by Laura Hankin
“And some other times too. You’ve kind of been a dick a lot lately.”
“I have,” he said, and stared down at the table, toying with a pen he’d taken from the cupholder. “Emmy and I are getting divorced.”
My mouth went dry. I’d fantasized about him saying these words to me and had hated myself for it. “I’m really sorry to hear that.”
“Thanks,” he said. “We gave it our all, but it just—” He put the pen down and looked at me. “It just wasn’t right.” His clear blue eyes held mine. “I don’t want to complicate anything, with you working on this story, but I wanted to let you know.”
I cleared my throat. My face felt hot. Under the table, my hands trembled, so I sat on them. “Thank you for the update.”
“Let’s talk again when you get back from the trip?” His voice was so soft that I had to lean forward to hear it. “About the article, and everything?”
All my egg-gained clarity disappeared. “Let’s do that,” I said.
THIRTY-NINE
The e-mail Caroline had sent me about the Samhain trip was extremely detailed, with bullet points, packing lists, and a weather forecast. On Saturday morning, I stood outside my apartment to play my role in Caroline’s efficient carpool schedule: Iris would be taking the Coven members who lived downtown, Vy and Margot would ride together from Brooklyn, and Caroline would pop over from her home on the Upper East Side to grab me from the Upper West.
I was looking down the avenue for a sensible, expensive car keeping perfectly to the speed limit when a big white van swerved up next to me, and Vy leaned her head out of the driver’s window.
“Get in,” she said.
I blinked. “Oh. Hey. I think I’m supposed to ride with Caroline?”
“Change of plans. Just get in.”
I slid open the door and climbed into the backseat. Music—something Icelandic and keening—pumped through the stereo as Margot turned around from the passenger’s seat and gave my hand a squeeze. “Hey you,” she said. She’d wrapped a scarf around her hair, like a classic movie star, driven by her lover down a winding European road. “Caroline’s not coming.” Vy put her foot on the gas and the van roared into action.
“She’s meeting us at the cabin?”
“No,” Margot said. “Unfortunately, she’s ill. She’s been throwing up all morning. She can’t come at all.”
“Holy shit,” I said. “Do you think it’s food poisoning or something?”
“Maybe,” Margot said.
“Maybe she’s pregnant,” Vy said.
“Let’s hope not. According to her life plan, that’s not supposed to happen for another year and a half.” Margot’s voice was dry. “She’d be very upset to deviate from the schedule.”
We bumped down the avenue. The van smelled of paint and something faintly like rotten meat, and I was willing to bet anything that it was the same van I’d ridden in the night that they’d taken me from my apartment. “Well,” I said, “that really sucks for her. I know she was excited about the trip.”
“Yes, it’s terrible timing,” Margot said, and she and Vy exchanged a look, one that I could’ve sworn contained a hint of amusement. Vy sped up suddenly and we pulled onto the highway.
Vy was an unpredictable and casually terrifying driver, not bothering to put her blinker on until she’d already started changing lanes, but Margot seemed unruffled by it. We left the city behind us and entered the suburbs. Then we left the suburbs behind too. We passed farmland and fields. An hour and a half after we’d set out, Vy turned the van onto a road made of dirt and gravel, a narrow, winding path. We drove past a sign that read end state maintenance. The road dropped into a steep decline, and I grasped the seat beneath me as Margot began to hum in the passenger’s seat, some excited, cheery tune. Then we turned again, into a driveway with a sign reading private property.
“Welcome to the cabin,” Margot said as it came into view before us.
Sure, it was a cabin, if you were judging only by its wooden exterior. The dark, stacked logs, in and of themselves, gave off the requisite Abe Lincoln vibes. But if you were going by anything else—like, say, its size—it was not a cabin at all. It was a behemoth: three stories, with a large porch on one side, and two separate chimneys. Behind the cabin, the woods loomed, the trees a riot of color—scarlet and burnt sienna and golden leaves trembling in the breeze.
We all stepped out of the car and stood in the yard. Vy pulled a stick of beef jerky out of her pocket and began to gnaw at it. Margot stretched her arms up high, taking in a deep breath as the wind whipped her hair around her. “God,” she said. “The air here. It’s ambrosial.”
I’d never been taken in by all the hoopla about fresh air. Fill my lungs up with that sweet, sweet city smog and let me slowly suffocate in a place with bodegas. Still, I followed Margot’s lead and took a deep breath too, the sharp chill filling up my lungs. I thought of Caroline sitting miserably in her apartment. While we were on the road she’d sent out an e-mail to the group with a checklist of reminders for the agenda she’d drawn up, expressing her disappointment. I’m devastated not to join. But while I rest and hydrate, I expect the rest of you to carry on. Try to have a great time without worrying about me too much! she’d written. Margot, in the front seat, had scanned the e-mail and then deleted it. And then we’d lost cell service entirely.
No cell service. No neighbors. This was the perfect place to get murdered, or to sacrifice a new member for her betrayal.
“Yes,” Margot continued as Iris pulled into the driveway in a sleek red sports car, from which the other women piled out with their luggage and their chatter. “This is going to be an excellent Samhain.”
FORTY
There were enough bedrooms for us to each have our own. Mine had a comfortable queen bed covered in a flannel goose-feather comforter, topped with more pillows than I’d ever seen in one place before. There was just enough of a rustic feel to the decor that you couldn’t forget you were in a “cabin”—exposed beams, the paint on the walls distressed in a very intentional way, a little wood-burning stove in the corner. Had Margot gotten some fancy interior designer from the city to drive all the way out here, down these winding roads, to consult?
After we all put our luggage in our rooms, some of the women went on a nature walk. Others decided to cast some individual spells, to work on their own magic before we all came back together for our nighttime rituals.
“I don’t really know any spells. Besides the egg one. Which was great. Loved that egg spell,” I said to Margot as we stood in her living room, which somehow managed to feel gigantic and cozy at the same time. Its ceiling was two stories high, and all the windows were hung with gauzy curtains. In addition to a couple of large midcentury modern couches, throw pillows and poufs littered the floor, which was covered by an artfully faded woven rug. A huge fireplace lined almost the entirety of one wall.
“I can teach you.” She opened up a chest of shabby-chic drawers to reveal a variety of candles, herbs, and other supplies. I’d have felt like I was in an apothecary in Shakespeare’s time, if not for the clean Avenir Next labels on everything. More of an apothecary designed by Gwyneth Paltrow. Herb by herb, candle by candle, Margot went through the supplies with me, explaining the types of spells you might do with each one. She radiated authority, standing up taller and taller as she went, even though what she was saying didn’t make any sense to me, as if I’d signed up for a course with a respected college professor without realizing that it would be taught in a foreign language.
“What’s your favorite spell?” I asked at one point.
“Hmm,” she said, giving me a strange look. “I’ve had good luck with a summoning one, to find someone that you’ve been looking for. You take one of these candles”—here she pointed to a thin white taper—“and carve some representation of the person into it. So for example, a heart, if you were trying to summon a
lover. Then you scatter sea salt in a circle around the candle, light it, and say a prayer to call that person into your life. It can be very effective.” She smiled a private, small smile. “But there are so many others too.” And she went on to explain spells for prosperity, for protection, and more.
“That was the one Caroline and I did, the first time we came up here,” she said at the end of one explanation, her tone lapsing a bit into melancholy.
“I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but you and Caroline are a . . . funny match. To have started a coven together, I mean.”
She smiled. “Well. Some of it was our family history. And some, I suppose, is that a big goal can make strange bedfellows. When we started out, what we wanted to do was so strong that our differences didn’t matter.”
Caroline and Margot had both alluded to a goal now, a goal that didn’t seem to be Caroline’s driving force anymore. “What you wanted to do?” I asked. “Boosting your careers and such, you mean?”
“Not that,” she said, her expression stormy. “It was supposed to be more than just helping each other and ourselves, and maybe bringing down the occasional bad man. We had something bigger in mind.”
“What was it?”
She hesitated. Then she looked me straight in the eye and said, almost against her better judgment, “We wanted to elect the first female president.”
Well, shit. Way to set achievable objectives.
Margot went on. “We didn’t know if we could do it, of course. But we wanted to try. We’d seen how a woman could be far more qualified, far more intelligent, and still be passed over, time and again. And we were done being helpless about it. We had influence and we had magic, so why couldn’t we be the queen-makers?” She shrugged. “And sure, we thought it would be nice to have the ear of the person in charge, particularly since Caroline always had such great policy ideas—her thoughts on parental leave were transformative—but more than that, we wanted to do it for equality, for all the girls out there.”
“Was that why you all worked so hard for Nicole Woo-Martin?” She hesitated, so I leaned forward and continued, in a low voice, “What happened there? You can tell me.”
“Why do you want to know?”
“Because I’m a curious little bitch.” She smiled, just slightly, so I went on. “And because I’m a member of the Coven now. Shouldn’t I be up to date on the history? The good, the bad, and the ugly?”
“I’ve probably said too much already. I like you, Jillian, but not even the other members know the full story. The details are between me and Caroline, and she asked me not to get into it with anyone new, which I understand,” she said. “I’m sorry.” She turned and headed toward the door. “Now, I have some things I want to work on myself, but go ahead, use whatever supplies you need.”
I watched her disappear into the yard. That had been . . . informative? Supremely frustrating? If the details needed to be kept just between her and Caroline, that certainly made it sound like something sketchy had gone on.
To pass the time more than anything else, I took one of the white candles, a matchbook, and a pinch of sea salt, and found a spot, just beyond the tree line, where I was hidden from the other women.
I didn’t know what kind of symbol would represent a failed mayor. So, with a pen in my pocket, I carved Nicole Woo-Martin’s initials into the candle. I made a circle with sea salt, then lit the candle. “Um,” I said quietly, and called up Nicole’s face into my mind, the last time I had seen it, when she had given the speech announcing her resignation. It was also on the steps of City Hall, just like at her inauguration, but hope and grandeur no longer swirled around her, and her supportive schlubby husband no longer stood by her side.
I made an error in judgment, and for that I am truly sorry. But I would never have threatened someone’s job over this, she’d said, her voice strong, but her hands trembling at her sides. I hope you can believe me. Still, I recognize that the distraction caused by this has damaged my ability to fight for our agenda, and the work can only be done if I step aside. I am heartbroken. But at the end of the day, the work must be done.
I had been heartbroken too, for my mother and for the world. I was still heartbroken. Nicole’s replacement was a business-as-usual woman who’d done nothing of note since she took over. All the exciting legislation Nicole had introduced was just sitting there, stalled. I stared at the candle. “Nicole,” I said, “I call you into my life. Let me find you, so I can talk to you and figure out the truth of what they did to you, and what the fuck you were thinking.” Maybe not the holiest of prayers, but it couldn’t hurt.
The small flame wavered in the breeze. A rustling sound came from the trees to my left, where the woods began to thicken. I turned, and for a split second I expected to see Nicole emerge—perhaps she’d been wandering in the forests all this time, and her compass was now spinning and sending her my way. But instead Vy stomped into the clearing, and over her shoulder was a bag filled with plants she’d gathered from the woods. I snuffed out the candle quickly and stuck it in my pocket.
“We’re gonna make dinner,” she said. “Come on.”
As darkness fell, we roasted root vegetables and sautéed halibut. Iris had brought along a loaf of dark pumpernickel bread. The kitchen was all gleaming marble countertops, an eight-burner stove. Margot had an old record player in the corner, and she put on Ella Fitzgerald to serenade us as we cooked. We slapped on some organic bug spray and ate on the porch. For a moment, as Margot turned the fairy lights on and Iris told a story about some celebrity who kept sending her flowers, it felt like we were at a fun, rustic bachelorette weekend, and maybe a firefighter stripper would come knocking at the door.
It wasn’t very much food when it was all split up among us. More like the first course of a tasting menu, an appetizer. My stomach rumbled, primed for the actual meal. It didn’t help that I hadn’t had lunch, assuming we’d stop somewhere on the road. None of the other women seemed bothered, though. Maybe they’d brought snack bars in their bags, or maybe they were used to more restrictive diets. Or maybe they wanted to feel lighter, more alert—like tech bros, with their intermittent fasting—for what was coming next. Margot stood up. “It’s time,” she said. The women all disappeared into their rooms as Margot beckoned me over.
“Here,” she said, and handed me a black robe of my own.
“Very chic,” I said. She raised an eyebrow and looked at me. “I mean, thank you. Do I . . . do I wear anything underneath?”
“What do you think?” she asked, then laughed her throaty laugh. She stepped closer to me and reached out a finger, tracing my mother’s necklace, the one we’d talked about at Raf’s restaurant opening the very first time we met. “Keep this on, though.”
FORTY-ONE
We made our way into the woods. Margot led the group, holding up a lantern. I carried some logs for the fire, grasping them haphazardly in a quest to avoid splinters, hoping that we weren’t going to wander into poison ivy or a spider’s nest. Crickets chirped and tree branches rustled. Dead leaves crackled underfoot. A few of the women whispered to one another, an isolated giggle breaking out, but for the most part, we were silent as we swished through the bramble.
Besides Margot’s lantern, the only source of light was the glowing orb of the moon above, bigger and more golden than I’d ever seen it. A moon on steroids, surrounded by pinpricks of stars. I wasn’t used to such darkness. I shivered, both because I was cold underneath my robe, and because I was scared.
Do you remember the kind of fear that you felt as a child, when you had the sense that anything was possible? Ghosts might be lingering in the shadows. A hand could reach out from underneath your bed and drag you down. Perhaps a vampire lurked in your attic, waiting for the moment when you were alone and defenseless to bare his fangs. As a grown woman, I had plenty to fear in the real world—a man walking too close behind me at night, a man yelling hateful th
ings in people’s faces on the subway, a man coming through my window or revealing his true colors or doing any number of things. But the fear that came over me as we walked deeper into the dark woods was like it was in childhood again. Terrifying, but tinged with a sense of possibility. Spooky, and just a little bit full of wonder. I didn’t fear a man tonight. I feared these women, and the strange things I could not see in the darkness, and maybe, just maybe, myself.
We emerged into a clearing, and Margot stopped. She held the lantern up high, looking for something in the trees at the edges. Then she moved toward a large oak with a hollow in its center. The lantern light revealed the deep ridges in its bark, the greenish moss growing over it. She put her hand on the edge of the hollow, where the wood formed a kind of ledge.
“Our altar,” she said. The women spread out around her and began to set up, pulling offerings from their bags. Vy assembled wood for a bonfire inside of a ring of small stones. Tara placed a gourd on the altar’s ledge, along with some dried flowers. Iris handed us each a wreath she’d made, woven with berries and leaves, and we put them on our heads, our hair loose and flowing beneath them, like we were going to a Renaissance fair or a trendy wedding in a barn. We all kicked off our shoes and left them at the edge of the clearing.
“Anyone thirsty?” Vy asked. As some of the women began to murmur in the affirmative, she pulled a bottle of wine out from her bag.
“Oh. We shouldn’t, should we?” Iris asked. “We should wait until we’re finished, I mean. Caroline wouldn’t want—”
“It’s hardly anything, split between all of us,” Vy said. She twisted off the screw top with one jerk of her hand, then tipped her head back and took a large swallow.
“Are you sure?” one of the other women—Gabby—asked.
“Yes, it’s so little, it won’t interfere,” Margot said. “If anything, it will only enhance. Besides, it’s a special occasion. It’s Samhain.” She took her own swallow, then passed it on. The women sent the bottle down the line as we continued to set up, although I noticed that Iris didn’t take a sip herself. When it came to me, I held the wine in my mouth for a moment before swallowing. It was spicy and warming, but still my teeth chattered in the autumn night.
