The Book of Magic, page 11
“Well, this one did,” Antonia insisted.
In her dream, there had been toads in the shallows, some inky in color, others vermilion, still others a deep opalescent green. A pile of black stones was carefully arranged on the edge of the shore. The dream was a portent of what was to come, and perhaps it was best if Antonia kept its content to herself. Her mother and aunt were so distraught she couldn’t bring herself to tell them that the drowned woman in her dream had red hair.
Antonia was asked to phone Kylie and, of course, she agreed. They were as close as sisters could be, speaking every day. If Kylie were to talk to anyone it would most certainly be her sister. Antonia made her way to the farthest section of the huge garden, past the beehives. She stood beneath one of the magnolias brought to Massachusetts long ago by a lovesick man who opened his beloved’s heart by planting trees. Dusk had fallen and the sky was streaked an inky blue. The air itself seemed heavy and dark. Antonia could feel her baby moving inside her. She had thought being pregnant would be annoying, but in fact she felt comforted by the baby’s presence.
Kylie picked up on the seventh ring. “I can’t talk,” she said.
“You have to talk.” Antonia was pacing in the grass, wet droplets clinging to the hem of a maternity dress that was more of a tent. “I’m so sorry about what happened to Gideon, but I can meet you at the hospital. We can get him the best care.”
“That won’t help.” Kylie already sounded very far away. “It’s the curse.”
Antonia stopped where she was. The magnolia was blooming, and the leaves were waxy and damp. “There is no curse. Yes, we’re different, but they would have told us if there was a curse.”
“I stopped in Cambridge for my passport. I’m leaving. If I don’t break the curse, Gideon won’t come back. This family has ruined our lives. Tell them I blame them for everything that’s happened. If they had taught us magic, I might have been able to fight the curse. At least I would have known not to fall in love.”
Antonia could usually talk her sister out of anything, convincing her not to dye her hair blue or attend Yale rather than Harvard, but now she wasn’t so sure. Perhaps it was best to join in. “Tell me where you’re going,” she said. “I’ll go with you.”
“Not this time. This time I’m on my own.”
She was gone before Antonia could say another word. It was then that Antonia remembered that it was just last week that Kylie had put a red rinse in her chestnut hair. Her dream came back to her, the red-haired woman drowning. She went back to the porch where Gillian sat on the top step. Sally was pacing. She knew bad signs when she saw them. A cat in the road. A cloud in the shape of a noose. A daughter who felt betrayed by her own mother. The full moon lifting into the sky.
“She said you ruined her life,” Antonia informed her mother and aunt. “She’s left and she won’t say where she’s going. All I know is that she has her passport.”
Sally sank down on the stairs beside her sister. Here they were, in the place where they’d first learned who and what they could be. There was a ring around the rising moon, a sign of trouble to come. They’d seen it before and now it was back. Gillian might argue that the rainbow manifestation was caused by the reflection of light through ice crystals, but Sally remembered the phrase of Shakespeare’s, Something wicked this way comes, the title of a book she’d loved as a girl. On this night the sisters held hands, reaching for each other without thinking, just as they had when they first came to Massachusetts, when the world was dark and cruel and they had no idea what might await them.
Franny had slipped inside and returned with a hastily packed bag. It was the one she’d used long ago when she had gone to Paris for Vincent’s funeral. Her nieces turned toward her, her dear girls, her last chance to love someone.
“She’s gone,” Sally said in a small voice, as if the world had ended again, as it had when she and Gillian were little girls who had lost everything before they arrived on Magnolia Street.
“We need the person who can find her.” Franny held up Vincent’s letter. “Fortunately, we have him.”
Boulevard de la Madeleine. The man who could find what was lost.
Fate was what you made of it. You could make the best of it, or it would make the best of you.
The Grimoire was stowed in Franny’s bag, which made it quite heavy, but she had her trusty umbrella to lean on. Sally packed in under five minutes, then made certain to lock the door. Gillian stopped at home to retrieve her passport and let Ben know she had to leave town. Family business, by now he was used to that. As for Antonia, she was too far along in her pregnancy to travel, and so she was asked to pay a call on the Reverend once a week, for they couldn’t deny one of Jet’s last wishes. They might be gone for a while. They wouldn’t be back until they found what they were looking for.
PART TWO
The Book of Spells
I.
Vincent was waiting in the last of the pale sunlight on the Boulevard de la Madeleine. It was May and he was in the most beautiful city in the world, one he knew quite well, all the same he was anxious and had half a mind to disappear, just veer onto a crowded street and lose himself again. He had been missing for so long that he wondered if he would seem like another person entirely to his sister, if she would walk right past him, or, even worse, if she would face him straight on and be disappointed. This is who you’ve turned out to be? After all I did for you and how much I loved you, this is who you are? A lonely old man with a mongrel dog? What happened to the boy who was so brave, the one who would do anything for love?
The plane from Boston had been delayed, then the car service had made a wrong turn, but finally they were here at last, his family, dressed in black, looking as if they had arrived for a funeral, unloading their battered suitcases from the trunk of an old Peugeot. Two women in their forties, one pale, the other dark, who he assumed were the daughters of Regina, the child he’d had with April Owens, and a very old woman with red hair, waving a black umbrella at him. Could it be his sister? Impossible, he thought. Dodger raced over to greet the new arrivals, barking and wagging his tail. “Oh, hush, you foolish thing,” the old woman told the dog. It was then Vincent saw a vision of Franny as she’d been, his beautiful sister, willful as always. “Don’t just stand there!” she called to him.
When he went to embrace her, Vincent felt as if no time had passed, but it had and they stared at one another taking in all the transformations age had wrought, then laughed. Vincent was introduced to his granddaughters, which turned out to be an awkward situation; they were related by blood, yet were unknown to one another. Did they shake hands or hug? They did both, and yet there was a distance between them. Poor Sally, Vincent thought as he helped them carry in their bags. She looked shattered, but wasn’t that the Owens fate? Vincent knew what it was like to endure the curse; it twisted around you, a snake of despair, and forced you to do whatever was necessary to survive. He hoped they would forgive him for doing his best to escape it, even if it meant abandoning them. No one ever said he wasn’t single-minded; he’d been so since he was a boy, perhaps because Franny had always given in to him and protected him. Frankly, she’d babied him, and he hadn’t minded having a big sister who believed he was a gift to the world, albeit a troublesome one. Vincent knew that there was always a cost incurred to get what you wanted, and the price he’d paid was steep. He hoped his granddaughters understood there would be a bargain to be made. For whatever you did, and whatever you were yet to do, magic exacted a payment.
Agnes Durant had arranged a cold supper of salmon and asparagus. She welcomed them graciously, and her warm presence made the evening a bit less uncomfortable. Sally and Gillian had never fully understood Vincent’s relationship to their grandmother, April Owens, only that they were distant cousins, several times removed. When the sisters were young, their grandmother told them that Vincent was the most difficult man she’d ever met, and the most compelling. It was before he knew who he was. I always knew, but I wanted him anyway.
If not for Agnes’s charm and her ability to keep a conversation going even among the most dour guests, Sally and Gillian might have simply stared at Vincent, for how could one present a lifetime over a single dinner? Tell me about yourself. I am brokenhearted, I’ve lost my daughter, I’m no longer young, I was wild and I paid a price, I’m a woman who is afraid of magic and of the future and of this very moment. Instead, when asked how they were faring, both Gillian and Sally replied, Fine.
Franny and Agnes had last seen each other nearly sixty years earlier, at Vincent’s false funeral, but oddly Agnes looked no different. She was as elegant as always, and she seemed years younger than her age, miraculously so. Franny leaned over to whisper to Vincent. Hadn’t Madame Durant been in her fifties when Franny came to Paris for Vincent’s funeral? Wouldn’t that make her over a hundred now?
“It’s her bloodline,” Vincent confided. “The Durants don’t age.”
Sally, who was unable to eat dinner, pushed her gold-rimmed plate away. The silverware was intricate and heavy, though it was tarnished, the silver turning black in the hands of a witch. It was all well and good to have polite conversation concerning the architecture of the house and the length of the flight from Boston, but Sally didn’t wish for small talk any more than she wished for food. She had more pressing issues on her mind.
“You say you’re a finder?” she asked this new grandfather of hers, the edge of suspicion in her tone.
Vincent shrugged, not wanting to praise himself too highly. “I’ve had the ability on occasion.”
“I hope so,” Gillian said. “We’ve come across the ocean to see you for that reason. I hope it wasn’t for nothing.”
Franny glared at her niece. “Of course it isn’t for nothing. It’s a talent of his. One of many.”
“You have your own talents,” Vincent reminded her.
Sally was quick to interrupt their mutual admiration. “Shall we begin the search tonight?”
It was not a question really, but rather a demand. She couldn’t quite think of Vincent as family, though he had the gray eyes the Owenses were known for and seemed oddly familiar, perhaps because she’d seen his face in news articles about musicians who had died too young to fulfill their promise. He had that one song their mother, Regina, had played over and over again when she thought her children were asleep.
“We should begin immediately,” Vincent agreed. “Night is best.”
They would proceed to Amulette for the ingredients that were needed. A light rain was falling and Agnes lent her visitors umbrellas and raincoats. “Don’t go over to the other side,” she cheerfully warned Sally and Gillian as she bid them good-bye.
“Unlikely,” Sally said flatly. The left-handed side of magic and its Crooked Path would never appeal to her. She had avoided magic her whole life long and always proceeded with logic.
But people often did the unexpected and left-handed magic was very tempting, even for those convinced they couldn’t be corrupted. It was a way to get what you wanted, and in return all one must do was dispose of both empathy and compassion, bothersome and unnecessary elements when walking the path. Was that really so high a price in exchange for your heart’s desire? For those whose own needs and desires came first, the trade could easily seem worth the price. Still, once you had what you wanted, left-handed magic took everything else in return. You didn’t even realize that you’d been burned until you looked down to discover you had been turned to ash.
* * *
They went on foot, through the gardens of the Tuileries, down the stairs leading to the riverbank. In the dimming light Franny had thrown up a cloak of protection to ensure that no one would notice them. This was a private business, after all. The dog, Dodger, was happy to be unleashed as he bounded down to the river, yipping with joy. Franny, on the other hand, had her troubles. Her knee. Her hip. Her condition had been improved with her own salves, yet she was still unable to keep up with the others, which was quite annoying. She had her umbrella to lean on, all the same she took the stairs slowly and Vincent hated to see that.
“I’m old,” Franny reminded him when she noticed his bleak expression. “But it’s still me in here. So be careful.”
Vincent laughed, then offered his arm so that Franny could link her arm through his. He assisted her while acting as if he was merely walking at a slower pace for his own comfort. He remembered that Franny had never liked to ask for help, and that certainly hadn’t changed. They took the staircase back up from the river path near the Île de la Cité, slowly yet again, then crossed to the Left Bank. It was after hours for the other shops on the street, but there were no set hours for what they needed. The sky was still overcast, and if you had the sight it was possible to feel those who had walked through the streets at night, who had lost those they loved during other dark springs.
“What are we willing to do?” Vincent asked as they neared their destination.
“Anything.” Franny shrugged. “Everything.”
Sally and Gillian were ahead of them and although Gillian was busy raising questions about Vincent’s abilities, Sally took note of Amulette right away. The book in the darkened window. The sign above the door written in pale red ink that to her looked gray. She stopped at the threshold, where the ivy with its black edges had to be trimmed back each and every day. Vincent noticed that Sally had the sight and was impressed. Most had to traverse this street several times before spying Amulette.
“Sally has the gift, but she’s never wanted it. You’d know that if you knew her.” Franny was not about to reprimand him, still she carried a measure of hurt over his disappearance “You missed a lot.”
“I had a lot,” Vincent responded.
Franny understood. William. She thought of how happy Vincent had been when he’d first fallen in love, how they’d sat in the small garden on Greenwich Avenue for hours discussing William, and his attributes—smart, loyal, no bullshit—all possessed by one beautiful man. “That you did,” she agreed.
Amulette was shuttered, but when Vincent pressed the bell beneath the ivy, the door opened, and they were briskly ushered inside. It was the proprietor who greeted them at this hour of the night and he quickly supplied the ingredients Vincent asked for: rosemary for remembrance, elm to connect with the inner voice, red chestnut for guidance, walnut to free them from shadows and trauma, mandrake to open the door to the other side. All these were burned in a brass dish. A block of wax held over the heat and softened into human shape.
“Can I have something that belongs to the girl?” Vincent asked.
For an instant Sally panicked, but Gillian whispered, “You have the ribbons.”
In her bag, Sally carried two blue ribbons she had always tied around her daughters’ wrists when they were mere babies. She looked through her wallet and found them. “I’m not sure which is Kylie’s,” she told Vincent.
He closed his eyes and took the first ribbon. “This one.” He tied the thread around the wax figure which was placed in the dish with the herbs where it melted. “Do you have an atlas?” he asked the proprietor. A worn leather tome was brought down from an overstuffed shelf.
“This is the book that will tell us where she is,” Vincent assured Sally.
Who is lost can be found. Who is found can be repaired. Who is repaired can be lost. Who is lost can be found once more.
He needed an amulet, but nothing in the glass case called out to him. He knew that his granddaughters were watching him with critical expressions. He was good at this, he’d been a finder ever since he made his way to Greenwich Village when he discovered who he was, and yet now he was unsure of himself. He hadn’t used any of his skills for years, perhaps he’d lost those talents Franny had spoken of.
Franny knew what he was thinking. “Go on,” she said with complete confidence in him.
It was then that he thought of the key Jet had sent. He lifted off the chain on which it had been strung, then opened the atlas and let the book fall open where it may. A map of seventeenth-century Europe was sketched in shades of red and black. When Vincent held the key on its chain over the page, it began to swing back and forth, faster and faster, until it spun in a circle. By the time it stopped on the correct location, the room had grown so cold that beneath the black drapes the windows were frosted with ice.
“London,” Vincent said. “That’s where she is.”
It was said that there were two triangles in the world that contained the strongest magic. The White Triangle that included Lyons, Turin, and Prague, and the Black Triangle, containing San Francisco, Turin, and London. Franny and Vincent looked displeased, for reasons neither Sally nor Gillian understood. But the clerk at Amulette was aware of what the meaning of the finding was. He gave Vincent the card of a professor in London and assured them this fellow, Ian Wright, had been working in the field for decades and was well regarded for his scholarship.
“Working in what field?” Gillian asked, confused.
As the clerk closed the atlas ash speckled his hands, and he quickly took up a small tea towel to wipe off the black residue. The Dark Art left a stain that was wise to quickly clean up. That was when Sally and Gillian knew. It was the Crooked Path. Kylie was being drawn to the left-handed side.
No one spoke as they left the store. Vincent looped the key around his neck once more. He could feel it there, a quickened pulse. For the first time in a long time he felt as if anything could happen. Because they would travel on this night, he insisted they take a taxi back to Boulevard de la Madeleine rather than walk.
Franny gave him a look and said, “I’m quite fit.”
“It’s for me, dear,” Vincent said, so small a lie it didn’t even burn his tongue. “I’m exhausted.”
“I Walk at Night” was playing on the radio when they got into the taxi. The driver was singing along in muddy English. Vincent was embarrassed to hear himself, but Franny patted her brother’s back. “So beautiful,” she said proudly. “No wonder they still play it.”
