VenCo(31)

The room fell quiet, threads of conversation wrapped back around a spool of singular attention, the clatter of cups and forks carefully muffled. All eyes were on Meena, who reached into the pocket of her pants and pulled out a small silver spoon, which she placed on the table in front of her. Morticia stood next, opening her fist to reveal a similar silver spoon, which she also placed in front of her. Lettie lowered her spoon by the tips of her slender fingers onto her placemat, followed by Wendy. Finally, with a scrape of her wooden chair, Freya got to her feet and put her spoon on the empty plate in front of her.

Lucky’s eyes went from one spoon to the next—all the same size, all with the letters spelling out SALEM down the handle. The women, still standing, waited quietly as she tried to take in what she was seeing. At last, like an automaton conducted by shock, Lucky got to her feet, leaning on the table to keep herself steady. Then she straightened, pushing her shoulders back to stand tall, reached into her own back pocket, and took out her spoon, the one she had found in the basement tunnel, the one she had been carrying ever since. She placed it in front of her, the small clink of silver against the porcelain edge of her saucer ringing like a bell.

Later, that tolling, as if of a bell, would sound in her memory, marking the separate halves of her life being stitched together: the time before she knew and the time after. The click and pull of metal through velvet time; the slip and stretch of material moments around that ecclesiastical clang. When it echoed to a conclusion, Lucky was, for the first time, both completely pulled together and completely torn apart.

Then, one by one, the women sat. Freya had to guide Lucky back into her chair.

“Could someone please tell me what the fuck is going on?” Lucky asked.

Meena leaned in so that her gaze took in the entirety of the table. “Let’s begin with a story.”





12

The First Spoon





Salem, Massachusetts, 1990



Meena wasn’t surprised to learn she had been chosen to play the lead in The Witch Women of Salem Town. She was a natural—an actual descendant of one of the original Salem witches. She was also an experienced singer and actor to boot: summer theatre camp, a chorus role in Annie, and an ongoing position in the First Baptist Church of the Savior choir. Never mind the naysayers and the try-hards who complained that her box braids weren’t period appropriate. She’d suggested that perhaps their mediocrity wasn’t appropriate.

As she walked home from the community theatre, the sun pushed out from behind the clouds and filled the street with light. The heat and the rush she felt from her successful audition cleared the stress she’d been carrying lately—that something was wrong at home, that she was forgetting something important, that maybe a tumor was growing in her left lung. There was just the sun and the sidewalk and the fact that she had come out on top.

“This is good. This is right. I am exactly where I should be, doing exactly what I should be doing,” she repeated over and over under her breath.

Meena was going to be an actress and not just in The Witch Women of Salem Town. She was going to Broadway. Or LA. Or wherever the best opportunities were waiting for her. And she was finally old enough to make a move without asking her father for permission. The Reverend Josiah Good couldn’t stop her this time. He would have a lot of say, for sure, but now she wasn’t legally obligated to listen.

She’d done her time. After her mother died, she’d helped with her little brother, cleaned the house, and typed up her father’s sermons for almost a decade. Now it was her turn. And she was ready. Once the play was through its run, she was hitting the road.

She didn’t want to go straight home, where this shine might wear off under the pressure of chores and regular life. Instead, she detoured into the old part of town and just wandered.

The historic district had become Tourist Town, but unlike some of the locals, Meena didn’t mind. Tourists were good for the economy. And they were good for her self-esteem. Her father may not want to shout from his pulpit about their connections with the accused witches, but these people drove for hours and lined up outside the House of Seven Gables just to get a glimpse of her history. She was proud of it. At sixteen, she’d even gotten a summer job at the Witch House, eager to make some extra cash, but her father found out and forced her to resign.

“You don’t need to be seen working at that place. What would my parishioners think?” he had blustered.

“That your daughter is hardworking and involved in her community?” She refused to eat the dinner she had cooked and set out on the table.

“Let them see that in the church, then—you can take charge of this year’s fall food drive.”

“I’ve been in charge of the food drive since I was nine. Maybe I want something different.”

“Tradition is good,” he said, turning his full attention to the food on his plate. He always ended arguments with silence instead of shouts. It was just as effective. You couldn’t argue with silence.

“Exactly,” she said, “tradition is good.” She got up to scrape her plate into the garbage.

She headed over to the Derby Street area, a series of small stone squares filled with witchy stores and cheesy tourist attractions. It made her happy to see the wooden ship busts fixed to the lampposts and the crowds of people browsing the five-dollar spell bags. Maybe she’d buy herself something—a small token to remember today. But first, she grabbed a lemonade from a street cart and sat on a bench to people-watch, something she’d read that every great actor should spend her time doing.