VenCo(105)

“Hey, can we get another round over here?” Stella called out.

Lucky rushed to her grandma and hugged her. “Oh, shit, Grandma, Jesus Christ. Where have you been?”

A little shocked, Stella returned the embrace. “I was out walking and then I stopped in here. Then Aggie joined me.”

Lucky hugged her again, even harder. “Oh man, am I glad to see you.”

“So I guess you’ve forgiven me, then?”

Lucky mashed her face into the old woman’s neck and hung on. “For what?”

“For ruining the plan?” Stella laughed. “Or maybe you forgot, so I better not remind you.”

Lucky let go, wiping her eyes. “The plan worked out. I found the spoon. But we have to go.”

“Hold on just a minute. I paid for another beer, and I’m drinking another beer with my friend. Then we can head out.” She sat and looked her granddaughter up and down. “You look terrible.”

“Thanks.” Lucky sighed, already past her relief. “Seriously, we have to get out of here and hit the road to Lafitte. Grab a to-go cup and take your beer with you. Aggie, we’ll walk you back to the hotel.”

Instead, Stella reached up to touch the brooch pinned to Lucky’s T-shirt. “Oh, I haven’t seen that in years.”

“Stella, look, we need to go now. We still have time to get to the final witch . . .”

Stella ran a finger over the beaded surface. “I just assumed your mother stole it. She tended to forget to give things back when she liked them.”

“Yeah, she probably did. She was a shoplifter for sure. But that’s not—”

“Oh, she didn’t shoplift it. Unless you count my bedroom dresser as a shop.”

“Wait, what?”

“That’s my brooch. Oswald gave it to me on our third wedding anniversary. We didn’t have much money, but he thought the blue would go well with my eyes. He bought it off an old lady who used to sell junk off a blanket near the subway.” She smiled. “I actually hated it, but he was so proud to give it to me.”

Lucky crouched beside the table. “This is your brooch?”

“Yes, it is. I thought maybe she’d lost it or pawned it or whatever. I’m glad to see you have it.” She looked at Aggie, who was watching them with a small smile on her face. “Oh, Aggie, I so do love this place. When’s Mardi Gras? I think I should come back for that.”

Lucky stood, slowly, feeling like the wind had been knocked out of her. If this was Stella’s brooch, if it had been hers all along, then . . .

She spun around, looking at all the walls, the shelves behind the bar, the lights, the signage. She pulled the napkin out from under Stella’s pint.

“Hey, careful now.”

“What is the name of this bar?”

Stella smiled. “It’s great, isn’t it? Theodore brought us here first.”

Aggie was the one who answered. “It’s named after an old pirate. The story is it was once his hideout.”

Lucky reached across the wooden table and grabbed the woman’s hand in desperation. “Aggie, what’s it called?”

“The Blacksmith Shop. Jean Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop.”

Lafitte. Everything folded in and then blew back out at twice the size. Lucky reached into her bra and pulled out the spoon, warm from her body, and handed it over to her grandmother.

Stella watched her granddaughter, concerned—why were there tears in her eyes, why was she breathing so hard, why was she fumbling around in her shirt? And then she saw the spoon being held out in front of her, and nothing felt right until she could hold it for herself. Her hand was shaking when she reached out and stopped shaking when she grasped it.

Nothing made any sense—that didn’t change. But what did change was the understanding that nothing had to make sense. That everything was okay. That she was okay, that they would be okay. Stella pulled the spoon in to her own heart, closed her eyes, and felt its exact shape and weight there, against her fragile ribs, held by her own hand, a hand that had felt empty until now.

“It’s you,” Lucky whispered, her voice shaking. Stella Sampson, her beloved, infuriating grandmother Stella was the seventh witch.

“It was always you.”

Stella opened her eyes and smiled. “It’s us, Lucky. And it’s always been us.”





32

Seeds




They had walked back to the hotel together. Then they’d packed their bags, said a tearful goodbye to Aggie and to an overwhelmed Theodore, and driven to the airport. They left the Pathfinder in long-term parking and checked in for their flight. When they each put a spoon into the bin as they went through security, they smiled at the confusion on the screener’s face.

They were too overwhelmed by events to talk much, but just as they were joining the boarding line, Stella grabbed Lucky’s forearm.

“Is he gone?”

“I think so, but I don’t know for sure.”

Stella patted her arm, nodding, then handed her boarding pass to the woman at the podium.

Lettie brought Everett to meet them at the airport early on the morning of the ninth day. He ran to them when they walked out of Arrivals, and Lucky wondered what she had done to deserve this kind of love. She wondered if one even had to do anything to be deserving. Both Stella and Everett fell asleep in the back seat on the way back.