by Molly Tanzer
“Smudge!” cried Jane, though really she was delighted by his ferocity. Naughty as her cat might be, Jane didn’t enjoy the idea that soon he’d no longer be the cat she’d always known. Not entirely.
But also not for long. She’d banish the demon as soon as she could.
It would be interesting to see how it all worked out. Jane planned to command her diabolic servant to be as catlike—no, as specifically Smudge-like—as it could manage. That said, if there was one thing everyone agreed upon, it was that expecting a familiar to indefinitely pass as a pet was foolish arrogance. They could not conceal their true nature for long.
No one could.
Jane left the cat to his nap and returned to the kitchen to pass the afternoon reading in the perpetual warmth of the AGA. Not long after she settled in with a cup of tea and a book called The Natural, the Supernatural, and the Unnatural, Miriam came down to join her, and then Nancy did as well.
The distant rumble of a pickup truck made Jane look not to the window, but to Miriam. Miriam looked everywhere but at anyone, seemingly terrified rather than pleased, and Jane felt a warm sympathy for her friend that she had not felt in a long time.
“Let’s go meet him,” said Nancy.
Jane had never felt any sort of romantic inclination toward anyone, man or woman, nor was she interested in seeking out the experience. Frankly, she felt those who dabbled in love deserved the ensuing headaches it seemed to cause. But even so, when Miriam looked yet more panicked, Jane did her best to help.
“Mother, let’s let Miriam have her secrets,” she said.
“It’s not a secret,” snapped Miriam. Jane recoiled a bit and saw Miriam repent immediately. Her reaction had been from nerves, not anger. “I’m sorry—it’s just . . .”
“It’s private. That’s completely fine,” Jane assured her, having plenty of her own secrets these days. “If you’d rather go out on your own—”
“No!”
Jane suppressed a smile. Poor Miriam. “I’ll get my coat.”
Miriam didn’t seem over-pleased, but neither did she screech in protest. Sometimes all anyone could do was seize upon the best of two bad options.
“I’ll stay in and fix some tea,” said Nancy. “For you girls when you get back,” she added, when Miriam turned her wild and panicked gaze her way, “but enough for Sam if he does fancy a cup.”
Bundled up in coats, hats, scarves, boots, and mittens, for it was still quite cold as well as wet, Jane and Miriam squelched their way up the hill, last year’s dead leaves hopping in the breeze around their feet like a flock of small strange birds. Sam was standing beside his truck, looking handsome and manly and unbothered by the foul weather.
The idea of commissioning an outsider to make an item crucial to her diabolic work was bizarre to Jane—but probably Miriam would likewise fault her for attempting to turn Smudge into her familiar. To each their own.
“Hello!” called Sam, as they approached. “I’ve got your mirror!”
A mirror.
Jane didn’t stop walking, but she did pause mentally. Interesting, that she and Miriam were both using mirrors for their diabolic Practicals.
A sidelong glance at her friend told Jane that it had been no mere coincidence that Modern Mirror Methods had been missing from the Library just after her father had mentioned it. Somehow Miriam had read that letter and had gleaned something from it that had led her to retrieve the same book for her own purposes.
Which meant Miriam knew Jane was in touch with her father.
“You little—”
“I’m sorry!”
“All this time—you’ve known!” said Jane. She didn’t have to say about my father. Miriam knew very well what she was talking about.
“Yes,” said Miriam, “but I haven’t said anything to anyone about it, I promise! I would never, Jane, I just—”
“You just what? ” It came out more harshly than Jane intended, but her blood was up. “You just read my letter and then—”
“I did read it,” said Miriam, folding into herself in the face of Jane’s rage like candy floss in the rain. “I took the book, but I brought it back as quickly as I could! Something your—”
“Don’t you dare!” Jane wasn’t sure what she was saying Miriam ought not dare to do—it might have been acknowledging the existence of Jane’s father, it might have been explaining her treachery as if it were reasonable, it might have been just speaking to Jane at all in that moment. For some time now, Jane had borne the word Miriam writ in jagged bloody letters upon her heart, and this knowledge opened up many of the older wounds at once. “You—you—you little beast! Knowing what it meant to me, you still—”
“You don’t know why I did what I did, Jane Blackwood!”
Miriam did not often raise her voice like that, or call Jane by her full name. In spite of her righteous anger, Jane cringed.
“You’re not the only one who uses the Library, and you’re not the only one for whom this is all very high stakes.” Miriam had lowered her voice, but the intensity was still there. “I needed the book, so I took it, and then I returned it. It’s not fair to yell at me for that!”
“What would it be fair to yell at you for?” snapped Jane. “How about snooping?”
Miriam crossed her arms. “Clearly I can keep a secret!”
“That’s not the point!”
“Girls, girls!”
Jane had forgotten Sam was there at all.
“You stay out of this!” said Jane, sounding exactly like her mother.
“Something I said was the cause of all this,” he said. “I didn’t mean to. I didn’t realize the mirror was a secret.”
“Oh, Miriam loves her secrets,” said Jane, with a level of venom that felt good to express, even if she knew it to be unfair. “And the best thing is, the more you get to know her, the more secrets you’ll discover she has!”
And with that, Jane stalked off toward the old farmhouse with such determined footfalls that her heels didn’t even slip in the mud. She burst in upon her mother as Nancy was just setting the teapot upon the table.
“What happened?” said Nancy, chasing after Jane as she headed for the stairs and the privacy of her room.
“Nothing!” snarled Jane, not even trying to hide the lie of her words.
“Where’s Miriam?”
“How should I know!”
“Jane, wait!”
Jane did not obey her mother. She stormed straight up to her room, more hurt in that moment than she could ever remember being. She wanted to collapse upon her bed to cry, but Smudge was still there, half-buried in the bedclothes, so she flung herself into her chair.
She found it was just as easy to cry there, so she did—copiously and angrily, until Smudge jumped onto her lap to twine around himself in anxious figure eights. Though usually Smudge’s solid weight calmed her, today it just made Jane cry all the harder. The irregular pattering of the rain on her bedroom window reminded Jane that this might very well be the last time she would ever experience her beloved companion’s pure and instinctive concern for her.
Maybe her mother had been right, and there really were no shortcuts to becoming a diabolist.
Only sacrifices.
16
* * *
“SO,” SAID SAM, AS HE ran his fingers along the once-silver trim of the once-blue pickup. When some mud came away on his fingertips, he hastily produced a big gray handkerchief and wiped them off.
“I’m sorry,” said Miriam.
“For what?”
“For you having to see that.”
Sam shook his head as he tucked the soiled rag into his back pocket. “You and I have both seen worse.” He coughed awkwardly into his hand. “I’m sorry I mentioned the mirror.”
Miriam didn’t say anything as the rain kicked up again and the fat cold drops struck her face and rolled down her hair into her collar. She had indeed betrayed Jane; felt the shame of it keenly. Jane’s reaction, however, had been a bit muc
h considering the nature of the crime and its nonexistent repercussions.
Maybe Jane really was up to something. Something beyond speaking with her father. Something against the rules. Something that could get her into a lot of trouble if Miriam knew about it and exposed her . . .
Miriam would never tell on Jane, of course. It was just an intriguing idea.
“Er,” said Sam, interrupting her thoughts, “want to go for a ride? In my truck, I mean. You could come along on my last delivery and then I could drop you back here. You wouldn’t be away more than an hour.”
Miriam looked back at the old farmhouse. Nancy stood in the doorway, watching them.
Miriam didn’t know what to do. She didn’t want to ask permission to go. She just wanted to go. For perhaps the first time since arriving in Hawkshead, Miriam couldn’t stand the thought of being indoors.
She yanked open the cab door. It was heavier than she thought and banged open with a horrifying clatter as she clambered inside awkwardly. Halfway through her scrambling, it occurred to her that her bottom was up in the air, and she slid all the way over, blushing terribly as she gathered her skirts and got them underneath her where they belonged.
“What are you waiting for?” she called to Sam. “Are we going or not?”
Sam glanced back to the house, then climbed in after. “Going,” he said, his smile all the sunshine she needed to make this feel like a picnic.
Miriam was glad the truck’s rumbling engine was so loud; they couldn’t really carry on much conversation as they bounced over the narrow, twisting roads canopied by the mossy dripping branches of old trees. Sam took one curve a little quickly, and Miriam slid across the seat into his side. She started to apologize until he put his arm around her and held her there. Miriam wondered if that had been his plan the whole time; his sly expression answered her question before she could ask it.
Bold as a sparrow, she kissed him on the cheek. It was warmer next to him, and more pleasant. She blushed as she settled back into her seat, but he seemed extremely pleased.
Miriam waited in the cab while Sam dropped off his final delivery. Her breath puffed in the cold air, fogging the windows, which was fine. She didn’t really want anyone seeing her, but once they got moving again, she rubbed herself a little porthole with her sleeve so she could see where they were going. It didn’t seem like they were headed back home, and indeed they were not.
She felt a flutter of nervousness when Sam turned off the road and headed overland toward a bit of woodland in the distance. She didn’t say anything, instead waiting for him to announce his intentions.
“There’s a nice spot just up ahead,” he said. “Pretty when it rains.”
From within, the wood was deeper and darker than it appeared from beyond its border. Sam maneuvered the truck between the trunks and then killed the motor. Suddenly, there was only blessed, terrifying silence broken only by the rain that struck the roof of the cab in staccato bursts.
“Are you still thinking about Jane?” asked Sam as the windows began to fog again and the temperature to drop.
Miriam shrugged. She was not interested in explaining. She was more interested in the way he seemed to be tightening his hold on her, drawing her into the warmth of his bulk. When he took her chin into his callused hand and angled her face up for a real kiss, a proper first kiss, it was easy to relax into that, too.
“Miriam,” he said. She liked to hear him say her name; it sounded good in his mouth. He said it again—“Miriam,” in a helpless, urgent way that made her body warm up in spite of the rapidly chilling air.
She wasn’t sure what he was asking for until his hands found the button at the top of her coat. Feeling strangely calm, Miriam nodded and let him undo it, and undo the buttons of her blouse, too. She blushed for him to see her modest undergarment and the gooseflesh above and below it, but he did not seem displeased with her appearance. In fact, when he pushed her gently down onto the cold leather of the seat, she felt something indicating his enthusiasm as they shifted.
The cab of a pickup truck was hardly the place she’d thought she’d be when first revealing herself to a lover, but, really, the fogged-over windows provided complete privacy. But as Sam pushed her skirt up above her knees, revealing two fuzzy thighs, she realized she ought to have come up with a plan for this sort of situation.
“You’re such a beautiful girl,” Sam said, gazing at her as she lay there, limbs akimbo, clothing mussed. “And so smart, so passionate.”
Miriam knew she was smart, but as for passionate or beautiful—that was an unconvincing compliment. Maybe passionate about her work . . .
His hands were roving more freely now.
“So sensitive,” he whispered, when she shivered, but that wasn’t it, not really.
Miriam was enjoying his attentions, but wasn’t entirely certain how to respond to them. Mostly she was just cold, and when it occurred to her how long she’d been gone, she couldn’t keep her mind on what he was doing to her body.
She cleared her throat like an impatient customer waiting to be noticed at a shop. “Sam,” she said, and he froze. “I’m not—I mean, rather, it’s not that I don’t—”
“Let’s stop,” he said, pulling away from her. “We don’t have to do anything right now.”
“It’s a little cold,” she admitted, as she buttoned herself back up. “And I’m worried about getting back.”
“Of course,” he said, starting up the truck—but before he threw it into gear, he smiled at her shyly. “Did you have fun, though? I did.”
“Yes!” said Miriam. It had been fun, even if the conditions hadn’t been ideal.
“Good. I’d got the sense you’d be all right,” he said. “Not all girls would be.”
Miriam had been considering what Nancy might say to a courtship, but something about Sam’s words gave her pause.
“All right with what?” she asked.
“You know,” he said, returning his hand to her now-covered thigh and squeezing it affectionately. “Enjoying ourselves together, when we have the time to get away. Appreciating what we can have with one another, not worrying about what we can’t.”
Miriam finally understood what he was saying. Sam wasn’t interested in pursuing her for anything beyond what brief connections they could manage for the moment.
Her uncertainty in the face of this realization must have shown upon her face, because Sam blushed and pulled his hand away.
“I wouldn’t want to treat you dishonestly.” He threw the pickup into reverse, backing out of the forest slowly. His tone, his expression, his body language were all chillier; he wasn’t making love to her now, he was being conscientious and precise. “I can’t offer you more.”
The idea of a casual arrangement didn’t offend her—they were young and barely knew one another beyond their mutual attraction—but just the same, it felt strange to hear that he’d already decided that this was all it could ever be.
“What did you expect?” he asked, pulling farther away.
She hadn’t intended for her silence to convey displeasure—she was just a bit confused and needed to think before she spoke.
“I’m not sure what I expected,” Miriam said, in order to say something. “I suppose I expected that if we were here, doing this, that you liked me as I liked you—which to me means giving you a chance.”
“I do like you, Miriam,” he said, increasingly matter-of-fact in a way that didn’t set her at ease. “But what else could this be, given who we are?”
Miriam realized that Sam wasn’t talking about the improbable match of a blacksmith’s boy with a diabolist’s niece. He was talking about something much more personal. Something Miriam couldn’t change—and wouldn’t, even if she had the chance.
All she wanted was to be who she was without it being worthy of comment.
“I see,” she said, her tone as icy as the landscape beyond the windshield as they rambled overland toward the road.
“Surely you’d want
to settle down with, you know. One of your own kind,” said Sam, increasingly defensive.
“My own kind.” The bitterness in Miriam’s voice was not all due to Sam’s attitude. He was not the only one to have expressed anxiety over the idea of where Miriam belonged. “Who are my own kind, I wonder?”
“You know what I mean!”
Miriam shrugged; it was more that he didn’t understand what she meant.
“To be completely honest,” she said, “I haven’t contemplated settling down at all. There have been moments over the past few years when I’ve experienced some considerable doubt as to whether my own kind will survive the conflict that brought me to Hawkshead.”
“That’s nothing to do with me!” said Sam.
“I didn’t say it was.” Miriam once again used her sleeve to wipe the passenger’s side window free of steam. The rolling, gray-green hills beyond now looked dreary and waterlogged rather than romantic and intriguing; she wondered when they’d be back at the old farmhouse and she could get away from him. “I’m sorry you feel insulted, but you’ve insulted me too.”
“I was just being honest. I didn’t want you getting attached.”
Sam, too, had lost much of his glamour. His upper lip was beaded with moisture, though it wasn’t warm in the cab, and his frown made his full lips look petulant rather than kissable.
“My friends, they all said I was crazy for even talking to you,” he said. “I told them they were wrong, that you were a sweet girl. That you weren’t anything like other—I mean . . .” Sam had the decency to stammer as Miriam sat there, holding herself completely still, staring at him in disbelief. There was no other word for what she was experiencing—Sam clearly thought he was offering a defense of his words and deeds when in fact he was damning himself further. If only he would just stop talking! “Frank, he asked if you’d tried to haggle me down on the price of your mirror, and I said you wouldn’t do that. I defended you.”
Miriam was used to being considered different; she was different. After all, back in Germany they had decided there needed to be a word for what she was: Mischling. Mixed, a mutt, one who was neither this nor that—but even before that, she’d known she wasn’t Jewish to the Jews nor was she properly German to the Gentiles. As proud as she had always been of her family and their ways, the nature of who they were had meant she never fit in anywhere, not even at home.