The Grannies live across the street from the house Dad and I had to move into after Mama died because Dad says the insurance company isn’t going to give us any money. The new house is just big enough for me and Dad. It’s close to my new school, and I don’t really miss any of my old friends. Especially CeeCee Jenkins. Dad and I both agree that starting fresh is sometimes all you can do. Sometimes I wonder what it would have been like if I was part of a big family that could help take care of me and Dad, but he doesn’t have any family left and he says that Mama’s family gave up on her long ago. Too bad for them, he says, because maybe Mama was difficult when her meds weren’t working, but she was made of pure love.
Janie Knicks lives a few blocks away and says the Grannies are three witches and will cast a spell on me so I’ll grow a beak and feathers ‘til one day I’ll be a full-fledged crow. But floating through the air as a big black bird doesn’t sound any worse than having to learn long division, so I ring their doorbell and ask the Granny that appears if she’s a witch. She wears overalls and a bandana in her hair. I think she’s more likely to be painting houses than stirring up trouble over a caldron. But maybe a witch’s best weapon is her ability to hide the fact that she’s a witch. When I ask her my question, she throws back her head and cackles, true as any witch I’ve ever heard, but still, I think she’s pretending. She invites me in. It’s suppertime for the Grannies, and I worry about not being able to eat the meal Dad is fixing across the street, but eating with three maybe-witches seems too good to pass up. Plus Dad hasn’t really gotten the hang of cooking yet. Who knew there really is such a thing as too many grilled cheeses?
After I sit down at their dining room table, I worry that the Grannies might try to feed me something cruddy like bat wings or frog tongues. But the Granny that serves dinner has deep dimples in both her cheeks and she is taller than the first Granny, but her eyes are the exact same shade of blue, and I think maybe I’m safe enough. It turns out we’re having baked chicken and dumplings. I eat two helpings. They smile and tell me to eat up. Maybe they are fattening me up and plan to make me into dumplings someday. But it’s so yummy, it might be worth it.
After supper, they let me feed bits of chicken gristle to their fat black cat named Hecate, which is kind of a weird name for a cat, but she likes me well enough after that. She even follows me out to the back porch where the third Granny asks me to hop up on an old stool. She’s skinny as a tether-ball pole and it seems like every bit of her is pointy in some way, including her black boots, but she has those same blue eyes. I think she is the most witchlike of the three and the most fascinating. So I hop up and I sit there, dangling my feet, swinging them to and fro and watching her set up an easel. She says she wants to paint me because I have lovely cheekbones. I tell her I got them from my Mama. She sells her paintings in a gallery downtown. But I don’t like the idea of someone being able to buy me, and she promises me she’ll just give it to Dad.
I leave when I hear Dad out on our front lawn calling my name, but not before the dimpled Granny give me a plastic bag full of homemade cookies. They promise next time I come over to sit for my portrait, I can play dress-up with all the old clothes in their attic after. Dad comes over to apologize for me bugging them and reminds me that it’s rude to drop in on folks without calling first, but says I’m just like Mama. He doesn’t say it, but I know he means the way Mama was on her good days. Curious as a cat, friendly as a puppy, made of pure love. This comparison to Mama both pleases me and scares me at the same time, but the Grannies just beam and say I am a doll for brightening up their day, and I’m welcome to hop on over and ring their bell anytime I want.
They stand in a row waving goodbye as we cross the street, and I look back to wave too and see them smiling almost identical smiles. I think how nice it must be to have sisters to move in with when you get old, and I suddenly wish very much that I could have gotten a sister before Mama died. But I guess it is just going to be Dad and me from now on.
The next day, Janie Knicks invites me over to play video games and while we’re zapping zombies, I tell her about the Grannies. She still says they’re witches, and I should probably stay away from them if I am going to make any friends around here. I tell her that if they are witches, I hope I grow up to be a witch too. She just keeps killing zombies and when the game is done, she says maybe it’s time for me to leave, which is exactly the same thing that CeeCee Jenkins said after I got mad at her for saying Mama was most likely in hell, and I’d have to do a lot of sinning if I ever wanted to see her again.