Saira jogged down the dirt path through the Giant City State Park, feet hitting the ground in time with the instrumental track playing through her headphones, eyes fixed on the trees ahead, hair safely concealed within her sport hijab. She loved running in the forest, alone, even if she could only find time for twenty minutes a day during the commute back from classes. For those twenty minutes she existed alone in the world, just her feet, the hard-packed trail, and the music.

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Katherine emerged from the den, copies of the ritual in hand, one for each of the women who’d forgotten to print up and bring their own despite having been reminded in emails the night before. She handed one to Sharon and put the other in front of where Amy would be sitting. The third, her original, she set in the music stand she’d be reading from.“Okay, I’ve highlighted your lines in pink, Sharon, and yours in Green, Amy. Mine are blue.”

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Jayden sat under the maple tree with Logan and Pete during recess, as was customary, idly picking up seeds and rubbing the fibrous matter between his fingertips. Logan was stripping them down to crush the waxy green centers between his fingertips, and Pete was idly flinging them into the air to send them helicoptering away. None of the three spoke, but all watched the domed jungle gym where the girls were perching and hanging like a murder of crows, Veronica conspicuous in her absence.

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Cops made Eric nervous, even though it’d been decades since he’d broken the law. Days if you counted pot, which Eric didn’t. Sheriff Martinez and Deputy Anderson were pretty laid back about that stuff, though, as long as you didn’t make it obvious. Still, cops were cops, and the station’s interview room wasn’t very inviting. Everything was too… squared away. Too orderly. The natural world left comfortable room for chaos, as Eric would tell the kids, so order at this level was unnatural.

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The Murphysboro Ladies’ Book Club had become a coven so gradually that at first nobody had noticed.

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