The Book of Magic, page 10
Kylie was so agitated when she arrived that the books on the shelves responded in fear, with several flopping onto the floor in a flurry of pages.
“My goodness,” Miss Hardwick cried as Kylie stormed by, not even noticing the elderly librarian.
Miss Hardwick was relieved that she could use her plastic grabber, newly purchased at the hardware store, to reach for and retrieve the fallen volumes, delighted to think of the many ways it could be put to use. Grabbing the newspaper, grabbing for toast, grabbing that annoying teenaged boy Ryan Heller who came to the library to stir up trouble and moon over girls and who’d never in his life once withdrawn a book.
Sally was concentrating on the bills, wondering if they would have to find a way to cut back on the charges for heat and electricity, when she glanced up to see that her daughter had arrived unexpectedly, dressed, it seemed, in a raincoat and pajamas. She wondered if she had somehow fallen asleep and if this were a dream, for she often had such deep visions in her sleep, ones so real that when she woke she was confused as to which was her real life. But no, Kylie was here, her face drawn and pale. The lights above them were flickering, never a good sign.
“I need to break the curse,” Kylie said in a no-nonsense tone. She didn’t seem like herself at all. Her voice was flat and more adult. “I need to do it now.”
Two teenagers in the next room were paging through the newest graphic novels, unaware that several lights had blinked completely out. Nearby, Miss Hardwick was still intent on picking up books with her grabber.
“Got you!” Miss Hardwick said to the book she lifted off the floor. It was a copy of Grace Paley’s short stories Enormous Changes at the Last Minute.
“It’s Gideon,” Kylie said. “He’s in the hospital and I think you know why.”
Sally had the sight despite herself and now a vision flashed as if she herself had stood on Brattle Street in the pouring rain. There was the slick pavement, and the muffled sounds of speeding cars, and Gideon dashing out, grinning when he spied yellow flowers in the window of the florist shop.
“Gideon?” Sally asked. “Your friend?”
“Mother, don’t be an idiot.”
They looked at one another. Was that the way it was?
Sally felt a stab of fear. “It can’t be,” she said.
“Well, it is,” Kylie told her mother. She seemed much older than her age. All of a sudden she had revealed herself to be someone Sally hadn’t imagined her to be. A woman in love, held hostage by the curse.
“You didn’t tell us about the curse,” Kylie cried. Of course she knew they were different, some people crossed the street when the members of the Owens family passed by, but now she understood there were dark secrets that hadn’t been shared.
“I intended to.” Someday, of course, when it seemed necessary, when she was ready to break their hearts and divulge the Owens family history.
“When? At Gideon’s funeral?”
“That’s not fair.” Sally was shivering, though she wore one of Jet’s old sweaters, gray lambswool with pearl buttons, carefully stored in the bureau, wrapped in tissue with a note that read R holiday gift 1983.
“I need the book,” Kylie said.
“The book is where it always is. In the greenhouse, where it belongs.”
“You know what I mean. The Book of the Raven.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Sally truly didn’t understand.
“You don’t know anything about The Book of the Raven?” Kylie asked.
Sally piled up the bills in a messy tower, too concerned to finish her chore. “Let me close up and get my coat. We’ll have dinner, then I’ll go with you to the hospital in Boston.”
Kylie glared at her mother.
“Wait here,” Sally said.
Kylie remained where she was, unsure of what to do next. She wasn’t about to eat dinner or go to Boston with her mother. There was something here that she was meant to find.
“Oh, Jetty,” she moaned softly. “Tell me what to do.”
Kylie looked around, and when she did she finally noticed Miss Hardwick, who, due to the day of the week, was wearing a dowdy old-fashioned dress with a blue bodice, along with a bonnet made of straw and ribbon. The librarian played the part of Marmee from Little Women every Thursday at the children’s story hour and as usual she hadn’t bothered to change her clothes. People at the Black Rabbit enjoyed seeing her in her costume on Thursday evenings. “Where’s Jo?” they would call. “Amy’s been asking for you,” they would tease, which was all fine and good, for these jokers usually picked up the tab for her drink.
“I didn’t realize you were here,” Kylie said, embarrassed that Miss Hardwick had seen her outburst when she confronted her mother.
“I’m here all right, just as I was when Jet brought the book in.” Kylie looked at her openmouthed, so Miss Hardwick went on. “The one about the raven that you mentioned. Jet said it was too special to be listed in the catalogue, so she put it on the magic shelf. I’m the only one who knows where it is.”
Kylie was stopped cold. Her need for the book twisted inside her, a snake that circled her heart. That is how left-handed magic began, with a desire that matters more than anything else. “I’m the person who’s come for it.”
Miss Hardwick took a well-measured pause before she said, “I had the impression she meant Franny.” Then the librarian shrugged. The less she had to do with crotchety Franny Owens the better. “But now it seems that someone is you.”
Miss Hardwick led Kylie to the section that housed the oldest manuscripts set inside glass cases in the rear of the rare-books room. The temperature here was always set at sixty-five, with a humidity level of fifty percent, for such texts needed a cool, dark place. The library’s greatest treasure was a first-edition copy of Emily Dickinson’s poems, published in 1890, of which only five hundred copies had been printed, found by Isabelle Owens at a flea market in Pittsfield. There was also an envelope on which the poet had scrawled the beginning of a poem in her birdlike scrawl, discovered at the same used-book stall one lucky October day.
One Heart instructed to be Two—
As Lightning splits a Tree—
Can be—but No one knows
The Truth of it—
Except for Thee and me.
Harvard University had done its best to claim the scrap for its Emily Dickinson Collection, but the Owens Library had refused to hand it over. There was also a rare first edition of Wuthering Heights, the same printing that had recently sold at auction in London for six figures. To see these volumes and other treasures, a patron must have Miss Hardwick sit beside them, for she alone could turn the pages, wearing white cotton gloves. As for Emily’s scrap, the librarian visited it every day, merely to check on its well-being.
As they approached a glass case at the very rear of the room, Kylie heard something rustling, much like the wingbeats of a bird. There was a collection of magic books here, one that most of the library’s patrons never noticed. Sally had considered ridding the library of all magical texts, but Franny and Jet had insisted they stay, and so they’d remained, uncatalogued and out of the way, collected by Maria Owens’s daughter, Faith, who had traveled to New York and London in search of such volumes. Reginald Scot’s The Discoverie of Witchcraft, written in 1584, contained lists of charms and conjurations, all while trying to convince the reader that there was no such creature as a witch. Charles Godfrey Leland’s Aradia or the Gospel of the Witches, a feminist retelling of the creation story that included folk medicine and magic from Italy. The Golden Bough by Sir James George Frazer, filled with folktales, an exploration of witchcraft in the ancient world.
Kylie ran her hand along the books, but eager as she was to find the book Jet had hidden, the text escaped her.
“We made it difficult to find,” Miss Hardwick said. “It’s not for just anyone, you know.”
Miss Hardwick led Kylie to the book Jet had placed on the shelf on her seventh day when she ran out of the house to attend to the last mission of her life. The library door had been unlocked, and Jet had discovered Miss Hardwick passed out at her desk; she often fainted when a dip occurred in her blood sugar before she could leave for the Black Rabbit and have her drink and a platter of fries. She sometimes forgot to eat lunch and the results were such spells. Jet had swiftly taken hold of the Owenses’ first-aid kit, which included garlic and ginger and smelling salts.
“Can you keep a secret?” Jet had asked once Miss Hardwick had been revived.
The hour was late, and when Miss Hardwick nodded, Jet confided that she was adding a book to the library’s acquisitions and that at some point her sister might come to retrieve it. It had been there waiting ever since, a black book meant for a woman in need, ready to be found by the person who was willing to do whatever was necessary to save someone she loved. The book was filled with Black Magic, dangerous not only to the intended subject of the Dark Art, but to the practitioner as well. What you send into the world would come back to you three times over, for good or for evil. Maria Owens could not bring herself to destroy the book, written with so much care and longing, and neither could Jet.
Kylie followed Miss Hardwick down the narrow aisle, until the librarian paused. There it was, among the rarest of the rare. A slim book bound in black leather that had been tied together with knotted silk thread. The text had been shoved between two of John Hathorne’s journals, which consisted of little more than financial details. His books were so mundane they had masked the power and magic of The Book of the Raven. The text had been waiting, quite impatiently, to be selected for more than three hundred years. The prose on the thin pages of vellum had been carefully crafted in alternating red and black inks.
“It doesn’t look like much, does it?” Miss Hardwick said. “The best ones never do. I suggest you use gloves.”
“Thank you, I can take it from here,” Kylie assured the librarian as she accepted a pair of white cotton gloves.
“Good. It’s nearly five and I have to wash up and get over to the inn.” Miss Hardwick patted Kylie’s shoulder before she went to collect her teacup to rinse.
The cover of the book did indeed burn Kylie’s fingertips and she slipped on the gloves before sinking down on the floor. She sat back on her heels as she turned to the first page. There was an envelope tucked inside, another note in Jet’s familiar sloping script.
Dear One,
Do not use The Book of the Raven unless you are prepared to lose everything. This book will lead you to the end of the curse. Start in the city where it was written.
Kylie examined the frontispiece on which the author had drawn a sketch of a raven in black ink. 1615, London. When Faith Owens found the text at a market in Manhattan in the seventeenth century, she had written her name in the lower left-hand corner. The Book of the Raven by Amelia Bassano was a private journal, written for her own purposes, but she had others in mind as well, those she wished to help. Women who had no access to what they needed most in the world often turned to the left, and it was occurring once again here in the Owens Library as Kylie joined those who had walked the Crooked Path before her. It often began with women who were given away to men they didn’t love, who were too poor to make their own decisions, who lived lives they would have never chosen, who couldn’t be published but who wrote anyway, women who had been cursed, women who needed to save someone, no matter the cost. This was the dark side and to reach it a woman must take a chance, close her eyes, make the leap, do whatever must be done.
On the back of the envelope was Jet’s last thought, hastily scrawled, in a shakier hand than usual, for she’d been in a great hurry on the seventh day.
Everything worthwhile is dangerous.
Kylie slipped the book into the pocket of her raincoat. She could feel it there, as though it had a beating heart, a story written in blood. Miss Hardwick was rinsing out a teacup in the tiny kitchen when Kylie passed by. She made sure to keep her voice calm as she said her good-byes to the elderly librarian. “Thanks, Miss Hardwick,” she called. She was already making a to-do list: go to her dorm room, pack a bag, grab her passport, get to Logan Airport. “I appreciate your help,” she told the librarian. “I’m off.”
“Good night,” Miss Hardwick called back as she set the teacup to dry on the counter. “And good luck. Jet said the person who came for the book would need it.”
* * *
By the time Sally returned with her coat and her keys, Miss Hardwick was headed out the door. The light in the rare books room had been flicked off, the glass cabinets locked.
“Wait a second.” Sally glanced around. She felt a chill along her spine. “Where’s Kylie?”
The crystal beads of the chandelier above them in the entranceway swayed as a breeze came through the open door.
“Oh, she’s gone off with the book,” Miss Hardwick responded as they left together.
“Gone off?” Sally asked. “With what book?”
Miss Hardwick was in a hurry to get to the Black Rabbit Inn; five o’clock was looming, and she did like her nightly whiskey. All the same, she paused on the pavement. She’d known Sally ever since she was a child, and had always pretended not to notice when Sally checked out more books than the rules allowed. Sally had been a melancholy girl, but a sweet one, and a major reader. Little Women, The Secret Garden, all of the Edward Eager books, with Half Magic and Magic by the Lake withdrawn several times, and then, during the summer when she turned twelve, as much Jane Austen as she could get her hands on, Persuasion and Pride and Prejudice and Emma. She had always watched over her sister, who had been a wild little thing, not a huge reader, but one who had been drawn to books that seemed beyond her years, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, for instance, and Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle.
“The one that Jet put on the shelf, dear,” Miss Hardwick explained. “The Book of the Raven.”
Sally turned terribly pale upon hearing this news. She looked as if she might faint. What book was this?
“Would you like to join me for a drink?” Miss Hardwick suggested. Not only was the whiskey excellent at the Black Rabbit, but the martinis were famous for the punch they packed, and tonight the special was meat loaf, a local favorite.
“Where did that book come from?”
“Jet left it. I thought it was for Franny, but apparently not. It was in the Do not resuscitate section.” Sally looked even more puzzled. “The magic section. It was a little joke your aunt Jet and I had. If a patron took out a book from that section, they were responsible for what happened next.”
“What sort of book was it?”
Sally looked as she had when she was a girl, suspicious and intelligent, her eyes bright with worry.
“It was the sort that burned your hands as a matter of fact,” Miss Hardwick said. “Your aunt said it was a Book of Shadows and that I should stay away from it.”
Sally had gone stone-cold. A left-handed Grimoire.
They went out together and Sally, though preoccupied, returned a wave to Miss Hardwick as she walked toward the lights of the inn. The notion of a book she’d never heard of made her nervous, for she’d believed that she was aware of every volume in their collection. And yet, how much damage could one small book do? How powerful could it be? That was when Sally began to run, because she knew the answer. Words were everything, stories were more powerful than any weapon, books changed lives. She ran along the spotty pavement to Magnolia Street and when she arrived she saw that the gate was open. Gillian’s battered black and white Mini had been parked on the road at a curious angle, and Gillian, herself, was out on the porch waiting for her.
“We came when we heard about Gideon,” Gillian said. “Kylie left a message for Antonia.”
There was Antonia, up on the porch with Franny. Kylie had run off and now must be found, they all agreed that was the logical way to proceed. But Antonia noticed that her mother and aunt Gilly were stealing worried glances and speaking about the curse. Pure nonsense, was Antonia’s first thought. Seventeenth-century superstition. How could they take this seriously, although clearly they did. Antonia recalled that her mother had spoken harshly to the cousin from Maine who’d blurted out something about a curse at Jet’s funeral.
Sally had often been a distracted parent, too wrapped up in her own hurt and guilt when she lost her husbands to entirely be there for her daughters, and it had fallen upon Antonia to be the dependable one in the family. She was the serious older sister who made certain Kylie did her homework, who corrected math and science papers, and who’d suggested that Kylie apply to Harvard so they would be together in Cambridge. Antonia was the daughter who never reproached her mother, or asked for the limelight, the clever girl who did as she was told, who went to bed on time and always was at the top of her class. But as practical as Antonia was, she had a story she kept to herself. Until she’d become pregnant, sleep had eluded her, and she’d always had a problem with lucid dreams that often absorbed her wholly, seeming more real than the life she lived. To avoid dreaming she stayed up, buzzed on coffee and schoolwork, reading until all hours. When she’d first started medical school, her circadian rhythms were so off, she’d gone to a sleep clinic but had received no satisfactory answers. Since becoming pregnant, coffee was out of the question, and she’d been dreaming more all the time. If this had been any other day she would have said nothing about the disturbing dream she’d had the night before, but her sister was missing, and it was time for her to speak her mind.
“I dreamed of a death by drowning,” Antonia said after a measured pause, uncomfortable when Sally and Gillian turned to study her, both clearly nervous. “It was one of us.”
“People in our family can’t drown.” Gillian was quick to dismiss the dream. Talk of drowning was never a good idea, not in their family.
Witches don’t weep or drown or fall in love, Franny thought, and yet it happened all the time.
