VenCo(55)

“There are stories that some of the Good Walkers survived. As far as I know, it’s only stories, though. Kind of like boogeymen for witches, I guess.”

“Beware the boogeyman,” Wendy said, once again almost shouting.

“There you are. Finally,” Morticia called out from the curb in front of the inn. It was weird to hear her talk, let alone shout. There was a pile of room keys at her feet.

“Tisha, baby!” Wendy ran to her and hung off her neck. “You’re the best.”

“No, you’re the best!” Morticia was tearing up. “The best, Wendy. And I just love you.”

“Oh my god,” Wendy gasped. “I love you too!”

Smiling, Meena untangled her wife from Morticia. “Alright, Wendy, let’s find our room.”

“Meena Good, am I flirting with you?” Wendy sang, mixing up her words, eyes blinking independently of each other. “Yes, yes, I am flirting with you.”

Lucky managed to bend down and retrieve one of her keys, then took her grandmother, who was practically asleep standing up, off to bed, her head full of men with faces hidden behind cauls.



Thinking back on it later, Lucky couldn’t be sure what woke her. It wasn’t Stella getting out of bed or even the door opening, since she was gone by the time Lucky roused. The alarm clock had said it was 5:55, all those fives like angular S’s, a glowing red shush.

She’d staggered to the bathroom, holding her head. The light was on, and the toilet seat had been left up after her bedtime puking. Towels were strewn on the floor from a clumsy attempt to shower afterwards. She was thirsty as hell. She unwrapped a plastic drinking cup from the bathroom counter and ran it under the tap, downing the lukewarm water before it had reached the top and then refilling it. She’d carried it back into the bedroom.

This room was exactly the kind Stella preferred, with a door that opened onto the parking lot so you could be at your car in a minute. Except their SUV was back at Trout’s, because no one had been in any kind of shape to drive. Lucky pulled aside the front curtain and squinted across the lot and up the street. Yup, there was the Pathfinder, sitting under a lamppost in front of the dark bar. She opened the front door and stood in the frame, breathing in the cool predawn air. Wondering if she was being too loud, she glanced back at the second bed, and instead of there being a sleeping lump or a tossing Stella, the bed was empty.

“Oh fuck.”

Lucky threw on her sneakers and wrapped a blanket over her sleep shorts and tank top. Before she closed the door, she remembered to grab the room key, attached to a blue plastic tag. She paused on the small walkway that connected all the rooms—which way? She listened for a minute and heard the ocean. That sound would have drawn Stella, so she headed down to the water.

The sky was still dark enough to demand she walk carefully, though it had started peeling back in places to the east. Birds sang from the high branches as she entered the trees. “Yeah, yeah,” Lucky answered. “Anyone see an old coot come this way?”

A sudden silence.

“Thanks a lot.” Clearly, this witch thing did not include interspecies communication. She wasn’t sure it included any powers at all. Not even a wand, just an old decorative spoon. What a rip-off.

The roar and rush of waves filled every space between the trees, a violent gathering and retreating that fed her anxiety. The bay was all business. God, what if Stella had fallen in? Lucky picked up her pace and tripped, the blanket slipping off her shoulders.

“If you’re okay, I’ll murder you myself,” she said aloud. The crashing of salt water on rock grew even louder as she came to the edge of the trees. She would have given anything to be arguing with her grandmother in person right now, instead of imagining her body floating like geriatric seaweed.

“Please be okay. Please be okay . . .”

Emerging on the rocky shore, she scanned the tide and the rocky canines of cliffs where they broke and bit the water. She looked out to sea. “Come on, where are you, where are you . . . ?”

She picked her way over the jagged stones, imagining Stella trying to manage this in the deeper dark. Christ, why had Lucky drunk so much last night? Why had she let Stella drink so much? How had she let her guard down so fully that here she was standing on the shore of Buzzards Bay looking for her rattled grandmother?

“Stella!” she shouted. “Stella Sampson!” Nothing greeted her but the audible movement of the kind of water that swallows you whole after the rocks chew you up.

“Oh fuck, oh fuck.” Lucky turned in a circle, the blanket falling to her feet. She had to call someone, but her phone was back in the room. Not stopping to pick up the blanket, she ran back to the path and into the trees. Meena could help. No, fuck all this witch shit, she had to call the police. Maybe Stella had wandered in the other direction? Maybe she hadn’t come to the water at all. Lucky stumbled over a root and fell hard against a tree. She sucked in air, got up, and kept running, bursting onto the back lawn. She knocked one of the lawn chairs over as she flew past, already fishing for the key in the pocket of her shorts.

“Come on, come on.” She willed her fingers to steady and her mind to slow as she tried to get the key into the lock. She dropped it. “Fuck!” When she bent over to grab the key, gravity pushed the first tears to the front of her skull. Her sight went blurry. What had made her think she could have an adventure and keep her grandmother safe at the same time?