VenCo(46)

“Don’t do that, you’ll crack a molar,” Meena said without looking up.

“Okay, what the hell is with the spoons? How did you know I found one? And what are we supposed to do with them?”

“One at a time, please. I have answers, mostly, but you need to let me finish my coffee before we start.” Meena took a long, slow sip from her mug and went back to the paper. Lucky watched her read through two whole sections, until she had finally emptied her cup. She folded the paper and took off the little bent glasses.

“Did Sarah visit you last night?”

Lucky was annoyed at her question being answered with a question. “Maybe.”

“Right.” She leaned in. “Lucky, we’ll need to be honest with each other, and we don’t have much time to bond first. So, once again, while you were sleeping, did you dream about a witch who lived here almost one hundred and thirty years ago?”

The image of a woman hanging from the rafters of a pub filled her mind.

“I did.”

“Good, so now you know the origin story. Sarah was a powerful conjurer who got herself a job in the Low household so she could keep an eye on those men. The Lows’ silversmithing and jewelry store was in a former Unitarian church, which used to be a meetinghouse back in Puritan days. You know what happened at meetinghouses in old Salem Town, right?”

Lucky shook her head.

“Trials. Witch trials,” Meena told her. “Sarah knew as soon as the son got back from Germany that he had been brought into an inner circle of sorts. Seth Low was recruited to the same cause that started the Inquisition. He created the Salem Witch Spoons to give some juice to the old stories about witches being devil-fucking hags, but also to let the women know they were being watched, in an attempt to stop them coming together.

“So Sarah bewitched seven spoons, each one marked by a manipulation of the image of the pins on the spoon. You have yours on you?” Meena held out her hand. Of course Lucky had her spoon on her. She dug it out of her pocket and handed it over.

Meena pointed to the object Lucky had thought was a straight pin. “This is a witch pin. It’s what they used to torture confessions out of women. The original mass-produced spoon has three crossed witch pins on the stem. Yours has only one.”

Lucky asked, “How many does yours have?”

“Three, like the real one, but my pins are longer and stacked differently.” She produced hers from somewhere in the billows of her robe and placed it in her palm beside Lucky’s. “Morticia has two, Wendy has four, Lettie five, and Freya six.”

“Who has seven?”

“It hasn’t come home yet.”Meena put both spoons down on the table. “And when they do, when we are all together—that’s when I think we can help stop the end.”

“The end of what?” Lucky asked.

Meena picked up the front section of the paper and unfolded it between them. The headlines screamed about bombings, war in Eastern Europe, civil unrest, racially motivated attacks. “This. This is the end. The men in charge are running us off the cliff like lemmings. They are running us as fast as they can to the end. But we can stop it.”

“Seven women in some kind of self-love support group, that’s who’s going to change the world?” Lucky tapped the newspaper. “The seven of us?”

“This is not fiction, Lucky. These are facts. Someone needs to step in. And if not us, then who?”

Meena could see Lucky bouncing between doubt and discovery. “Okay,” she said, “how do you explain the dreams I have every time a spoon is recovered that tell me by whom and where, or Sarah visiting each woman after she’s found her spoon to show them the origin story? All that is just, what . . . coincidence?”

Meena had long ago reached the point where she shouldn’t have to explain herself to anyone anymore. But she had a feeling this particular girl, this potential witch, was worth taking some time to lay it out for.

Lucky stayed silent, considering Meena’s words. She had grown up with enough uncertainty from Arnya and now lived with enough uneven reality from Stella that she preferred facts—science, medicine, architecture, numbers—things with boundaries and rules. She didn’t always follow the rules, but knowing they were there gave her comfort. So being here in this very old place, which was so new to her, and with all these strange people, was a test. Part of her found it exciting and felt like she was once again waiting to rob Santa on the fire escape with her mother.

“Listen, Lucky,” Meena said. “I was hoping I could ask you a question.”

“Sure.”

“Your mother . . .”

“Arnya St. James.”

“Yes, Arnya, where is she from, exactly?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“That brooch you were wearing last night in your hair. I dreamt it. I was hoping . . .”

Just then Wendy came outside.

“She can see us this afternoon. Two o’clock, and no later. She was pretty pissy about it.”

Meena pushed back her chair and stood. “Well, that’s it, then. I guess this will have to wait. We’d better get a move on.”

“Wait, where are you going?” Lucky wasn’t done. So many of her questions were still unanswered.

“Oh, don’t worry, you’re coming along for the ride. This is what you would call a witch family road trip.” She smiled, and all her even white teeth showed. For some reason, the gesture made Lucky shiver.