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right.”
    A new thought made my cramping stomach
liquefy. Since the fire last Halloween burned down the building
where we met for Witches Anonymous, the group had been meeting at
the ice cream shop. “We can’t have the Witches Anonymous meeting
tomorrow night at the shop now.”
    “Why not?”
    “Everyone will be expecting to eat ice cream
like they always do, and we can’t serve food or beverages of any
kind until the inspector passes us again.”
    “Hades Ladies.” Keisha knew how important
the ceremony was to me, and she rallied fast. “Don’t worry. There’s
got to be somewhere else they can hold it.”
    But where? We stared at each other trying to
jog our collective memory to come up with an ideal place. It
couldn’t be too public, and we had to be able to reserve it without
telling anyone the nature of the meeting. Ex-witches typically
preferred to keep their status on the down low, hence the reason
for the anonymous part of Witches Anonymous.
    As if on cue, Father Leonard, Em and Liddy
walked into the living room. “Too crowded in there,” Father Leonard
said, motioning to the kitchen with his full mug of coffee. “Thought we’d move in here.”
    Hope flitted through me. I showed the yellow
paper to him and explained the situation. “Could we possibly use
the church?”
    He hesitated, shrugged. “Why not? Nothing
else going on tomorrow night so you’ll have your privacy, and I’m
sure God won’t mind if your counterparts don’t.”
    At least one thing was going right. I threw
my arms around him and gave him a hug. “Thank you.”
    He blushed, made a couple of garumph noises low in his throat, and overdid balancing his coffee cup
trying not to spill any. “Yes, well, uhm… you’re welcome.”
    Keisha shut off the TV and everyone huddled
around the coffee table where my favorite priest set up camp, a
definite gleam in his eye, whether from my emotional outburst or
from having an audience to share his findings with, I wasn’t
sure.
    He’d given us a rundown on the theology
behind a soul when a loud rap sounded on the door. “Amy?” a high
pitched, demanding voice called out. “Are you in there?”
    Marcia. My nemesis in Witches Anonymous. A
busybody, a know it all, and super competitive when there was no
competition, she was always looking for a way to make me look
bad.
    I glanced at Keisha for support, annoyance
twitching in my semi-empty chest cavity. “You’ve got to be kidding
me.”
    Keisha made a face, giving me her
oh-shit-what-does-she-want response. My thought exactly.
    “Amy! I can hear you talking. I know you’re
in there. Open up!”
    I motioned at Father Leonard to hide the
papers, but he gave me one of his patient, don’t-be-silly smiles. “Marsha’s a friend, Amy. She’ll want to help with this if she
can.”
    The good father had been bowled over by the
WA president from the moment he’d met her at Keisha’s winter
solstice party. The two couldn’t have been more different in
personality, but sexual attraction didn’t care. While the priest
ignored it as much as possible, Marcia was a different story. He
was off-limits, but that didn’t stop her from flooding him with her
saccharin charm and blatantly flirting with him every chance she
got. Another competition in her book? Maybe. She couldn’t stand it
that Father Leonard was my sponsor and not hers.
    Hauling myself to the door, I cracked it
open. “What do you want, Marcia?”
    She pushed the door open and brushed past me
as if I wasn’t standing there. When she spotted her crush, she
stopped and beamed. “I’m here. You can start.”
    With that she threw her coat at me and went
to sit on the couch next to her crush. He flushed, tugged at the
collar around his neck, and adjusted himself away from her ever so
slightly, and yet sat up straighter and gave her a glad-you’re-here
nod. I rolled my eyes so far back in my head they nearly got stuck. At the same time, I made a gagging sound in my throat, but no