VenCo(36)

Freya leaned over and made a face at Morticia, who rolled her black-lidded eyes.

“We went clockwise, not chronological, dear,” Wendy said to Meena, who was circling the table filling wineglasses.

“Hold on a minute,” Lucky said. So far, the stories weren’t making things any clearer. “I don’t get it. Did someone give us the spoons?”

“Well, yes, in a manner of speaking,” Meena said.

“But I found mine. You both found yours.”

“In a secret tunnel off your basement?” Lettie replied. “Really? Hanging from a spider web in a graveyard on a specific day? At the bottom of a box of donated books? Statistically improbable.”

“Never mind probability, what about the laws of nature? The world cannot be just a series of randoms,” Freya chimed in. “Might as well believe in some beardo in the sky.”

“I so do enjoy these intellectual dinners, dear,” Wendy whispered to Meena as she filled her glass.

Meena leaned down and kissed her on the forehead. “Me too. We should do this more often.”

Lucky couldn’t wrap her head around it. And everyone was being so casual. “So who is responsible, then? Some old woman calling herself ‘the Crone’? What is she, some kind of culinary Easter bunny, dropping little silver spoons?”

“Ooo,” Freya said, wiggling her fingers at Lucky. “New girl, already throwing shade at the Crone.”

Wendy stood. “I think it’s time to reconvene in the garden. Grab your drinks.”

Everybody but Lucky got up and followed Wendy into the kitchen. Freya paused by the doorway. “Come on, kid. You’re gonna be fine.”

Lucky remained seated, eyeing the not-so-special-looking spoon in front of her. “I just don’t get it.”

“Yeah, but you did get it, and that’s the point. The rest we can explain. You need to be open to hearing it, though. Because it gets weird.”

Lucky turned around and looked up at her. “Weirder than this? I came here for a fucking job interview and now I’m having dinner with witches?”

Freya smiled. “First it gets weird. Then it gets absolutely amazing. Come on.”

The glass kitchen doors opened onto a small cobblestone patio where a wood table held a stack of books and a collection of clear lanterns with pillar candles burning like little hearts inside them. Mismatched chairs were pulled in around the table, but no one sat. Instead, each woman picked up a lantern and followed Meena down a narrow path through the trees. Lucky picked up the last lantern, a metal cylinder laced with holes in the shape of stars to let the light seep out, and followed. She felt an odd flutter under her ribs and realized it was nerves. Arnya thought nerves were for pussies, so Lucky had done her best over the years not to let herself feel them. But here they were, like tiny feet running along the perimeter of her lungs. She glanced back at the warm glow of the house, eyes travelling up the black clapboard to the upstairs windows. Behind one of those, her grandmother was sleeping. Lucky wasn’t alone, not really.

Deep breath. She took the first step into the trees.

Sound was different in here. The hum of insects was amplified and the noise of the city around them rubbed smooth. Certain spaces held the light of the passing candles in cupped leaves, and others absorbed every glimmer. The path seemed overly long for an urban backyard and mysteriously twisty. Lucky, feeling the wine she’d drunk, wished she had brought bread from the table to leave a trail of crumbs.

She stumbled over a root, and Freya looked back. “Hey, listen, you’re fine, I swear,” she said, as if she knew exactly what Lucky was thinking.

“Freya, there wasn’t anything in the wine, was there?”

“Just grapes and booze, I suppose.” She was gentle in a moment when she could have been offended or snarky. “It’s always disorienting stepping inside. Don’t worry. I’m right here.” She held her hand behind her so Lucky could see it, but neither made the final movement to link together. It was enough—the potential of connection. She followed it.

Up ahead, the lights and the women holding them disappeared one by one as they stepped through a hedge. Lucky held her breath as she pushed through the brush.

On the other side was a circular clearing lit by the lanterns, now hanging from hooks on the trees. Freya took Lucky’s from her and hung the two from the remaining hooks.

The sound of waves was suddenly loud. Meena pushed aside some branches. Behind them was an iron filigree fence, and beyond that, a bruised expanse of water past an open jawline of rock.

“When Wendy and I bought this house, we also purchased a slice of land from the neighbours—a right-of-way to the shore. No beach, of course,” she said, waving at the violent jut of stone, “but who needs a tame thing like a beach?” Meena released the greenery and the women were enclosed again. Cut off. Held in, together.

“Before we carry on with how each of us found our spoons, it’s time to tell the larger story. Not all of it—that would take several lifetimes—but enough to give you some context.”

Meena sat on the ground, and the rest of the witches followed suit, arranging themselves in a circle. The ground was mossy here but not wet, and round white stones, laid out in the pattern of a star, stretched across the entire space. Freya pulled on Lucky’s hand, and she landed unceremoniously on her ass. Morticia stifled a laugh.