VenCo(94)

They all studied the drawing and the map.

Morticia leaned on her elbow, staring at the drawing. “It’s not exactly a masterpiece, if you know what I mean.”

“Hey now, at least I saw something,” Freya returned.

“True.”

Then Meena slapped her palms on the table, and they all jumped, including Everett, who was in the middle of a yawn. He’d missed his own nap, what with all the witches dreaming.

“Lettie, why don’t you get this young man to bed? I’m gonna order in a few pizzas and open some wine so we can eat while we work. Wendy, start looking close to that cemetery, then go neighbourhood by neighbourhood. See if anything matches up.” She pointed to a blob on Freya’s drawing. “That could be a park or a forest or a pond.”

“Let’s go, little big man.” Lettie picked up her son, who was now rubbing his eyes with fists still balled up around oversized crayons.

“G’night, Miss Ladies,” he said with a tired sigh.

“Good night, Mr. Everett,” they chimed in unison. He smiled, then dropped his head onto his mom’s shoulder as she carried him out of the room.

Freya said, “This is a wild goose chase.”

“And which part of this whole thing has not been a wild goose chase?” Meena said, and she headed to the wine cellar for some much-needed encouragement.



Lucky was unsure of time. Not of what hour of the day it was or how long she’d been standing by the cemetery wall. She just kept focusing, on the spoon, the wood, and the man. It took a lot to keep everything else out, but she did it.

The spoon: the spoon holds hot and cold and lets each warm or cool the metal along its stem by careful degrees. The embossing is unsubtle, holds tarnish in the crevices, throws small shadows into itself. It is small enough to fit between fingers, small enough to feel insignificant. On this spoon, there were seven witch pins, like spokes on a wheel, like a calcified dandelion fluff stuck in a silver field.

The man is tall, thin to lanky but squared off with solid shoulders. He has the kind of build that makes muscle into fingerholds. He has blood and stories from other places, forests with different insect symphonies, mountains with different potential deaths, but the design of his final architecture is decidedly Western.

The wood was jagged to fray, moist in the centre, porous, and compact. It fit in the biggest line on her palm, end to end, from the meatier heel to the bottom of her pointer finger. Small flecks of white paint clung to the outer edges. It belonged to a door, a door to a place, a place where the spoon sat in a drawer for years.

The spoon: the spoon holds hot and cold and lets each warm or cool the metal along its stem by careful degrees. The embossing is unsubtle, holds tarnish in the crevices, throws small shadows . . .

Her lungs opened wide, wider than she ever imagined they could, and her mouth pushed out to the limits of a symmetrical O as she gasped. Oh god, everything on her body was open, everything was itself to its furthest ability to be. Suddenly, there were new colours in the universe, new smells in the air. And when her feet began to move, her mind was seconds behind them. Even then, she tried not to think about the movement, only the intent. She left the narrow alley-like street and was back out on Prytania.



In Gerard’s master bedroom, Jay Christos sat in a French chair under a Spanish painting by the balcony door. He watched the street, the way the gas streetlamp pushed back the dark with imprecise effort. He was in the shadows. He preferred the shadows. He was the kind of beautiful that demanded light and adoration, but at his core, he was the kind of beautiful that could be truly appreciated only in shadow. From downstairs, the sound of the old man’s medical equipment hummed and cycled. He’d made his promised visit earlier in the evening, after dismissing the nurse for the night. He had laid his weight beside Gerard and passed a hand up and down his chest, so that the old man wept from the contact. Then he’d pressed down hard enough for the fragile ribs to bend but not break, hard enough that breathing became impossible. Shushing him in the French they once used to speak to each other, back before age was an impediment, Jay crushed the life from him.

“Au revoir, mon cher,” he whispered, marveling once more at how the light in a person’s eyes was really only noticeable when it was spiralling over itself and pulling backward. He really should go down and turn off the equipment.

From up the street, a child practiced the piano with tired fingers and wandering thoughts. Jay wondered if Lucky would take up his challenge. He wondered if there would be a next move. He prayed the game wasn’t done, because he was bored. Profoundly bored. In hundreds of years, nothing had moved him more than the night Prudence had stabbed him in the chest, missing his betrayed heart by not even an inch. Everything since had been shades of boredom and want.

And then all of his muscles seized. He managed to uncross his legs with a jerk, grasping the arms of the chair so hard the wood creaked. He gasped. He wanted to move, but he couldn’t. Wanted to stand, but remained seated. He was stuck near an open balcony door under a hideous painting of a god eating his own children, a painting he had fallen in love with in Spain and that Gerard had purchased for their bedroom, back when it was still their bedroom. And then he understood. She was coming. And all he could do was smile, small and brimming with anticipation. Finally, a witch worthy of all his skills.



Lucky barely saw the houses she walked by, getting grander now as she went farther into the Garden District. She was a passenger on this walk, her mind looking ahead to the destination. She tried to remember to breathe, but there were stronger urges ruling her body and they came first, so much so that she could barely spare a thought for her lungs, grabbing just enough breath so she didn’t fall dead in the street.