Page 63 of A Resistance of Witches

She kept the gun on him until he was out of sight, then returned her attention to the door. The voices grew louder, and the wood began to give way.

She raised the rifle and waited.

Seventeen

When he was very small, Henry had imaginary friends.

Some of Henry’s friends spoke, and some were silent. Some were little kids and would play games with him when he was lonely. Some were grown-ups and watched over him when he slept. Most of them were friendly, but not all. He understood that other kids had imaginary friends, and that eventually they grew out of them.

His friends were different.

As he grew older, he found that he had more friends, not less. They began asking him for things—cigarettes, stolen from his mother’s purse. Half his dinner, beer or rum. They told him to do things:Leave your pocket money in the mailbox of that house. Go up to the lady in black and tell her Jim is sorry. Tell her now.He would wake in the middle of the night and find his room crowded with them, standing shoulder to shoulder.

One night Henry’s mother, Fabienne, came into his room and sat onthe edge of his bed while he cowered under the covers, pretending to be asleep.

“Henry,” she said sternly, “you haven’t slept in three days, and you’re not sleeping now. Stop playing.”

Henry poked his head out from under the covers.

“Why aren’t you sleeping?”

“I don’t know.” Over his mother’s shoulder, one of his invisible friends glowered at him, demanding his attention.

“Henry, stop lying.”

Henry knew better than to make his mother ask him the same question twice. He tried a half-truth.

“It’s too loud.”

Fabienne watched him, her eyes seeming to slice into his skin until she got to the truth underneath.

“Too loud, huh? You never thought it was too loud before.”

Henry shrugged. The man standing behind his mother began to shout, screaming,I want a fucking drink! A man needs a drink! You get me a drink right now or I swear to God—

“You got some new friends, huh?” she said. The shouting man looked at Henry’s mother for the first time, as if she had just appeared in the room. She never acknowledged him, but there was a change in the air, a subtle power shift that came from the straightness of her spine, the upward tilt of her chin. Grumbling, the man retreated to the window, where he sat on the sill, waiting.

Henry’s mother stroked his hair. “You know, cheri, the thing about friends is that it goes both ways.” Fabienne rarely called him anything other than his name, and the endearment made him relax just a little. “A real friend knows they can’t just take; they have to give too. And a real friend won’t try to get you in trouble, or keep you up all night because you’re scared. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

“Yes, Mama.”

“You have some friends like that?”

Henry swallowed. “Yes.”

“That’s no kind of friend, Henry. And you don’t have to give that kind of friend the time of day. You don’t owe them nothing. You just tell them to go away. You understand?”

“Yes,” Henry whispered.

“I want to hear you say it.” She placed a hand on his shoulder, firm as a vise. “Say, ‘You’re no kind of friend. Go away.’ ”

Henry wasn’t sure he could.

“Say it.”

He looked at the man on his windowsill. “You’re not my friend. Go away.”

“Say, ‘I’m going to sleep now.’ ”

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