Stray Souls (Magicals Anonymous) by Kate Griffin

was doing it on automatic.
    “I am trying to tell you about the way things are,” he shrilled, “and you just keep asking stupid questions!”
    “It’s not a stupid question,” she insisted, moderating her voice to keep it level as they turned up Long Acre. Mannequins stared out from behind sheet glass; the local council were again drilling in the middle of the street just in case they’d missed a deposit of famed Soho crude. “A lot of shit has been happening the last few days and I thought it was because of Magicals Anonymous and how people might get interested in that, but now I don’t think it’s about that, I mean, not just about that, because sure it’s weird but this is a whole different level of weird.”
    “First you called me short, and now call me weird?” demanded Sammy.
    “No! I’m saying that weird, like ethnicity, is like… in the eye of the beholder, you know? So there’s probably guys out there who are like ‘Wow, I’m talking with a goblin’ and that’s completely cool but, like I’ve been trying to say, this is my first time and so yeah, I’m allowed to say it’s a bit weird and in fact–” she puffed up with sudden, revelatory pride “–in fact, yeah! This is something difficult I’m going through and I think you should be fucking supportive about it and not give all me this grief, which isn’t to say I’m not grateful for the teaching thing if it happens because I am yeah, but this is exactly why I used to get into trouble because people weren’t understanding when things were weird and exactly why we need Magicals Anonymous, so yeah!”
    She stopped so suddenly that the air seemed to bend around her as reality tried to work out what the game was. Sammy paused, looking back at her with his oversized, over-round eyes, and for a moment Sharon wondered how he did that, how he stayed unseen and stationary at the same time and if he’d ever got it wrong; then the rising tide of her indignation brought another burst of defiance.
    “I’ve got a job to do, you know!”
    “What job?”
    “I’m… I’m a barista!”
    Sammy snickered.
    Sharon felt small and rather alone.
    There was a flicker of something in Sammy’s face that might almost have been him relenting. If perhaps he’d spent a happier youth among the garbage heaps of whichever big city, he might have held out a trembling hand in support. If he hadn’t learned at a tender age that emotional intelligence had nothing on good athletic skills over a 400-yard sprint, he might even have ventured a word of consolation. As it was, he had, so he didn’t, but kept on striding invisibly through the night, tutting under his breath. Sharon hesitated, then moved to catch up, swinging back into that rhythm where all things became a little bit thin, and a little bit soft around the edges, and the world went out of its way not to perceive.
    Then he said, “This is the shaman’s walk. You’re crap at it but what’s a goblin to expect?”
    Sharon swallowed more than just air and ventured, “Are there like… medical implications and things? Like, am I going to wake up one day with, you know, cancer in my brain or that, because I noticed how sometimes I turn invisible and can walk through walls and things, but they say mobile phones have been linked with cancer and you don’t know do you? Because I’ve seen those movies where wizards throw fire from their hands, and I think they must have like, really bad internal problems for that to work, like they must have horrible skin or like, be allergic to lactose or something, but it’s not something they talk about on NHS Direct.”
    Sammy’s mouth opened to say something rude before Sammy’s eyes caught the earnest look on Sharon’s face. He closed his mouth, took a steadying breath and declared, “I ain’t never met a shaman what’s died of cancer
never!”
    Sharon looked relieved.
    “Dragon, yes. Met a shaman what died of a dragon,” added Sammy, eyes drifting into some