VenCo(45)

Movement on the other side of the bed. She flicked the lighter and pressed the nozzle and shot a long plume of fire in that direction.

It was an open window, with the curtains blowing in the hard wind. She took a few steps closer, and there it was: an old glass lamp had blown off the side table and smashed on the hardwood floor. Nothing else out of place, no intruder, no ex-boyfriend.

“Oh, thank the Lord.” She took a huge gulp of air and almost choked on the acrid residue of the burnt hairspray. She slipped on some flip-flops by her unpacked suitcase and carefully walked around the shards of glass to the window.

The wind was wild, carrying the smell of rain on it. She pushed down on the window to close it, but it wouldn’t budge. Using both hands, she pushed harder, and it moved a little, then stuck fast.

“Great.” She leaned in to examine the frame, hitting it with the heel of her palm to try to unstick it. But there was something jammed in at the side, something small and metal. She muscled the window up an inch and reached for the object, but it was in there good. Must have been there for a while. Since the bottom of the curtains were stained from weather, she imagined this window had been stuck open for at least the better part of the season.

She started digging at the edge of the metal with her nails, and at last it popped out and clattered onto the floor. She dropped the window, and, after a quick look around the front yard just in case someone was lurking, she shut the curtains.

Lettie retied her towel, feeling all her muscles tic and clench from the surge of adrenaline. What if it had been Smith? What would she have done, what could she have done?

Everett was wailing louder now. She didn’t want him to climb out of the basket and wander around in the dark. What if he fell down the stairs? She would clean up the glass on the floor later, but first she had to go get him. There would be no bath for her tonight.



She tucked the boy into the big bed and sat down beside him, singing silly songs and rubbing his ears until he fell back asleep. It took a while, long enough that Lettie herself nodded off, jerking awake so hard her head bounced off the headboard behind her.

“I’m up,” she mumbled, wiping drool from the corner of her mouth. The boy was sleeping, curled up into a small snail shape. She shifted him gently to the centre of the bed and put pillows around him as a buffer. Even though he was almost two, she was still anxious about crushing him in her sleep. It was hard for her to trust herself after years of being called out and called down.

She got out of bed and opened her suitcase on the floor. She found and pulled on some pyjamas and went to the bathroom to drain the tub and brush her teeth. When she came back into the room, she remembered the broken lamp. She moved the shade to an old chair in the corner and grabbed a broom and dustpan from the hall and swept up the smaller shards, careful to go in wide circles to catch the littlest pieces that had exploded outward. She swept the mess into the dustpan, the glass tinkling against itself, and then there was a louder noise. She crouched in the half-light to take a look.

In her dustpan was a silver spoon, smaller than a soup spoon, hell, smaller than a teaspoon—the piece of metal that had been propping the window open. She picked it out and placed it on the edge of the chair and finished her sweeping. When she was done, and the shards were in a garbage bag in the closet where her boy wouldn’t come across them, she carried the spoon back to her side of the bed and studied it in the light of the remaining lamp.

The top of the handle was embossed with a witch—sharp hat, sharp nose, broom, the whole ugly getup—and it looked like she was pointing directly at Lettie.

“I see you. Feels like you see me too.”

The wind, now safely outside the closed window, whistled a response.



The three women sat at the table together, each thinking of a small spoon and the first time they held it.

“Ah, I see you are all up and ready for the day.”

Meena swept into the room in a long yellow kimono. A bird, chirping like a solo violinist, followed her in and flew past the women and out the back door. Wendy got up and handed Meena a mug of coffee and the New York Times.

“We’re telling stories,” she said.

“I’m glad to hear it.” Meena leaned in to speak softly in Wendy’s ear. Wendy nodded and left the kitchen; then Meena walked outside without another word.

“Hey, what’s with the birds?” Lucky had to know.

“Yellow birds are witch birds,” Wendy explained. “No one knows why, they’ve just always been that way. There was a time when we chased them away, after the Inquisitors figured out that a woman with yellow birds in her wake was very likely a witch. But now they’re back.”

“What do they do?” It seemed to Lucky that she was in a state of constant confusion. “Are they magical?”

“In a way.” Wendy smiled. “It’s kind of like crucifixes for Christians, I suppose. They are a physical reminder outside of our own bodies that we exist, that we are here. Sometimes you need to remember. There’s magic in that.”

Lucky looked at Lettie, who was nodding. “Sorry, I have to go grab Meena. I have some questions.”

“I’d imagine you do, and more than just a few,” Lettie said.

Outside, Meena sat at the table. She wore Wendy’s glasses and was reading the front page.

Lucky threw her body into the chair opposite Meena, who continued perusing the headlines. She was frustrated, pissed off even. It made her grind her back teeth.