Page 35 of That Ain’t Witchcraft

“Huh,” said Cylia, shooting a quick look in my direction. “Annie?”

“Open the door and wait out here,” I said. A quick gesture and my hands were full of knives. James’ eyes widened. That trick can take some time to get used to, even though there’s nothing magical about it: it’s all practice and knowing exactly where the edges are. “If I’m not back in fifteen minutes or you hear screaming, both of you get in the car and drive as fast as you possibly can. We’re in Maine. The closest sanctuary I know of is in Gentling. If you go there, they’ll hide you. You may need to remind them daily of who you are, but they’ll hide you.”

The people in Gentling are the result of a meeting of the land and sea, literally. They are, almost all of them, crossbreeds between humans and finfolk, one of the safer, more complicated forms of merfolk. They tend to have issues with short-term memory, but they’re allies, and have been since my family quit the Covenant. If Cylia and James wound up there, the citizens of Gentling would make sure they were all right.

“Got it,” said Cylia. Her key slid into the lock with a faint click, and then the door was open, revealing the front room. I stepped through, moving lightly, my steps designed to smother noise before it could begin. The sunlight streaming through the door behind me made it harder to see, rather than easier, but I didn’t wave for Cylia to close it. I might need the escape route.

There was something cold and assessing in the pit of my stomach, measuring up the house as the site of a siege, trying to decide where the first blows would have been struck, to guess where the blood would have been spilled. Every time I turned a corner without finding the signs of a struggle, another inch of my skin relaxed, until I was walking quiet as a cat, slithering as much as striding from shadow to shadow.

When I was a kid, I used to imagine going to one of my teachers and telling them how I’d really spent my weekend. Telling them about learning to field strip and rebuild weapons, how to sharpen knives, how to navigate a field full of traps that had been designed to be nonlethal but could still do a lot of damage if I misjudged, if I stepped wrong, if I was ever careless for so much as a moment. I used to think about the looks on their faces, to wonder how many of them would be proud of me before the urge to call Child Protective Services kicked in.

Walking through the silent house that had gone so quickly from refuge to burial ground, I was grateful that I never had, and even more grateful to my parents for putting me through those casual tests of my ability to stay alive. Some lessons, if taught early enough, work their way all the way down to the bone.

The door of the room I was sharing with Sam stood ever so slightly ajar. I paused outside, taking a deep breath, and kicked it open as hard as I could, twisting so that I was framed perfectly in the opening, a knife in either hand.

Sam, wearing a pair of shorts and nothing else, looked up from the book he was reading and blinked at me.

“Okay,” he said. “That’s seriously hot, but Annie, what the fuck?”

I dropped my knives, clapped my hands over my eyes, and started crying.

Ten

“I hope you never have to learn what you’re not willing to give up. Knowledge like that always costs so much more than you were hoping to pay.”

–Alice Healy

In a house, in a bedroom, in tears

“ANNIE? JESUS!” SAM THREW his book aside and was next to me in an instant, moving with the inhuman speed that was his birthright. He folded his arms around me and held me at a slightly awkward angle, hugging and checking for injuries at the same time. It was efficient. I had to give him that much.

The thought struck me as somehow funny. I started laughing through my tears, hiccupping helplessly as the adrenaline racing through my body scrambled my feelings and made them virtually impossible to understand. He wasn’t letting go. I slumped, trusting him to hold me upright. I couldn’t stay here long, not with Cylia and James waiting outside for me to come back and tell them whether or not everyone was dead, but I could have a few seconds. I’d done enough to earn that much.

“Annie, come on, I need you to talk to me. You’re scaring me.”

“Sorry.” I took a deep breath, in through my nose and out through my mouth, and uncovered my eyes as I turned my face toward Sam’s. The panic in his eyes mirrored what I knew he must have seen in mine. That helped me center myself, a little. I wasn’t glad to have scared him—far from it—but I was grateful for the fact that I could take that fear away.

Love is complicated and messy, and it sort of sucks because I never used to have to worry about this kind of shit.

“Leo’s here,” I said.

Sam stiffened, his arms loosening as he prepared to start swinging, his tail, which had wrapped itself around my ankle, tightening like he was afraid I was about to be ripped away.

“Where?” he asked. His voice was low, filled with a quiet and implacable rage. If fūri were like waheela, possessed of both fully human and fully animal forms, I would have found out in that moment, because if he’d been capable of transforming into something more dangerous, he would absolutely have done so.

“In the town, I mean, not here at the house.” I took a step back. Sam let me go, his tail holding on for a beat longer than his hands. “I was afraid … when we got here and the door was locked and no one was answering, I thought …”

“Fuck, honey, if he’d sent a team here to kill us, I won’t pretend they couldn’t succeed, because the Covenant scares the pants off me, but I can promise you there’d be at least a broken window.” Sam raised one hand, fingers folded in a Boy Scout salute. “I solemnly swear that if I’m about to be murdered by bigoted zealots, I’ll stop worrying about property damage and make as much of a mess as possible, so you’ll know what you’re walking into. Okay?”

I giggled, the sound rendered thick by snot and tears. Then I sniffled, wiping my nose with the back of my hand, and nodded. “Okay. I’m going to go check on Fern. Can you get dressed and go let Cylia and James know that the Covenant hasn’t murdered everyone while we were off having coffee?”

“Sure—wait.” Sam frowned. “You were having coffee with James?”

“Only technically. He works at the town coffee shop.”

“Oh. I guess that makes sense. I’ll see you downstairs.” He gave me one last quick hug before starting to pick his clothes up off the floor.

I was actually smiling as I walked back into the hall. It was hard not to read the scene I’d busted into as a charmingly awkward attempt at seduction. I mean, half-naked, in bed with a book, in the middle of the day? Come on.