VenCo(40)

She slipped out the door and into the bright snow when the workers began to load the crates onto the docked cargo ship. There would come a day when the right bloodlines and teachings would come together in seven descendants, bringing the exact right seven witches into the world. These witches could form a coven to bring down that which sought to destroy them again and again. The spoons, now safely sailing away to shops and homes across the country, would act as the calling card to bring them together—the right witches at the right moment.



Spring was on the way, the air full of moisture and the promise of warmth. Sarah was humming, nodding her hellos and holding up her skirts on the way to the pub after a workday. The trees scattered around Salem were starting to bud, and soon the rains would end. She was thinking, as she pulled open the front door and stepped inside, that she could live with the muck for a few more weeks if spring was the reward. She paused to shake the water from her umbrella. Then it clattered to the ground.

Inside the pub stood a small circle of men, Daniel Low, Seth Low, and three of the workers from the warehouse. In the centre of their gathering in the otherwise empty room was Annie Hawthorne, swinging from a rope thrown over a low rafter.

“Good evening, Sarah,” Seth greeted her. “We should like a word with you.”

Lucky sat up in bed, gasping for breath, then reached for her spoon.





16

Meena’s Dream




The Atlantic is only blue where it’s shallow or where the land underneath is pale. Across its depths, it is darker than blue and deeper than green; it is black, true black, the kind of black that moves and absorbs. In the dream, she knew it was the Atlantic, even without the sting of salt on her tongue or in her open eyes. The blue was almost black here where she was submerged, the shade of a shadow in the gloaming. And she was moving up, up towards the light.

And then the skin of the sea pulled back from her face and shoulders like a silk sleeve, and cold air hit her pores, making her gasp. And she was lifting up and into the sky.

Ahead of her was the crust of shoreline, craggy and abrupt, green scoops of shaggy hill and grey ribbons of road. She looked up, but there was only opaque light, no specificity in the sky even as she cut through it. She wasn’t flying and she wasn’t floating—she was just readjusting her perspective. She glanced down, and then watched more carefully as the scene began to shift.

There was an island to the west, a jagged oval surrounded by rocky beaches. The sea curled into a bay that was almost the shape of a uterus. She knew this place: Buzzards Bay, south of Salem.

Rising higher still, she saw the colours grow matte and flatten out. The land and sea assumed smaller shapes that rested against each other like dull beads in an abstract design, surrounded by crystals butting up against the dark of night.

I know this, too, she thought.

Now the clouds, misty and wet against her skin, swirled around her, obscuring her vision. Through a sudden gap, she saw the abstract pattern shift. The dark became a swathe of hair against a pale cheek. It took a moment to recognize the face, but then she saw that it was Lucky. Lucky and the odd brooch she had pinned to her ponytail.

She woke up saying her name.

Carefully, she sat up and slid out of bed, crossed the floor, and climbed into the empty tub. Outside, the moon was elusive, popping in and out between slow-moving clouds. Meena watched anyway, hoping for more direction from the sky. She fell asleep that way, legs over the rim, head at an odd angle, searching for clues in her dream. She got nothing more, but in the clear light of morning, she realized she had been given the next step, even if it was a small and uncertain one. Lucky’s brooch was a map, and it was directing them to Buzzards Bay.





17

The Gift of Silver




Lucky woke up with her hand protectively holding her own neck. She could still hear the creak of the wood under the weight of Annie Hawthorne’s swinging body. She got out of bed and opened the small door connecting her room to Stella’s. Her grandmother was sprawled out on top of the covers wearing Freya’s fluffy slippers, snoring away. Lucky got dressed, slipped out, and went downstairs to the kitchen.

The day outside the kitchen windows was grey and heavy, calling for rain. The light in the room came from a fixture above the island shaped like a group of iridescent jellyfish. Wendy was at the stovetop making small crispy pancakes in a cast-iron pan. Lettie already sat at the table with a cherubic boy, who was carefully stacking Cheerios on his placemat with chubby fingers.

“Good morning, Lucky. Sleep well?” Wendy asked.

“Not really.”

“Ah.” Wendy turned, a spatula in hand. “Sarah came to visit?”

“Um, I think, maybe?” Is that what happened?

Lettie raised her eyebrows at her. She knew the answer but didn’t push. “Lucky, this is my boy.” She leaned over and brushed wild corkscrew curls back from his forehead. “Everett, can you say hi to Lucky?”

The boy looked up, fixing Lucky with his huge, dark eyes, and she was hypnotized. Delicate eyebrows and eyelashes so long they brushed his cheeks. He smiled, showing amazingly white, sweetly crooked milk teeth. “Hi, Miss Lucky.” The words ran together and made a pleasing kind of song.

“Holy shit, that kid is pretty.” Oh god, Lettie was going to hate her. She flat-out swore at her toddler, for chrissakes. “Hello, Mr. Everett. I, uh, like your cereal tower.”