“Wait!”
I stopped, looking over my shoulder. “Yes?”
“You should be careful out here. These woods aren’t necessarily safe.”
I smiled, showing him all my teeth. “No,” I said. “I guess they’re not.”
This time when I started walking, he didn’t call me back. I walked into the trees until I was what I considered a safe distance away, and when I looked back over my shoulder, I couldn’t see him at all. That was a start. Much as I wanted to be nice to the neighbors, I hadn’t been expecting to meet them in the middle of the woods.
Not that I knew where I was. Between the unfamiliarity of the trees and the time spent talking to James, I had no idea whether I was moving toward the house or whether I was just getting myself more lost.
“And me without a compass,” I muttered, turning to consider the trees. They seemed to consider me right back. “Okay, well. Won’t be the first time.”
I started walking again, following the paths shade and the local animals had cut through the underbrush, chasing the last of the tension brought on by my unexpected encounter from my shoulders. I don’t know how long I wandered, sunk into the pleasant, near-hypnotic act of walking through the woods, before I heard something rustle overhead. Whatever it was, it sounded way too big to be a raccoon or a tailypo, which didn’t leave many options. I stopped walking. I smiled.
“Took you long enough,” I said.
Sam dropped down in front of me, landing with the ease of long training. All fuūri are graceful when compared to humans. A fūri like Sam, who’s spent most of his life on the flying trapeze …
When he moves, it’s poetry. There’s no other way to describe it.
As usual, he was barefoot, letting his simian toes grip the ground for purchase. His tail curled high behind him, a visible barometer of his mood. He was relaxed, comfortable even, and why shouldn’t he be? We had the better part of a forest all to ourselves. For the first time since leaving the carnival, he didn’t need to worry about getting caught because he’d decided to let his hair down. So to speak.
“I didn’t even know you were out here until I went back to the house and Fern told me you’d gone for a walk,” he said. “Did you know Cylia was going to the store?”
“I’m hoping that’s past tense by now, since I’m going to want lunch when we get back.” I stepped forward and slung my arms around his neck, leaning in to plant a kiss on his lips. “Hi.”
“Hi,” he replied, and wrapped his own arms around my waist before pulling me close and kissing me much more firmly.
I’ve never been a girl who did much kissing, and I feel genuinely fortunate to have found myself a boy who didn’t have much more experience. I mean, I think we’re getting pretty good at it—neither of us has any complaints—but that, plus the thing where he’s a monkey more than half the time, has done a lot to keep me from getting self-conscious. Kissing somebody who looks like they’re about to anchor their own sci-fi movie franchise is distracting enough that we’ve been able to just get on with things, like figuring out where to put our hands.
When we finally broke apart, I was breathing fast and his cheeks were red, which made me want to start kissing him again. I tamped the impulse down as hard as I could. Fun as it would be to spend the day making out in the woods, we had things to do.
“I ran into a guy somewhere that way,” I said, waving a hand vaguely. “Human. Be careful out here.”
“I’ve been watching for humans since before you knew how to work a crossbow,” Sam said.
I lifted an eyebrow. “What kind of dismissive comment is that, exactly?”
“The kind that realized halfway through that it didn’t know where it was going,” he said, smiling lopsidedly. “So, yeah. Thanks for the warning.”
“No problem,” I said. “He seemed nice. Apparently, we’re renting from his cousin. If something breaks, he’s probably who we’ll call.”
“Should I be jealous?”
“Only if you think my taste runs toward tall, dark-haired assholes.”
Sam blinked. “Uh, that is exactly what I think your taste runs toward. I now present exhibit A, myself.” He waved a hand, indicating the entire length of his body. “But since I also know there’s something I can do that some random human in the woods can’t, I’m going to skip jealous in favor of smugness.”
“Oh?” I asked. “What’s that?”
Sam grinned before grabbing me by the waist and leaping into the air, landing on a branch easily fifteen feet above the ground. I squeaked at the impact. His grin got wider and yes, there was more than a small element of smugness in his expression.
“See?” he said. “I’m way more fun than some random asshole. I’m your favorite asshole.” He kissed me quick and leaped off the branch, carrying me along with him as he began making his way through the forest.
When I was a kid reading comic books with Sarah and Artie, I never imagined myself as Gwen Stacy. I was much more into the idea of being Peter Parker, or better yet, Jessica Drew, someone who was badass and awesome in my own right. Not that Gwen wasn’t cool, it’s just that Gwen had a nasty tendency to wind up dead, regardless of the timeline, and that isn’t my scene. Since hooking up with Sam, though, I was starting to understand the appeal.
As a human, the trapeze is as close as I can reasonably come to flying. My sister is into free running, which is mostly about falling with style, and she does what she can within the limits of her human anatomy, flinging herself off the side of buildings and using a combination of momentum and acrobatic training to translate meaning into motion. I may not like her much, but I’ll be among the first to admit that what she does is impressive as hell.
Sam takes all that and throws it out the window. Take a monkey’s strength, speed, and grace, and scale it up for a human frame. Then combine it with a lifetime of intensive training, and what you’ll get is the closest thing I’m ever likely to meet to the real-world Spider-Man. He kept one arm wrapped around my waist, tight enough that I didn’t worry about falling, and hurled himself through the trees with the casual fluidity of a man who had absolutely no concerns about falling. I put a hand over my mouth to keep my laughter inside. People don’t usually look up. It’s one of the weirder facts about people. Even if they did, we were moving quickly enough that it was incredibly unlikely we’d be seen. Someone laughing overhead would be a lot harder to explain.
Sam shot me a concerned look when I moved my hand. I lowered it just enough for him to see me smiling. He flashed a quick, understanding smile of his own and kept going, the woods whipping past all around us, the world turned green and magical.
Then we were dropping out of the trees at the edge of the artificial clearing containing our new home. Sam let me go as soon as I had my footing. He stepped into the shadow of the woods for a beat, and then swore softly as he moved to stand next to me, human and barefoot in the autumn chill.
“You need to carry a pair of flip-flops if you’re going to do stuff like this,” I said.
“Normally I do. I was just so excited by the idea of actually stretching out some of the kinks in my back that I forgot.” He shrugged, expression wry. “Next time.”
“Every rock you step on will be a reminder of that promise.”
“Gee, you’re sweet. How did I ever find a girlfriend as sweet as you?”
“Just lucky, I guess.” I leaned up to kiss his cheek. “Come on. Let’s go see if Cylia is back from the store.”
We walked together across the open field, him hopping and swearing every time he stepped on a rock, me trying not to laugh at him, and it had been a long time since I’d felt that hopeful or that genuinely at peace. It was a nice change.
It was really a pity that I already knew it was never going to last.
Four
“Sometimes it’s important to stop and breathe. It’ll improve your mood. It’ll also improve your aim. Nothing fixes most problems like shooting them in the head.”
–Alice Healy
Entering a slightly less unfamiliar house in New Gravesend, Maine
CYLIA’S CAR WAS BACK in the driveway. Everyone was safe: everyone was home. I took Sam’s hand as we walked around the corner of the house, heading for the kitchen door, which was propped open to let the afternoon air inside. As we got closer, we could hear Cylia telling Fern where to put the groceries. I grinned and sped up, pulling Sam with me, until I was finally able to stick my head inside. Then I stopped, blinking.
Fern was balancing on a chair, loading staples—sugar and salt and rice and dried beans—into the cupboard above the pantry. Cylia stood a safe distance away. If Fern fell, she could bleed off enough of her density that she’d bounce off the floor like a big, really weird balloon. If Cylia fell, we’d wind up at the local emergency room.
The amount of care Cylia was taking to stay clear, though … “How much bad luck does the universe owe you?” I blurted.
Cylia turned to offer me a twisted smile. “Hello to you, too,” she said. “Enough that it’s going to hurt when it hits me—and it should only hit me. I told the luck to find this place for my use. I’m expecting a twisted ankle, or for the car to blow all four wheels at the same time, or for my wallet to get lifted. That doesn’t mean I need to give things a chance to swing in the other direction. I’d rather be neutral than lucky.”
“Raise your hand if you like your personal weirdness better than the idea of constantly doing bookkeeping for reality,” said Sam dryly.
“I can’t raise my hand, or I’ll hit myself in the face with the pancake mix,” said Fern.
“Did you buy the whole grocery store, or only the parts that looked interesting?” I asked.
“One of the possible expressions of my current luck deficit could involve my credit cards getting turned off for a week,” said Cylia. “Fern has her cards, and I know you have cash, Annie, but Sam’s broke—”
“Sorry our carnival caught fire,” he said.
“—and it’s not like any of us are working. I wanted to make sure we could eat without resorting to petty larceny.”
“Or hunting,” I said. “This looks like the kind of place where I could find deer.” The thought of a nice piece of venison made my mouth water. Hunting with Dad—and occasionally Grandma Alice, when she was in the right dimension during deer season—had been one of my favorite parts of childhood. It had been recreation, a way to contribute to the household, and training for a future that would almost inevitably involve needing to shoot people, all at the same time.
Most people go their whole lives without needing to point a gun at another intelligent being and pull the trigger, and sometimes I envy them. That also means most people, confronted with a situation where they need to point a gun at somebody and pull the trigger, will freeze up. It’s not a failing. It’s a trait I’ve sometimes wished I could share. But there was no way my siblings or I were getting out of this fight. Even if we’d wanted to go off and be “normal,” to become accountants or dentists or whatever, we would always have known too much, and we would always have needed to be able to defend ourselves.
“Is it the kind of place where you can find a shotgun and a hunting license?” asked Cylia. “I really don’t want us messing with the local law until the bad luck hits.”
“Give me a few days, I’ll figure it out.” I moved to investigate the contents of a brown paper bag. “Who’s making dinner?”
“Not you.” Cylia moved the bag out of my grip. “You’d make spaghetti with maple syrup and canned tuna, or something equally horrifying. You may be the only human in the house, but you’re also the only person who doesn’t eat like one.”
“Youngest child.” I shrugged. “If I wanted my food to survive in the fridge, I needed it to be as unappetizing as possible. Have you and Fern talked about rooms yet?”
“I want to keep the one we slept in last night, if that’s okay,” said Sam. “That’s a great bed, and the rafters are perfect for me to do my stretches without putting anyone else out.”
Cylia shot him a startled look. “Okay, not the reasoning I was expecting, but sure. Fern’s happy in the attic, and I found a bedroom off the living room that will work perfectly for me. That way, we have someone sleeping on every floor. Helps us keep watch for robbers.”
“What reasoning did you expect?” I asked.
“You’ve got the bathroom to one side and the library to the other, which means even if the walls are thin, nobody’s going to hear you having sex,” said Cylia. “I honestly figured I’d be getting the privacy argument.”
I perked up. “There’s a library?”
Sam groaned. “Oh, great. Now we’ve lost her.”
He wasn’t wrong; I was already heading for the door.
* * *
What people sometimes forget about my family, when we’re being all badass with our knives and our bullets and our ability to keep fighting even when we’re long past the point where anyone with any sense would have given up is, well …
We’re enormous nerds. Seriously. I am the inevitable result of a lineage which includes researchers, librarians, and the kind of animal lovers who think everything, no matter how potentially deadly, deserves the chance to flourish. While they observe and take notes, naturally. It’s not science until somebody writes it down.
I pounded up the stairs. The door to the room where Sam and I had spent the night was open, propped by my suitcase, which Cylia must have carried in from the car while I was wandering in the woods. The doors to either side were closed. I tried the one on the left: bathroom. I tried the one on the right. It opened easily, and all my wishes came true.
“Jackpot,” I whispered, taking a moment to stand there and just breathe, glorying in the anticipation of stepping through.
The library had clearly started its existence as two rooms of reasonably average size, before they were joined into one mega-room, like an architectural Voltron. Floor-to-ceiling shelves lined the walls, blocking everything except for the fireplace and the single, relatively small window. As if that weren’t enough, the shelves were packed—absolutely packed—with books. Old books. Cloth-bound and leather-bound and—I’m not a book snob, I love my paperbacks as much as the next girl, but there’s a certain degree of weird literary bullshit that will never, ever come out in paperback.
I exhaled and stepped into the room as if in a daze, slowly walking along the shelves, letting my fingers trail along the spines of all those lovely books. Most were dusty. The few that weren’t seemed to be mostly local history and folklore. That was good enough for me. Snagging the first one off the shelf, I sank into the confines of a nearby armchair and allowed the text—dry as dust, but filled with so many things I didn’t know, and hence hungered to learn—to carry me away.
The book, A History of New Gravesend, Maine, by one Nathanial Smith, was about as interesting as the title implied, in both possible directions. He spent an entire chapter on the architecture of the local sewer system and barely spared a page and a half for a dramatic fire that had consumed half of downtown, but which had, in its aftermath, provided what he referred to as “multiple opportunities for redevelopment.” That seemed like a pretty shitty way of saying “all the poor people burned to death.”
I wasn’t the only one who thought so. I turned the page to find that someone had written, in tidy ink letters, “Bastard never saw a tax loophole he wouldn’t exploit. Check ownership records for area, ref. Dunning. Possible someone tracked land profit?”
Normally, I would have been annoyed to find that someone had been writing in a book, especially a book as old as this one. In this case, I was delighted. When trying to learn local history, the real story is usually in the footnotes and the indices, hidden in the places where people don’t want you to look.
Dunning. The name was familiar. I unfolded myself from the chair and, sure enough, found Dunning’s Families of New Gravesend on the shelf two volumes over from where I’d found the first volume. I pulled it down
, along with three others that seemed likely to show up in further footnotes, before returning to my chair.
This town could be as boring as bathwater, a place where nothing interesting enough to make a Wikipedia page out of had ever happened, but I was going to find out. I was going to learn it all, every story, every secret. I had three months to do it in.
I was so engrossed in my unplanned research project that I didn’t notice how dark it was getting outside the window until someone knocked on the doorframe and cleared their throat. I looked up. Sam was standing there, ringed in light from the hall behind him.
“Dinner’s ready,” he said. “Find something good?”
“How long have I been up here?” My stomach grumbled. However long it had been, it had definitely involved missing lunch. That was almost … well, nice. I hadn’t had the opportunity to spend a day sunk in a book since leaving Portland. It felt like I was getting back to normal, at least for me.
I liked the idea of getting back to normal.
“Long enough that if you hadn’t left the door open, we would probably have been afraid you’d died,” he said. “I unpacked all our stuff. And made the bed. And offered to make you a sandwich. You didn’t notice.”
“Oh.” I offered him a sheepish smile. “Sometimes I get really into my reading.”
“Uh, yeah, I’d say. If you were any more into your reading, you would actually be inside the book.”
“Never go into a book. Either it’s a dimensional portal, which is bad, or it’s some sort of Dungeons and Dragons-style mimic-thing, which is also bad, although in a less ‘we’ll never find your body’ sort of a way.”
Sam blinked at me slowly. “You know,” he said finally. “I like you exactly the way you are, because I am not stupid and do not want you to hit me with a shoe for implying that there’s something wrong with you, but you were a lot easier to understand when you were just the annoying chick who wanted to throw knives at my head.”
That Ain't Witchcraft (InCryptid #8) Page 6