE’D ALL AGREED, AFTER I managed to lure Sam out of the bedroom and back to the table, that speaking to Leonard was best done in a public place, since he was less likely to whip out a crossbow and start shooting people—aka, me—for ideological reasons when there were witnesses. I enjoyed not being shot. Any time I felt like I was in danger of forgetting how much I liked not being shot, all I had to do
was move my arm and I remembered.

  I did not like the feeling of impending panic that had been hovering over me since the moment I stepped outside the wards. My chest was tight, my jaw was tighter, and I had to keep fighting not to hyperventilate. I was going to need therapy when all this was over. Panic attacks whenever I went outside were not on my list of “useful souvenirs.”

  But that would have to wait. I was tucked into the deepest, darkest corner of Burial Grounds with a coffee mug in my hand and my eyes on the window. I hadn’t been subtle about my approach: Cylia had dropped me two blocks from the shop and I’d taken my time walking to the door, waving to passing cars along the way, pretending everything was fine. Bethany couldn’t snatch me off the street without being seen, which sort of went against the whole idea of being secretive, and if Leonard had me under any kind of surveillance, there was no way he could have missed me making the trip. All I had to do now was wait.

  And wait.

  And wait.

  I was starting to think my time would have been better spent staying safe at the house and helping James figure out what sort of summoning ritual would work for a crossroads ghost who’d been punted into some sort of spectral jail by her employers when the door swung open and Leonard Cunningham stepped cautiously inside. He was tense, looking from side to side like he expected to be attacked at any moment.

  A hot jet of satisfaction scorched through me, forcing me to bite the inside of my cheek to stop myself from grinning in a decidedly unfriendly manner. He was scared? Good. He had reason to be scared, starting with the fact that he was only still alive because I needed him that way. His death would summon way too much of the Covenant down on our heads, and that was one complication too many for an already complicated situation.

  His scan failed to find any likely attackers and he approached the counter, ordering a mug of something and waiting for its delivery before collecting it and making his way down the length of the café to my table. He stopped just shy of the available chair.

  “I’m assuming this was an invitation,” he said.

  I pushed the chair a little farther out with my toe. “You’re not wrong.”

  He settled warily, cup held between us like a highly inadequate shield. I gave it a disdainful look. Leonard shrugged.

  “I have little means with which to defend myself in public without violating the traditions to which I am sworn,” he said. “Allow me the small comfort of knowing I could douse you in scalding liquid if you gave me sufficient cause.”

  “After the McDonalds lawsuit, coffee shops don’t keep their water all that hot,” I said.

  Leonard looked at me blankly.

  I sighed. “What, do you not have greedy corporations and medical bills in England? Look it up. Yes, I’m here to talk, and no, you shouldn’t need to throw hot coffee on me. I’m here under the flag of truce.” I picked up a napkin and waved it back and forth. “Behold the flag. How whitely it waves.”

  “You are a very strange woman,” he said, pursing his lips. “How you passed initial screening, I may never know.”

  “I had someone changing my scores when everyone else’s backs were turned because he wanted to keep me,” I said.

  Leonard flushed red and turned his face slightly away. Score one for the annoying American.

  “Charming,” he said.

  “I’m not here to make friends, I’m here to win,” I said, and waited a beat for his reaction. None came. I sighed. “You need to watch more reality television, or my tendency to talk entirely in pop culture references when stressed isn’t going to make this easier. Look, we need to have a serious conversation about what you’re doing here, and what you’re going to do to make up for shooting me.”

  “I told you, I’m observing—”

  “Observing me, right. I assume you have some sort of blood-based tracking charm, right? Something that lets you keep a solid lock on where I am? Well, first off, I’m going to need you to give that to me. And I want your word, on whatever it is that passes for your sense of honor, that you don’t have the materials to make another one.”

  He turned enough to scowl at me. “What makes you think I’d tell you the truth?”

  “Well, again, you want to recruit me. You let me live because you want to be the Covenant operative who brings the big, bad Price family back to the table.” I leaned forward, smiling my most feral smile. “You can’t lie to me and hope to bring me home with you at the same time. It’s one or the other, and I’m banking on your self-interest telling you the bird in the hand is going to peck the crap out of you if you don’t put it back in the bush.”

  Leonard’s scowl deepened before he said, in a tightly controlled tone, “I was able to collect enough of your blood to make a single tracking charm. Margaret and Chloe have been persuaded to keep their silence.”

  “How?”

  No reply.

  “How, Leonard?”

  “Chloe . . . had no actual evidence of your malfeasance,” he said slowly. “I was able to convince her you’d been taken against your will. She believes, and is convincing our parents, that I’m trying to recover you from a kidnapping. I lack backup because retrieving one half-trained agent is less important than recovering from Robert’s death and bolstering our resources against the coming conflict.”

  It was surprisingly easy to believe that. Chloe Cunningham was a smart woman, skilled enough to stay alive in a fight and canny enough to see which way the wind was blowing. She was also a Covenant girl, trained from birth to take orders and believe her superiors. Leonard was their grandfather’s heir apparent, and one day he was going to run the entire enterprise. Assuming he didn’t end up disappearing into a shallow grave first. Plus, Chloe and I had been roommates back in the training facility. If I was a double agent, that reflected poorly on her. If I’d been kidnapped, on the other hand . . .

  “What about Margaret?” I asked. “She knows damn well that I’m not a patsy.”

  For the first time, Leonard looked uncomfortable. “Margaret has been . . . pliable since her first mission in the States. I wondered whether something might have happened to her there. Regardless, she’s been easy to convince, under any form of hypnosis, of almost anything I needed her to think.”

  I stared at him. Finally, stiffly, I said, “Only the fact that you don’t look happy about this is keeping me from stabbing you right now. If I find out you’ve put a finger on her—”

  “What? No!” Leonard recoiled, looking honestly appalled. “I would never abuse the trust of another Covenant soldier like that. What kind of monster do you take me for?”

  “A murderer and a liar, mostly, but that’s another conversation.” I shook my head. “You’re willing to manipulate her mind for your own gain. Why should I believe you’re not willing to do the same to her body?” My words came out even sharper than I’d intended, powered by the strength of my guilt and dismay.

  Margaret Healy was my cousin. Distant, yes, and from a branch of the family that hated mine and wanted to see us all dead, but still, she was blood. She’d been raised in the Covenant, told from birth that the Healys—now Prices—who’d left to go to America were traitors at best, and villains at worst. Sure, she was an adult and could technically make her own choices, but it can be hard to go against the dominant philosophy espoused by literally everyone in your life.

  She had been on the Covenant strike team that tracked down Verity and Dominic in New York. They’d managed to capture Verity. They would have been able to use her to learn everything about the family. We would all have been lost . . . if my cousin Sarah hadn’t used her natural telepathic powers to basically melt Margaret’s memory and rewrite it into something more convenient.

  Doing that, using her powers that way, had hurt Sarah badly enough that she’d spent more than a year unable to manage even simple arithmetic, wandering in a fugue state while her adoptive parents and
my brother did their best to keep her from hurting herself. I’d been angry with Verity for a long time after that. No: that didn’t cover it. I’d been furious with Verity for a long time after that. I’d been angry and unforgiving, and I’d blamed her for the fact that one of our cousins might be lost inside her own head forever.

  Then Sarah had started getting better. She still wasn’t what she’d been before, but she was well enough to have confirmed that she’d acted of her own free will, and that made a difference, at least to me.

  I had never really considered what the long-term effects for Margaret might have been.

  “I thought you’d be happy,” snapped Leonard. “If I hadn’t convinced her she’d seen you taken by that beast you continue to call a boyfriend, she’d be here with me—and she wouldn’t be aiming for recruitment. You’re playing a dangerous game, Annie Price. It’s going to end badly for you, one way or the other.”

  “My freedom or my life, you mean?” I shook my head. “It’s going to end badly for one of us. I want you to stop fucking with Margaret’s head.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “I’m not seeing where you have the grounds to make that request.”

  “How about she’s my family, and I owe her at least that much?” I leaned forward. “Also, how about someday I’m going to be coming back to England to tell your leadership where to stick it, and I bet they’d be real interested in hearing how much you’ve been messing with that poor woman. She deserves better than your bullshit. Leave her alone.”

  Leonard leaned back in his chair. “I think I liked you better when you were playing at being Timpani.”

  “And I think I liked you better when I thought you were a brainwashed foot soldier instead of a would-be mastermind, but here we are, and this is what we have to work with,” I said. “I came here because I wanted to sit down with you. I have a proposal.”