VenCo(56)

“Impossible. And you knew it was impossible!”

“What’s impossible?”

Lucky spun around so quickly she fell back against the door. “Grandma!”

There was Stella, in long johns and a new souvenir T-shirt that read, Trout’s Tavern! Come in and catch something. She was holding an orange Popsicle that got tangled in Lucky’s hair when she threw her arms around the old woman.

“Jeez, watch out. I walked all the way to the gas station for this!” Stella pushed her away. “Cripes, you’re a mess, you know that?”

The door to the neighbouring room opened, and a very sleepy, very barefaced Morticia looked out. “What the hell is going on?” She looked almost sweet with her skin flushed pink instead of bone white.

“Stella decided to go for a walk in the middle of the night,” Lucky answered.

“It was an emergency!” Stella was outraged at the implication in her granddaughter’s tone.

“Getting a fucking Popsicle is an emergency?”

“It is when you’re hungover.” Stella picked a long piece of dark hair off her treat and flung it on the ground. “And now you’ve cocked it up.”

Morticia shook her head, flashed them the peace sign, and closed her door.

“I should go get another one,” Stella mumbled, turning to leave.

“No, you most certainly should not. Get in this room right now!” Lucky jammed the key in the lock, opened the door, and walked in, but Stella didn’t follow.

“Come on, let’s go.”

Stella stood, her Popsicle hanging by her side, a faraway look in her eyes. “I just had a terrible thought.”

“I don’t care about that. You scared the shit out of me, you know? And that you were out on the road, at god knows what time, all alone? What were you thinking?” She backed up and pulled the key out of the knob, then tossed it onto the desk beside their small TV.

“Lucky, I think your mother is gone,” Stella said.

“What?”

“She’s gone, Lucky. She’s really gone, and I don’t think she’s coming back this time.”

Lucky sighed, sitting hard on the edge of the bed, the door still open, Stella still standing outside. Arnya leaving Lucky and Stella alone was common enough. It hadn’t occurred to Lucky before now that Stella might, every now and then, think she was still coming back. Now she thought about what leaving Stella at a home might do. Would she feel like she was being abandoned over and over, always anew, the hurt always fresh? Jesus Christ. She had to make this work. She had to find that fucking spoon.

“I know, Grandma. I know.”

“You know?” She dropped her Popsicle and brought her hand to her mouth. “Oh, Lucky, I’m so sorry.” She came inside and sank to her knees in front of her granddaughter. “Oh, sweetheart, I’m so sorry.”

“It’s fine, Grandma.” Lucky lifted her to sit beside her on the bed. “It happened a long time ago—years ago.”

“It did?” She sounded so small and so concerned that Lucky’s anger began to fade.

“Yeah, years ago.” She took Stella’s hand. It felt like clumsily folded paper—an origami bird without sharp edges. “It’s just been us, you and me, for a while now. And we’re okay. We’re good.”

“We’re all alone?” Stella looked at her, eyes big and wet, and Lucky’s throat closed. She patted her hand and rocked slowly, a motion of comfort for both of them.

She swallowed hard. “No, Grandma. We’re not alone. We have people.”

“And each other.” Stella grabbed both Lucky’s shoulders. “We’ll always have each other, right?”

“Yeah,” Lucky agreed, guilt filling her limbs. She thought she might throw up again. “Yeah, we’ll always have that.”

Stella turned to put both arms around her and held on tight. Over her head, through the doorway, Lucky watched the Popsicle melting in the first rays of morning light, and that was the thing that finally sent her tears, held and hoarded, streaming down her cheeks. That was how morning found them, door open, hungover and embracing on a motel bed, on the ragged Massachusetts coast—the last morning before the adventure truly began. They were on their own, the two of them, because they would always have that, right?





20

Everything in Threes




Meena had found the note tacked to the motel room door. It took her a long minute to decipher Lucille’s terrible handwriting.

Coven heads back to Salem by 9 a.m. to start looking for the witch in the bowl.

Send the new girl to Pennsylvania—she needs to see Rattler Ricky and seek the spoon while you concentrate on the witch. Also, the Maiden stopped by the bar late last night. She says, “Hurry the fuck up.” —L



“Christ,” Meena said. “She wants us to use divination bowls to try to find the last member and thinks maybe she hasn’t even gotten to the spoon yet. And Rattler Ricky? Half the time you end up waiting on her for a week. She comes and goes at her own pace, and you never know when that’ll be.”

“Who in the hell is Rattler Ricky?” Wendy sat up in the messy bed, one eye glued shut with sleep. She reached for the aspirin and water she’d left herself on the nightstand.