VenCo(90)

“Stella! Where are you?”

A toilet flushed in the downstairs bathroom, and the door opened. “Cripes, can’t a woman pee in private?” Stella pulled her head back in and turned on the faucet.

“Did you read my text messages?”

“What? No!” Stella regarded Lucky in the mirror as she washed her hands. “Didn’t you take your phone with you?”

“Yes, but what about last night?” Lucky was frantic. “I fell asleep in my clothes. I didn’t plug it in . . .”

“No, I did. Didn’t want you freaking out again about it being dead.” She turned the taps off. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

Lucky followed her out of the bathroom and into the kitchen area. “But did you read my texts?”

Stella poured hot water from the kettle into a mug. “What? No. I mean, maybe.” She was getting annoyed. “You’re not that interesting, you know.”

“Grandma, I don’t have time for you to have your feelings. I need to know. Did you read my texts from Meena?”

Stella shook a package of Sweet’N Low, thinking. She shook it for so long, Lucky finally reached out and snatched it from her.

“Hey!”

“Stella, focus. Did you read my texts?”

“Maybe,” she said. “Not on purpose, though. I wasn’t snooping.”

“No, no, no, no!” Lucky turned in a complete circle, hands in her hair.

“What? It’s not like there were any secrets there. I’m on this trip too!”

“Yeah, Stella, you are. And you were there at the cabin. You sneezed, remember?”

“What?” She was confused, and then she wasn’t. “Oh Lord . . .”

“Exactly.” Lucky threw her hands up. “‘Oh Lord,’” she mimicked back. “Oh Lord, Stella. I just went to the café to find the spoon. And guess what? All the silverware had been stolen.”

“No . . .”

“Yes. It’s gone.” She sat down hard on a kitchen stool. “I don’t even know what to do.”

“Maybe you should call Meena?”

“And maybe you should learn to listen. Everything is ruined now. I should have left you in Toronto.” She was cutting, but she meant it.

“Lucky . . .”

“But no, couldn’t do that, could I? I’m stuck with you.”

“Lucky!”

But she was already up and heading out the door. She pulled it open and paused. “The day after tomorrow, Grandma. That’s the deadline, that’s when this ends. And where will we be then? Huh?”

“You know what?” Stella huffed in return. “I’m meeting Aggie for lunch and then we’re going sightseeing and I don’t have time for this. So . . . so maybe I don’t have time for you either!”

They had a stare off that ended with Lucky slamming the front door behind her and stomping across the courtyard, into the main building, and out onto the street.

She was so angry at Stella she couldn’t breathe right. What the hell were they supposed to do now? She followed Toulouse across Bourbon, Royal, and Chartres and turned onto Decatur. She made a left, passing through the French Market, ignoring the stalls of fresh spices and T-shirts, and out the other side, heading for the bank of the Mississippi, where she found a bench and sat. Then she sighed and pulled out her phone. It was time to call Meena.



After she hung up, Meena gathered the women in the garden. They were all exhausted. They’d spent the night in pairs, rousing each other from REM sleep to write down notes about whatever images or sequences they’d dreamed.

“I’m afraid I have some bad news.”

“Is the bad news that we’re now a morning coven?” Morticia yawned dramatically.

Meena, sitting on the edge of an urn stuffed with ferns, ignored her. “The Benandanti got to New Orleans. Probably using Stella’s vision.”

“Jesus!” Lettie exclaimed. “Are they okay?”

“They’re fine. But he got the address of the café. The spoon is gone.”

No one spoke. Even the birds held their breath.

Finally, Freya broke the silence. “What do we do now?”

A soft rain began to fall, and Wendy started gathering up the newspapers and books and pages from the table.

“We stay the course,” Meena answered. “Wendy, we need to think of how to keep Lucky and Stella safe. The rest of you, keep on the witch search.”

“What’s the point?” Freya sulked.

“We don’t give up until the clock runs out. We have to keep going.”

They all rose slowly, despite the rain, and walked back inside, everyone except for Meena, who sat there for a while, letting the water fall on her face. Then she gathered herself up and went into the kitchen. She still had a group to lead, even if they might never become a real coven now.



Jay Christos tossed the bag of cutlery into a bush outside Lafayette Cemetery. He’d found what he needed, and the rest could be retrieved by children or thieves—not much difference between the two.

These witch spoons were small, delicate, and decidedly plain. He wondered how Low had even managed to sell them in the numbers he had, being so far from the Victorian aesthetic. Perhaps it was his Puritan roots that stopped him from going too fancy. That and the fact that the witch figure was so hideous . . . keeping the rest of the design simple meant emphasis was placed where it should be. He tucked the spoon into the inside pocket of his linen jacket and whistled down the street, tipping his hat at a widow toddling to the graveyard with a bouquet of plastic yellow roses. She scowled and looked away.