VenCo(106)

Lettie whispered to Lucky, “The rest wanted to come to meet you, but we have to bring the spoons together and Meena wanted everything prepared.”

When they turned onto the now-familiar street and Lettie declared, “We’re home,” Lucky teared up. It felt as if she really was home, and maybe for the first time. That terrified her the way the very best things did.

They walked into an empty house.

“They’ll be out back,” Lettie said.

They set their bags down by the front door, and Everett took Lucky’s hand, pulling her through the house to the kitchen and out into the yard.

“Kids look good on you,” Stella baited Lucky as she followed along.

“And sanity looks good on you,” Lucky teased back, “but some things are just borrowed.”

Everett let go and ran down the narrow path into the backyard greenery, chasing the little birds that swooped low. Though the sun was up, it was so early that the long lines of fairy lights were still twinkling in the branches.

Walking towards the witches, towards the completed circle—her circle—was the only thing in the world Lucky could have done at that moment. It felt like the drunken part of falling in love, the erratic and uncompromising compulsion that made you do dumb shit and your best shit at the same time. She had to stop herself from running. She had to stop herself from crying or screaming or both. It felt as if she were underwater and at the end of her oxygen, with the surface, where she could finally take a deep breath and live, just above. She wanted to live. She wanted to live full-on, to the hilt, with every cell.

Lucky felt a weight in the air that made her slow down. That was how she knew Meena was coming up behind her even before she felt a hand slip into hers.

“Hello, Lucky.”

“Meena.”

They walked like that for a few steps, with no words, with intimacy. In gratitude.

“I thought the seventh was your mother for the longest time.”

“That would have made more sense. Arnya would have been a great witch.”

“She was, in a way. She made you who you are. Gave you magic. Gave you guts. Mothers are the witches we know best but never acknowledge.”

“She also made me anxious and broke my heart.”

Meena squeezed her fingers lightly. “A cunning woman if I ever heard of one.”

“What’s next?” Lucky asked, finally looking over at Meena, who wore her hair out, her curls a loose crown. She was still in her pyjamas, under a silk robe patterned with little yellow birds.

“I’m not sure,” she admitted.

“Shouldn’t you be?” Lucky was only half joking.

“None of us should be. Nothing is predetermined. Everything is in play.” Meena swung their joined arms as she said, “We put the spoons together and then . . . we wait.”

“Wait for what?”

Meena smiled, looking up at the sky above them, long clouds like a bundle of ribbons, unspooled on top of one another, waiting to be stitched, to be braided, to be pulled down to the ground. “For everything to change.”

When they stepped into the clearing, the rest of the coven jumped up and ran to them, grabbing Lucky, kissing Stella, laughing and cheering and welcoming them home.



Now that they were together and safe, they took their time. Lucky told them about Ricky and her battle with the Benandanti. Stella told them about swimming naked and sneezing in the Ozarks. Freya and Lettie described their work with the bowl and the dreaming. And, sitting on pillows they’d brought to the clearing, they feasted on strawberries and drank coffee to celebrate the return of the retrievers and the completion of their circle.

When the laughter and the stories had died down, Meena led them in the invocation to create and hold a formal circle. They cleansed themselves with smoke and called in the four directions. Then, once more, and as a complete set, they brought out the spoons.

Acting on instinct, Lucky got up and carried hers into the very centre of their circle and laid it down. “One,” she whispered, and returned to her spot.

After a moment, Morticia crawled to the centre and placed her spoon down beside Lucky’s, as if it were the next spoke on a wheel. “Two.”

Meena was next, but she felt putting her spoon down might mean not picking it back up, not as an individual piece anyway. It would be something else entirely. Eventually, she got up and placed it beside Morticia’s. “Th-three,” she faltered.

Wendy lay a hand on Meena’s shoulder, making sure her love was steady, before she walked her spoon into the circle. “Four,” she said, and set it down.

Lettie stared at her spoon, then at her son, who was collecting buttercups from the grass around them, and she gave a little groan. Like the others, she was attached to her piece of silver. Her spoon hadn’t given her freedom, but it was a symbol of the freedom she had claimed for herself. She closed her eyes and counted to three, then dragged herself forward. “Five.”

Freya took the longest. Usually always ready with a joke or a barb, Freya held hers like a baby and wept, rocking quietly. Then she stood, swiping at her face as if the tears were bugs and she wanted them off her skin immediately. She walked slowly into the middle, placing her precious spoon on the ground as gently as if it were a newborn. “Six.” Then, recovered, she threw her hands up, fingers in the classic rocker devil’s horn.