Page 36 of That Ain’t Witchcraft

At least he knew how to get my attention.

The stairs to the attic were narrow and just rickety enough to shake as I climbed them, sending vibrations through the floor above me. Fern’s fondness for her chosen room made more and more sense. Out of everyone in the house, she was the only one whose entire defensive strategy was “run.” Cylia could bend an attacker’s luck against them, making it more likely that guns would misfire or rocks would somehow turn underfoot. Sam could punch them until they stopped coming. Fern …

Fern could run. And by putting herself at the top of the house, she had both created an exit that no one else was likely to be able to use, and established a way of hearing if anyone was coming.

The stairs ended at a narrow door. I rapped the knuckles of my hand against the wood, and called, “Fern? It’s Annie. Can I come in?”

“Sure.” Her voice was faint but audible.

Cautiously, I opened the door to reveal a small, neatly appointed room. The walls were white; the curtains were trimmed in lace. The overall effect was one of sweetness and innocence, like this room had originally belonged to a young girl who couldn’t be trusted with unfettered access to the ground.

Fern was sitting on the edge of the bed, staring fixedly out the single barred window. She looked over her shoulder as I crossed the threshold, offering me a wan smile.

“You’re scared someone’s found us, aren’t you?” she asked.

I blinked. “Yes,” I said. “How did you know?”

“A car came a little while after you and Cylia left. A man got out and walked around the house. He tried the doors, and when he found that they were locked, he left them.”

My chest tightened. “What did he look like?”

“Tall. Really dark hair, like James. Broad shoulders. He was wearing a uniform. I couldn’t see exactly what kind, he was too far away for that. I’m sorry.” Fern glanced down. “I should have tried harder.”

“Did he have glasses on?”

“No.”

Not Leo, then. He’d told me a lot of lies, which should have felt like a fair trade for the number of lies I had told him. That was how it had worked with Sam, anyway. Only Sam and I had both been trying to protect ourselves, while Leo had been trying to subvert me to a cause I had no interest in. There was at least one thing he hadn’t lied about, though: his eyesight was worse than my brother’s, and Alex can’t hit the broad side of a barn when he doesn’t have his glasses on. There was no way Leo would have removed his glasses before coming to case the joint.

The rest of the description, though … “That sounds like it may have been James’ father. The chief of police.”

That didn’t seem to help. Fern looked, if anything, more alarmed as she asked, “Why would he be here? We haven’t done anything wrong.”

That was questionable, although we hadn’t done anything wrong inside city limits apart from punching James’ nose, and he’d deserved it. “Maybe he wanted to get a look at the people renting from his nephew, or maybe he was trying to be neighborly. Have you been locked up here since he left?”

Fern bit her lip and nodded. “He scared me. I figured if I waited for you to come back, it would be okay. You’d make sure it was okay.”

Her faith in me was as touching as it was misplaced. “I’ll always try,” I said. “Come on downstairs.”

It was easier to descend than it had been to climb. The shaking of the steps was familiar now. If I went to visit Fern more than a few times, it would become ordinary, unremarkable, and even something I could overlook. The intelligent mind doesn’t hold on to novelty very well. That’s intentional. If we were constantly being surprised by our surroundings, we would never be able to get anything done. We have to become jaded if we’re going to be functional.

It was hard to feel jaded as I stepped into the dining room with Fern at my heels and beheld my motley, self-assembled group of allies. It was strange to realize that, thanks to my exile, I was the first person in generations to go entirely outside the family for help. No cousins, no honorary aunts or uncles—not even Mary, not unless I could get her back from the crossroads. The possibility of that unconfirmed loss was a rock in the pit of my stomach, possible and implacable and painful.

Cylia was leaning against the wall, while James and Sam sat on opposite sides of the table like they were getting ready to start arm wrestling each other. All three of them looked over as we arrived in the room.

“False alarm?” asked Cylia.

“Sort of,” I replied. “James, is there any chance your father would have decided to come do a walk-around of the property while you were at work?”

His scowl was immediate and intense. “Absolutely. He doesn’t think anyone deserves privacy. If you don’t have anything to hide, you shouldn’t mind the police sticking their nose anywhere they feel it belongs.”

“I have plenty to hide, but aside from that, I still wouldn’t want strangers pawing through my underwear drawer,” I said. “A reasonable expectation of privacy is not an admission of guilt. Would it put you in a bad position if I asked you to tell him he’s welcome to drop by whenever, but we’d really prefer it if he didn’t skulk around in the bushes while we’re doing the shopping? Because he freaked Fern out pretty badly.”

James grimaced. “If I ask him that, I’m as good as admitting that I’m spending time here.”

“Who was it that didn’t like the idea of secret friends?” I asked, trying to keep my tone light. “That runs both ways.”

“Fair.” He sighed. “I’ll tell him I dropped by to get a replacement chain for my bike and wound up showing you how to reset the fuses or something. Anything to make me sound useful.”