The Book of Magic, page 17
Contere bracchia iniqui rei. Et linguia maligna subvertetur.
Franny left a folded piece of red paper in each of the four corners of the room. On all four she had written the incantation to cast away evil.
Omnis spiritus laudet dominum. Habent Moses et prophetas.
Exurgat deus et dissipentur inimici ejus.
When they had done all they could, Sally pulled up two spindly chairs so they might continue to observe Ian. The intensity of their combined gaze was daunting. Ian closed his eyes and wished he could disappear, which unfortunately was not within his abilities. Nothing seemed to be in his command, not even his damn prick, which always knew his mind before he did.
“He’s an interesting man,” Franny mused. “Certainly not average. But who wants average?”
Sally shot her aunt a curdled look. Franny knew full well that Sally had been trying to be average her whole life long. As always, Franny derided her wish. “Why on earth would you want to be normal?” she always asked. “As if there was such a thing.” Still, as a girl, Sally had chosen the most ordinary pastimes, she had even joined the Girl Scouts and gone hiking, contracting poison ivy and cursing the rocks in her shoes, miserable from the start. All the same, she had sold cookies for the Scouts with a ferociousness that surprised everyone in her troop, and was mortified when Jet bought every box, so that they had Thin Mint cookies for breakfast for nearly a year.
“You’re looking at him quite closely,” Franny noted.
“He’s supposed to help us find Kylie. I’m watching for signs of life.”
“Oh, he’s alive,” Franny said with a chuckle. “That’s certain.”
Franny had been the one to send Sally here, after all. She’d seen something in the palm of her niece’s hand in the shape of a crow. Flight and freedom in a language that some women were able to decipher. Sally, herself, had a particular affinity for birds, and could call them to her from the treetops with a whistle. As for Franny, she’d had a beloved familiar when she was young, a crow named Lewis that rarely left her side. What this cursed man had to do with crows, Franny didn’t yet understand. She recognized the meaning of several of his tattoos—the magic circle from The Book of Solomon, the triangle of elemental fire. “I’ll bet he’s gone over to the left every now and then. I wouldn’t put it past him.”
Sally threw her aunt a look. “He’s hearing every word.”
“Let him. I’m just saying he’s not an angel.” Franny assessed Ian with a gaze so direct it made most people squirm, Ian included.
“It doesn’t matter what he is. All that matters is that he’ll help us.” Sally noticed that Ian could now move his fingers and toes. She felt disoriented as she watched the afflicted man fight off the hex. As for Ian, he experienced the effects of the Draco resin, the blood returning to his limbs, his heart no longer seared with pain, his thoughts no longer fractured. He might soon be able to speak, but he was not quick to do so. Even in his weakened state, he was shrewd enough to know it was best if he bit his tongue. The old woman was a witch as well, and a clever one.
“We should question him while he’s still in this state,” Franny suggested. While he was vulnerable and might tell the truth.
“Give him a minute,” Sally suggested. “Let him catch his breath.”
He did exactly that, inhaling so deeply that he shuddered, stunned to discover how good it felt to have air fill his lungs. Breath was life and this woman Sally had returned that to him, and now he was in her debt, and they both knew it. She fixed him chamomile tea, always healing to the mind. Ian was now able to drink on his own, taking sips, and slowly he was restored. He was vain enough to be beset by real embarrassment when a tawny blond woman and a handsome older man were called in by the two witches, and more of his shabby chairs were brought into the bedroom, so that he was soon surrounded by a semicircle of strangers.
The older man was well dressed and sounded vaguely French as he explained that a girl had disappeared, the dark-haired woman’s daughter, and they feared what she might do on her own. They needed an expert in left-handed magic, and Ian had come highly recommended. The facts of Kylie’s disappearance drifted down and he did his best to comprehend, though his head was throbbing. Ian was suspicious and grateful in equal measure, which meant he kept his own counsel and didn’t reveal that most of his senses had returned to him, and could now speak if he wished to. The older man introduced each of them, but all Ian heard was the name Sally, the luminous, perpetually distressed dark-haired woman who had saved him. As Ian listened, he was reminded of a dream he was often plagued by on nights before he had to lecture in public. There he would be, calmly discussing the dichotomy between the paths of magic, white and black, right and left, only to look down and discover he was naked, with the ink on his body dissolving into blue pools, leaving him without the printed armor that protected him from evil.
“If you don’t mind, might I have some clothes?” he asked in a raw voice. His heart was still wildly pumping, fueled by his embarrassment. He and Sally regarded each other, then both quickly glanced away. Usually, he was not so modest. He went out running every day, and in hot weather often stripped off his shirt as he dodged through the streets in lightweight running shorts. Once, on a hot summer morning, when the sky was still dark, he’d pulled off his shorts as well to run naked through Hyde Park.
Sally proceeded to the closet where there were white shirts on hangers, along with a few black jackets and black jeans folded haphazardly on a shelf. Ian had so many books that even here there were piles precariously stacked. Sally took a clean shirt and a pair of jeans to leave on the bed, then they all left Ian so that he might have his privacy. Sally was already joining Vincent and Gillian in the front room, and so it was Franny who turned to close the door. Ian stood beside the bed, facing away from her, still naked. Franny paused in the threshold and looked back. A crow was inked across Ian’s wide back as if spanning the sky. It was then Franny understood the lines of Sally’s left hand. Here was the fate she would make for herself.
* * *
After a while Ian managed to join them in his parlor. His inhalations were still shallow, he was sleep-deprived and he limped, his feet burning, as if they’d been held to the fire. He continued to feel caught up in a trance, but his cloudy mind had begun to clear. Sally was distracted, checking her phone, but when he said, “Thank you, Sally. I’m fairly certain I’d be dead without you,” her eyes met his for an instant before she quickly averted her gaze. Why was it only then that he noticed the color red was everywhere? A sheen of it still smudged his hands and feet, and there were large clumsy footsteps on the carpet, as if whoever had hexed him had stepped into his own poison.
“I’ll grab the vacuum,” Gillian decided. Poison was poison and they best be rid of it.
Franny held her back. “That kind of stain won’t come out unless you use bleach. And not without gloves.”
Ian’s research among those who practiced left-handed magic caused many people to dislike him and think of him as a traitor, writing about mysteries that were best not divulged, but what had happened here went beyond that mild emotion. Whoever was behind this brutal attack had been eager to be rid of him. Ian recognized some of the materials—the figure, the bones, the madder root—as those used in an ancient curse he’d written about in The History of Magic, having found the original spell in The Voynich Manuscripts at Yale University on a research trip to New England. It was unbreakable in most cases, for the poison paralyzed the lungs and the heart as well as the mind. Someone was seriously pissed or they wanted something he had badly. Ian thought perhaps it was whoever had been breaking in, stealing his books and his notes. He hadn’t paid enough attention to that, feeling an immediate sympathy for anyone who was a thief. Now he tossed Vincent a heavy set of keys. “The cabinet is on the right. Do me a favor and check for a red book.”
As it turned out, no key was needed; the lock had already been split open, and there, on the carpet, was the rock used to do so. The cabinet was brimming with magic texts, books that carried a bitter scent most mortals loathed. Vinegar, blood, the almond scent of cyanide. As Vincent rummaged through, he came upon several books he’d never seen before, rare editions he wished he had time to study.
“Look for Rauðskinna,” Ian urged. “In ancient Icelandic. But don’t touch it.”
Vincent and Franny exchanged a look. Neither was the least bit surprised when Rauðskinna was nowhere to be found.
“Oh, fuck.” Ian got to his feet in order to take a look for himself. The text of red magic was indeed missing. “That’s what they came here for. It’s a book of curses I paid a fortune for in Iceland. Fortunately, you need a password to open it.” His notebook was still in the desk drawer with coded passwords listed. Some books refused to open without a key of some sort, a word, an element, a touch of the hand.
Sally cut him off before there was further conversation about the importance of his collection. “My daughter has gotten hold of a dangerous book. The Book of the Raven. Have you heard of it?”
Franny observed the historian. He was staring at Sally unblinking, his heart hammering against his chest. Franny could see the crow beneath his shirt when his back was turned to her. She nudged Vincent, leaning toward him to murmur, “Do you see what I see?” she asked.
“I don’t see that sort of thing anymore,” Vincent said, though it was plain as day, the emotion that must be avoided, the height of red magic, the impulse and the curse, what broke you in pieces, what you couldn’t give up even if you tried.
“I’ve heard rumors concerning a book by that name,” Ian claimed, forcing his scholarly self to take charge. “The author was a poet.” He frowned, clearly not wishing to say any more. The rumor was that Amelia Bassano had been betrayed by William Shakespeare, and that she’d had her revenge in the darkest way possible. Fortunately, her Book of Shadows was said to have been burned upon her death, as was the tradition with personal Grimoires, but perhaps the book had survived.
Annoyed, Gillian approached the historian directly. She was astonished to find she could spy his aura, when she hadn’t been capable of such magic before. His aura, however, was quite confusing; it continually changed color, first gray, then violet, then ink blue. “You have to help my sister. She saved you.”
Ian might have said many things, he might have answered as a fool, as he’d done often enough when he was young. Make me, see if you can, my life is my own, this curse has nothing to do with me, the book is only a rumor, and if it does exist, it is likely dark and unmanageable, I need time to recover, I am limping, can’t you see, there’s red powder on my hands and on my ceiling and my floor. He was a rebel and a loner and he had several important lecture dates to prepare for at which he was to discuss his book, soon to be published, twenty years of his life spent looking for magic, and now it was here, unbidden and refusing to leave.
“I intend to repay you,” he said, just as Franny would have predicted, for she had seen inside him when she spied the crow on his back and she knew his story. He stalked away, to call his lecture agent and cancel his speaking engagements. His back was to Franny again, and again she saw through him. She glanced over at Sally and wondered if she knew that crows were more intelligent than most men, and more loyal, and that you could not choose them, they must choose you, they must come to you and once they did they would never leave you, at least not of their own accord.
II.
On her next visit to the Reverend, Antonia decided to surprise him with a Chocolate Tipsy Cake. She would show him that, indeed, she could make something with care. Although she’d never baked before, she knew the recipe for the cake by heart, so last night she’d given it a try in her small kitchen, traipsing out to the nearby market to purchase dark chocolate, a sack of sugar, some fine cake flour. Antonia did her reading for her neurology class while the layers baked in battered tins, hoping for the best but not truly expecting it, glancing at the oven every once in a while just to make certain there was no smoke. She’d made the frosting out of butter and powdered sugar, cocoa, and vanilla. She knew that Jet waited for the cake to cool before frosting and waved at the tins with a dishtowel to help the process along. In the end, the layers were tilted and the frosting was too thick; she’d left out the rum, with only a splash for tradition’s sake, but it was a perfectly serviceable cake and she was rather proud of herself. She’d set the finished product on a plate jammed into the back seat of Gillian’s car, where it nearly fell onto the floor mat as she rounded a corner too quickly. At the retirement home, the admitting clerk, about to complain about the cake, was stared down by Antonia’s cool glance and no one stopped her when she made a detour into the lunchroom for a knife and two plates and forks. The Reverend was at his favorite spot by the window when Antonia arrived in his room. He was currently remembering fragments from the past he’d forgotten yesterday. How he’d loved to cut daffodils with Jet and deliver them to the cemetery, how they would sit there in lawn chairs that Jet kept for just such occasions in the trunk of her car, how they were so in sync they would not even have to talk, how they would walk past the new saplings and the old sturdy trees on the path back to the parking lot, where they would often have a lunch of egg salad sandwiches and pickles while sitting in the car before Jet brought him home. Today was one of his good days, when he could see and hear and remember. It became even better when the Owens girl came in with a cake and closed the door behind her. “I had the feeling you’d be back today,” Reverend Willard said.
“Did you?” Antonia set the cake on top of his dresser and cut two slices. “It’s my first Chocolate Tipsy Cake, so don’t judge me too harshly.”
“Who am I to judge?” The Reverend tried his best to keep an open mind, especially when it came to the Owens women.
Antonia handed him a slice of cake, then perched on the edge of the bed with her own plate and hesitantly took a bite. It might not look perfect, but it was utterly delicious.
“Yum,” they said in unison.
Antonia hadn’t stopped thinking about Ariel Hardy, and yet when Ariel’s number had flickered up on her phone, she hadn’t answered, but had instead stepped into the shower and let the water run for nearly half an hour, a surefire cure for thinking too much. “How do you know if you’re in love?” she found herself saying now as they ate their cake. Antonia felt comfortable confiding in the Reverend; she had the distinct impression that her secrets were safe with him.
“Love does as it pleases. It can’t be controlled.” The Reverend took another bite of the cake. “Almost as good as your aunt Jet’s.”
Antonia was pleased by the compliment, and perhaps that was why she confessed more than she otherwise might have. “I’ve never been in love.”
“You should try it. And don’t worry, Jet will end the curse.”
Antonia took his plate, for as it turned out Reverend Willard could only eat a few bites. She patted his arm. If he’d forgotten Jet was gone, who was she to remind him otherwise? Antonia would leave the rest of the cake for the nurses; it was always prudent to be on their good side. She had only come to visit because she was obligated and she’d been told it was a family tradition to look after the Reverend, but before she left she paused to hug him good-bye.
“I’ll see you next week,” he reminded her. “Unless I’m dead.”
With his dry humor, the old man was one of the few people who could make Antonia smile. “You’ll be alive, and I’ll be here.”
“I dream about Jet.” He knew she was gone, only he didn’t like to think about that.
“I do, too,” Antonia admitted. She now realized that in her drowning dreams, Jet was on the other side of the lake. Jet had always told Antonia and Kylie to never be afraid to be who they were. Everything you give to the world will come back to you threefold.
“I ruined her life and she forgave me.” Reverend Willard had written Jet many letters of apology and she wrote back forgiving him over and over again, notes he kept stuffed into his night-table drawer. After all this time, and scores of letters, he still hadn’t quite managed to forgive himself.
* * *
May in Boston was mild and beautiful, the good weather finally returning after that dreadful spring. The streets were emptier once the students had departed for other homes and other states, and the professors had disappeared to summer houses, but Gideon was still in his hospital room, with little change in his condition. His mother had rented an apartment on Beacon Hill in order to be at her son’s bedside every day, with his stepfather working at his law firm in New York and driving up on weekends. Gideon’s parents rarely spoke to each other, afraid of what they might say. The doctors had told them his recovery was a matter of time, but they could tell it was a matter of fate. People mended despite all odds, Antonia Owens told Mrs. Barnes when she visited. Antonia came every day, hoping that Kylie would phone Gideon’s room. In the presence of Mrs. Barnes, she was very positive and hopeful, a manner she had been practicing and perfecting in medical school. Be rational, but don’t think the truth is always the correct answer.
