“Breathe,” I said. “Settle into the magic. Think of it as choosing to sing instead of scream. Screaming hurts your throat. So does singing, if you don’t warm up properly, but it can be so much easier, and it can last for so much longer. Pull back the cold. You don’t need it like you think you do.”
The air around his hands glittered, filled with power and potential. The air began to grow warmer, thawing as he pulled the cold back into himself.
The blank pages under his hands shimmered, and letters began to appear. They were faint at first, but quickly grew in visibility, until both pages were packed with slanting letters in rust-colored ink, as real as any diary had ever been.
James gasped.
“Is that her handwriting?” I asked. I already knew the answer: it matched the writing in the margins of the books back at our rental house.
He nodded. There were tears in his eyes.
“Great.” I leaned forward, trying not to flinch from the chill still radiating from his palms, and slammed the book shut.
“What?!” James glared at me, the air growing colder around us once again—this time with irritation. “Why did you do that?”
“We need to take these books back to the house.”
“Why? We can read them here!”
“Well, one, here, your father could come home any time, which would put a damper on research, and two, we promised the others we’d come back.” We’d done no such thing, only implied it. James was a smart guy. I hoped he’d catch on soon, since doing charades to say “there are no wards here” was a bit beyond my skills.
Instead, he glowered. “They’re my mother’s diaries.”
“Yes, and she clearly hid them here figuring that if you inherited her powers, you’d find them and figure out how to read them. But the others are waiting.” Silently, I mouthed, “Please.”
James started to object again. Then he caught himself, visibly course-correcting, and asked, “How much room do you have in your backpack?”
“Enough,” I said.
Thank God.
* * *
It took about ten minutes to get the diaries into our respective backpacks. Lifting mine was difficult, to say the least; between the injury in my shoulder and the ongoing weakness of my body as a whole, I felt like I was trying to attend a weight training course after a six-hour derby bout. Not good.
Worth it. Whatever was in these books was enough to scare the crossroads, which meant we needed to decode them while behind the closest thing we had to a locked door. Once the crossroads knew what James’ mother knew, they would not only be able to defend themselves, they’d be a lot more likely to demand I kill him on the spot. They were already pushing that agenda hard enough to be concerning if I wanted to undersell the situation in a way James probably wouldn’t appreciate. “Hey, the eldritch nightmare you’re devoting your life to wiping out sort of wants me to get on with slitting your throat, but sure, we have time to argue about where your mother’s diaries belong” is concerning, right?
“Be careful with those,” said James, as he squeezed through the opening into the main attic. It made the most sense to get the wardrobe back into position and then meet each other in the hall, where I could show him how to access the office. I had the feeling he was going to be spending a lot of time in there.
Good. He deserved a safe place in his own house, somewhere his father would never think to look for him. Somewhere to decide what happened next.
“I’ll treat them like they’re those weird egg babies we had to take care of in social studies,” I said, and flapped my hands in a “go on, then, shoo” gesture. “Get moving. I want to get back to the house.”
James, who still hadn’t twigged to the fact that it was the lack of wards that was distressing me, gave me a curious look. He didn’t know about Bethany attacking me in the stairwell, and why should he? It wasn’t like I could say her name without the risk of summoning her. Stupid ghosts.
I flapped my hands again. James began wrestling the wardrobe into place.
There wasn’t much I could do from my side of things. I stayed where I was, watching to be sure he got it close enough to the wall to restore the seal and prevent anyone else from stumbling on the hidden room. It took a while, and when the wardrobe was once again snugly positioned, I closed the door and started for the stairs.
The absolute blackness of the stairwell was as unsettling on my repeat visit as it had been on my first one. At least this time no unwanted ghosts appeared to haul me off to meetings with the crossroads. I took the steps as fast as I dared in the dark, one hand clutching the rail and the other stretched in front of me, waiting for the moment when my fingers would brush against the door. There was still no smell in the air, of vomit or otherwise. I’d been half expecting it to appear after the fact, making my story harder to believe.
Harder for anyone else to believe, anyway. I had no doubt about what I’d been through, and if I’d been inclined to start questioning, the continued twitching of the muscles in my neck would have been enough to convince me not to. I’d been tortured. I hadn’t been tortured here.
James was waiting in the hallway when the bookshelf swung open and I stepped through. He shook his head, looking impressed and almost offended at the same time.
“I never tried to move that shelf,” he said. “I never even thought of trying.”
“That was your mom,” I said. “She put protections up, and I guess she figured either they’d break down faster than they did or she left you something you haven’t found yet that would have told you where to look.”
“I suppose,” he agreed, eyes still troubled.
Impulsively, I reached out and squeezed his shoulder. “You’ve got her diaries. You’ll have time to find out.” Assuming I could keep the crossroads from forcing me to kill him before he had the chance.
How much of that pain would I be able to take before it broke me? It was a question I had never wanted the answer to. I still didn’t … but I was afraid I was going to get it before all this was over.
We closed the bookcase and descended the stairs to the first floor together, James a few steps ahead of me. While I hadn’t dared say as much to him, it was so if my legs gave out and dumped me on my ass, he’d be there to catch me.
Skating back to the house was going to be a lot of fun, I could see that already.
“If you have snacks you want during the study party that’s about to get underway, I’d suggest picking them up now,” I said, moving to retrieve my unworn shoes from the rack next to the back door.
James opened his mouth to answer, and froze as the sound of a car’s engine rumbling to a stop washed through the room. He paled. That alone was enough to tell me this wasn’t the day the cleaning service came, and this wasn’t the kind of house where door-to-door solicitors dropped casually by.
There was no way we were getting out of here without being seen. I dropped my shoes back on the rack. James lunged for the fridge. Neither of us said a word, but we both knew this drill. I’d learned it trying to steal a little privacy from two older siblings. James had learned it in a much harder setting, and was thus faster and more efficient in his motions. By the time my ass hit one of the chairs at the kitchen table, there were two glasses of milk and a plate of Chips Ahoy waiting, creating the impression of a wholesome, bucolic afternoon.
I took a big gulp of my milk, only wiping half of the ensuing mustache away as James took his own seat. He blinked.
“Authenticity,” I said, by way of explanation. There wasn’t time to say anything else. We both heard the key turn in the front door, and the door itself swinging open, followed by a heavy boot tread on the floor.
“I saw your bike, boy,” called a man’s voice, almost disdainfully. “Where are you?”
James sat up a little taller, shoulders squaring, chin coming up, like he was preparing to be judged. Which might not have been so far from the truth, all things considered. “I’m in the kitchen, sir.”
; I reached out like I was going to take a cookie, waiting until the footsteps grew closer before pulling my hand back. My timing was good: James’ father appeared in the doorway in time to catch the movement, and his eyes flicked to me, drawn like all good predators to the impression of something trying to run away.
“Jimmy?” he said. “Who’s this?”
“This is Annie,” he said, and gave me a besotted smile that spoke well of his future with the local theater group. “She and her friends are renting Cousin Norbert’s house for the fall.”
“Hello, sir,” I said, standing and smoothing the hem of my shirt like I was suddenly anxious about its appropriateness. “You have a lovely home.”
James’ father said nothing as he looked me up and down.
The wedding pictures had been enough to prepare me for the ways in which he was like and unlike his son, and I was grateful to have seen them. What they hadn’t prepared me for was the sheer weight of his presence. He filled the room like a thundercloud, dangerous and fascinating at the same time. He was still in uniform, dressed to protect and serve.
Finally, he asked, “Where are you from, Annie?”
“Vancouver,” I said. West coast accents are fairly interchangeable to the east coast ear, and being Canadian seemed like a good way to cover for any mistakes I made. I hadn’t been born in a barn: I had just been born in another country.
“Huh,” he said. His gaze flicked to the milk and cookies on the table, and then back to me. “You’ve got a little something on your lip.”
“Oh!” I raised my hand to cover it, like I was ashamed, and reached for a napkin. James was already in the process of handing me one. Our fingers brushed. Quick as I could, I pictured Sam naked in my bed, then pictured my grandmother walking into the room. That did it. Heat rose in my cheeks as I jerked my hand away. To the nonpsychic observer, it would look like the mere act of touching hands had been enough to make me blush.
James’ father was not, thankfully, psychic. He lifted his eyebrows, then looked to James. “A word?”
“Yes, sir.” James stood. “Annie, I’ll be right back to escort you home.” So please don’t move.
“All right,” I said. “It was nice to meet you, sir.”
“Likewise, young lady.” That seemed to be enough to serve as a good-bye: James’ father turned and walked out of the room, and James hurried after.
Moving seemed like a bad idea, especially when the chief of police was interrogating his own son on his intentions toward the tourist girl in the next room over. I took a cookie instead. The fact that Chief Smith had somehow failed to notice that James and I were apparently having the kind of date more appropriate for sixth graders was almost irrelevant. He didn’t know his son. I wasn’t sure he’d ever taken the time to try.
The cookie was store-bought but tasty. I ate another one, and drank about half my milk. It felt good enough on my scraped-up throat that I finished the glass before looking thoughtfully at James’. He hadn’t touched it. I was on the verge of making the swap when James himself came storming back into the kitchen, head down and shoulders hunched.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Ready.” I stood immediately, grabbing the backpack from where it rested next to my chair. “I just need to get my skates on and we can go.”
“Good.” James made for the back door without another word, not even pausing to clean up our “snack.” He grabbed his shoes on the way out. I did the same, although I stuffed mine into the bag before sitting down and starting to lace up my skates.
James didn’t stop. He went to the bottom of the porch and got his bike, hands white-knuckled on the handlebars. I gave him a concerned look, but I didn’t hurry. There are things in life that shouldn’t be rushed. Lacing up a pair of skates is one of them. When your mode of transport is attached to your feet, the last thing you want is for a knot to give way.
Eventually, I felt secure enough to stand, slip my arms into the backpack’s straps, and walk carefully down the stairs to join James. “I know the way,” I said softly. “If you need to go ahead, you can.”
“He’s probably at one of the windows, watching us go,” James replied. “If he sees me pedal off without you, the game is up.”
“Is that all?” I asked, and leaned in to kiss James on the cheek. Only the cheek. It was suitable to the length of our supposed relationship, and more, given what he’d said about his life so far, I was willing to bet he hadn’t kissed many girls.
The startled look on his face when I pulled away was enough to confirm my guess. I offered a sideways smile.
“Veracity,” I said, and started skating.
My legs were sore and tired enough that I hadn’t managed to get very far by the time he caught up with me. He coasted along, matching my pace, until the house was out of view around the curve of the driveway and there was no way his father was still watching us.
“Veracity?” he echoed, in a strangled tone.
“If we just met, we wouldn’t be making out on your lawn yet—and if we did, your father would probably decide I wasn’t the kind of girl you ought to be hanging out with. I’m not calling him sexist. My father would make the same call if he saw me making out with someone I barely knew.” Heaven only knew what he was going to make of Sam. At least, I wasn’t the first one to go out on an assignment and come home with a shiny new significant other. Hopefully, he was still annoyed enough about Verity bringing home an ex-Covenant operative not to mind that Sam wasn’t human.
“Insufficient kissing wasn’t my objection!”
“I’m sorry if I crossed a line, and I should have asked first—consent counts, even when you’re undercover. But if he was watching us, selling the bit was more important. I sold it.”
“You must have been the pride of your Girl Scout troop,” said James scornfully.
“Never joined. Something about them being nosy Nancies kept my parents from signing the paperwork. My cousins and I formed our own scouting organization. We called ourselves the Danger Scouts and went camping in the woods behind the house and annoyed the local Bigfoot population something awful.” I smiled fondly. “I’m pretty sure Mom threatened every cryptid within a hundred miles with the consequences of what would happen if we got hurt, because those were the nicest camping trips ever.”
James looked at me blankly. “Your family sounds very strange.”
“Oh, you have no idea. You’re going to love them.” I winced as one of the muscles in my right thigh objected to my moving. “I’ll explain why when we get back to the house, but do you think you could pull me for a while? I think my legs are about to give out.”
James’ blank look morphed to one of genuine concern. “What’s wrong?”
“Again, I’ll explain when we get there.”
“All right.” He didn’t sound like he believed me. “Grab on.”
There was a little metal grid at the base of his seat, designed for clipping on wagons or other accessories. I threaded my fingers through it as I fell in behind the bike, focusing on locking my knees rather than pushing myself forward. It helped. I closed my eyes in relief, letting my legs take a much-needed rest. James kept pedaling, more slowly now that he had my added weight to contend with.
This wasn’t good. If the crossroads could catch me any time I set foot outside of the wards, I was going to wind up like my grandfather had been in the last years of his life: locked into a steadily narrowing space, unable to go outside or fight back. It was a chilling thought. More chilling was the question of whether the wards mattered. The crossroads had sent Bethany to collect me, but nothing said that was necessary. They weren’t ghosts. As far as I could tell, their only connection to the so-called “spirit world” was their habit of using ghosts as their messengers. The fact that they could pull me into their liminal space without killing me was another vote for the rules being different for them. Mary and Rose could move back and forth between the lands of the living and the dead, and could even carry things with them, but they c
ouldn’t transport living beings—like me or the mice—without consequences.
The only consequences I was experiencing came from being tortured, not from visiting the crossroads, at least as far as I could tell. If I was going to catch ghost tuberculosis and die on top of everything else, I was going to be pissed.
James kept pedaling, and I kept holding on, letting the road roll by under my wheels, trying to put together a plan for what was going to happen next. Chief Smith might be a problem if he decided to start running background checks on us. Then again, he might not; Cylia was the only one who could be easily found in any official records, and so far as I knew, she’d never had so much as a parking ticket. Sure, we’d been pulled over a few times when her luck fizzled or snapped back on us, but she’d always been able to charm her way out of actually receiving a citation. If she and my cousin Elsie ever decided to start hanging out together, they could take over the world with a smile and a wink.
Honestly, that might not be such a bad thing.
“You okay back there?”
“I’m fine.” I cracked an eye open. “Getting tired?”
James scoffed. “Please. I’ve been riding my bike everywhere since I was nine.”
“You don’t drive?”
“No.” There was a long pause as he considered his next words. Finally, he said, “When I turned sixteen my father told me if I wanted a car I’d have to pay for it myself. But Sally had a car, and I was putting everything aside for college, so it didn’t seem important. After Sally disappeared, he said it was time to stop letting girls drive me around everywhere. He said it made me look like a—forgive me, this is his word, not mine—like a pansy who couldn’t take care of himself. So I decided my bike was more than good enough for me, thank you very much, and I swore not to learn how to drive until and unless it was time to watch this town getting smaller in my rearview mirror.”
That Ain't Witchcraft (InCryptid #8) Page 22
