VenCo(107)

Stella looked around the circle, taking in each beautiful face, stopping last and longest on Lucky’s. “I am seven,” she declared, and she crawled in and slotted the elusive seventh spoon into position as the last spoke. The wheel was complete. Now they just needed to know where it was going to take them.

There was no flash of lightning. No cosmic shift that they could see or hear. They sat quietly as the minutes passed, enough minutes for them to get concerned and to eventually speak their doubt.

“Maybe one of the spoons is a fake?”

“Did we miss the deadline, maybe? Are you sure it was today?”

“How do we know this is what we’re supposed to do?”

“Is this how it all ends?”

All the questions were asked of Meena, who sat quiet. She didn’t look away from the spoons they’d gathered from webs and boxes, tunnels and forests, the one they’d wrestled from the hands of the Benandanti. She thought about every step they’d taken—the dreams, the spells, the Tenders, and the Bookers. What was it the Crone had said when they first met? Everything changes. That’s how it begins. For once she was certain.

Just then Everett began to giggle, jumping up and snatching at the sky. “The stars!” he shouted. “The stars are falling!”

The women watched him, distracted by his glee. Then they saw them, landing all around them like weightless snow. Falling from the sky were hundreds of dandelion fluffs, outsized and iridescent in the morning sun.

Freya picked up one from where it landed on her lap and spun it in her fingers. “They look like the spoons,” she said, wonder in her voice. And she was right: each bundle of seeds was arranged like delicate spokes of a wheel, just as they’d laid the spoons down.

Lettie joined her son, catching fluffs out of the air. Stella closed her eyes and let them fall all around her like memories sliding in on the notes of an old song. Lucky let one fall into her hand and felt every cell in her body cry out with the connection.

Meena stepped into the circle, head thrown back, eyes wide open, while the fluff tumbled out of the clouds, from nowhere . . . from everywhere. She turned once, clockwise, watching the ground fill up with gossamer stars, and she knew exactly where they were in this story. This was not even close to the end. Everything changes. That’s how it begins.

She raised her arms, taking in the spoons, the magic, and her coven, because now that was just what they were, a coven of extraordinary witches, and she smiled. Now the real work could commence. Now they were ready.





Epilogue

How It Really Began





France



Sophie kissed the sweaty arm before she lifted it carefully off her stomach, where it had been thrown in sleep. Marie-Elise wasn’t supposed to spend the night, but, to be fair, they had only fallen asleep at dawn, so it wasn’t technically a full night. She took a second to admire the curve of her lover’s bottom before covering her with the sheet.

She pulled on a pair of boxers and a T-shirt from the floor and padded silently across the hardwood in her bare feet. She closed the bedroom door behind her and yawned her way across the open expanse of the apartment, sparsely furnished, with more paintings than seating, and over to the kitchen area, where she flicked the kettle on.

She’d wake Marie-Elise soon, but for now, she would have some tea in solitude. Yawning, running both hands over her cropped blond hair, she went to the double doors at the other end of the living space and pulled them open, stepping onto the small Juliette balcony. Spring had arrived with sudden heat and a burst of colour.

Below her, Montmartre was laid out along narrow streets and winding paths, all the way to the Sacré-Coeur. Church bells in the near distance announced the lunch hour. Doves shot her uninterested glances from the rooftops.

She leaned on the railing, taking it in. She loved Paris. She travelled a lot, from Palm Springs to Phuket, but she had only ever lived here. This was her home, ancestral and chosen. The food was delicate, the art exquisite, and the women remarkable. Her coven was here and had always been. She would never live anywhere else.

A tiny bird the colour of fresh butter hopped from the flowers cascading from the boxes under her windows and landed on the railing beside her arm.

“Bonjour, Armand.” She called every bird Armand. “Quesque tu fais?”

He hopped closer and chirped.

“What? What is it you are telling me?” she asked him in English, as if they could understand each other.

The bird turned his head, fixing an eye on the space above her. She turned to look. Falling very slowly in the afternoon breeze, back and forth like a lost feather, was a dandelion fluff. It was the wrong time of year. And, even so, there were no lawns around here.

She held out her hand, and it parachuted directly onto her palm. And then she understood. It was a message. A declaration. The North American witches were finally gathered.

She turned to regard the little bird, which was quietly watching her.

“?a a commencé,” she told him. “Armand, it has begun.”

He chirped once and flew away, leaving the French witch with the fallen star she had caught from the bright Paris sky.


Mexico



Octavia loved the open water. It sang a song that could not be scored, could not be manipulated with air or strings. She turned off the boat engine and let the silence rush in so she could better appreciate the water’s chorus. She was in the middle of the Sea of Cortez, somewhere between Mazatlán and Cabo. Because of the tourists, out here was the only place she could truly hear it anymore.