“You implied it was imminent. You used the word formal.”
“It could have been formal,” Dave says, with the easy confidence of someone who is completely unbothered by this line of questioning. “Potentially. If you hadn’t shown up.”
“Did anyone actually discuss voting me out?”
A pause that is slightly too long.
“Dave.”
“There was a conversation,” Dave says carefully, “about whether a strongly worded letter might be appropriate. To express concern.” He eats the rest of his biscuit. “It was a very brief conversation.”
I stare at him.
For fuck’s sake. I fell for Dave’s love of making a drama out of everything. Again. I have known this man for four years. I know he has the same energy as someone who texts you ‘can you call me, it’s urgent’ and then wants to tell you about a mildly interesting thing that happened to him at the supermarket. I know this. And yet every single time.
“You told me,” I say, with great restraint, “that I should sort out whatever I had going on and come back. You made it sound like my membership was genuinely at risk.”
“It was encouraging you,” Dave says. “Motivationally.”
“Motivationally,” I repeat in disbelief.
“You needed a push.”
“I punched my wall, Dave.”
Dave has the grace to look slightly apologetic. “That’s on you, mate. I just said there might be a vote. I didn’t say punch your wall about it.”
Morgana, I notice, is looking at the ceiling with the expression of someone who has been managing Dave for considerably longer than I have and has developed a comprehensive peace with it.
“Right,” I say. “Right. Good. Glad we cleared that up.”
“The letter would have been very strongly worded,” Dave offers. “Genuinely. We put real effort into it.”
“There was a letter?”
“A draft,” Dave says. “Celeste has a real gift for passive aggression in written form. It was impressive.”
Celeste looks pleased by this.
I open my mouth. Close it. Decide that this is simply who these people are and that I knew this when I joined and that there is something almost comforting about it, the absolute consistency of Dave being Dave in all situations and all weathers.
“You’re all terrible,” I say, with considerable warmth.
“We know,” says Dave.
I’m all out of words. A little stunned, to be honest. Hit with a feeling I only felt for the first time recently.
The surprise of being told you are wanted. Of discovering that the thing you thought you had to earn wassimply there, had been there, had been waiting for you to notice it.
I don’t know if I’ll ever get better at noticing it.
“The field in Somerset,” Morgana says, returning to her notebook.
The meeting continues. I sit in my usual spot and I listen to the discussion about the solstice and I eat one of Dave’s biscuits when he offers the packet and I feel, underneath everything, that particular quiet that comes when something you’ve been tensing against for a long time simply isn’t there anymore.
I’m a valued member of this coven.
They like me.
