VenCo(38)

“Lucky!”

It was Stella, and she sounded scared.

“Shit, it’s my grandma.” Lucky got to her feet and started running, pulling herself through the hedge so quickly, the branches grabbed at her hair and clothes.

“Wait.” Meena got up and grabbed her lantern. “We’ll come with you.” But Lucky was already rushing up the path.

Meena paused by the hedge, bending down to pick up something shining in her lantern light. It was the brooch from Lucky’s hair.

“What is it?” Wendy looked over Meena’s shoulder.

“I’m not sure. It’s Lucky’s. But I can tell you this, I’ve seen it before . . .” She was distracted by the plastic glass, the muted colours.

“Well, take it up to the house and we’ll give it back to her.”

Meena muttered an answer and slipped it into a pocket. Where had she seen it before?



Lucky emerged from the trees, her heart sinking when she saw her grandmother standing there in the weak light, looking like a Dickensian ghost in her long white nightgown. The fact that she was also wearing men’s long johns underneath did not help. She seemed too small, fragile, even.

“Oh, Grammy, I’m sorry.” Lucky ran to her and took her in her arms. Stella needed a minute before she returned the embrace, remembered Lucky and then where they were.

“Come on, let’s go inside,” Lucky said. “We’ll head to bed.”

“Screw that, I wanna watch some TV.” Stella slapped Lucky’s forearm but still held on to her granddaughter’s hand. She was shaken, and this was her way of coming back.

Meena and Wendy went to bed right away. Meena had been a little off since they returned and needed some time away from the group. Something was tugging at her thoughts, and she wanted to lie in the dark and see what was there.

Lettie, who had been carrying her baby monitor the whole time, clipped to her belt like a walkie-talkie, went up to check on her son and never came back down. She had fallen victim to the ruse of “just lying down for a minute” with a sweet, clingy toddler, a game no parent ever won.

Morticia wandered off to “make some offerings” in the garden. Lucky saw her take nothing else but her ever-present phone, so she guessed her offerings were probably just some dark tweets.

Freya got changed and then hung around, grabbing a plate of desserts that had been left on the dining room table and carrying it into the entertainment room to share with Stella. It was she who offered to sit with Stella when Lucky started to fall asleep on the couch.

“Just go, I stay up at night anyway. Sleep is for mornings.” She waved her off.

“Thanks, Freya, I appreciate it.”

“Jesus, don’t act like it’s a chore,” she responded, indignant in her dinosaur pyjamas and fluffy slippers.

Lucky did a shit job of taking off her makeup and changing out of her clothes. Her hands were shaking, and she was exhausted in a way she couldn’t remember ever being before. It was too much, it was all too much. She thought she’d never be able to rest after that dinner. How could anyone do anything normal after learning they were part of some spoon-collecting witch club, let alone sleep? But as soon as her head hit the pillow, she started to fade. For the second time that night, she wondered if someone had slipped something into her drink.

The dream came right away, as if the witch had been waiting on the insides of her eyelids.





15

Lucky’s Dream




The witch named Sarah, otherwise known as Daniel Low’s maid, stood stock-still in the hallway under a dim sconce, hidden in the shadow of an armoire. From here she could see only a part of the parlor, the fireplace and the flames throwing the men’s limbs in a shadow dance on the wall. It was too far into spring for a fire, but wealth has no common sense. She could hear every word.

She actually didn’t want to see them, this father and son, so well-fed, in their fine linen and wool, their hair oiled and their cheeks round. But she needed to know what they were up to. Men were always up to something, and Seth, Daniel’s oldest son, was just back in Salem after a long trip to Germany, supposedly in service of the family silversmithing and jewelry business.

“They brought me up to the site of the original dark Sabbath, to the Brocken summit of the Harz Mountains,” Seth told his father. “It was littered with their evil markings up there.”

“To this day?” Daniel sounded shocked.

“Yes. The women stopped for almost two hundred years after the trials and the burnings, but they’re gathering again.” Seth’s shadow paced, flickering on the plaster ceiling. “All manner of ungodly goings-on.”

“What is it the Church men asked of you?” Daniel was quickly business-minded. That these men picked his son could be no accident. The Low name must be well-gilded even in the old country. This pleased him. He deserved renown outside of this small haunted town.

“They’re truly frightened, I think. They spoke to me of a renewal of sorts, of these hags returning to their pre-Inquisition days of revelry and power.”

What was it with this hag business? Sarah thought. Men, fearful of being able to hold up in a debate, always tried to debase and dehumanize their opponents. Bullies!

She could hear Daniel tamping fresh tobacco into the bowl of his pipe. He said, “Women should never be allowed to gather and think independently, it’s beyond them. Those idle hours only create a space for evil to thrive.” A match was struck.