A Hard Witching by Jacqueline Baker

things. He crossed the narrow kitchen and reached for two plain bar glasses from the shelf, then exchanged them for tall, clear mugs ringed with yellow sunflowers. He looked back at his mother. Would she say something about that?
    “Dinner’ll be ready soon,” she said. Owen looked at the clock. It was after three. “Take some crackers if you’re hungry,” she added, “but use a paper plate, not the good patterned ones.”
    Owen took two pitchers from the refrigerator, poured both mugs almost full of Tang and filled the Windex bottle with cold water.
    “Who’s that for?” his mother asked, standing up and, almost in one motion, leaning into a chair. “Oh, my back. Sweetie, come and rub right here. Who’s the Tang for?”
    Owen dug his thumbs under his mother’s shoulder blades. He could tell by her voice she was having a bad day. That was what she called them, her bad days.
    “Just a friend.”
    “What friend?”
    “Lucy.”
    “Lucy Satterley?” She frowned over her shoulder. “Lower, sweetie.”
    He shifted his hands down his mother’s back, noticed a pinched red welt where the elastic of her top dug into her flesh. There seemed to be a lot of people his mother didn’t want him to talk to. He hoped she would not say he couldn’t talk to Lucy.
    “You’d think I was eighty the way my back hurts. That’s what a pregnancy’ll do to you. That and worse. A bit to the right. The right.”
    Owen shifted his hands again, noticed some dirt under his fingernails, not much.
    “With you, I couldn’t hardly do nothing. Just lie around all day. Watch TV. Sometimes I’d do the hide-a-words, but …” She waved her hand.
    Through the screen door, they could hear a dog begin to bark down the alley. Fletcher’s dog, Boone. She never barked as if she was angry or excited. She just barked. It was something to do. Owen knew it would likely last all afternoon, perfectly measured, like the ticking of a clock.
    Owen’s mother raised her head, pushed her hair back from her forehead.
    “Damn dog,” she said.
    Owen paused to flex his fingers.
    “What did you say Lucy Satterley’s doing here? Did her mom send her?”
    “No,” Owen said. “I was just talking to her. Over the wall.”
    “Oh.” She straightened her shoulders, rolled her neck. “That’s enough, sweetie. Those Satterleys,” she said. “June borrowed my good cake pan last spring.” She picked a piece of dried grass from Owen’s pants. “Probably never see that again.” She stood, rolling the grass between her fingertips. “Owen,” she said after a moment, “how old is Lucy anyway?”Owen took the plastic ice cube tray from the freezer, twisted it and pried out the cubes with his fingers.
    “Must be in junior high now,” she said. She stood there at the sink, lips pursed as if calculating. “Is she in junior high, Owen?”
    “I dunno.” He plunked two cubes in each glass and returned the tray to the freezer.
    “Owen …” she said.
    Owen paused, one hand on the freezer.
    “You should put the ice in first,” she said. “You splashed all over the counter.” She stared at him a moment, then turned away, sighed. “Looks like rain.” She tapped her fingernails on the counter, staring out the screen door.
    It was what she always said. It was what everyone said. It would look as if rain was coming, but the clouds would just slide by. “Probably not,” Owen said.
    “No.” She smiled a little. “Probably not.”
    Past her, he could see the roof of the school and beyond that, the tall black peak of St. Joseph’s. He wondered whether Lucy had waited. His mother sighed again and knelt down by the MACtac. He could feel her watching as he filled a plate with graham crackers.
    “You should put that on a tray, Owen,” she said. “There’s one in that box of kitchen stuff downstairs. The first one, I think, the big one.”
    He did not want a tray, but he was not willing to say this. He wanted to get back outside. What if she’d already