VenCo(72)

“What should we put inside the bowl to help us focus?” Lettie asked. “A crystal?”

“We could.” Meena looked over the objects on the table, touching a quartz, then a slice of agate. “But I think we can be more specific than that.” She picked up a smooth blob of silver sitting on top of a square of black velvet and held it up.

“Whenever we’ve found a Salem Witch Spoon that isn’t one of the seven, we’ve melted it down. Since they all started from the same basic ingredients, maybe we can use this to call the other?” She put her hand just above the surface of the water and opened her fingers. The silver thunked onto the bottom curve of the bowl, making a solid sound with an echoey tail that matched the shape of the ripples it caused.

Wendy packed up everything else from the table. They needed to remove all distractions. As Freya lit candles, Meena closed the drapes over the mural. There should only be darkness and the water by candlelight. When they were done, the walls had disappeared, and the shape of the table and chairs had become shadows. There was only the bowl, the water, the candles, and the blob of silver pulling focus.

“Okay, then, let’s give it a try.” Meena shook out her hands and rolled her shoulders. “I’ll go first.”



After hours of staring into water, waiting for something to happen, Meena took a break. She retired to the living room. Her back hurt from the hard dining room chair, and the soft couch was a relief. Her eyes were dry and strained, and she meant to close them for just a minute, to give them a rest . . .

She was on her father’s front porch, the street out front empty and dark. She wasn’t surprised when she turned to see the Crone sitting on the porch swing, smoking, like last time.

“Ah, ma chère, you’ve made it.”

“Made it here? I’m asleep, aren’t I?” Meena looked around for some kind of proof that she was dreaming, but the street looked normal.

“You are indeed. I have been waiting.”

“You never called back,” Meena began.

“We are returning the call now.” The Crone looked a bit faded, like she was really a ghost this time.

“This is not a coincidence—this is magic. I can see the strain on you.”

“It is magic, as much of this kind of magic as the Oracle has, being as we are not coven witches like you. We are strategists, builders, knowledge keepers. That is where our true talents lie.” She held up a hand in front of her eye, and Meena swore she saw her blink through the flesh. “But we are together at this moment, and focusing all our energy to you, to your witches. Expect to have some vivid dreams with our extra push.”

Meena had so many questions it was hard to choose just one at a time. She began with “Where is Lucille?”

The Crone looked off to the street and sighed. “I am afraid our darling Lucille has met the same fate as so many of us. She is no longer with us.”

Meena felt like she had been punched in the gut, and doubled over. “Oh Christ. Benandanti?”

“Certainement,” the Crone answered.

Meena switched tactics, straightening back up. “How many hunters are there?”

“There is but one left, that we know of. We have been keeping an eye on him—”

“Well, you did a shit job of it,” she interrupted, suddenly angry. “Why didn’t you tell me? All I knew were rumours, old stories . . .”

“And you, Meena Good?” the Crone countered. “Have you told your sixth witch about his visit to Salem? Did you notify her the moment you smelled him?”

Meena didn’t have an answer, so the Crone continued. “We all steer as best as we can when it is our time at the helm. He has been staying out in the desert, quiet for some time now. He is only one man, but he is immortal.” She raised a finger and waved it like a scolding teacher. “He is not to be underestimated, this one.”

As she moved it, her finger began to turn translucent. They both took notice. “I don’t have much time left now. We will do what we can to give you all our focus. And we will watch as best we can.”

Meena leaned in. She made to grab the Crone by the shoulders, to be as close as she could be to hear her, since her voice was losing volume, but her hands slid right through her.

“What do I do now?”

The Crone shouted, but it came out as a whisper: “We will give you all we have.”

“Don’t go. Not yet. Tell me what to do!”

“Meena. No one can read what hasn’t been done.”

“What does that mean?”

“Meena.”

“What?”

“Meena.” The voice was coming from the street. Both women turned towards it and . . .



Meena was looking into Wendy’s face. She was leaning over the couch. “Don’t sleep here, love. You’ll hurt your neck.”

Meena immediately burst into tears.

“Oh, honey, what is it? What’s wrong?” Wendy pushed in to sit beside her, pulling her into an embrace.

“It’s Lucille.”



Lucky and Stella were in Missouri by dinnertime, so they got barbecue from a restaurant that looked like a Western saloon on the outside and not much different on the inside. Next to the front door, there was a wooden sign with an illustration of a blond man in a plaid shirt chewing on a piece of long grass beside the words today’s fixins. Underneath was a list of sides written in neat chalk letters: okra, maple beans, coleslaw. They ordered heaping metal plates that held a little bit of everything, with big slabs of cornbread and little packages of soda crackers to sop it all up. Neither of them escaped with a clean shirt.