A Special Place for Women, Laura Hankin [brene brown rising strong .txt] 📗

“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