Page 40 of Crossroads Magic
Hirom pointed at me. “And ‘hex’. And in German, a witch is a ‘hexe’. The Dutch call them ‘heks’.”
“Hag Town,” I said, between bites. “Witch town.”
Hirom grinned. “And Witch Way, don’t forget.”
“How accurate is the description?” I teased.
“Well, now, that depends on when you ask the question. A couple of hundred years ago, everyone in Northern New York would have told you with complete sincerity that Haigton was stuffed to the brim with cackling hags. These days, it’s just a name. Like Delaware.”
“What does Delaware mean?”
“The state was named after Thomas West, the third Baron De La Warr.” He spoke each part of the last name separately.
“I think I knew that,” I murmured, recalling vague history lessons.
“But you forgot and Delaware is just a place and a people. Same as Haigton Crossing. It’s just a place.”
I didn’t think the Crossing was just a place at all. Haigton Crossing was different, just the way everyone had tried to warn me, so far. “So what came first? The witch way or the town?”
“Oh, the way, most likely. The hamlet serves the way.” Hirom headed down his platform, pulled down eight mugs, two at a time, and arranged them neatly on the counter. Then he looked at one of the visitors and nodded as the guy put up his two hands, with eight digits extended.
For fit hikers, they had a prodigious capacity for beer.
I glanced at the table of locals. Everyone looked more relaxed, there, except for Broch, who still cradled his drink and watched the visitors from under his lowered brow.
When Hirom had filled the eight mugs, I took them to the table, then settled on the stool once more. Hirom drifted back in my direction.
“If Broch is so worried about the visitors, should he leave and stay out of their way?” I asked.
Hirom seemed to weigh it up, then shook his head. “Nah. This is an inn. Rules of the highway apply here. Neutral territory and all. Enemies can drink at the same table.”
I laughed. “That’s a bit dramatic. Why would Broch consider these hikers his enemies?” Did anyone other than extremists ever think in such black and white terms anymore? The world was pluralist and better for it.
“Guess that’s something you have to ask Broch,” Hirom said, in a somewhat formal tone. There was a hint of apology in his voice, too. “As I’m the barman.”
That took me a second to figure it out. “Wait, you mean, anything you get told by a customer is privileged, like a lawyer?”
“More or less,” Hirom said.
“Is that another rule of the road?” I was teasing.
“Highway,” he corrected.
“The inn isn’t on a highway.”
“Sure it is. Route 244. But the greenway’s a highway, too. In the old sense of the word. Any public road is a highway.”
“So because Broch and these people are inside the inn, they can’t…what? Punch each other out?”
“That would be frowned upon in any pub,” Hirom said gravely.
The curtain over the doorway into the front hall was pushed aside, letting in a splash of weak midday sunlight that placed a stretched rectangle of light on the counter in front of me.
I turned to check who had come in, expecting to see Ghaliya.
The woman was of average height, even including the heels on the boots she wore, but everything else about her was anything but average. She wore all black; pants, shirt, flat-brimmed hat and knee-length coat. On most women the dark monotones would be excessive and showy, but it looked appropriate on her. Her hair was equally black and lay on her shoulder in rippling waves.
Her face was not perfect. Her mouth was too wide, her nose too long, and she wore a frown that pulled her dark brows together as she took in the bar. But she had a magnetism that discounted all of that. She drew the eye.
