That Ain't Witchcraft Read online

  “Um,” said Megan again.

  “Aeslin mice,” I explained. “They’re almost extinct, but my family has managed to preserve a colony. A pretty healthy one, too. Their population is still increasing.”

  “I’ve . . . heard of them,” said Megan, looking suddenly awkward.

  I had to swallow a laugh. “Let me guess, in the context of ‘these were a delicacy, but no one can find them anymore.’”

  She nodded, cheeks flaring red.

  “Don’t worry. Everyone shares the same food chain. Will you be okay here by yourself for a few minutes? I want to go get Sarah.”

  “I won’t touch anything,” said Megan.

  “Cool. Be right back.” I started up the stairs before she could change her mind and demand to come with me. Sarah already knew she was in the house, of course: I was wearing an anti-telepathy charm, but Megan wasn’t, and she couldn’t sneak up on a cuckoo if she tried. That was probably a good thing. Sarah has a harder time reading minds she hasn’t encountered before, so Megan’s presence was going to be less “invasive” and more “warning.” It’s always good to give the twitchy telepath as much advance notice as possible.

  Her door was still closed. I knocked lightly. “Sarah? I know you’re in there.”

  Silence.

  “You don’t have a car, you haven’t gone outside voluntarily in months, and the mice would have said something if you’d wandered away. Open the door.”

  Again, silence, stretching long enough that I was afraid I was going to have to enter her room uninvited. Then the doorknob turned, and the door creaked open, just a few inches, just enough to let me see one large, accusatory blue eye peering back at me.

  “You brought a stranger into the house,” said Sarah.

  “I did,” I agreed. “Her name is Megan; she’s Dee’s daughter. She knows Antimony.”

  The door creaked open a little wider. “Annie? She knows Annie? Is she okay?”

  “She was,” I said. “You can ask Megan yourself, if you want; you’ll just have to do it in the car. I need you to come with me to look for the missing children.”

  Sarah jerked the door all the way open, eyes going even wider in surprise and, yes, fear. “With you? You mean to where the gorgons live?”

  “Yes.” I looked at her steadily. “Please.”

  “No!” She took a step backward, moving deeper into her room, which was so scrupulously clean that it could have been a showroom display at IKEA. It hurt a little, seeing it that way. She’s never been the most cluttered member of our family, but she used to at least keep a few personal touches in reach. “Gorgons, they aren’t just one mind, not like humans are; they’re all these little minds touching on one big central mind, and it’s like standing in the middle of a snowstorm and trying to guess which flake is in control of all the others. It’s confusing.”

  “But it’s not painful,” I guessed.

  She bit her lip and didn’t correct me.

  “Sarah, their children are missing. Someone took them, and from the way it looks, that someone was a human, part of a group of humans. They’re going to sell those children to the highest bidders. Do you know what happens to cryptid kids who get bought by humans?”

  “Yes,” she whispered. We didn’t talk about it much, for a lot of reasons, but her older brother, my Uncle Drew, was one of those kids. He’d been stolen from the bogeyman community where he was born when he was too young to remember anything about it. My grandparents had saved him from his “owner,” and his adoption had been an act of essential mercy. He had been afraid of his own species, as well as almost everything else, for years after his rescue.

  “So you understand why we need to find them as soon as possible. There should only be two humans in the woods: me and Shelby. If you follow the sound of human thoughts, we’ll find where they have the children.”

  “They could already be gone,” she said.

  I shook my head. “They were smart enough to set lookouts on the major roads in and out of the area. They’re smart enough to go to ground for a few days, to let the heat die down and give the children time to accept their new reality.” And to start pulling fangs. If they maimed a few of the older children, the others would fall into line.

  It wasn’t going to get that far. I wasn’t going to let it.

  Sarah closed her eyes.

  “Please,” I repeated.

  “I could . . . I could lose control,” she said. “I could hurt someone. I could get scared and decide I needed to be protected and hurt someone.”

  “You won’t,” I said.

  She opened her eyes, looking at me gravely. “How do you know?”

  “Because you’re my cousin, and I love you, and I trust you, and you’ve never hurt anyone like that,” I said. “Not even when you were a little kid. You were scared and you were running and you were looking for someone to keep you safe, and even then you didn’t take over anyone’s mind on purpose. Besides, who’s going to take better care of you than I could? If you get scared, you’ll just get behind me.”

  She smiled wanly. I still took it as a good sign.

  “You think pretty highly of yourself, don’t you?” she asked.

  “Well, you know, I have it on pretty good authority that I’m not completely bad at my job,” I said. “I mostly come home in one piece.”

  “So far,” she said. Then, awkwardly, she added, “Do the gorgons, um . . . do they know you’re coming here to get me? Not everyone likes having a cuckoo around.”

  “They know,” I said. “I have permission.” That, more than anything, would tell her how serious this was.

  Sarah nodded. “All right,” she said. “I’ll come.”

  * * *

  • • •

  The ride back to the community was awkward, made even more so by the way Sarah sat in the center of the backseat, head bowed and hair covering her face, like she was preparing for the starring role in yet another remake of The Ring. Megan kept stealing anxious glances at her in the rearview mirror, and her wig was emitting a steady hissing sound that was almost comical while we were alone in the car but would become a serious problem if we got pulled over for some reason.

  “Sarah, we’re coming up on the barrier between the community and the main road,” I said. “For me, it manifests as a bunch of illusions, and the strong desire to turn around and go back the way I came. If you start feeling like we shouldn’t be here, try to remember that it’s external.”

  “All right, Alex,” she said, without lifting her head. Then: “Please ask Megan to be less afraid of me. It’s like she’s screaming and screaming in my ear, and I don’t like it. It makes it hard to concentrate.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Megan, hey, could you try to be less terrified of my cousin? Please, as a favor to me?”

  “She can hear you,” said Megan.

  “I know, but she asked me to try, so I’m trying,” I said. “Look, she’s a nerd, all right? She does math for fun, she puts spaghetti sauce on her ice cream, and she reads too many comic books. She’s not going to hurt you. She’s here because she wants to help.”

  “‘Want’ is a generous word,” said Sarah. “I’m willing. Children shouldn’t have to be afraid of the people who are supposed to take care of them. But I don’t want to be out of my house, and I don’t want to be around people who’re afraid of me. It’s not my fault I can read your mind.”

  “So don’t,” snapped Megan.

  Sarah finally peeked out from behind the curtain of her hair. “Tell the snakes on your head to stop breathing,” she said.

  Megan’s eyes widened. “What?”

  “They’re breathing. Tell them to stop.” Sarah sat up straighter, pushing her hair out of her face and looking defiantly at Megan’s reflection in the rearview mirror. “Well? I’m waiting.”

  “I can’t do that!”<
br />
  “And I can’t stop having a certain low-level awareness of your consciousness. I’m not digging through your memories, all right? That would be rude, and it would be hard, and being out of the house is hard enough for me right now. I’m not changing your mind for you. If I were, don’t you think we’d be best friends? You’d be sitting back here and braiding my hair and telling me about the cute girl in your immunology lecture series. Instead, you’re sitting up there trying not to think about how scared of me you are and wondering whether your venom would petrify me before I could wipe your sense of self. I didn’t choose my biology any more than you did, and it’s not fair of you to sit up there hating me for it when I’m on my way to help save kids you care about. You need to stop.”

  Megan blinked and looked away, visibly ashamed. That was a nice start. “I’m sorry. I’ve never met a cu—a Johrlac before.”

  “Yes, you have.” Sarah sounded genuinely apologetic. “I can see the scars. It probably happened at Lowryland. The dangerous ones, the real cuckoos, they like places with a whole lot of people. It makes it easier for them to pass unnoticed. I don’t think you’ve ever been targeted, but they’ve brushed past you on the street.”

  “Is that supposed to make me feel better?” asked Megan.

  “You can still remember my name, so yes,” said Sarah. “I don’t know what I can do to prove to you that I’m not a monster, other than continuing to sit here without killing you or warping your mind. I’m doing my best. Can’t you please try to do the same?”

  “ . . . sure,” said Megan.

  I breathed slowly out, blinking as I realized that we were already through the barriers that should have slowed our approach. “Huh,” I said.

  “I noticed them,” said Sarah. “I just suggested that maybe they didn’t want to bother us, and they agreed. Compulsion charms are like tiny magical AIs. They’re pretty easy to talk into doing what I want them to do.”

  “That’s horrifying,” said Megan.

  “Welcome to my life,” said Sarah.

  The crowd of gorgons was still gathered outside the trailers. It had changed composition slightly, new faces replacing the old, the parents of the missing children standing out from the rest thanks to the looks of shattered horror that seemed permanently etched into their faces. Even if—even when—we got their children back, I wasn’t sure those looks would ever fully go away.

  Hannah was waiting when we got out of the car. She looked Sarah up and down, mouth twisting dismissively, and looked like she was about to say something cruel when she abruptly stopped dead and said, in a soft voice, “You’re looking at my eyes.”

  “Yes,” said Sarah. “People seem to prefer it when I look them in the eyes, and I try to be polite when I can. It balances the part where I’m always a little bit impolite, by human standards.”

  “You’re not turning to stone.”

  My eyes widened, and I swore softly. Sarah didn’t have goggles on. I should have realized before, but I’d been in a hurry, and she had managed never to look directly at Megan. Somehow, I had missed it.

  “No,” said Sarah. “I’m not quite a mammal, the way you think a mammal is, and I’m not a bird or a reptile or anything else that comes from around here. Your gaze doesn’t work on me.”

  “I have more than just eyes,” said Hannah, and bared her teeth, which were too sharp and too serrated to have any place in a human-seeming mouth.

  “Your venom might work,” said Sarah. “I don’t know. I don’t have blood, in the sense of platelets and hemoglobin and all those other sticky substances; it’s possible the biological chain reaction that causes petrifaction would do nothing. I’d rather not find out, if you don’t mind. I can’t look for your missing children if I’m a lawn statue.”

  “And I’d really rather you didn’t turn my cousin to stone,” I said hastily. “She hasn’t done anything to threaten you.”

  “Her existence is threat enough,” said Hannah, slumping slightly, so that she was no longer looming over the pair of us with quite so much intensity. “Your woman is with Dee, speaking to the fringe. They should return soon.”

  The fringe was the other side of the community, built with deep roots and sturdy walls and an absolute policy of isolation from the outside world. Walter, who led the place, was Dee’s brother. They didn’t have the warmest family relationship. I wasn’t entirely comfortable with Shelby going there without me, and I was absolutely aware that telling her so would be a good way to wind up getting yelled at for being a macho pig. She could take care of herself, sometimes better than I could.

  “All right,” I said. “I think Sarah and I are going to go meet them, if you don’t mind. I want Sarah to have both the approved human presences behind her before we start scanning the woods for humans who shouldn’t be present.”

  “And I am coming with you,” said Hannah.

  “No,” said Sarah.

  There was a long, dangerous pause. Finally, in a low voice, Hannah echoed, “No?”

  “No,” said Sarah. “You’re scared of me. You don’t want to be because you don’t want to be scared of anything, but you are, and all the snakes on your head are picking up on that. They see me as a threat. They don’t have a lot of room for thoughts, so they think the ones they have very, very loudly. You’ll distract me.”

  “Please stay here,” I said, before Hannah could start to argue in earnest. “If we find anything at all, I’ll have Dee call Megan. I know Dee has a phone. I assume Megan does, too.”

  “Don’t leave home without it,” said Megan.

  “You can come right over and fuck up whoever dared to touch your kids,” I said. “But if there’s even a chance that your presence means they don’t get found, you can’t come.”

  Hannah visibly deflated. “Everything about this day tells me I’ve failed my duties as protector of this community,” she said. “For a daughter of Medusa, that burns.”

  The three known species of gorgon each claim descent from a different Gorgon of mythology. For the greater gorgons, like Hannah—half of Hannah, anyway, and as those genes seemed to have the dominant expression, it only made sense for her to think of herself as a greater gorgon—that progenitor is Medusa. They take their role as children of the most famous of the mythological Gorgons very seriously.

  “You haven’t failed,” I said. “You’re just standing back and letting people who are better equipped to deal with this specific problem do their jobs. Now, will you let us do our jobs?”

  She nodded silently. I turned to Sarah.

  “Follow me,” I said. “I know the way.”

  The gathered gorgons parted to let us through, and we made our way out of the circle of mobile homes, into the woods that separated the main community from the fringe. Sarah sighed heavily and allowed her shoulders to slump as soon as the gorgons were out of sight behind us.

  “There are so many of them,” she said, voice caught somewhere between agony and awe. “How did I ever stand the density of people in Manhattan? My head should have exploded.”

  “I think you were less fragile then,” I said.

  Sarah scowled at me. “I want to be less fragile now,” she said. “I want to be able to walk in the world and not worry that I’ll pass someone who’s thinking about doing a crossword puzzle and wind up stuck for hours wondering what three down was supposed to be. It isn’t fair.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “And you know who hasn’t called? Hasn’t texted, hasn’t even sent an email? Verity.” Sarah’s scowl deepened. “You, you moved into the house where I was recuperating, even knowing that I could be dangerous, that I wasn’t always going to understand how to be gentle with people. Artie kept IMing me and texting me and sending me cute pictures of wasps and kittens. Even Annie sent me a bunch of cards, even if she couldn’t come to Ohio. But Verity never did any of those things. She had time to go on televi
sion and start a war. She didn’t have time to tell me she was sorry I got hurt.”

  “I think . . . I think she tried, right after it happened. I don’t think you could hear her yet.” It sounded like the excuse it was. Verity has always been great at running away from her problems. She’s ashamed of failure in a way the rest of us aren’t. It doesn’t make her a bad person. It makes her a little inept when it comes to apologies.

  “I’d do it again—choosing to be good means choosing to do what needs to be done even when no one appreciates it or thanks you. But I wish she’d sent a card.”

  I silently resolved to have a word with my sister the next time we spoke. “Yeah,” I said aloud. “I get that.”

  We walked through the tangled trees, Sarah drifting almost aimlessly, yet always managing to wind up beside me when I paused to check on her. She might lack the intensive training that the rest of us got, but she still grew up in Ohio, and she knows her way around the forest. In a way, she’s even better in the woods than I am, since ticks and mosquitoes don’t bother her. She doesn’t read as a food source.

  Johrlac biology is weird. The more we learn about it, the more convinced we are that they aren’t originally from around here. Whether that means “another dimension” or “another planet in this dimension” doesn’t matter nearly as much as the fact that they’re not going anywhere, and one day they might kill us all.

  Some people worry about the robot uprising. I’m much more concerned about the cuckoos.

  The trees began to thin, and we stepped out into the manicured, well-farmed land allotted to the fringe. Their small brick houses marched in tidy rows off into the distance, looking incredibly out of place in their agrarian setting. Farmhouses exist, yes, but they usually come with roads, and cars. These houses looked like they’d been swept straight out of some earlier time, predating even the Amish in their old-fashioned solidity.

  Dee was standing outside one of the nearby houses, deep in discussion with her brother. He lifted his head and pointed at us, snakes writhing wildly. Dee turned. I waved. It was a perfectly ordinary exchange, rendered strange only by the situation, and it seemed to put Walter marginally more at ease. We were never going to be friends—I was the wrong species, for a start—but I had helped to save the community he belonged to, and it had earned me a certain grudging respect.