I WOKE UP TO the sound of the front door slamming and Fern shouting, “Annie? Annie!”
“’S not my name,” I mumbled, and automatically moved to shove my hair out of my face, only to stop when the bandages on my hand scratched my skin. The sensation was followed by pain in my fingers as even that slight pressure reminded my body that I was wounded.
“Annie!”
I sat up, lowering my hands, and called, “My room, Fern.”
The door was shoved open a second later, and there was Fern, makeup still covering her face, hair still matted from its time beneath her wig. She paused only long enough to be sure that I was in one piece. Then she flung herself across the room, flinging her arms around my shoulders and bursting into tears all at the same time.
“Shhh,” I said, fighting the urge to pat her on the shoulder. I wasn’t going to help her by showing obvious signs of how much pain I was in. “It’s okay. See? I’m fine. I just got a little scorched. No big deal.”
“No big deal?!” She pushed herself back, eyes terribly wide in her pale face. “You got burned! I saw the damage! The chicken stand is all burned out inside, and the walls are so messed up that they’re probably going to have to close that section of Fairyland for months!”
“It was an accident,” I said, still trying to be soothing. “Something broke when it shouldn’t have broken, and someone got hurt.”
“You got hurt.”
“I got hurt because I was trying to help the woman who was right behind the boiler when it blew.” I was grateful for the painkillers the EMTs had pressed upon me before sending me home to sleep. They had kept me from having any unwanted dreams. I was pretty sure Cathy’s melted face was going to be a recurring feature in my nightmares for the foreseeable future.
“I can’t . . . I can’t be upset that you did that.” Fern sniffled. “I know you’ll always do that if you feel like you have to, and if you didn’t feel like you had to, I guess you wouldn’t be you.”
“Exactly,” I said, with as much of a smile as I could muster. It was dark in my room. The sun must have gone down while I was sleeping. That was a good thing. If it was dark, Fern couldn’t see how much my smile was shaking. “Now, speaking of being me . . .”
“I’m sorry!” Fern clapped a hand over her mouth before repeating, through her fingers, “I’m sorry. I was so scared for you I didn’t even think.”
“It’s okay,” I said, trying to be reassuring. “There was no one else here.”
Megan knew “Melody” wasn’t my real name. She’d made a few comments about how the next time I got to decide what to call myself, I should pick something that didn’t start with an “M,” to cut down on confusion in the mornings. Nothing pointed enough that I’d been forced to respond to it, and it wasn’t like I was worried about her spilling all my secrets—she had plenty of secrets of her own that needed keeping, and she was too good-natured to go in for mutually assured destruction—but her message had been clear. When I was ready to tell her who I really was, she was going to be ready to listen.
There’d been times when I was tempted. Her parents were back in Ohio. My brother had been in Ohio when he’d been working with a colony of Pliny’s gorgons, and while I wasn’t absolutely sure Megan was one of theirs, I had my suspicions. It would have been nice to have one more possible exit strategy on the table.
But Alex was still in touch with the gorgons in Ohio because Alex is still in touch with everyone he’s ever met. Alex still writes thank-you notes to his college professors, which he has to mail from a different state. If Megan found out I was Antimony Price, sister to Alexander Price, the chance that her parents would know where I was inside of the week, and my brother would know where I was inside of the month, was just too big of a risk for me to take.
Life was a constant game of risk assessments, and I didn’t enjoy it one little bit.
Fern wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “I wish it wasn’t always you,” she said miserably. “This is the most time we’ve ever had together, and I don’t want it to be you.”
“I grew up knowing it was always going to be me,” I said, tone apologetic. “My hands will be fine in a day or two, and in the meantime, how about you make me a sandwich? I’m not sure I could hold a knife right now if I wanted to.”
Before Fern could answer, there was a clatter from the kitchen. We exchanged a look.
“Megan isn’t here,” she said, voice going suddenly low. “Her shift at the hospital doesn’t end for hours.”
“Okay,” I said. “Stay behind me.”
Maybe that was the wrong thing to say. I could barely bend my fingers. I didn’t have a gun, and I wouldn’t have been able to pull the trigger if I had. But Fern still nodded obediently and stepped behind me as I got out of the bed. Together, we made our way toward the bedroom door.
The apartment was dark. Fern hadn’t bothered to stop and turn the lights on during her charge toward my bedroom. That might work in our favor. My hands weren’t good for fine motor control, but they could still grip, and I paused to grab a chunky ceramic vase off the table in the hall. Fern had brought it home from a swap meet, saying she thought it was pretty, and the thing was a magnet for the weird translucent lizards that kept getting in. We dumped the things out on the porch at least twice a week.
Well, they could find a new lizard motel, because I was about to smash this one over somebody’s head. We inched our way down the hall toward the kitchen. We were almost there when I paused, sniffing the air.
“Is that chicken?”
“Good, you’re up,” said Mary, a beat before the kitchen lights clicked on. There was my old babysitter, white hair braided back to keep it away from her face, Lowry-branded attire traded for her more customary faded jeans and white peasant top. A red-and-white bucket that smelled strongly of fried chicken, clogged arteries, and good life choices rested on the counter in front of her, along with several smaller containers of side dishes—corn and gravy and potatoes.
Fern squeaked. Mary’s attention switched to her.
“Fern, right?” she said. “From the Slasher Chicks. I’ve seen you skate. You’re really good.” Mary’s outline wavered. A Slasher Chicks tank top replaced her peasant blouse, black and red and skin tight.
I sighed. “I hate it when you do that.”
“But you love me, and you’ve done something horrible to your hands, which you’re not going to let me tell your parents about, so I think we’re even,” said Mary.
Fern was gripping my left arm hard enough that it hurt. “She’s a ghost!” she exclaimed.
“And you’re adorable,” said Mary.
“Okay, let’s not,” I said. “Fern, this is Mary Dunlavy, my childhood babysitter and adopted aunt. She’s been keeping an eye on me so that my family doesn’t burn down the world trying to find me and bring me home. Mary, this is Fern Conway, my roommate and teammate and easily startled friend. Please don’t torture her for fun.”
“I do everything for fun,” said Mary. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Fern. You’ve been a good friend to Annie. She doesn’t have many of those.”
“How are you a ghost?” asked Fern.
“I died, I wasn’t ready to move on, I decided to haunt the living for a while, I wound up babysitting this one’s grandmother,” Mary hooked a thumb toward me, “and somehow that turned into haunting their family in specific. As long as there are Prices, I’m going to be around to change their diapers, wipe their noses, and try to keep them from getting swallowed by unspeakable creatures that they’ve brought home and named ‘Fluffy.’”
“But you had to die?” asked Fern anxiously.
Mary gave her a sad, sympathetic look. “It’s all right,” she said. “Everything dies. One day, you’ll die, and when you do, you’ll find someone like me waiting to give you your options and docent you all the way into whatever you decide
to do next.”
“Right now, what I’d like to do is know why you’re in my kitchen,” I said.
“Because you told me to be,” said Mary.
I paused. “Oh,” I said finally. “Crap. I totally forgot.”
“Because of your hands?”
“Because of my hands.” I held them up. “One of the quick service restaurants had an accident. A deep fryer blew up, doused this poor woman in hot oil. I tried to help, and I burned my hands.” That wasn’t the whole story. From the look on her face, Mary knew it. But Fern didn’t know about my little problem, and she was freaking out badly enough over Mary that I didn’t want to drop any more surprises on her.
(It can be easy to forget, in a world where humans are the dominant species and human cultures are dominant no matter where you go, that all thinking creatures will have their own cultural ideas, opinions, and hang-ups. I didn’t know what sylphs thought of people who could set things on fire with a touch, and I didn’t want to find out by making myself homeless.)
“Did you get actual medical assistance, or did you just wrap them in gauze and call it a night? Because I can call your mother—”
“Please don’t.” I lowered my hands. “The Lowryland EMTs patched me up. It’s only minor damage. I’ve got light duty for the next two days while I heal, and then I should be all better.”
“Your mother will resurrect me just so she can kill me if I let something happen to you, and she scares me.” Mary folded her arms. “She married in, remember? She doesn’t have that automatic ‘do what Mary says’ programming that blood family gets. If I let you burn your fingers off, or whatever, she’ll have me stuffed into a spirit jar before I can say ‘it wasn’t my fault.’”
“I won’t burn my fingers off,” I said. The smell of fried chicken was starting to make my mouth water, as my body remembered that I hadn’t eaten anything since a few bites of bad salad. “Can you fix me a plate? I think I can hold a fork, if I’m careful about it.”
“Of course,” said Mary. She opened a cupboard and took down two plates. “Fern? Chicken? I’m assuming you’re not a vegetarian, unless tofu bacon has gotten much more convincing.”
“Please,” said Fern.
“Now while I’m doing this, Annie, how about you tell me why you ceased to exist this morning, and what was so important that I needed to come to your apartment to find out about it?” Mary’s tone was pleasant, but it concealed a razor’s edge of tension and threat.
I swallowed a groan. Between the pain and the chicken, I had forgotten why I’d told Mary to come and see me—and now I had a problem. “It’s nothing, really,” I said, with a meaningful glance at Fern.
Mary narrowed her eyes. “Liar,” she said.
“Wait.” Fern looked between us. “Do you not want to talk because I’m here? Is that it? Don’t you trust me? I thought you trusted me.”
“I do trust you,” I said. “I just . . .” I paused, and sighed. “I’ve sort of been keeping something a secret, and I don’t want you to stop being my friend when you find out what it is. That’s all.”
“Oh.” Fern frowned. “Is this about how you set things on fire when you’re asleep? Because I know about that. I think it’s sort of cute. Are you sure you’re not part djinn? Because that would explain the fire. Except I don’t think they’re cross-fertile with humans, and I know you’re mostly human. Um. Except for the fire thing.”
I stared at her. Mary stared at her. Fern shrugged, looking sheepish.
“You’ve set off the fire alarm a couple of times,” she said. “Megan thinks it’s faulty. I know you like her, but I figured it was sort of your thing to tell her about.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you knew?” I was reeling—more from the idea that I’d been able to sleep through the fire alarm than from the surprise of learning that Fern knew about my little problem. I was supposed to be able to wake up and move at a moment’s notice.
Working a real job was taking more out of me than I’d realized. It didn’t help that, with the exception of the knives in my room—which I had to keep hidden, in case of a surprise inspection, and which I couldn’t take to work with me ever—I was living alone and unarmed, without even a colony of Aeslin mice to reassure me that I was going to get through this. On some level, I’d already given up. Sleeping through the fire alarm was one more sign that it was getting bad.
Fern shrugged. “I figured once you wanted me to know, you’d tell me yourself. In the meantime, I wanted you to be comfortable here. I know this has been hard on you. I’ve been helping as best as I could.”
“Okay. Um. Wow.” I took a deep breath. “Yes, this is about the fire thing. I’m entirely human, as far as I know, but my grandfather was a magic-user, and it seems I am, too. My hands get hot sometimes. Hot enough to start fires.”
“What happened today—”
“I didn’t do it.” I couldn’t even be angry that she had sort of asked. I would have asked, too, if our positions had been reversed. “I was having lunch when I heard the screams and went to see what was going on. The explosion had already happened. I burned my hands when I started pulling the heat out of her to try and reduce her injuries.” My fingers throbbed in sympathy with the memory. I grimaced. “I’m hoping I don’t need to do that again for a really long time. This hurts.”
“Doing the right thing often does,” said Mary. She looked at Fern. “Your roommate’s a sorceress and I’m her dead aunt. Is that okay? Have we covered the situation? Because I’d like to move on before the other roommate gets home.”
“We have about three hours,” I said.
“I’m fine,” said Fern. “This is sort of a lot? But I’ve already been through sort of a lot, so I guess it’s more for the pile.”
“Cryptid therapists must make so much money,” I said.
Fern’s expression was grim. “You have no idea.”
“Here.” Mary thrust a plate of chicken and the associated sides at me. “Take. Eat. Explain. Or I swear to God, I will haunt you so hard that you will never sleep, shower, or have sex again.”
“I don’t seem to be doing enough of any of those things at the moment, so I’m not feeling the threat, but I’ll explain.” I took the plate, moving down the counter before putting it down and clumsily picking up my fork. Bending my fingers even that much hurt. I still needed to eat, and I didn’t want Mary deciding that it was time to bring the airplane out of retirement.
(Virtually everyone has to deal with people who knew them when they were babies, and will bring up awkward things like “hey, remember when you ran through the dinner party naked?” or “hey, remember how I used to pretend your fork was an airplane when you didn’t want to eat your beets?” But most people understand that age is a real thing that happens to everyone. Mary . . . doesn’t, so much. She knows the kids she cares for eventually turn into adults and have children of their own, and intellectually, she understands that this means we’re not her charges anymore. Emotionally, she’s been a sixteen-year-old girl since the day she died, and she’ll stay that way until she moves on to whatever comes next for dead babysitters who serve the spirits at the crossroads. For her, we will always be children, and we will always need her to tuck us into bed and turn off our bedroom lights. There’s something soothing about that. There’s also something really sad. In my family, the two often go hand in hand.)
Fern got her own plate and came to stand beside me, expression expectant, like she’d been waiting for this particular iteration of story time for years. I put my plate on the counter and took a deep breath.
“Lowryland is secretly being controlled by a cabal of witches and magic-users, and they want to train me so that I’ll be less of a danger to myself and others,” I said.
“Huh?” said Fern.
Mary’s eyes narrowed. “What kind of witches and magic-users?”
“There’s at least one
routewitch and one trainspotter, and there’s a man with a wand who says he can teach me how to control whatever the hell it is I have going on, so I’m assuming he’s a sorcerer like Grandpa was.” I took a bite of mashed potatoes, since they didn’t require chewing, swallowed, and said, “I’m going to let him teach me. I don’t see where I have much of a choice.”
“Neither do I,” said Mary.
Fern was looking back and forth between us, seeming increasingly dismayed. “What do you mean, you don’t have a choice?” she squeaked. “You don’t know these people! What if they get too interested in you, and find out about Megan and me?”
“They already know,” said Mary wearily.
Fern and I both turned to stare at her.
Mary shook her head. “People like that . . . you called them a cabal. That’s not a word I hear you use all that often. Did they use it first?”
I nodded.
“There you go. People who call themselves a ‘cabal’ are usually very interested in keeping an eye on the territory they’ve decided to stake out as their own. In this case, Lowryland. There’s no way they don’t know about any nonhumans who live or work here. They probably know about the ones who just come to the Park to spend a day with their kids.”
Fern looked ill. “They know? We have to warn people.”
“Why?” Fern turned to look at me. I did my best to sound reassuring as I said, “If they know, they could have done something about it a long time ago. I know routewitches can ward against ghosts, but Mary can visit me here and at work. They probably have at least some influence over hiring decisions, and you still got your job, and Megan still got her residency. The Covenant hunts witches, too, when they can find them. These people aren’t the same as you, but maybe they’re not the enemy either.”
“And if they are, learning how not to burn the building down is still a good thing,” said Mary. “You said they had a trainspotter. How strong?”
“He’s drawing power from the roller coasters, so . . . probably pretty strong? He couldn’t pick up my real name by looking at me. I’ve spent too many years as Melody for that to be a quick trick.”
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