A Special Place for Women

by Laura Hankin

  “I think that the lost coven member returning might be the only thing that could make Caroline come around. But if she doesn’t, well, one member related to a founder can’t kick out another, but two . . .”

  Her words hung in the air between us for a moment. Outside, a car screeched down the avenue. I swallowed.

  “If I’m going to do this,” I said, “and I’m not saying I am, but if I were to, I would need to know that you really trusted me. No more sending people to follow me around or sneaking into this apartment at night without letting me know that you’re coming. It freaks me out.”

  “Of course,” Margot said.

  “And I need to know the extent of things. I need to know exactly what happened with Nicole Woo-Martin.”

  She nodded. And then she told me what they’d done.

  FORTY-SIX

  Caroline had fallen in love with Nicole at first speech. She saw her give a talk at some luncheon, when Nicole had been a lowly public defender, and had beelined for her afterward. That humor! Those brains! The clear, good head on her shoulders! Had Nicole ever thought about running for a higher office?

  Nicole hadn’t. She liked her life as it was—working hard to do small, good things during the day, coming home to her husband at night. But if Nicole did decide she was interested, Caroline ran an organization that wanted to support female candidates. Plus, she had a lot of . . . influential friends. Caroline planted the seed, and eventually Nicole came around. It was a long shot, but why the hell not?

  So Caroline set Nicole up with a campaign manager, held fund-raisers for her, introduced her to the other women in the Coven. They all hung out with Nicole, brought her with them to their events, and introduced her around to the people she needed to know. Nicole was cool, if a policy nerd, with a previously untapped charisma that was just dying to show itself to a wider audience.

  “I think this woman is the one,” Caroline said to Margot. “She could be our president.”

  Margot’s body had tingled with anticipation. “We’re doing this?”

  “We’re doing this,” Caroline said. They’d hugged each other then and squealed like little girls. And then they’d started casting spells for her without her knowledge.

  And Nicole kept doing better and better on the campaign trail. She went on The View and killed it. She knocked on doors with her husband (sweet but introverted, slightly dazed by the new turn his life had taken), and made people laugh in the mayoral debates, and got the common people excited to knock billionaires off their pedestals, and got women excited to make history.

  Still, she was down in the polls against the establishment candidate. So that Samhain, the Coven tried some new things, did some new rituals. They sacrificed a possum they’d found in the woods. Caroline was a little nervous—the spells were so much bigger than anything they’d tried before—but then, holy Jesus, Nicole won.

  It happened so fast, the nationwide interest in her. People were making votive candles with her face on them. Out of nowhere, she’d become an icon. And that kind of thing can fuck with your head.

  Not long after Nicole took office, Caroline and Margot met with her to discuss priorities, to invite her to come speak at the Nevertheless clubhouse. Nicole gave them the tour of City Hall, introducing them to her staffers, including a particularly handsome one. His interaction with Nicole was strangely charged. She turned almost giggly in his presence.

  “He’s a babe,” Margot said when he left.

  “More like a baby,” Nicole replied, but she blushed.

  “Okay!” Caroline said. “So first on your agenda, better parental leave?” That was Caroline’s cause, the one she was most vocal about. She’d consulted with Nicole on it during the election, spending hours researching the best policies for families, helping Nicole draw up the specifics of the plan.

  “Yes,” Nicole said. “That and closing the wealth gap in the city.”

  “Are you sure about that one? It could be bad for business, and it’s going to make a lot of powerful people angry.”

  “I’m sure.”

  Caroline sighed. “Well. You need to do what you need to do.”

  Later, when they were all saying good-bye and Margot started chatting with the handsome staffer, exchanging numbers with him because he loved going to art openings and she often had an extra invite, she’d noticed Nicole looking over far too often. Huh. That was something to keep an eye on.

  So she cultivated a little friendship with the staffer, taking him along to the occasional opening. He was idealistic, totally in thrall to Nicole. Not the brightest bulb, but Margot enjoyed his company enough, and it was another good way to keep track of Nicole’s doings as she got busier and busier.

  One night, Margot went to an event where Nicole was giving a speech. Caroline couldn’t come—she’d promised to attend a work function with her husband—so when Margot saw the staffer across the room, she made her way to his side. The staffer drank his beer too fast and stared at Nicole darkly as she spoke with her usual inspiring platitudes. Margot nudged him. “You all right?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “She’s going to sell out,” he said. “On a bunch of issues. Trading them so that she can get support for her wealth tax. Don’t get me wrong, I’m fine if she wants to make the wealth tax her centerpiece issue, but there’s got to be a way to fight harder for all the other things she promised too.” He frowned as Nicole finished her speech, then began hobnobbing with all the people who wanted something from her. “See that man she’s shaking hands with now? They’re solidifying a deal tonight, and then it’s good-bye parental leave and prison reform. I thought she was different, that she’d actually stick to all of her principles, but maybe she’s just a typical politician.”

  “What?” Margot asked. Parental leave was the thing that Caroline cared about most, the cause that really lit her up. If Nicole only knew about the power she had behind her, that she could just let them work some magic on her behalf, she wouldn’t have to make these compromises. Margot had one glass of champagne too many, then cornered Nicole in the hallway and told her about the Coven.

  “Just listen,” Margot said, because she thought that Nicole would be thrilled. Nicole froze as Margot talked about what they’d already done, the exciting possibilities of what they could do, how she couldn’t tell her the details, of course, because the circle was sworn to secrecy, but maybe Nicole could join the circle! A wary look came into Nicole’s eye, but Margot didn’t see it until it was too late.

  “You all think that you’re witches,” Nicole said, when Margot took a breath. “Got it.” The subtext was clear: Oh, these women are crazy. Margot’s cheeks burned with shame, her mouth dry with apprehension. She had made a terrible mistake.

  Nicole made her excuses and left the event. Then she immediately iced them out. Caroline couldn’t understand why her calls went unanswered, why her meetings were rescheduled. Margot wanted to tell Caroline, but she was afraid to disappoint her. Maybe if Nicole had some time to digest, Margot could make her come around without having to worry Caroline. But then the handsome staffer stopped responding to Margot’s texts too. And then a few weeks later, the first report of the affair came out, an affair that had been going on for months.

  Caroline and Margot read the story with sinking feelings in their stomachs. “How could she do this?” Caroline said. “It’s such a bad misuse of her power.” Caroline kept scanning the article, and gasped. “Oh my God. Listen to these texts she sent him: ‘If you don’t watch out for those women, you might get sacrificed . . . ’ ‘Seriously, are you going to see her again? I wouldn’t if I were you.’ Is she threatening his job if he sees other women?” Caroline put the article down and began to cry in a way that Margot had never seen her cry before. “It’s my fault,” she’d said, snuffling, as Margot handed her tissues. “I brought her in, and then we pushed her too far, too fast. She didn’t get a chance to lear
n the boundaries.”

  “No, it’s my fault,” Margot said, trying not to cry too. “Those text messages are about us, I think. Warnings, maybe, or jokes, or both.”

  “What do you mean?” Caroline asked, blinking her bloodshot eyes.

  “I told Nicole about the Coven, and she must have told him,” Margot said, hanging her head. “That’s why he hasn’t been responding to me lately. They think we’re insane.”

  “You . . .” Caroline stiffened, her face growing flushed with anger. “I’m sorry, you what?”

  “She was giving up on parental leave! I just wanted to let her know that we would support her so that she didn’t have to make sacrifices!”

  “And you didn’t even talk to me about it first? What the hell were you thinking?” Caroline yelled. “Clearly you weren’t thinking at all.” A news alert on Caroline’s phone interrupted them: Nicole was denying that the texts were threats. She’d said something about trying to protect the staffer from “a bad crowd.” He would be giving a press conference the next day to tell his side of the story.

  Caroline grabbed her phone and dialed Nicole’s number over and over again. Each time, the call was sent to voice mail. Caroline slammed the phone on her desk. “Goddammit!” She rounded on Margot. “Do you think the staffer’s going to tell the truth? If he explains it all, we’ll be a laughingstock.”

  “He doesn’t have to explain. He could just deny that they were threats, say it was part of a private conversation.”

  “You think the media’s going to let that go, when Nicole dangled something about a ‘bad crowd’? No. Unless there’s a more salacious explanation, people will keep digging. And if it all comes out, that’s the end for the Coven and all the work we’re doing, the end of Nevertheless, maybe the end of all our careers.” Caroline clenched her fists, a battle raging inside of her. Then she gave a little sniff. “She’s going down anyway. She can’t take us down with her.”

  “Let me help you fix it—” Margot began, but Caroline whirled on her.

  “You’ve done enough. I’ll handle it myself.”

  So Caroline showed up at the staffer’s apartment that night (scaring the shit out of him) and they had a little chat. Though he’d thought it was love originally, he’d grown disillusioned enough with Nicole to open up to the reporters who were sniffing around. Caroline had been right: the wealth tax had made Nicole a lot of powerful enemies.

  But he wasn’t going to lie about Nicole threatening him. That is, until Caroline offered him a bribe of $50,000. Then he was willing to say what he needed to say. He was out of a job, after all. And if nobody else was going to stick to their principles, why should he?

  Nicole couldn’t exactly contradict a serious claim like that with some story about witches. Then she would seem insane. She must have realized pretty quickly that protesting, trying to implicate Nevertheless, was futile.

  So Nicole had gone down and the Coven had stayed a secret. But after the dust had settled, Caroline had declared that was it. Their original goal—to use their magic to be the queen-makers—was off the table, at least for a long, long time. Things hadn’t been the same between Margot and Caroline ever since.

  FORTY-SEVEN

  Holy shit,” I said when Margot was done. “You guys did take her down.”

  “No, she was going down anyway.”

  “And then you made it that much worse with a fucking bribe,” I said.

  “Caroline was the only person involved in the bribe. So she’s the only person who you’d have proof did something wrong.” She fixed me with a stare. “If, say, the whole reason that you came to us in the first place was to write an article.”

  My stomach dropped. She’d been more than one step ahead of me this whole time.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

  “The second time we met, I spent almost the whole party talking to Raf about you. He knows you very, very well. He’s shy about most things, maybe, but start him on the subject of you, and the floodgates open.” Dammit, Raf, I thought, and as if she’d read my mind, Margot said, “Oh, he was very good. He stuck to the party line, but still, I learned things. You’re not the kind of person to care so much about being in a club. Certainly not to the point of cornering Caroline in a hallway and blatantly asking her to invite you in.”

  I didn’t say anything. “It’s all right,” Margot said. “You didn’t know us then. But now you do.” She tucked a strand of my hair behind my ear, so close to me, and said, in a quiet voice, “I wouldn’t write about us if I were you. I’m not trying to threaten you. I’m telling you the reality. You could sell us out, and sure, it might make a splash for a little while. But that splash wouldn’t last, because you’d have made a lot of influential enemies. Besides, you’d be selling yourself out too. You did break into a judge’s private home.” God, of course that was why she’d brought me with them, why they’d used only my phone to take the photos of the evidence, so I’d implicate myself. “Or you could take over the Coven with me and Caroline like you’re meant to, and we could change the world. What’s one article against the real change that we could do?”

  At the doubt on my face, she leaned forward, almost glowing with purpose.

  “By holding the Coven back, Caroline’s not just punishing me for my mistake. She’s punishing everyone that we could help. Stand with me at the next meeting, and we’ll talk to her, and then we can start fresh. Find a stronger Nicole, someone who can break that last glass ceiling and lead the country with the interests of women in mind. There’s so much potential, if we work together,” she said, her eyes shining with hope. “Will you help me?”

  I hesitated.

  She gave me a searing look, one that seemed to cut all the way inside of me. “It’s a way to keep your promise. To use your power for good,” she said, calling me back to that moment in the woods when she’d held me in her arms and spoken to me as my mother. I shivered.

  Tears began to well in her eyes as she reached for my hands. I looked down at her palm, at the scar at the base of her thumb that matched mine. Her nails were bitten, uneven. Her voice wavered. “We can make things right. Get Vy back in. I know you’ve only seen a little bit of the magic so far. I wanted to be able to show you more before I asked this of you. But please, will you think about it?”

  “I—”

  “Let us be your family,” she said. I’d heard those words before, recently, hadn’t I? I just want you to have a family, my mother had said to me in the woods. Or perhaps the only person who’d been saying it was Margot. My eyes flickered to the clipping of my mother’s obituary, the photograph I’d sent the paper of her, where her face wore that classic look of wry empathy. The look that Margot had given me by the fire.

  “I don’t need to think,” I said. “I’ll do it.”

  FORTY-EIGHT

  I closed the door after Margot and collapsed against it, one thought racing in my mind: Fuck that manipulative bitch.

  Was everything she’d done this whole time, all the intimacy she’d cultivated with me, simply so that I’d be her faithful lieutenant in her fight for more power? It wounded my pride, sure, injured the small part of me that had believed that, through my own merits, I’d made someone like her interested in someone like me. But that wasn’t why I ached with anger.

  I ached with the knowledge that, during Samhain, summoning my mother must have been an act too. Margot wanted me to see magic, so she’d put on a show. What had she done and said that had convinced me so fully? Nothing all that special. Are you keeping your promise? People made promises to their dying mothers all the time. My mother’s look. She must have studied the photograph until she got it just right. Everything else she could have found out from looking up my mom, or from Raf, when they’d spent a whole party talking about me. I’d wanted to believe she was channeling something bigger so badly that I’d made it easy for her to pull the woo
l over my eyes.

  Sure, it was tempting to just believe Margot’s big speeches, to throw myself into this new family now that she’d told me I truly belonged. But I wasn’t going to be a naive little fool again. None of what had happened over the past two months was sisterhood. The reason our magical weekend together had felt so magical was because I’d been high off my ass. Them bringing me into the inner circle wasn’t proof that they were rising above their elitism, like I’d been telling myself. I was a legacy, the most elitist choice of all. And all the magic I was just beginning to think about without rolling my eyes, that sense of possibility outside of my understanding? It wasn’t magic at all, just a puppet show with Margot pulling the strings.

  I was going to burn them all to the ground. Maybe they’d drag me down with them. But at least I’d go down in a blaze of glory.

  I texted Miles. Call me when you wake up, I wrote. I have a plan. And then I sat down at my computer and began to write.

  FORTY-NINE

  Two nights later, I paced in my living room, waiting for a knock on my door. I thought of the time, way back at the beginning of this whole saga, when I’d gone to try on clothes for Margot’s party. I’d ended up trying on a whole life, a life where a place like this was my home. But I wouldn’t be here much longer. I’d left the tags on this life the whole time, and now I had to return it.

  The knock came, quiet but firm. Miles. He had his hands in his pockets, and wore a black jacket over a dark blue shirt. “I don’t think anyone saw me in the hallway,” he said as he ducked into the living room.

  “After tonight, it won’t matter anyway.” I’d get the proof tonight, then turn in my article. When the payment came, I could stay at a cheap motel or something until I could figure out a new housing situation. Besides, Margot had promised to stop keeping tabs on me, and she couldn’t risk breaking my trust, at least not until I helped her take over the Coven.