Page 38 of That Ain’t Witchcraft

“I could be your girlfriend,” said Fern.

We all turned to stare at her. She flushed red.

“I don’t mean really,” she said. “You’re the wrong species, and I’m not a pervert like Annie. Um. Sorry, Annie.”

“No offense taken,” I said. “I like my monkey.”

“Ook,” said Sam blandly.

“Humans aren’t … you smell wrong, I’m sorry,” said Fern. She was still blushing. So was James. It would have been adorable, if they hadn’t both been so clearly mortified. “But I look like a human girl, and I’m pretty, I know I’m pretty, and I can pretend to be into you. Would your dad be okay with you hanging around here if he thought it was because of me?”

“I’m more flexible, attraction-wise, than Fern is, but I’m also ten years too old for you,” said Cylia. “I’d take her up on the offer.”

“It … might work,” said James slowly. “My father would be ecstatic if I started seeing someone, even if it was a stranger.”

“Oh, if your dad’s anything like some of the carnie dads I used to know, he might be even happier to know that your first girlfriend will eventually leave town and let you try again with more practice under your belt,” said Sam.

I lifted an eyebrow. He shrugged.

“Grandma never wanted me to date outside the carnival, but she was in the minority,” he said. “Dating townies meant things never got serious enough to be a problem. A lot of people did it. I did not do it. I have not been concealing a string of townie girlfriends. Please don’t glare at me.”

“Nah, I’d just shave you while you slept.” I took a deep breath, trying to let some of my tension go. It wasn’t anything like easy. “All right: so we’re all staying, and we have two problems. The crossroads, and the Covenant. James, is there anything we can do to help you with the first problem?”

“How are you at taking notes?” he asked.

I grinned.

There’s one of us in every class. The kid who takes notes when the teacher sneezes—or worse, who doesn’t need to, who views teachers sneezing as so vitally important that it can be remembered without being written down. The one who blows the bell curve to hell and dances on the ashes.

When we started, all five of us were crammed into the library, making the air several degrees warmer and making it difficult to move between the shelves. Sam was the first to give up, after an hour of increasingly frustrated squinting at books he had no interest in reading and didn’t fully understand.

“I love you,” he said, kissing the crown of my head. “I’m going to go check the woods for more unwanted guests. If I find this Leo guy, I’ll bring back one of his arms. Maybe with the rest of him still attached. Maybe not.”

“More practical than roses,” I said cheerfully as I went back to my book.

Cylia was the next to bow out, muttering something vague about another trip to the grocery store and making a casserole for when we inevitably experienced a massive blood sugar crash. Fern hesitated before running after her, not even saying good-bye, and James and I were alone.

He was a fast reader, taking notes one-handed in a cribbed shorthand that I couldn’t understand. That made sense. Most of the teacher’s pets I’ve known, myself included, have had their own way of writing things down. I take my notes in unbroken cursive, with minimal spaces between words, using Russian grammar, since leaving out unnecessary articles means having more room on the page for things that matter, and being flexible with word order means the important words can come first. It also cut way, way down on bullies and mean girls asking to see my work after they’d spent the entire class period whispering and passing notes between themselves, which cut down on my parents needing to make excuses for how those kids had “tripped” and fallen face-first into my fist.

I’d gone through three elementary schools before figuring that little trick out.

The books from James’ mother’s hidden library were as focused on the local history as the more public-facing volumes, but with a distinctly eldritch twist. The handwriting in the margins was hers, of course, adding context and commentary to already horrible situations. After reading the third account of someone using the crossroads in front of the hanging tree to summon a dead ancestor to tell them where the family fortune was hidden, I lowered the book and gave James a sidelong look.

“Is Stephen King really writing fiction?” I asked. “Or is he just a small-town historian who somehow got filed in the wrong part of the bookstore?”

“Every serious metaphysical scholar in Maine secretly dreams of climbing in Mr. King’s kitchen window and filling his house from top to bottom with centipedes,” said James idly, turning a page.

I blinked. Finally: “You’re screwing with me.”

“Yes.” He looked up, offering me a quick, thin smile. “You catch on quickly. You should be proud of yourself.”

“Dweeb,” I said, and went back to my book.

“Nerd,” he muttered, sounding oddly pleased.

We read in silence for a while after that, until I frowned, tapping the page with my finger. “You said you already knew how to hurt the crossroads,” I said.

“Yes,” said James.