The Rules of Magic

“Are you saying the curse can be broken?” For a moment, Franny felt her heart lift.

  “It hasn’t been in several hundred years, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be.”

  “I see,” Franny said moodily. Clearly, the odds weren’t on their side.

  Together, they lifted the old black cauldron to hang on a metal pole over the wood fire. Ashes floated up in a fiery mist. To the mix they added roses from the garden, lavender that had grown by the gate, herbs that would bring luck and protect against illness. Sparks flew and changed color as they rose, from yellow to blood red. Making this soap was hard work, and soon enough Franny was overheated. Sweat fell into her eyes and her skin turned slick with a sheen of salt. It seemed like a wonderful science experiment, for the ingredients must be carefully measured and added slowly so they didn’t burn. She and her aunt took turns stirring the mixture, for it required a surprising amount of strength, then poured ladles of liquid soap into wooden molds that were kept on the shelves in the potting shed. The liquid soap in the molds hardened into bars. Inside each was a dash of shimmering color, as if each contained the essence of the roses they’d added. They wrapped the bars in crinkly cellophane. As they did, Isabelle appeared younger, almost as if she were still the girl she’d been before she’d come to Magnolia Street. Franny’s own complexion was so rosy from the hours of handling the soap that drowsy bees were drawn to her, as if she were a flower they couldn’t resist. She batted them away, unafraid of their sting.

  By the time they were done the sky was filling with light. Franny felt invigorated, so fevered she slipped off her nightgown and stood there in her underwear. She could have kept at it for another twelve hours, for in truth the job had seemed more pleasure than work. She collapsed in the grass, observing the sky. A few pale clouds shone above them. Aunt Isabelle handed her a thermos of rosemary lemonade, which Franny drank in thirsty gulps. “That was fun,” Franny said.

  Isabelle was clearly pleased. She had packed up the Grimoire until it was next needed. “For us it was. It would be drudgery for most people.”

  Franny pursed her lips. She had always been a practical girl, and was one still. “I know there’s no such thing as what you say we are. It’s a fairy tale, a compilation of people’s groundless fears.”

  “I thought that, too, when I first came here.” Isabelle sat in an old lawn chair.

  “You didn’t grow up here?” Franny asked, surprised to learn that her aunt had a history that predated Magnolia Street.

  “Did you think I had no other life? That I was born in between the rows of lettuce and was an old woman from the day I could walk? Once upon a time I was young and beautiful. But that is the fairy tale, because it all passes in the blink of an eye. I lived in Boston, under lock and key, not unlike April. I didn’t know who I was until I came here to visit my aunts and learned the rules.”

  Franny felt herself flush. “What if I don’t wish to be what I am?”

  “Then you will face a life of unhappiness.”

  “Did you accept it?” Franny asked.

  She could see the regret in Isabelle’s expression. There had definitely been a before in her life.

  “Not fully. But I grew to enjoy it.”

  Jet’s initial mistake was to go to the pharmacy that day, or maybe the error was made when she sat at the counter and ordered a vanilla Coke, but disaster was definitely set in motion as soon as she began chatting to the two handsome brothers who were entranced by her as soon as they spied her. She was, without a doubt, the most beautiful girl they had ever seen. They were so utterly enchanted they followed her to the house on Magnolia Street, which they should have known well enough to avoid. Franny was sprawled in the grass, eating raspberries and reading one of Aunt Isabelle’s books on how to raise poisonous plants when she heard the rumble of voices. The cats were sunning themselves, but as soon as the strangers approached, they leapt into the shadows.

  Jet came bursting into the yard, waving at her sister, but the boys hesitated at the gate. Seventeen-year-old twins, one with brown hair, the other fair, both daring and brave. When she saw the strangers Franny grew quite pale; the freckles sprinkled across her face stood out as if they were spots of blood.

  Jet cheerfully gestured to the boys. “They’ve heard it’s dangerous to come here.”

  “It is,” Franny said to her sister. “What were you thinking?”

  The blond boy, called Jack, geared up his courage and came traipsing through some blustery raspberry bushes that pricked the hand of anyone who tried to pick their fruit. The lovestruck boys begged Jet and Franny to meet up with them that night, and frankly both girls were flattered. Jet turned to Franny and pleaded. “Why can’t we have some fun? April would.”

  “April!” Franny said. “She’s in trouble more than she’s out of it.”

  “She’s right about some things,” Jet said.

  They climbed out the attic window after midnight, then shimmied down a rain pipe. All the while, Franny thought about how Hay would laugh if he could see her sneaking out of their aunt’s house. Don’t you even check the weather report? he would have asked. Is it really worth climbing onto the roof?

  The night was indeed cloudy, with a storm brewing. It was Massachusetts weather, unpredictable and nasty with sparks of electricity skittering through the air. As they made their way down Magnolia Street, a pale drizzle had already begun to drip from the overcast sky. By the time they reached the park, buckets were falling. The girls were so drenched that when Franny wrung out her long hair, the water streamed out red. That’s when she knew they had made a mistake.

  The boys were making a mad dash through the park. Even the swans were huddled beneath the shrubbery. A clap of thunder sounded.

  “Oh, no,” Jet said, overwhelmed by the turn fate was taking.

  The sisters signaled for the boys to run back to safety, but it was now impossible to see through the sheets of rain and the boys raced onward. The sisters were at the edge of the pond when lightning struck, but even before the incandescent bolts illuminated the sky, Franny could smell sulfur. The boys were hit in an instant. They stumbled as if shot, then fell shuddering to the ground. Blue smoke rose from their fallen bodies.

  Franny pulled Jet along with her, for an alarm had been sounded and patrol cars already raced toward the green. If the sisters were present, they would surely be suspected of wrongdoing. They were Owens girls, after all, the first to be blamed for any disaster.

  They fled to Magnolia Street, then flew through the door and up the back stairs. Breathless, they sat in the attic listening to sirens. People in town said it was an accident, they said that lightning was unpredictable, and the boys had been foolish to run through the stinging rain in their Sunday clothes. But Franny knew better. It was the curse.

  They dressed in scratchy black dresses scented with mothballs they’d found in the attic but made certain to stay away from the crowd of mourners, remaining poised under some old elm trees. Jet cried, but Franny was tight-lipped; she blamed herself for what had happened. April’s point was well taken. This was what love did, even in its mildest forms, at least in their hands.

  When the girls came home sweating through their woolen dresses, Isabelle offered them advice along with glasses of lemonade flavored with verbena. “Avoid local people,” she said simply. “They’ve never understood us and they never will.”

  “That’s their problem,” Vincent commented when he overheard.

  Perhaps he was right, but from then on, the sisters rarely ventured beyond the garden. They wanted to make sure there were no more tragedies, but it was too late. People ignored Franny, with her glum expression and blood-red hair, but Jet had become a legend. The beautiful girl worth dying for. Boys came looking for her. When they saw her on the far side of the old picket fence, with her long black hair and heart-shaped mouth, they were even more ardent, despite the fate of their predecessors, or perhaps because of it. Vincent came out and threw tomatoes at them and sent them running with a snap of h
is fingers, but it didn’t matter. On one day alone, two unhinged fellows went ahead and did crazy, senseless things for the love of a girl they’d never even spoken to. One stood in front of a train barreling toward Boston to prove his mettle. Another tied iron bars to his legs and jumped into Leech Lake. Both sealed their fates.

  The sisters went directly to the attic in a state of shock once they’d heard the news. They would not eat dinner or speak to their aunt. When night fell they stole out of the attic window and climbed onto the roof. There were thousands of stars in the night sky. So this was the Owens curse. Perhaps because no one had yet figured out how to break it, it was stronger than ever. The whole world was out there, but for other people, not for them.

  “We have to be careful,” Franny told her sister.

  Jet nodded, stunned by the events of the summer.

  Then and there they made a vow never to be in love.

  Franny told Jet not to go to the funerals of the boys whose names she didn’t even know. She wasn’t responsible for other people’s illogical actions, but Jet sneaked out the window and went anyway. She stood in the tall grass, her hair tied up, her eyes rimmed with tears. She wore the black dress, though the weather was brutally hot. Her face was pale as snow. The same reverend had presided over the grave site services for all four funerals. Now Jet could hear his voice when the wind carried as he recited a quote from Cotton Mather.

  Families are the Nurseries of all Societies: and the First combinations of mankind.

  A boy in a black coat had come through the woods. He had a somber expression, and kept his hands in his pockets. Like Jet, he was overdressed for the hot summer weather.

  Wilderness is a temporary condition through which we are passing to the Promised Land.

  At first Jet thought she should run, the stranger might be another suitor, ready to do something crazy to win her love, but the tall, handsome boy was staring at the gathering, his eyes focused on the speaker. He paid her no mind.

  “That’s my father,” he said. “Reverend Willard.”

  “They killed themselves over me,” Jet blurted. “They thought they were in love with me.”

  The boy gazed at her, a serious expression in his gray-green eyes. “You had nothing to do with it. That’s not what love is.”

  “No,” Jet said thoughtfully. “It shouldn’t be.”

  “It isn’t,” the boy assured her.

  “No,” Jet said, feeling something strange come over her. She felt comforted by his calm, serious manner. “You’re right.”

  “Unable are the Loved to die, for Love is Immortality,” the boy said. When he saw the way Jet was looking at him he laughed. “I didn’t come up with that, Emily Dickinson did.”

  “I love that,” Jet said. “I love Emily Dickinson.”

  “My father doesn’t. He thinks she was depraved.”

  “That’s just wrong.” This summer Jet had become a huge admirer of the poet. “She was a truly great writer.”

  “I don’t understand many of the things my father believes. He makes no sense. For instance, he’d have my hide if he caught me talking to you.”

  “Me?”

  “You’re an Owens, aren’t you? That most certainly would not fly with him. He wishes the Owens family had disappeared long ago. Again, depraved.”

  Perhaps it was this thought that made the two edge farther into the woods for some privacy. All of a sudden their discussion felt secret and important. The light fell through the leaves in green bands. They could hear the mourners singing “Will the Circle Be Unbroken?”

  “We’re related to Hawthorne,” the boy went on, “but I’ve never been allowed to read his books. I’m grounded for life if I do. Or at least while I’m in this town, which believe me will not be long. My father has all sorts of rules.”

  “So does my mother!” Jet confided. “She says it’s for our protection.”

  The boy smiled. “I’ve heard that one.”

  He was called Levi Willard and he had big plans. He would attend divinity school, hopefully at Yale, then head to the West Coast, far from this town and his family and all their small-minded notions. By the time he’d walked Jet to Magnolia Street in the fading dusk, she knew more about him than she did most people. It was nearing the end of the summer and the crickets were calling. She suddenly realized she didn’t want the summer to end.

  “This is where you live?” Levi said when they reached the house. “I’ve never been down this street before. Funny. I thought I knew every street in town.”

  “We don’t really live here. We’re visiting for the summer. We have to go back to New York.”

  “New York?” he said. “I’ve always wanted to go.”

  “Then you should come! We can meet at the Metropolitan Museum. Right on the steps. It’s just around the corner from us.” She had already forgotten the pact she had made with her sister. Perhaps the world was open to them after all. Perhaps curses were only for those who believed in them.

  “To friendship,” he said, shaking her hand with a solemn expression.

  “To friendship,” she agreed, although for the longest time they didn’t let go of each other and she knew exactly what he was thinking—This must be fate—for that was what she was thinking as well.

  The siblings packed up their suitcases. The summer was over. It had vanished and all at once the light falling through the trees was tinged with gold and the vines by the back fence were turning scarlet, always the first in town to do so. Vincent, bored and edgy, fed up with small-town life, was eager to throw his belongings into his backpack and sling his guitar over his shoulder. He’d been itching to return to Manhattan and get his life back on track. On the morning of their departure they had an early breakfast together. Rain was pouring down, rattling the green glass windows. Now that it was time to leave, they felt surprisingly nostalgic, as if their childhoods had ended along with their summer vacation.

  Aunt Isabelle handed them their bus tickets. “You’ll have a good trip. Rain before seven, sun by eleven.” And sure enough the rain ceased while their aunt was speaking.

  When Franny finished packing and went downstairs, Isabelle was waiting for her with two fresh pots of tea. Franny grinned. She knew this was a test. It was likely Vincent and Jet had already been assessed in the same manner, but Franny had always excelled at such things. She wasn’t afraid to make a choice.

  “Let’s see what you’ll have,” their aunt said. “Courage or caution?”

  “Courage, thank you.”

  Isabelle poured a cup of an earthy fragrant mixture. “It contains all the herbs you’ve tended this summer.”

  Franny finished one cup and asked for another. As it turned out, she was desperately thirsty. Her aunt poured from the second pot.

  “Isn’t that caution?” Franny asked.

  “Oh, they’re both the same. You were never going to choose caution. But take my advice. Don’t try to hide who you are, Franny. Always keep that in mind.”

  “Or I’ll be turned into a rabbit?” Franny quipped.

  Isabelle went to embrace her favorite niece. “Or you’ll be very unhappy.”

  As they headed toward the bus station, doors and windows along the street snapped shut.

  Good riddance was whispered. Go back to where you belong.

  Jet straggled behind. She had felt at home in the garden on Magnolia Street, and even more at home whenever she met up with Levi Willard, whose very existence she kept to herself, a secret she hadn’t revealed to her brother and sister. They had the sight, but they hadn’t even bothered to look into what Jet was doing when she went out in the evenings. She said she was going to pick herbs, and they let it go at that. Their dear Jet, why would they even suspect her? Why would they guess she had learned something from Franny, and had thrown up a barrier inside her mind?

  Franny walked on ahead with Vincent, taking his arm, discussing the test with brews of tea. “What did you choose? Courage or caution?”

  “Is that even a
question?” Vincent had his guitar slung over his shoulder. He’d had more girlfriends than he could count this summer, yet didn’t feel the need to say good-bye to a single one. “Caution is for other people, Franny. Not for us.”

  They sat in the back of the bus. People avoided them, and for good reason. The Owens siblings looked grumpy and sullen in their black clothes, with their overstuffed luggage taking up a good deal of the aisle. As they sped along the Mass Pike, Franny felt homesick for Manhattan. She had tired of the attitude of the neighbors, and the unnecessary tragedies they’d witnessed. She’d missed Haylin and had all of his letters bundled at the bottom of her suitcase. Not that she was sentimental; it was purely for archival purposes, in case she should want to refer to a comment he’d made.

  In Massachusetts everything had a faint green aroma, a combination of cucumber, wisteria, dogwood, and peppermint. But the scent of the city changed every day. You never could predict what it might be. Sometimes it was a perfume of rain falling on cement, sometimes it was the crispy scent of bacon, or a sweet and sour loneliness, or curry, or coffee, and of course there were days in November that smelled of chestnuts, which meant a cold snap was sure to come.

  When the bus neared Manhattan, Franny opened the window so she could breathe in the hot, dirty air. She was still having that same dream about a black bird that spoke to her. If she hadn’t thought psychotherapy was utterly ridiculous she might have asked her father what on earth her dream might mean. Was it flight she wanted, or freedom, or simply someone who spoke her language and could therefore understand her confusing emotions?

  “Careful,” Vincent told her with a grin when he saw her moody expression. “I foresee complications of the heart.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.” Franny sniffed. “I don’t even have one.”

  “O goddess of the rational mind,” Jet intoned. “Are you made of straw?”

  Vincent took up the joke. “No. She’s made of brambles and sticks. Touch her and be scratched.”

  “I’m the Maid of Thorns,” Franny said gamely, even though she had already picked up the scent of Manhattan through the open bus window.