Crooked Words

by K A Cook

“Probably. Do you mind?”

  Mind?

  Pat shook hir head, a little amazed that Louisa had somehow known. Ze’d have to thank her, if ze could do so without having Louisa breathe down hir neck and knock off hir limbs in the process. “So.” Pat paused, not at all sure how to ask with anything close to Louisa’s casualness, but ze had to find out—and here, surely, it would be okay that ze hasn’t assumed? “When I see my psychologist, and tell her that I met this awesome zombie I want to see again, how would you like me to refer to you as?”

  A beautiful, handsome grin bloomed across Moon’s face. “I like ‘ou’.”

  “And when I see my psychologist, and tell her about this gorgeous and handsome and clever zombie, and that ou offered to make me a website and made me think about a new career, how would you like me to refer to you as?”

  Moon hesitated before raising one eyebrow and angling ou head in Pat’s direction. “Ou…?”

  Pat swallowed and tried hard not to smile—or tremble. “And when I see my psychologist, and tell her that I want to ask ou out on a romantic, midnight dinner down at the local graveyard this Thursday, and I’ll bring my laptop so ou can read my fanfiction—or whenever suits ou because I’m that unemployed and lacking in a social existence—how would you like me to refer to you as?”

  “You’re an idiot,” Moon said, but ou shook ou head and laughed—and leant closer to wrap one arm around Pat’s shoulders. “Thursday’s good with me. And how do I refer to you on my blog, Pat?”

  Pat grinned with sheer, brilliant relief and leaned into Moon’s chest, so close that ze could brush hir head against Moon’s. “Anything. As long as you know it’s not real.”

  It didn’t matter what they called hir—man, woman, person, human. It didn’t matter, just as long as one damn person understood they were only words used as a shorthand, and never meant the real thing. And, as Moon reached up to run the tips of ou fingers over the thick dark stitches holding Pat’s neck together, suggesting just what they might do in the graveyard as a soft whisper in hir ear, ze felt pretty sure that ou did.

  Old-Fashioned

  When Amelia heard the second rustle, she reached down beside her bed and grabbed her favourite witchy-looking staff, raising it up to her chest with as little sound as possible. Anyone who didn’t sleep within reach of some kind of weapon—a broomstick, a knife, a furious cat—was an idiot, and Amelia liked to think that while she might be an indifferent witch, she wasn’t wholly idiotic. Who knew, these days, just who would take it upon themselves to invade someone’s private space?

  “Young idiots,” she whispered to herself as she sat up and raised the staff so that she could swing out with the knobbly end. She didn’t make so much as a rustle; the intruder, however, seemed to find every creaky stair and floorboard between the hallway and the bedroom door. Amelia knew it wasn’t the cat: no cat was stupid enough to rustle and risk being mistaken for an intruder. She had no mice or spiders inside her house; even the local moths knew better than to find shelter within her walls. Anyone with legitimate business would have knocked on her front door and bellowed for the midwife.

  No, it could only mean one thing.

  The lovelorn.

  Midnight stalking had become all the rage amongst the lovesick, the impressionable, the young and the downright stupid—a fashion worse than constricting corsetry and wide-legged breeches. Worse than last summer, when everyone went about quoting romantic poetry in lieu of just asking someone to the town hall dance. Now love was all about climbing through second-storey windows and watching their loved one sleep; roses were passé. Romance was about being new and innovative and showing to the world just how far one would go for their beloved—even if it meant proclaiming their star-crossed romance from a mouldy jail cell the following morning. Bruises and protective mothers and even magic seemed no deterrent.

  Amelia heard a faint cough, as if muffled by a hand. In daylight, she knew nothing more about fighting than the next person, but in the dark—and in a room cleared of most things breakable, because Amelia knew her aim was atrocious—her lack of training didn’t matter. She waited a moment longer, listening for the distinctive grinding creak of the floorboard just before her bed—and then she swung the staff as hard as she could until she heard a loud and satisfying crack.

  Someone shrieked. Amelia swung again, this time hitting a glancing blow. She heard a series of thumps, a something clattering to the floor, and then vicious swearing and a sniffle followed by several soft sobs.

  “Curse it, I just had to get another weeper,” she said under her breath as she placed the staff on the bed and leant over the bedside table to fumble at the lamp with her right hand. “Do none of you ever think how much all this is costing me in kerosene and matches?”

  It took a moment for the lamp to catch and light the room. Amelia sat back in bed and stared down at her intruder.

  A young woman sat huddled on the floor with one hand wrapped around her elbow. She was gorgeous, Amelia had to admit: round and curvy, with a mane of curly chestnut hair tumbling down her back and falling in her eyes. Big, beautiful green eyes, paired with the kind of pouty lips Amelia enjoyed pressed against her own when the kissing happened to be mutually agreed upon. She was gorgeous, but she’d forgotten to wear a few useful things like shoes, underwear and clothing, and Amelia couldn’t help a deep, frustrated sigh. Perhaps something was wrong with her. Anyone else would be thrilled to discover a naked person of the correct gender creeping into their room, especially if the intruder seemed to have every last intent of getting under the covers and beginning a seduction.

  Who wouldn’t want someone willing and ready to tumble you without even so much as a get-to-know-you?

  Everyone did it nowadays. Lovers skipped the whole tradition of meeting, dating, getting to know each other over a meal or two, the nervous small-talk where two people tried to figure out where the other stood with regards common interests and how soon they could talk of bedding without being offensive. No, everyone in the village sighed over the love and romance of a mysterious stalker. How else could someone prove their love for another, if they weren’t willing to take the risk of creeping into their would-be-lover’s house after dark?

  Amelia stared down at the woman. She fluttered her damp eyelashes as if in some desperate attempt to look alluring—but she just looked like a stranger with an eyelash stuck in her eye. A pretty stranger, but a stranger. How was Amelia to know what she thought about anything important, like equal voting rights for gnomes?

  “Well?” she said. “Do you? Don’t you think it’s pretty inconsiderate?”

  The woman blinked and said nothing.

  Curse it, just how were they all getting in? Amelia had fastened the windows and bolted the front door before going to bed, checking every lock twice; she’d made sure that nobody could open the catches from the outside after the last debacle, and she’d have heard a window breaking—if anyone wanted to annoy a witch by breaking her windows. Perhaps the intruder had decided to risk the nesting basilisk in the cellar and entered by the cellar door? Just what had the world come to when not even a basilisk could keep out lovelorn intruders?

  She frowned and decided that tomorrow she would walk around the house in circles with her cat and a basket of bones and herbs, and chant something that sounded mysterious and spell-like—anything to scare the woman or anyone else from trying again. Everyone knew that magic was more powerful, dark and serious when a cat was involved, after all. If that didn’t give the villagers the right idea, nothing would.

  “If you’re not going to refund me for my matches,” Amelia said, “get up, stop crying and go home. Try asking someone else out the proper way. Mentioning your name, too, might help.”

  The woman peered up at Amelia, now trying a wobbly sort of smile. “You’re the most beautiful woman I ever saw, and I—”

  “And you’re a stranger invading my house.” Amelia folded her arms and tried not to stare at the woman’s breasts. She w
as worth staring at, if only this meeting had involved Amelia’s knowing the woman’s name, occupation, address and favourite colour, and Amelia’s having issued something resembling an invitation. The last thing the woman needed, however, was encouragement. “Now get out before I throw my cat at you.”

  Amelia heard a clattering noise that sounded like a cat streaking for shelter under her bed, but at least the woman looked somewhat concerned as she struggled to her feet with her fingers still cupping her elbow. She didn’t look red or blotchy despite the tears streaming down her face, but Amelia couldn’t have said that she didn’t look pathetic, either. Pathetic wouldn’t have made it past the basilisk. “But … I did all this for you.”

  Amelia rolled her eyes, grabbed her staff and stared at the girl in her best attempt to look suitably witch-like, despite her floral-print nightgown. “If you do not get out of my house in two minutes I will turn you and your family into toads. Dead toads. They’ll have to bury you in a shoebox.”

  No, she wasn’t a good witch and was an even worse magician: she’d earned her diploma only because the Professors Roxleigh couldn’t stand the thought of yet another year trying to locate the non-existent magical bone in Amelia’s body. The village didn’t question her post because she was good at