VenCo(76)

Stella wrinkled her nose in response.

They picked their way through the high grass, over car parts and around boulders as old as the mountain looming over them.

“Think anyone is home?”

“I don’t see anyone.” Lucky felt nerves popping in her guts like carbonation. She didn’t feel powerful or special or even necessarily capable. She felt out of her depth. So far, this whole witch thing seemed to be a bust.

They climbed up to the porch carefully, the stairs sagging, the railing having rotted away, and stepped gingerly over holes and soft patches. A sickle moon hung in the glass on the door, throwing rainbows over the old wood. Lucky took a deep breath and looked to her grandmother, who gave her a long look back; then she knocked twice, adding a third knock for good measure. Everything in threes, Ricky had said.

“Just a minute,” a man’s voice replied.

“I thought we were going to see a woman?” Stella asked.

Lucky shrugged. “Maybe she lives with family?”

The door swung open to the sound of jingle bells, releasing the smell of dried herbs. A tall man in a pair of worn denim overalls and a grey work shirt stood there, his black hair pulled into a single braid. He smiled, showing admirable dentistry for someone living so far out, and Lucky’s pupils dilated.

“Ahh, you must be the one from Salem, come to see May.” His accent was strange, a mix of several quilted into one. His voice was low and pleasant but echoed in Lucky’s head like a soundtrack to nausea, and her stomach hitched up.

“You alright?”

More echoes. Lucky reached out for the doorframe to steady herself.

“Lucky, you okay?” Stella seemed so far away, it was like Lucky was looking at her down a tube.

“Let’s get her inside,” the man said. “Sometimes the long walk’ll do that to ya. Don’t even realize how tuckered out you are until it’s right there sitting on your chest.”

A hand on her shoulder, one on her waist, and she was being pulled inside the cabin. She wanted to resist, to sit right down on the rotting porch, but she couldn’t.

“She eat, this one?” His voice was too close.

“Yup. But she’s been under a lot of stress lately. Maybe that’s it?”

“Related to why you’re up here?” He spoke lightly, but the words fell heavily.

“Moving stress. We have to leave our place soon.”

Wait, what? How? How the fuck did Stella know about the eviction? This was the slap in the face Lucky needed to pull herself together. She turned to Stella, whose attention had been grabbed by something else. She let go of Lucky and wandered over to examine some framed portraits nailed to the wall, humming to herself.

“I’m fine,” Lucky insisted, pulling away from the man. “Just got light-headed. Probably allergies. I feel . . . stuffed up, a bit hard to breathe just now.” She looked around. “You have cats?”

“No cats inside.” He closed the door. “Mighta been near some wild ones on the way up.”

Lucky cleared her throat. “We’ve come to see May Moon Montgomery.” The nausea had passed, but her limbs felt unhinged, and she couldn’t seem to catch a full breath. She wanted to get this over with.

Stella was now examining the shelves that separated a modest kitchen from the main room, each one jammed full of jars of weeds, nails, rocks, seeds . . .

“Well, you found her place, but you got me instead of May. I’m Morris, her nephew. She’s away and asked me to step in. Pleased to meet you both.” He made a shallow bow from the waist, an odd gesture that felt out of place in this rough setting.

Of course, Stella curtsied in return, pulling at the baggy fabric of her burr-heavy pants. Then she started picking up the jars and shaking them.

“Grandma, why don’t you have a seat somewhere?”

“Yes, yes.” Morris pulled out a high-backed wooden chair at a round table in the middle of the main room. “Here. Y’all want tea?”

“Sure. Only if you have sweetener.” Stella squeaked the legs on the floor, pulling her chair in under her.

“We got honey.”

“I’m okay. Never mind.”

He took a seat and motioned for Lucky to do likewise, which she did. It felt good to sit, truth be told. She put a hand on her chest and reminded her lungs to fill and release, fill and release. Then she asked, “So where is your aunt?”

“Well, she got called away, but I woulda been here anyway, since she needed me for this visit. I’m not sure how much you know about our ways, Miss, uhhh . . .”

“St. James.”

“Miss St. James. About how we operate in these matters.”

She had looked up as much as she could in between driving and sleeping. She knew Ozarks people were close-knit. That they had relied on water witches and granny women out of necessity for many years. That they were guarded and superstitious, and that there were rules about how to engage.

“Up here, we don’t pass on wisdom between like-sexed individuals. It’s gotta go from opposites to work.” He drew abstract shapes on the tabletop with the tip of a finger as he spoke, the way others doodled when they were on the phone.

“That’s pretty binary. Also incorrect. Opposites? There’s no such thing.”

He gave a small shrug. “Well, we still run on old ideas around here, whether they’re right or wrong to others. So I am the person you need, on behalf of Miss May, of course.”