The Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman (2)

The most glorious hour in Manhattan was when twilight fell in sheets across the Great Lawn. Bands of blue turned darker by the moment as the last of the pale light filtered through the boughs of cherry trees and black locusts. In October, the meadows turned gold; the vines were twists of yellow and red. But the park was more and more crime-ridden. The Owens siblings had ridden their bikes on the paths without adult supervision when they were five and six and seven; now children were forbidden to go past the gates after nightfall. There were muggings and assaults; desperate men who had nowhere else to go slept on the green benches and under the yews.

Yet to Franny, Central Park continued to be a great and wondrous universe, a science lab that was right down the street from their house. There were secret places near Azalea Pond where so many caterpillars wound cocoons in the spring that entire locust groves came alive in a single night with clouds of newly hatched Mourning Cloak butterflies. In autumn, huge flocks of migrating birds passed over, alighting in the trees to rest overnight as they traveled to Mexico or South America. Most of all, Franny loved the muddy Ramble, the wildest, most remote section of the park. In this overgrown jumble of woods and bogs there were white-tailed mice and owls. Birds stirred in the thickets, all of them drawn to her as she walked by. On a single day waves of thirty different sorts of warblers might drift above the park. Loons, cormorants, herons, blue jays, kestrels, vultures, swans, mallards, ducks, six varieties of woodpeckers, nighthawks, chimney swifts, ruby-throated hummingbirds, and hundreds more were either migrating flyovers or year-round residents. Once Franny had come upon a blue heron, nearly as tall as she. It walked right over to her, unafraid, while her own heart was pounding. She stayed still, trying her best to barely breathe as it came to rest its head against her cheek. She cried when it had flown away, like a beautiful blue kite. She, who prided herself on her tough exterior, could always be undone by the beauty of flight.

Near the Ramble was the Alchemy Tree, an ancient oak hidden in a glen few park goers ever glimpsed, a gigantic twisted specimen whose roots grew up from the ground in knotty bumps. The tree was said to be five hundred years old, there long before teams of workers turned what had been an empty marshland into the groomed playground imagined by Frederick Law Olmsted in 1858, giving the city a form of nature more natural than the very thing it imitated. It was here, one chilly night, that the sisters dared to unearth the abilities they had inherited. It was Samhain, the last night in October, All Hallows’ Eve, the night when one season ended and another began.

Their parents were out at a costume party, having dressed as Sigmund Freud and Marilyn Monroe. It was a night of festivity, and troops of children were scattered along the city streets. Two out of three little girls were witches with tilted black hats and rustling capes. Halloween in New York City always smelled like candy corn and bonfires. Jet and Franny cut across the park to meet Vincent after his guitar lesson. As they were early, there was time to sit on the damp grass. The summer had started them thinking: If they were not like everyone else, who, then, were they? Lately they’d been itching to know what they were capable of. They had never tried to combine whatever talents they might have.

“Just this once,” Jet said. “Let’s see what happens. We can try something simple. A wish. One each. Let’s see if we can make it be.”

Franny gave her sister a discouraging look. The last time she had said Just this once, two boys had been struck by lightning. Franny was definitely picking up something; Jet had an ulterior motive. There was something she desperately wanted. If there was ever a time to make a wish, it was now.

“We can find out what Mother has been hiding from us,” Jet suggested. “See what we’re really able to do.”

If there was a way to get Franny involved, it was suggesting an attempt to prove their mother wrong. They joined hands and right away the air around them grew heavy and dense. Franny repeated a phrase she had overheard Aunt Isabelle recite when one of her clients had asked for a wish to be fulfilled.

We ask for this and nothing more. We ask once and will ask no more.

A soft fog rose from the ground and the birds in the thickets stopped singing. This was it. Something was beginning. They looked at each other and decided they would try.

“One wish apiece,” Franny whispered. “And nothing major. No world peace or the end of poverty. We wouldn’t want to push it over the limit and have some sort of rebound that does the opposite of the wish.”

Jet nodded. She made her wish right away, eyes closed, breathing slowed. She was in a trance of desire and magic. Her face was flushed and hot. As for Franny, she wanted what she most often experienced in her dreams. To be among the birds. She preferred them to most human beings, their grace, their distance from the earth, their great beauty. Perhaps that was why they always came to her. In some way, she spoke their language.

After a few minutes, when it seemed nothing would happen and the air was still so heavy Franny’s eyes had begun to close, Jet tugged on her sister’s arm.

“Look up.”

There on a low branch of the tree sat a huge crow.

“Was that your wish?” Jet whispered, surprised.

“More or less,” Franny whispered back.

“Of all the things in the world, a bird?”

“I suppose so.”

“It is definitely studying you.”

Franny stood up, took a deep breath, then lifted her arms in the air. As she did a cold wind gusted. The crow swooped off its branch and came to her just as the sparrow had in their aunt Isabelle’s house, as the heron had walked to her, as birds in the park were drawn to her from their nests in the thickets. This time, however, Franny was caught off guard by the sheer weight of the bird and by the way it looked at her, as if they knew each other. She could swear she could hear a voice echo from within its beating breast. I will never leave unless you send me away.

She fainted right then and there in the grass.

Vincent had begun to go downtown on a regular basis, most often headed for a bar on Christopher Street that he knew served minors, a rough, ratty tavern called the Jester frequented by depressed NYU students who drank themselves into oblivion before staggering back to their dormitory rooms. Ever since coming home, he’d been running away from himself, and drink was one way to do that. There were pockets of magic in some of the tavern’s booths, where plans had been hatched long ago. It was a good place to have a mug of ale and disappear.

Occasionally he saw a glimmer of himself in the mirror above the bar, and then he would slink down in the booth. He wasn’t ready to see who he was. In The Magus there was a forgetting spell, which he cast upon himself. Still, he must have recited it incorrectly because he felt a spark of his true self when he was walking through the park at night. He heard his own heartbeat then and felt a quickening in his blood. He wondered what it might be like to open the door to a different life, one in which he did not hide in taverns or walk in the dark.

Now, as he crossed the Ramble, he was shocked to see Franny lying on the ground, her face a ghostly white. She had been revived, but was still prone, her head spinning.

“I’m fine,” she insisted when Vincent raced over. “I’m perfectly okay.”

She had been overwhelmed by the intensity of the crow’s intentions. In an instant he made it clear, he was hers. She who had no heart, the Maid of Thorns, was now beloved by a common crow, and if the truth be told, she was thrilled to be in contact with such an amazing creature. Was this what a familiar was? A being that knew you better than any human ever would?

There was a cawing from above. Vincent took note of the way the bird appeared to be guarding his sister. “Looks like you’ve got yourself a pet.”

“I would never have a pet,” Franny said. “I don’t believe in them.”

“What were you two doing?” Vincent asked, for he had the sense he’d been left out of something rather important. The air still felt sticky and damp and it smelled sweet.

“Nothing,” Franny and Jet said at the same time.

“Right.” Vincent grinned. Their dual denial was a dead giveaway.

“We wanted to see what we could do if we combined our efforts,” Franny said.

“And this was the result?” Vincent said. “A bird? Really you should have waited for me. I would have come up with something far better. A million dollars. A private plane.”

“We wanted simple,” Franny said.

The three began walking up Cedar Hill behind the Metropolitan Museum. Milkweed was growing wild even though Fifth Avenue was on the other side of the museum. It was possible to see hummingbirds here in the summer if you lay on your back in the grass and remained perfectly still.

“Whatever we did it didn’t quite work out,” Franny admitted. “I asked for flight.”

“You have to know how to ask for things,” Vincent told her. “The Magus says always be specific.”

When they reached Fifth Avenue, Jet stopped in her tracks. Even though the night was dark she could see what was before her. Her wish was entirely whole and absolutely perfect. She knew how to ask and had been very specific: Send me my true love. It was simple and there was no way for it to be misunderstood, and now there was Levi Willard, sitting on the steps of the museum. He was so handsome, it made no difference that he was wearing a threadbare black suit, a skinny black tie, and a scuffed pair of black shoes.

“Jet,” Franny said. “Are you all right?”

Jet had stopped breathing, but only for a moment “That’s him,” she said. “My wish.”

Franny spied the boy on the steps. When he stood to wave she narrowed her eyes. “Seriously? Him? What about the curse?”

“I don’t care.”

“Maybe you should,” Franny said, thinking of all the funerals Jet had attended.

Jet took hold of her sister. “You have to cover for me.”

Franny looked at the boy on the steps and pursed her lips. “This might be too much for you,” she told her sister. “Sneaking into the house? Dealing with Mother if she does find out? And isn’t this what we said we’d stay away from? We made a vow.”

“Franny, please. I know I can do it. Isabelle tested me with the tea, too,” Jet said. “Did you think it was just you?”

Surprised, Franny asked, “Caution or courage?”

Jet smiled her beautiful smile. “Do you even have to ask? Who wouldn’t choose courage?”

“Go,” Franny said. “Before I change my mind.”

Vincent stood with his hands in his pockets, puzzled, as Jet ran down Fifth Avenue.

“What did I miss?” he asked.

“Jet’s been keeping secrets.”

“Has she? Our Jet? Didn’t she choose caution?”

“Apparently not,” Franny said.

“Is this our Jet who never breaks a rule?”

They both thought it over. Jet was something of a mystery.

“And who’s he?” Vincent asked.

“I believe he’s her date.”

“Him? He looks like a funeral director.”

“It’s him, all right,” Franny said. “He’s the one.”

In the morning, they knew they were in trouble. Vincent and Franny were awakened early, summoned to the kitchen, where their parents awaited. Their mother and father were at the table, two cups of black coffee set out before them, bleary-eyed and grim, having been up all night. It was difficult to take them seriously, for they were still in their costumes. Sigmund and Marilyn. Their mother was smoking a cigarette even though she had quit several months earlier.

“Whatever it was,” Vincent was quick to say, “we didn’t do it.”

“Do you or do you not know where your sister is?” their father fumed.

Vincent and Franny exchanged a glance. Jet was missing?

“And what is this?” their mother asked.

There was a pool of melting butter in the butter dish, a sign that someone in the house was in love.

“Don’t look at me,” Vincent said.

“It’s nonsense anyway,” Franny added.

“Is it?” Susanna said.

“We’ve let you run riot for too long,” their father went on. “That trip to Massachusetts never should have happened. What a mistake!” He turned to their mother. “I told you it was a matter of genetics, and once again I was proven correct.”

“Shouldn’t we call the police?” Franny was thinking of the boy in the black suit. She didn’t even know his name or where on earth he and Jet had disappeared to.

“The police?” Susanna said. “The last thing we want is to bring in the authorities. No. Your father is the one who deals with abnormalities.”

Disgusted by his parents’ reaction, Vincent began pulling on his boots in order to go look for his sister. “Jet is missing and that’s all you have to say? That we’re not normal?”

“That’s not what I said!” their mother insisted.

“It’s exactly what you said,” Franny remarked with a dark look. She went to collect her jacket so she might join Vincent in the search. Of course she blamed herself. She should never have agreed to cover for Jet. She’d gone so far as to stuff pillows under her sister’s quilt so it would appear she was home sleeping should their mother check in.

“Do not leave this house!” Dr. Burke-Owens demanded. “We’re already down one.”

Vincent and Franny ignored his command and went to the door. When it was thrown open, however, there was Jet on the threshold, hair in tangles, clearly out of breath, holding her shoes in her hand.

“You’re alive,” Vincent said. “That’s good.”

“You do realize that ‘Cover for me’ does not mean ‘I’ll stay out all night,’ ” Franny hissed. Now that Jet was safe and sound Franny could allow herself to be furious.

“We lost track of time,” Jet explained. “We were everywhere. Places I’ve never been to before even though I’ve lived here all my life. The Empire State Building. The ferry around Manhattan. Afterward we walked along the Hudson until we wound up at a diner on Forty-Third Street. He’d never had a bagel before! He’d never heard of lox! Next time he wants to have Chinese food.”

“You didn’t notice when the sun came up?” Franny said, no longer as angry.

“I swear I didn’t. Everything just happened.”

Vincent and Franny exchanged a look. This was the way people spoke when they fell in love.

“We don’t even know who he is,” Franny said. “He could have been a murderer.”

“He is not a murderer! His father is a reverend and he’s applying to Yale. I met him over the summer, when we were visiting Aunt Isabelle. Yesterday he happened to be at a national youth club meeting at Queens College. He said that he suddenly found himself thinking about me right there in Queens, in the middle of everything, and he couldn’t stop. So he got on a subway. And then he just appeared.”

“He sounds fascinating,” Vincent said drily.

“Well, he is!” Jet said, her facing flushing with emotion. “He wants to do good in the world and make a difference and I find that fascinating!”

Their mother had come into the hallway, the color drained from her face. She’d overheard just enough to cause her to panic. “Who were you with?”

“I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to be this late.”

“You were with some boy! What is his name?”

Jet had the sense that she should lie, but it wasn’t in her nature. She turned quite pale as she said, “Levi Willard.”

To everyone’s great shock Susanna slapped Jet, hard so that her head hit against the wall. Their mother had never before raised a hand to any of them. She didn’t even believe in it.

“Mother!” Franny cried.

“Your father is in the kitchen and I don’t want him to hear a word of this. Don’t you ever see that individual again, Jet. Do you understand me?”

Jet nodded. There were bright tears in her eyes.

“I will send you away to boarding school if I ever find out you’ve disobeyed me. It will happen so fast you won’t have time to pack a suitcase.”

“What’s the big deal?” Vincent said. “She lost track of time.”

“Just do as I say. And for now, you’re all grounded. And understand this, just because you can love someone, doesn’t mean they won’t be destroyed.”

“But you’re married,” Jet said, confused.

“I gave up love for a normal life,” Susanna said. “That’s all I ever wanted for you.”

“You never loved our father?” Franny asked.

“Can’t you tell?” Vincent threw in.

“Of course I love your father. Don’t misunderstand me. I’m just not in love, which has saved us both in ways you can’t imagine. I recommend you do the same. We are not like other people, that much is true. It has to do with our history, and if you’re lucky you’ll never know any more than that.”

“I already do,” Franny dared to say. “I spent a great deal of time in the library when we were at Aunt Isabelle’s.”

“Some things should be left alone,” Susanna told Franny. “You won’t be going back to Isabelle’s or to that library.” She turned to Jet. “And you stay away from that boy. Do you hear me?”

“Yes. I hear you.” Jet’s eyes were raised to meet her mother’s. She appeared to acquiesce, but her expression was cool. “Loud and clear,” she said.

Their father called to them. “May I ask what is going on here?”

They exchanged a look, agreeing it was best to keep him in the dark, but they all trooped into the kitchen.

“Well, hallelujah,” he said when he saw Jet. “One problem solved and another begun.” He gestured to a crow tapping on the window, clearly wishing to be let in.

Franny went to unlatch the lock and push up on the window frame. “There you are.” She was actually delighted to see him.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake, Franny, must you have creatures around?” their mother said.

“Yes, I must.” The crow flapped inside and made himself comfortable on a curtain rod.

When they went to their room, the crow flapping after them, Jet was despondent. “She’s never loved our father.”

“She loves him,” Franny said as she made a nest out of a sweater atop her bureau. “Just in her way.”

Jet got into bed and pulled up the covers.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Franny said, getting into bed beside her. “Tell all.”

“Mother hates Levi and she doesn’t even know him. I think she hates me, too.”

“We don’t have to listen to her,” Franny said. “Or be like her. She definitely would have chosen caution.”

Jet closed her eyes. “I won’t listen to her.”

They lay there side by side, defiant, convinced that, if there were curses, then there must also be cures for every mortal plight.

In November, April Owens came to New York, having told her exasperated parents that she’d been invited to visit her cousins, which was far from true. She had already spent what should have been her first freshman semester of college working in a coffee shop in the North End. She had been accepted to MIT, delighting her stupefied parents, who had no idea she was so intelligent, but had deferred because she felt she had other things to attend to. It was too exciting a time to be tied down to school. On the eighth of the month, Senator Kennedy from Massachusetts had won in the closest presidential election since 1916. Hatless and handsome, he had given people faith in the future when he gave his acceptance speech. I can assure you that every degree of mind and spirit that I possess will be devoted to the long-range interests of the United States and of the cause of freedom around the world.

April came directly to the Owenses’ town house. She had a packet of lavender in her pocket, for luck.

“Look who’s here!” Susanna Owens tried to sound cheerful when she opened the door, but her pose was a flop. In fact, she looked panic-stricken at the mere sight of her niece. She most certainly didn’t want the responsibility of overseeing this difficult girl, whose influence might lead her children to the brink.

As for April, she was unreadable as she slipped inside the house, a Cheshire cat who had arrived with a single suitcase. She looked younger than she had in the summer, her white-blond hair pulled into one long braid, her face free from makeup. She was dressed in black, with knee high lace-up boots.

“Surprise, surprise,” April said. She turned to Jet, whom she considered a pal. “Although I’ll bet you knew I’d be here.”

The family turned to Jet. “What is that supposed to mean?” Dr. Burke-Owens said, always looking for a neurosis to pin down. “Are you and April in cahoots?”

“It doesn’t mean a thing,” Jet said, doing her best to skirt the issue. When she and April exchanged glances, she was glad she’d said nothing and was stunned to read her cousin’s thoughts. April did have something of a cluttered mind. Certainly, it couldn’t be this.

“You can read me like a book,” April assured her cousin. “You know why I’m here.”

“Jet?” Susanna said with alarm. Since the incident with that boy, she had taken to checking her daughters’ room every night, and she made sure to pick up the extension should Jet receive a phone call—which only caused Jet to be very adept at quickly hanging up.

Now Jet gazed at the floor and refused to respond. She never divulged privileged information, hers or anyone else’s, though she knew why April had come. If their cousin wished to make a scene, so be it.

“It’s silence, is it?” Susanna said. “Well, then April can stay the night but she’ll leave in the morning.”

“You’re kicking me out? Just like that?” April shook her head in disbelief.

“Your parents will want you to come home,” Susanna said. “I’ll phone them.”

“If anyone understands wanting to escape Boston it should be you. From what I’ve heard, we’re two peas in a pod. Difficult to control. I heard you were sent to two different boarding schools, and that when you went to Paris you turned your back on who you were.”

Susanna’s fierce distaste for this annoying girl was evident. “My dear, you are young,” she said coolly. “Therefore I’ll excuse your rude manner. You may stay through breakfast.”

The sisters made up the spare room for their cousin. It was a cramped, chilly space with a single bed. Years ago, another family’s cook had resided here, and had cried herself to sleep every night. It was still possible to see tearstains on the floor.

“Where’s Henry?” Jet asked.

“My parents killed him, of course. They said he got into the rat poison, but I’ll never believe that.”

April lay down on the bed, weary, one arm flung over her eyes. As it turned out, she was not immune from rejection.

“Your mother hates me,” she said.

“Our mother is too well bred to hate,” Franny said. “She disapproves.”

The crow found his way to the room and let out a shrill caw.

April opened her eyes. “You have a familiar,” she said to Franny. “And your parents haven’t killed him yet?”

“He’s not a familiar,” Franny said. “He’s a foundling.”

“Fine,” April said. “Tell yourself that.” She gazed down the hallway, then turned to Jet. “Where’s your brother? Out raising hell?”

“Guitar lessons,” Jet said. “He’s quite serious about it.”

“I suppose he has time for hell later on.” In an attempt to rally, April sat up and gazed in the mirror. She unbraided her pale hair and dabbed on some lipstick. The sisters exchanged a look, for unless they were mistaken, their cousin’s eyes were brimming with tears.

“April, I’m sorry,” Jet said.

“Why on earth should you be sorry?” Franny asked her sister. “She’s the one who arrived here without an invitation.”

Instead of the smart talk they were used to from April, their cousin cried for a moment, then pulled herself together.

“Do you need some water?” Franny said, touched by the sight of her adversary in tears.

April shook her head. “Did your mother warn you not to fall in love?” she asked the sisters. “Did she say it would ruin you? Because it’s common knowledge that she ran off to Paris with some Frenchman she was mad for, but he had some sort of accident, and that was that was that. She can be cautious now if that’s what she wants, but as far as I can tell, love is like a train that will keep going at full speed whether you like it or not, so you may as well enjoy the ride. If you try to avoid it, you’ll just make everything worse. What’s meant to happen will.” She looked at Jet more closely. “Congratulations. I can see it’s already happened. I hope he’s worthy. Who is he?”

“Levi Willard,” Jet said.

April looked stricken. “That’s a bad idea.”

Franny was quick to defend her sister. “I don’t see how this is your business.”

“Well it is and it’s your business, too. The Willards despise our family. There’s some sort of feud. It’s been going on for hundreds of years. It has something to do with the curse.”

The sisters looked at her blankly.

“Don’t you get it?” April said. “He’s part of the secret.”

“I doubt that,” Franny said.

“You can doubt all you want.” She turned to Jet. “Have you met the Reverend?”

“Not yet,” Jet admitted.

“You probably never will. He’ll refuse to be in the same room. He’s not too well bred to hate us. I wandered into his garden during my first visit to Aunt Isabelle’s and he came out and poured salt on the ground, as if I had contaminated the place. Our aunt went over there, and I received a letter of apology in the mail, but his garden died right after that; maybe it was a lack of rain or maybe it was our aunt, I don’t know. I just know none of this bodes well for a happy future for you and Levi Willard.”

“Things change,” Jet said bravely.

“Do they?” April had begun to unpack. Along with her clothes, she’d brought several candles. “Aunt Isabelle always says that every guest should bring a gift when visiting. Even if that guest is unwanted.” She handed a red candle to Franny and a white one to Jet. “If you wish to see who your true love is, prick two silver pins into the wax. When the candle burns down to the second pin your beloved will arrive. Works every time.”

“No thank you. I already know my true love,” Jet said stubbornly.

“I have zero interest in games like this,” Franny informed their cousin.

“She believes in logic and empirical evidence,” Jet informed April.

“So do I,” April said. “I’m the scientist here. I’ve been studying arachnids in my spare time. Especially those that murder their mates after reproducing. I feel it will give me insight into the odds we Owens women have.”

“If you plan on calling yourself a scientist you should be aware that odds don’t matter. The natural world defies statistics.”

“Does it?” April made a face that showed she disagreed. “I think the genetic realities of our family are quite obvious. It’s in our blood.” She took out a last candle for Vincent.

“He won’t be interested,” Franny said with assurance.

“You never know,” April said.

“Yes I do,” Franny insisted.

As usual, Vincent came home late. He peered into the sisters’ room to find Jet asleep and Franny in bed reading a book concerning the migration of owls. Even from a distance, Vincent stank of cigarettes and whiskey.

“Let me guess,” Franny said. “You were at a bar.”

Vincent sat on the edge of the bed. “Dad said April is here.”

“You spoke to Dad?” They both laughed. Conversations with their father were rare. “She’s leaving after breakfast,” Franny reported. “Thankfully.”

“She’s not so bad,” Vincent said.

“Oh, please.”

“She’s actually sort of vulnerable.”

“Hard to believe. She seems perfectly capable and extremely full of herself. By the way, she brought you a gift.”

Vincent frowned. “Did she?”

Franny gestured to a black candle on her desk. “She says it will show you your true love.”

Vincent pitched the candle into a trash can. “Not interested.”

“Exactly as I thought.” Franny nodded. “I know you too well.”

“Mind if I sleep on the floor?” Vincent was far from sober, and before Franny could answer he sprawled out on the white carpet, where he snored gently through the rest of the night.

In the morning, when Franny went to the spare room, April was gone. She hadn’t bothered to wait for breakfast. She hadn’t said good-bye. All that remained of their cousin were a few pale hairs on her pillow and a note. Thanks for nothing.

Franny sat on the bed, which was still faintly warm. She felt guilty and ashamed. After all, they shared the same bloodline. Franny asked the dresser drawer to open, which it quickly did. There was the red candle. Franny placed it on the night table. She closed her eyes and willed it away. It fell onto the floor and rolled toward the door.

Vincent had come to the threshold of the room. He picked up the candle. “You’ve been practicing,” he said admiringly.

“I don’t have to practice,” Franny responded. “None of us do. April was right. It’s in our blood.”

“Where is April?” Vincent asked, puzzled by the empty room.

“Do you care?” Franny asked.

“Somewhat,” he admitted.

“Well, somewhat isn’t enough. We weren’t nice to her so she left.”

“I was always nice to her. Wasn’t I?”

“No,” Franny said bluntly. “You were dismissive.”

“Is that another word for cruel?” Vincent seemed remorseful.

“Of course not,” Franny assured her brother. It was difficult to speak to someone who was avoiding the truth. “You’re just interested in other things.”

“Am I?” Vincent said.

Franny had decided to go forward with the love-divining spell to prove that love was out of the question for her. Stick two silver pins into a candle. When the candle burns down to the second pin your beloved will appear. Surely no one would arrive. She went and fetched two straight pins from their mother’s sewing basket.

“This is dangerous,” Vincent told her. “Love is easy to find, but not so easy to get rid of.” As he well knew from his summer fling, which had soured so quickly.

Jet wandered into the room as Franny was lighting the candle. They could still find each other, no matter where they were, just as they had when they were children whose skills made it impossible to play hide-and-seek.

“If you’re so good at reading people, what was up with April?” Franny asked her sister.

Jet flushed slightly. “Don’t know.”

“Look at her!” Vincent pointed to Jet. “She can’t tell a lie for the life of her.”

“No,” Franny said warmly. “The best liar award goes to Mr. Vincent Owens, Esquire.”

“Gratefully acknowledged and accepted.” Vincent bowed deeply.

There was a knock at the front door. Without them noticing, the candle had burned down to the second pin.

“All I know is that I threw my candle away,” Vincent reminded them. “It’s for one of you.”

Franny and Jet stared at each other. “It’s probably for you,” Franny said.

“I didn’t light my candle. I can’t have Levi appearing at our door. You go,” she told her sister.

Franny went, her unwilling heart slamming against her chest. She was convinced that she was the last one love would ever come to. She wasn’t made for such things. She wanted flight and freedom and would prefer to live among the birds, pitching a tent in Central Park and having nothing to do with humankind. Surely the caller was the mailman or one of her father’s misdirected patients who had come to the wrong door.

The crow came to light on the molding of the door. “Make whoever it is go away,” Franny told the crow. The bird was supposed to be her soul mate, wasn’t he? But rather than help, he lifted off and winged to his favorite perch above the drapes, eyeing her with a knowing look.

The knock came again.

Vincent approached, carrying his guitar case. He’d begun to attend concerts at the Riverside Church on Sunday afternoons and had been caught up in folk music. He wore cowboy boots now, old dusty ones found at a secondhand store. He’d bought a fringed suede vest at some godforsaken thrift store on the Bowery.

“Don’t open the door,” Franny told him.

“I have a lesson and I’m late. This is something you’ll have to handle, kiddo.”

Vincent flashed his glorious grin, an expression that always meant trouble, either for him or for someone else. This time that someone was Franny. Vincent swung the door open before she could stop him. There was Haylin, leaning on the wall.

“You’re home,” he said. “I was about to give up. No one was answering the phone. You seem to be avoiding me.”

Indeed it was true. She had hardly seen him since their return from the summer. Now she knew why she had been keeping her distance.

She took a step away from him. She’d turned pale as paper.

“Are you okay?” Hay was carrying an armful of college catalogs. They had already decided to apply to all of the same schools. They had a bet going; the winner would be the one who got into one of their top five choices: Harvard, Stanford, Berkeley, Brown, and the hometown favorite, Columbia.

“You didn’t know it was going to be him?” Vincent smirked as he headed out. He didn’t need the Clairvoyant Tea Aunt Isabelle concocted out of mugwort, thyme, yarrow, and rosemary. He didn’t need Jet’s empathy or Franny’s curiosity. This one was obvious.

“Your brother’s a funny guy,” Haylin said.

The crow flew across the living room to perch on a velvet armchair. He studied Haylin, and Haylin studied him back, duly impressed.

“You’ve got a pet?”

“You know that I don’t believe in pets.” Franny collected the crow, then opened the window and set him on the railing.

“You’re dumping him outside?” Haylin asked, bemused.

“He’s a bird,” Franny said. “It won’t hurt him.” Her heart was still pounding. This had to be wrong. Love?

Hay went to peer through the window. “Does he have a name?”

“Lewis.” Franny named him on the spot. She hadn’t thought to call him anything before, other than hers.

Haylin laughed. “Why is a raven like a writing desk?” he said, quoting Lewis Carroll’s unanswerable riddle in Wonderland.

“Because a writing desk is a rest for pens and a raven is a pest for wrens? But he’s not a raven. Corvus brachyrhynchos. The common crow.”

“He doesn’t look common.”

Lewis was tapping on the glass.

Franny couldn’t stop staring at Haylin. It had been there all along, whether she’d been aware of it or not. If she just held out it would likely pass. It had to pass. For his sake as much as for hers.

Franny had read in one of Aunt Isabelle’s books that if you lit a match to a handful of snow and it melted quickly, the snow on the ground would soon disappear. By counting the knots on a lilac bush the number of cold spells could be predicted. Though the weather was chilly, the sisters escaped the house whenever they could. They liked to walk along the bridle path in the park, wearing high boots and heavy black coats. It was the season of migration and Franny stared longingly at the huge flocks passing overhead. She wished for freedom and here she was earthbound, worried about the petty concerns of human beings.

On these days Jet was often on her way to meet Levi, and Franny was her accomplice. Sisters were sisters, after all, and if they didn’t stick up for each other, who would? Their mother had continued to make matters difficult ever since Jet had gone missing. She had posted a sign-out sheet on the refrigerator, and every time the girls left the house they were to jot down their destination, time of arrival, and time of return. Foolishly, their mother trusted Vincent, who disappeared to Greenwich Village whenever he had the chance.

“Good luck fighting the power,” he’d say to the girls as he took off.

“Mother is not the power,” Franny would say.

“Well, she has power over you,” Vincent remarked, which they all knew was true enough.

On this particular day, Jet had until four o’clock. They said they were heading to the Museum of Modern Art to do research for term papers, but only Franny would be going. She had brought a camera along and planned to take photographs in the sculpture garden that she could have developed in case their mother demanded proof.

Levi was waiting at the Bethesda Fountain, beneath the Angel of the Waters statue, their favorite meeting place. The statue referred to the Gospel of St. John, and the angel carried a lily in her left hand, to bless and purify New York’s water. Each time Levi came to the city, he had to sneak away, traveling back and forth by bus in a single day, paying for his ticket with earnings saved from odd jobs. Today he had told his father he had an interview at Columbia University, allowed even though the Reverend disliked New York City and saw it as a place of crime and greed. It was Levi’s first lie and he stuttered when he told it, which made his father question him for nearly half an hour. Reverend Willard was firm in his beliefs and firmer still in his dislikes.

Jet had brought along The Scarlet Letter as a gift. She had signed it To Levi with great affection. It had taken her half an hour to decide what the dedication should be. Love was too much. In friendship, too little. Affection seemed perfect. At least for now.

“That’s our copy! Doesn’t he have his own books?” Franny groused.

“Not really,” Jet said.

“And doesn’t he have any other clothes?” Franny asked when they spied him.

“He was raised to be simple and kind.”

Franny laughed. “Are you sure you’re looking for simple?”

“Simple means he’s not self-indulgent. Just so you know, Levi happens to be brilliant.”

He was wearing his black suit and a scarf Jet had knitted for him. It was her first attempt, and quite uneven, but Levi had pronounced it a wonder. He had dark hair and his beautiful gray-green eyes lit up whenever he saw her. “Hey,” he cried. “There’s my girl.”

“Don’t forget to be at the museum at a quarter to four,” Franny called when Jet took off. “Keep track of time!”

Franny watched her sister disappear into the park with Levi. It was such a beautiful crisp day she didn’t know why she had a sinking feeling. Lewis had been following along, and now he called out with his harsh cry. He soared above the fountain, the first grand public artwork to be commissioned from a woman artist in the city of New York. Franny shielded her eyes from the thin sunlight to watch the crow perch on the angel’s hand. Below him, sitting on the rim of the fountain, was a man in a black suit paging through The Scarlet Letter, which had been forgotten and left behind. He wore a white shirt and a black tie and shoes so old it was evident that he favored simple things. When he came to the title page and saw the dedication, he didn’t need to read any further. He closed the book.

After his father’s discovery, Levi was no longer allowed to leave the house unless he was going directly to work or to school. The telephone was cut off, so it was impossible to reach him. Their copy of The Scarlet Letter was mailed back to Jet without a note, and the handwriting on the envelope clearly wasn’t Levi’s. Packed with the book were half a dozen nails.

“What on earth is this supposed to mean?” Jet said anxiously.

“It means his father is deranged,” Franny said.

She quickly gathered the nails and threw them into the trash. She knew from her readings at the library that witch-hunters believed a witch could be caught by nailing her steps to the ground to ensure that she couldn’t run. A witch’s powers were decreased when she was near metal; surround her with it and she would be helpless.

Luckily, Franny had also grabbed The Scarlet Letter. When it fell open in her hands she saw that someone had scrawled over Jet’s lovely inscription with thick black ink and written their own message.

Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.

Franny recognized the quote from Exodus, for it had been scrawled in the judge’s notes at Maria’s trial. It was the same quote that had been on the title page of The Discovery of Witches, written by Matthew Hopkins, the Witch-Finder General of England, in 1647, the man who was believed to be responsible for the deaths of three hundred women.

“I think April’s right,” Franny told her sister that night when they were both in bed.

Jet had been crying for hours, but Franny’s comment stunned her. Franny had never thought April to be right about anything. She sat up in bed. “You do?”

“You should stay away from Levi.”

Jet fell back into her pillow. “Oh, Franny.”

“Did you hear me?” Franny asked.

“Yes,” Jet said, no longer in tears and more determined than Franny might have imagined. “I heard you. And I wish I hadn’t.”

She went to Vincent for help. A rebel could only depend on another rebel. She trailed him to the Jester, getting on the Fifth Avenue bus, then walking half a block behind him. She was amused that he didn’t have a clue that he was being followed until she slid into the booth beside him. She had thrown up an invisibility shield that had clearly worked.

“Good God, Jet,” he said, “what do you think you’re doing? This is not your kind of place.” All the same, he called for two beers. If his sister was going to be here, she might as well drink.

Jet placed a letter on the table.

“Let me guess. For Levi?”

“Just this once,” Jet said.

“Yeah, I think that’s what you always say. How do you propose I get it to him?”

Jet took a bus ticket from her purse.

“Massachusetts.” Vincent nodded. “You seem to have it all covered.” He was actually impressed. “And what do I tell the parents?”

Jet had a copy of the school newspaper. The Starling Band had been invited to play at a prep school north of Boston.

“I’ve joined the band?” Vincent said.

“Yesterday,” Jet told him.

“I’m very clever,” Vincent said. “Aren’t I?”

“The music teacher said he’d been trying to get you to join for ages. He’s delighted.”

“Do I actually have to play?”

“There’s a concert in the morning. Then you take a taxi and wait for Levi outside of his school at three.”

“And if his father is there waiting, too? Have you factored in that possibility?”

Jet took a sip of the beer Vincent had ordered. “Then you use The Magus.”

He recognized Levi right away. The white shirt, the dark hair, his serious demeanor as he made his way down the steps of the high school. He went right past Vincent, in a hurry. Vincent rose to his feet and took off running to catch up with him.

“Hey, Levi. Slow down.”

Levi threw him a puzzled look. “I don’t know you.”

“Yeah, well I know you. Slow the fuck down.”

“I have to get to work.” Levi had slowed his pace. “Over at the pharmacy.” He looked at Vincent more closely. “Did you want something?”

“No. But you do.” Vincent took out the letter. “From my sister.”

Levi grabbed the letter and tore it open, reading it hungrily.

Vincent gazed around. “Your father’s not here, is he?”

“What? No.” Levi went on reading. “You’re supposed to give me twenty dollars.”

“I am?”

“Sorry. I wouldn’t ordinarily agree to this, but my father puts all of my earnings into a bank account I can’t access. I need money for the bus to New York.”

Vincent gave him the twenty. “You don’t think you might be looking for trouble?”

Levi thanked Vincent for the loan, but laughed at the question. “Life is trouble, brother. You’ve got to fight for what you want.”

They shook hands. Vincent didn’t know what to think. He saw in Levi something he’d never felt himself. This was what love looked like. This was what it could do to you. Vincent found himself walking to Magnolia Street. It had begun to rain, and so he ran. He wondered if he would ever feel that someone was worth fighting for, if there would ever be a person who would make him stand up and take a chance and have the courage to be reckless.

Isabelle wasn’t surprised to see him. When she gave him tea and a piece of pie, he realized he was starving. He explained that he had been in the school band, but had quit once their performance was over.

“I take it you’re not staying.” Isabelle had noticed he had nothing with him but a jacket.

“The school reserved hotel rooms. I only came to deliver a letter for Jet.” It was impossible to tell a lie to their aunt.

“Levi Willard,” Isabelle said. “I used to see them walking together last summer.”

“Apparently, his father hates us.”

“Did he see you?”

“I don’t think so.”

Isabelle gestured for Vincent to lift up his left foot. She took his heavy black boot in her hand and examined the sole. There was a nail through it.

“Think again,” Isabelle said. “He knew you were here. He left out nails.”

Vincent fiddled with the nail, his face furrowed. “I can’t get it out.”

“Of course not. This is the sort witch-hunters use.”

Isabelle took a small vial from a shelf. Rosemary oil infused with holly and hyssop. She dabbed some on the nail and uttered an oath. This cannot harm you on this day. When you walk, you walk away. When you return, all of your enemies will burn.

“What happened between our families?” Vincent asked.

“Family,” Isabelle corrected.

Now he was thoroughly confused. “What do you mean?”

“I mean what I say.”

“We’re related?”

“Charlie is here,” Isabelle said.

A battered station wagon had pulled up at the gate. None of the local taxi services would come to Magnolia Street, therefore Isabelle had called Charlie Merrill, the handyman, to give Vincent a ride back to the hotel where the band was staying.

“Is there more to the story?” Vincent asked.

“There’s more to every story,” his aunt told him.

On the drive, Charlie was pleasant enough, though he barely spoke. He was even older than Aunt Isabelle and had lived in town all his life.

“Do you know the Willards?” Vincent asked him.

“The Willards?”

“Yeah. The Reverend and his son.”

“Did your aunt say I knew them?”

“She didn’t say anything.”

“Well, then, I don’t know anything.”

Clearly, the handyman’s loyalty was to Isabelle. He didn’t utter another word, other than Good night when they got to the hotel. Vincent was glad to have a room to himself. Something didn’t feel right. He felt a chill. He wondered if what people said was true, that no one could hate you more than members of your own family.

He felt an ache, so he propped his foot up on his right knee. The nail was gone. But when he took off his boots and socks, he noticed there was a hole in his left foot. It was a good thing he had gone to his aunt for help. The nail had already drawn blood.

It began to snow toward the end of December, big flakes that stuck to the pavement. Soon the drifts were knee high, and the streets were difficult to navigate. It was the week before Christmas, and the stores were busy with shoppers. Franny was looking for a microscope at a lab warehouse. It would be an ideal gift for Haylin. She had dragged her brother and sister along.

“I thought you didn’t believe in presents,” Vincent said.

“This is different,” Franny said. “It’s practical.”

Vincent and Jet exchanged a look. Their sister without a heart had spent two hours looking for the perfect microscope. On the way to the warehouse they’d stopped at a coffee shop, and when Franny ordered toast, the pats of butter melted as soon as she reached for them.

When at last she was done shopping, and the gift had been chosen and boxed, all three wheeled into the street, where the snow was still swirling down, faster now, like a snow globe, with drifts so high many parked cars were buried. It was already twilight and the world had turned an inky blue. They walked arm in arm, mesmerized by the beauty of the blue-white flakes all around them. Anything seemed possible, even to Vincent, who turned out the streetlights as they walked on.

“Let’s always remember how beautiful tonight is,” Jet said.

“Of course we will,” Franny agreed.

But Vincent would be the one to remember this evening when his sisters had long forgotten how they’d tried and failed to get a cab, then took the subway, singing “This Land Is Your Land,” and how the microscope was so heavy they’d had to take turns carrying it. When they got home, Vincent went to his room and closed the door. He sat on his messy, unmade bed. His clairvoyance was becoming more intense. He experienced the future not as a panoramic vista but as bits and pieces, like a living crazy quilt. It was becoming more difficult for him to deny what he saw. A man standing on a hillside in California in a field of yellow grass. A street in Paris. A girl with gray eyes. A cemetery filled with angels. A door he’d have to open in order to walk through.

One spring day, they knew something out of the ordinary had transpired because their mother had ordered a huge cake, which was set out on the dining room table. She had lit a hundred candles, which shivered with yellow light even though it was no one’s birthday. Fifty candles would have been more than enough. Even more revealing that something was up: their father was putting in an appearance at the dinner table. And what’s more he had actually cooked, fixing Ritz crackers with Brie and red peppers warmed up in a Pyrex dish.

Before a family meeting could commence, Vincent was called out of his room. He came into the dining room brooding, annoyed to be called away from the world of his bedroom, which reeked of smoke and magic. He had found a hanging wicker chair, with a lattice seat, which he had attached to the ceiling with bolts. He often perched there, bat-like, practicing guitar riffs for hours, in no mood to be disturbed.

Once they had all gathered, their parents let loose and roared with pride.

“Congratulations!” James Burke-Owens waved an envelope. “This just arrived from a little college on the banks of the river Charles.” Anyone crossing paths with the doctor would know he went to Harvard, and then Yale, within five minutes of meeting him. He now clasped Franny to him in a bear hug. “You’re a good girl, Frances Owens.”

Franny, always embarrassed by displays of emotion, slipped out of her father’s embrace. She took the envelope from him, barely able to contain her excitement. Inside was her acceptance to Radcliffe, Harvard’s all-female equivalent, created when higher education for women was scandalous.

“You’ve joined the club,” her father boasted.

“We all knew you were the smart one,” Vincent said. “Now don’t screw it up.”

“Very funny,” Franny responded. She knew Vincent to be the most intelligent among them all, albeit the laziest.

The admission to Radcliffe was not in the least bit funny to Jet. College catalogs had been arriving in the mail for some time, and Jet had worried that when Franny went off to Cambridge or New Haven she would be forced to deal with her parents on her own. How would she ever be able to see Levi without Franny to cover for her? She simply could not live without him. That very afternoon they had sat on a park bench kissing until they were dizzy. When it came time to part, they were upset, and they continued to embrace in the Port Authority Bus Terminal while Levi missed one bus after another.

Now, as the family was celebrating Franny’s acceptance to Radcliffe, Jet did something terrible. She wished that Franny wouldn’t be able to leave New York. She knew she was being selfish and she chastised herself for it afterward, but it was too late, the wish had been made. It was bitter and carried the acrid scent of smoke, and when it lodged somewhere inside Jet it made her cough, a hacking rattle that lasted for months.

“Cheer up,” Vincent said as Jet despondently watched their parents open a bottle of champagne. “It won’t be as bad as you think.”

“What won’t be?”

Vincent tousled her black hair. “Your future.”

It was then she realized that Franny could provide the perfect excuse to see Levi. Every time she said she was going to visit Franny in Cambridge, she could get off the train at New Haven. Levi had gotten into Yale, and he would be there waiting for her. She thought she would bring him a new coat on her very first visit, then he wouldn’t have to keep the old one his father had him wear. She had changed her mind about Franny going off to school. She even drank some champagne. She took back her wish right then and there, but unfortunately such things simply can’t be done.

Haylin’s letter from Harvard arrived in the mail the following day. He came around to collect Franny so they could celebrate their impending independence from their small-minded parents and their dreadful school and awful childhoods, for which they were already feeling nostalgic. They nestled close together to avoid a pale rain as they walked toward Madison Avenue, pretending to fight over a single umbrella.

“The only thing I’m taking with me when I leave is the microscope,” Haylin announced. “I’m donating everything else.”

At the coffee shop on the corner, they ordered waffles and eggs, and because all of Manhattan smelled like bacon that day, a side of Canadian bacon as well. Hay topped it off by wolfing down two jelly doughnuts, which he’d craved ever since his marijuana experiments. They were both starving for food and for freedom. The brilliance of the day made them dizzy and hopeful in ways they had never imagined. In Cambridge anything could happen. The rain was stopping; the air was green. Spring was thick with lilacs and possibility. Everything was delicious, their food and New York City and their futures. Hay was to live in Dunster House, Franny a stone’s throw away, if you had a strong arm, which Haylin did, at South House on the Radcliffe Quad. They toasted to liberty, clinking together their glasses of orange juice. O joy, they crooned to one another. O learning and books and baked beans and the Red Sox and the filthy Charles River.

They had all spring and summer to enjoy Manhattan. The magnolias and ornamental cherry trees were blooming in the park. They met at twilight, free spirits, no longer tethered to their parents’ wishes. They explored every acre of the park they so loved and would sorely miss, watching constellations from Sheep Meadow, wading in the chilly Loch, studying the white-footed mice that collected acorns along Cedar Hill, tracking the red bats nesting in the English oaks and black locusts. Lewis the crow followed them, and Haylin fed Franny’s familiar bits of crusts when they brought along sandwiches.

“You’ll spoil him,” Franny said. “He’s supposed to be wild.”

“Maybe he’d rather be tame,” Haylin responded thoughtfully.

Hay had already confided that if he were ever to inherit his family’s money he would dispose of it, for every time he walked into their limestone mansion on Fifth Avenue, he felt he had made a wrong turn and had mistakenly come to live with a family who would have been much happier with a different son. “You’re the only person who really knows me,” he told Franny.

She kissed him then. She didn’t plan it. She simply felt a wave of emotion she couldn’t name. It was impossible for anything to happen between them. Still she kissed him again, and then once more for luck.

Vincent was at the Jester, where he had become a regular, and he was drunk. He hadn’t told his sisters how much of the future he could see, because he didn’t like it one bit. Luckily Franny rather than one of their parents picked up the phone when the bartender called to say the Wizard might need help getting home.

“Who on earth is that?” Franny said.

“The kid who does magic tricks. He gave me your number. He said he was your brother.”

When she said that he was indeed, Franny was informed that Vincent could usually be talked into performing tricks after he’d had a few: the lights would flicker, matches would flame with a puff of breath, silverware would rattle as though there was an earthquake. Now, however, he was plastered, and likely a danger to himself. Franny took a cab, then made her way into the dimly lit bar.

The bartender waved her over. “He’s been drinking since noon,” he said.

Franny asked for a glass of tomato juice, extra large, then proceeded to a booth where Vincent was resting his head on the red plastic padding behind him.

“Hey there, sister,” he said when Franny flung herself into the seat across from him.

She’d brought a cure for drunkenness: a powder composed of cayenne, caffeine, and St. John’s wort, which she now dispensed into the tomato juice. “Drink,” she said.

Vincent sipped, then shuddered in disgust.

“You’re better than this,” Franny said.

“Am I? I see things I can’t change, Franny. When I drink I stop the visions. It was in pieces but it’s coming together in one picture. And lately, what I’ve been seeing is an accident. A bad one. And soon.”

“If you keep drinking like this, I’m sure there will be one sooner or later.”

Franny sounded flip, but all the same she felt a chill. Vincent’s eyes were nearly black, never a good sign.

“I’m serious,” he said. “Our family. This month. When there’s a full moon.”

“Well, then, you don’t have to worry.” There had been a full moon at the beginning of the month. “It’s come and gone.”

Franny remembered the moon because she and Hay had sneaked out to meet at Seventy-Fourth Street in front of the statue of Alice in Wonderland. Midnight had been bright as day and they could easily read the lines chiseled in granite around the sculpture: ’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves did gyre and gimble in the wabe. Franny had started something between them with a kiss and now what was done could not be undone, nor would she want it to be. Brillig was said to mean four o’clock in the afternoon, but surely it must mean more: broiling, brilliant, luminous, shimmering, unstoppable.

“Stop worrying about the moon,” she told Vincent, “and start worrying about your drinking.”

She gestured to the glass before him, and Vincent gulped down the rest of the drunkenness cure. He already seemed more clearheaded, but when he set the glass down it shattered into thin shards and turned blue.

“You’re paying for that, Wizard,” the bartender called.

Vincent looked into Franny’s disapproving eyes. He seemed shocked and concerned. “I swear I did not do that.”

A glass breaking on its own portended death.

“I’m telling you the truth,” Vincent said. “Death is close by. I’ve never felt anything like this. I can almost touch it. It’s like a black circle coming closer and closer.”

He reached his hand into the air, and when he opened his closed fist soot appeared in his palm.

“Ashes,” he said. “Franny, you have to listen to me.”

Franny felt a scrim of fear. Still, she approached his prediction logically. “Certainly, somewhere someone will die. It doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with us.” She grabbed her brother’s arm and shook it so that the ashes lifted into the air, where they turned white and scattered into the corners of the room. Then she used a napkin to gather the slivers of glass and brought the mess up to the bar. “He’s underage,” she told the bartender. “Don’t serve him again.”

They walked home together deep in thought. They didn’t hear the bees until they reached the corner. As they neared their house they could see swarms at every window.

They stopped where they were. Bees tried to get into a house when a death was imminent.

“I’ll have Mother call an exterminator,” Franny said.

Vincent was suddenly stone-cold sober. “It won’t make a difference. We can’t stop it.”

“Of course we can. You can change your fate.”

“Can you?”

They stepped closer to each other.

“Do you know who’s in danger?” Franny asked.

“I can’t tell. I don’t think it’s us, because we’re seeing the omen.”

They stood there, shoulders touching. Bees don’t swarm at night. Glass doesn’t break without a cause. Ashes do not fall from above. All the same, Franny still didn’t quite believe Vincent until they entered the front hallway. There on the threshold was a beetle.

“Fuck,” Vincent said. He went to stomp on the creature.

He knew what it was from his readings in The Magus, and he now advised Franny that deathwatch beetles are wood borers that can be heard in the rafters calling for mates. They signified a death. You cannot destroy destruction, The Magus warned. Though you may try. Vincent had gotten rid of the beetle, but not its message. You cannot unwrite a death that has been written. There was no spell strong enough to do so.

Franny went for a broom and a dustpan to dispose of the remnants of the beetle. Jet was in the kitchen. “What’s that?” she said when the creature was tossed in the trash.

“Something to avoid. From now on, no taking chances, no talking to strangers, no walking through the park at night.”

“I thought we were supposed to have courage?”

“Just for now. Don’t do anything out of the ordinary.”

It was decided that Franny would be the one to wait up and tell the parents. They had debated and, when it came down to it, they felt that the parents had to be told for their own protection. They’d been to a party at the new Guggenheim Museum and were tipsy upon their return.

“Amazing evening,” her father remarked. “That building is the future.”

“Speaking of the future,” Franny said, “I have information about our family I’d like to discuss with you.”

“You handle this,” Dr. Burke-Owens said to his wife. “It’s your family.”

Once he’d left the room, Franny turned to her mother. “There was an omen, and we need to pay heed.”

“Franny.” Their mother was exasperated. “Let’s not have any nonsense tonight. I don’t think I can take this any more than your father can.”

“I know you don’t want to believe in any of this, but there were bees swarming the house.”

“Fine. I’ll call an exterminator in the morning.”

“And a beetle in the hall.”

That stopped Susanna. “What sort of beetle?”

“The bad sort,” Franny said. “A deathwatch beetle.”

Susanna reconsidered. There was no reason to be impulsive when all signs pointed to caution. “I don’t see the harm in doing as you say. No chances will be taken. Now convince your sister of that since she’s been so foolish lately.”

“She’s already agreed,” Franny said.

“Fine. We will all be cautious.”

Yet Franny continued to have a nest of nerves in the pit of her stomach. She went to the bedroom and perched on the edge of Jet’s bed. She felt a rush of love for her sleeping sister, the most kindhearted person she had ever known. Rather than going to sleep herself, Franny crept out the open window. Lewis was there, waiting for her. She’d swiped a dinner roll, which she now broke into three pieces, signaling to each crust. She called each crust by name: Mother, Father, Sister.

“Which one?” she asked, but Lewis flew off, disappearing into the pitch-black sky. “You’re supposed to do as I say,” Franny called after him, distraught, wounded by his refusal to predict the future. Her familiar had made it clear that a crow may be a confidant and a companion, even a spy, but never a servant. In this regard, he mirrored his mistress’s flinty independence. If he cried, as she now did, surely no one would ever know.

On Jet’s birthday the parents surprised her with tickets to a Broadway musical and a special dinner at the Russian Tea Room. She was turning seventeen and was as near to perfect as she’d ever be. Ever since the winter Jet had collected canned food for the local soup kitchen, and she often worked there on holidays, peeling potatoes and slicing carrots. People said she resembled a young Elizabeth Taylor, whose photograph had graced the cover of Life magazine earlier in the year, when Miss Taylor won the Oscar for best actress in BUtterfield 8. Jet was an A student at Starling and had never caused her parents a single bit of worry until this Levi Willard business, but the parents were relieved that folly seemed to be old news now. Jet seemed to have turned a corner on that score. Not that they would allow her to go to Magnolia Street this summer, even though her time to visit Aunt Isabelle had come. That would be tempting fate.

“You’re still the favorite,” Franny remarked with zero jealousy. She was sprawled across her bed watching Jet choose her dress for the evening.

“I am not,” Jet insisted. “Has our mother ever slapped you?”

All the same Jet was pleased with the fuss being made over her. Her birthday was indeed a special occasion, although no one in the family knew quite how special it would be. Franny had bought her a silver bangle bracelet in the jewelry department at Macy’s. Vincent presented her with a record album by a folk singer named Pete Seeger, whose songs were so filled with humanity they brought Jet to tears. But best of all, Levi would be waiting for her at the Bethesda Fountain later tonight. He’d sold a watch that had belonged to his great-great-grandfather so he could rent them a room at the Plaza Hotel. Jet was nervous, but ecstatic. All she had to do was sneak away after the theater and she’d be free. It would be worth the trouble she’d be in when she returned in the morning.

She had tried on nearly all of her dresses when Franny suggested she wear the black minidress April had sent as a present from a shop on Newbury Street in Boston. Even Franny had to admit, April had style. “It’s your birthday,” Franny told her sister. “Live a little.”

Vincent straggled in and threw himself onto Jet’s bed, which by now was piled with discarded clothing. “Live a lot,” he advised.

Jet was persuaded to add a floppy hat, then Franny dabbed on some lip gloss and mascara, and there Jet was, utterly gorgeous. Franny was a little in awe of her younger sister’s shimmering beauty. “If those bitches at Starling could see you now they’d hate you even more. Just be careful tonight.”

Once the parents had left with Jet, Vincent grabbed his leather jacket and nodded to Franny. “Let’s get out of this mausoleum.”

“The sooner, the better,” Franny agreed.

Haylin was probably already at their usual meeting place. Franny latched the front door and they set out into the lovely summer evening. A limo sped by with a whoosh of air and Franny felt a chill, which she ignored. Surely, there was nothing to worry about on this perfect night.

When they reached the corner of Eighty-Ninth and Fifth, brother and sister went their separate ways.

“Use caution,” Franny called to her brother, who waved to her before he headed downtown.

Franny then went directly to the Ninetieth Street entrance, eager to step into the cool, silent park. Lately she was disturbed by her strong feelings toward Haylin. She just couldn’t seem to control them, though she tried her best. Every time they were together, she held back. They would be all over each other, and then she would pull away to stalk off by herself, not wanting him to see how she was burning for him.

“Not again,” Haylin would say, twisted with desire. “Jeez, Franny, I’m dying here.”

Franny had vowed she would not go anywhere near love, but here she was standing on the very edge of it, about to fall. She wasn’t certain how long this denial could go on or if she even wanted it to.

Tonight she wore her usual outfit of a black shirt, black slacks, and a pair of sneakers. It didn’t matter what she wore or how she might try to downplay her looks, Franny possessed a rare beauty. With her long red hair and pale flawless skin, she resembled a woodland creature as she ducked under thickets.

Caution above all else, she told herself. But there he was waiting for her on the path, and Franny had never been an admirer of caution.

They headed for the Ramble. It was a glorious evening. They stopped once to kiss and could go no farther, until Franny broke away, fevered, far too attracted to him. As they came to the model-boat pond, formally called Conservatory Water, Hay reached for some change so he could buy lemonade from the kiosk. “Hey, look at this,” he said. All of the quarters in his hand were tarnished. He had no idea that the silver in a man’s pockets always turns black if he kisses a witch.

There were inky clouds in the even darker sky, and the horizon was painted with a blue-black tint. What was pale glowed brilliantly through the dark: Franny’s freckled skin, some renegade white nightshade growing nearby, the moon, bright and full. It was a blue moon, the name for the second full moon in a single month, the thirteenth full moon of the year. If Franny had remembered Vincent’s remark about the danger of the moon, she might have heard the clamor of a warning bell; instead she and Hay went to Belvedere Lake, which they called Turtle Pond due to the dozens of pet turtles released there. It was set just below the imposing Belvedere Castle. The castle was made of gray granite, a bronze winged dragon in the transom.

Haylin grinned and said, “We could live there and no one would know.”

It was the grin that always tugged at something inside Franny. He seemed so pure. Wrong and Right were fixed points in Haylin’s mind. When he spoke about the many inequities facing those people who had no say in their own futures, Franny felt the sting of tender admiration stirring inside her. Still, she did not wish to have a heart, for such a thing could be broken. She thought of the women who knocked on the back door at Magnolia Street, desperate for love, crying at the kitchen table, each willing to pay any price to win the attention of some man who didn’t know she was alive. Franny had been convinced it was only a rumor that Aunt Isabelle was given all manner of jewelry as payment until she saw a neighbor take off her cameo necklace and leave it on the kitchen table. And then one day, as she was searching a cabinet for the saltshaker, she found a plastic container that rattled. Inside were a dozen diamond rings.

She thought Jet was a fool to look for love, but here she was with Haylin trying to make sense of her frantic heart. Sooner or later she would figure out the curse. Mysteries could be solved, if one applied logic and patience.

As they sat on a flat rock, with the evening floating down around them, Franny and Hay traded tales they’d heard about the pond, urban legends about snapping turtles so huge they would leap into the air to catch pigeons that were then drowned and devoured, and of pet fish released from their small bowls that had grown enormous, with sharp teeth and wicked dispositions. There was a lady rumored to live in the shrubbery who was said to catch turtles for her supper. She could be spied begging for spare change on the corner near the Starling School.

Don’t think this won’t happen to you, she hissed at all the pretty young girls passing by. Youth is fleeting. It’s nothing but a dream. I’m where you’re going. I’m what you’ll be.

They called her the Pond Lady and ran from her, shrieking, but they couldn’t get her warning out of their minds. Caution, these girls thought. As for Franny, she always gave the Pond Lady a dollar when she saw her, for she had no fear of who she would turn out to be.

When the theater let out, Jet was walking on air. She quickly worked a Believe Me spell before telling her parents that the girls from Starling were having a slumber party in honor of her birthday. Wasn’t that what they had wanted? For her to be popular and accepted?

“Address please,” her father said.

“Ninety-Second and Third,” Jet responded, having already practiced the answers to most of the possible questions she might be asked.

“Let us drop you,” Susanna said, hailing a cab.

“Oh, Mother, they’ll think I’m a baby.”

Jet kissed her parents good-bye, then she slipped into the taxi and leaned forward to ask the driver to take her to Fifty-Ninth Street. Off they went, for there was a plan, one that had nothing to do with the girls at school, who couldn’t have cared less that it was Jet Owens’s birthday. But someone cared desperately, and had already been waiting for her for over an hour at the entrance to the park on Central Park South. They would spend the night together at the Plaza Hotel, the grandest, most romantic hotel in New York, built in 1907, designed as if it were a French château. In the park across the street from the hotel there was the elegant golden equestrian statue of General Sherman and his horse by the sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens.

In addition to selling his great-great-grandfather’s watch, Levi had been saving for this special night, working overtime at the pharmacy, delivering newspapers in the early mornings. Spying Levi from the cab was the best moment of Jet’s life. She was ready to fall in love without looking back. Frankly, she had already fallen. She paid, then ran out to embrace Levi. They kissed and barely noticed the world around them. Horns honked, and they were nearly run over by a bicyclist. Levi laughed and pulled Jet out of harm’s way. He was carrying her birthday present. An old edition of Emily Dickinson’s poems.

If I can stop one heart from breaking,

I shall not live in vain

As Jet was about to open the book, as her heart was lifting and her life just beginning, her parents’ taxi roared up. They’d heard her tell the cabbie the address of the Plaza, and, suspicious, they had followed, up Sixth Avenue, turning onto Fifty-Ninth Street. Susanna opened the window now and called shrilly, using Jet’s rarely used given name. Bridget Owens, you stop right there!

Jet looked up at her mother and panicked. The cab was racing toward them. Before her parents could leap out and drag her away, before they could ruin her life, she took hold of Levi’s arm and cried out, Let’s run. He didn’t even know what they were running from, but he knew he was dedicated to protecting Jet. They headed for the park, and as they did, the parents’ cabdriver was told to step on it and not let them escape. There was an oil slick on the road, beneath the pools of spilled water used for the horses pulling the carriages that took tourists and lovers through the park. It was dark and the city smelled like freshly spaded earth.

Just across from the Plaza Hotel the taxi skidded out of control. Birds in the trees took flight and filled the ember sky. Levi leapt in front of Jet as the taxi came barreling onto the sidewalk. Time slowed so that she could see his eyes dilate when he realized what was happening. It was so very slow they might have been caught in a glass jar. She could hear his thoughts. Not yet. Not this. And then time sped up, it rolled up right under their feet and caught them off balance. The air was alive and pushed against Jet like a wave, but it was Levi who was pushing her out of the way. She lay on the cold ground as glass shattered and fell over her, like a hard rain. There was no other sound, no birds, no traffic, nothing but the sound of her heart thudding against her chest. There was nothing else beyond this moment when she heard the taxi hit Levi, the sound of the world cracking in two. And then she heard his voice, and he said only one word, and that last word was her name.

At Turtle Pond, Franny had slipped off her sneakers and was letting her pale feet dangle over the edge of the rocks. The night was perfect and she worried about perfect things, for there were often flaws seen only under a microscope, with a very clear eye. She felt a chill go through her, as if the wind had blown directly through her chest. All at once, there were tears in her eyes.

“I’ll swim here if you will,” Haylin announced, already stripping off his shirt. He always wanted to prove himself to Franny, yet he never exuded the same confidence. Hay had recognized that she had a strange sort of courage. She didn’t even seem to notice when she was in danger. Perhaps that was why he was driven by the need to be brave and why he stood on the very edge of the rock, his heart thudding, his emotions at a fever pitch. If courage was what she wanted, that was what he’d give her. “Seriously,” he said. “Let’s swim.”

Franny shook her head no. She felt nerves again, right in the pit of her stomach, as if the world was about to spin out of control. Another time she might have been thrilled by Haylin’s proposed leap into the muddy abyss. But she knew the warning. She must use caution. Plus, swimming with him was out of the question; she would only float and he would wonder why and there was no way for her to explain the reason.

The water was murky, filled with mysterious, mossy items. Still, Haylin didn’t back down. He pulled off his boots and unzipped his jeans, then took everything off. She’d never seen him naked. He was like a statue, perfect.

Haylin inhaled, then leapt into the pond. The turtles splashed away as he disappeared into the blackness of the surface. Water rose up and slapped against the rocks, then spilled onto the path. Though the pond was filled from a tap, trash left to sink to its depths made the water appear ominous and unclean, likely chock-full of strange debris and unknown pathogens. Franny’s heart was hitting against her chest. Haylin would probably need a tetanus shot.

He didn’t rise. Franny thought of bees, and ashes, and broken glass. But Haylin hadn’t been inside their house when the deathwatch beetle appeared, so surely he’d be safe. And yet there was a circle forming around the spot where he had disappeared. No air bubbles, no Haylin. Franny wanted to leap in after him, but she knew from the time spent in Leech Lake it was impossible. She would only float to the surface. Because she couldn’t be drowned, she couldn’t follow him into the depths to save him. She was frantic, her pulse pounding, fearing that the curse was happening right now.

When Hay suddenly reappeared, he broke the surface like some sort of enormous fish. He was sputtering for air, turning blue. He struggled for breath, then met her eyes. Franny sat frozen on the rock; a kind of terror had immobilized her. Caution.

Hay shook his head. “Jesus, Franny,” he said.

She’d never seen anyone look as sad or disappointed. He swam to the rocks with two strokes of his long arms and hoisted himself out. His hair was slicked back. His penis looked blue from the cold. Franny had a small shiver of what she thought was fear, but it was really something else entirely, what she didn’t want to feel for him and already did.

Hay reached for his clothes and pulled them on even though he was soaking wet. “There’s a shopping cart down there. My leg got stuck. I almost couldn’t surface. In case you care.”

“Haylin.” Franny spoke with emotion. “Of course I do.”

“There’s something wrong between us, Franny.” Hay cast his large, wet feet into his boots without bothering with socks. Then he came to her and put his hands on her shoulders; he was shaking from the frigid water and from raw emotion. “Were you going to let me drown? Seriously. Tell me the truth. You’re keeping something from me. What are we to each other, Franny?”

Before she could answer Everything and explain the curse of who she really was, Franny spied a figure weaving through the trees. He was headed straight toward them with a strange, shuddering gait. It was Vincent and he was barefoot. He’d run all the way down Eighty-Ninth Street and through the park and was now sprinting forward, crying out her name. Franny pulled away from Haylin. She could hear bees, the ones that had been there on the day when she and Vincent knew someone in their house was doomed. She looked up and spied the moon and instantly knew what this night had brought. She now thought one word. Her sister’s name. Jet.

“What is it?” Hay said, concerned.

When Vincent reached them, he was pale with shock. “They had an accident.” He looked so young standing there, barefoot, his bravado gone. Because Franny appeared to be frozen, he grabbed her hand. “I know what you’re thinking, but she’s alive.”

Which meant the others were not.

Franny and Vincent took off across the park together. Haylin called out, but Franny couldn’t answer; she was running too hard. She didn’t realize that she was also barefoot until they’d reached the pavement. She stood shivering on Fifth Avenue while Vincent hailed a cab.

They sat side by side in the ER at Bellevue, not speaking. The cold linoleum floor nearly froze their feet. When the doctor came to speak to them it was long past midnight.

“Your sister has a concussion and several broken ribs,” the doctor told them. “She’s quite shaken and we had to stitch up her face, but she’ll be fine.”

“And our parents?” Franny asked.

The doctor shook his head. “I’m sorry. It was instantaneous. And the boy also just passed on.”

Franny and Vincent exchanged a look. They had completely forgotten that Jet had intended to meet Levi.

“You mean he’s dead?” Vincent asked.

“He was struck by the cab your parents were in.”

Franny had never felt so cold. “They followed her. They chased after them.”

Vincent draped his jacket over her shoulders. “Let’s go see Jet.”

She was in a small private room, her black hair streaming onto the white pillow. Her face and arms were bruised and bandaged, and there was a gash on her face that had been closed with thirty neat stitches. Her eyes were rimmed red. It was her birthday, her night, her parents, her beloved. Guilt was curling around her heart with tendrils of self-hatred. In one instant she had lost everything.

Franny came to sit on the edge of the bed. “There was nothing any of us could do to stop it. You can’t blame yourself, Jetty. It was an accident.”

Jet leaned into the soft pillow. She was doomed to lose everything, even her gift of sight. When they’d first brought her into the hospital she could hear the patients’ jumbled thoughts. Hearts that beat stopped with a shudder, men who were racked with pain. Then all at once she couldn’t hear a thing. The only sound that reverberated was the voice of the Reverend, who’d come to a room down the hall and set to wailing when he found his son, here in New York City, a place he had always believed caused ruination. He had been right about the curse, for this was what love had done to his boy, who never would have been struck if not for Jet. Although she’d never met the Reverend and he likely despised her, there was no one Jet felt she had more in common with than he, for the person they both loved best in the world was gone.

The furniture was draped with white sheets as Aunt Isabelle instructed they must do when they entered the mourning period. She had arrived late that night without a suitcase, though she carried a large, black purse. She had a black silk band around her right arm, and she wore a felted hat with one ember feather attached to the brim. She told them they needed to turn the mirrors to the wall. Then she had them sprinkle salt on the windowsills and leave sprigs of rosemary outside the doors.

“It was bad luck,” she told them. “Nothing more.”

She sat beside Jet, offering a cup of tea, which Jet refused to drink.

“It was bound to happen,” Jet said in a small, broken voice. “It was my fate.”

“It wasn’t fate. It was the interruption of fate. No one can control such things.”

Jet was thin and pale. She turned away from her aunt, tied up with guilt and grief. Isabelle knew right away that her niece had lost the sight, for her eyes were a dull dove gray without light or life.

Isabelle slept in the room where the previous family’s cook had cried herself to sleep every night. Franny had made up the bed with clean white sheets and had left lavender in the dresser drawers. Isabelle unpacked her purse, in which she had a nightgown and slippers and a bar of black soap.

“She never thought to choose courage,” Isabelle said.

“But she did choose courage. Didn’t she?”

“In life we don’t always get what we choose. I gave her what she needed.”

On the day of the funeral, Franny found two black dresses in their mother’s closet. She was surprised to see several pairs of red shoes in the back of the closet, something her mother had forbidden them from wearing. Franny helped Jet to dress, pulling her nightgown over her head, then slipping the prettier of the dresses on her, treating her as if she were a child. Jet still hadn’t slept or had a bite to eat. She thought of her parents, how she had often heard them talking late at night. If it wasn’t true love that they’d had, then it was a true partnership. She couldn’t imagine one without the other. Now she realized that she hadn’t spent enough time with them, or told them she loved them; perhaps she hadn’t even known. All she knew was that she didn’t feel safe with them gone. Anything could happen now. Whatever their world had been, it would never be again. She sat in a chair in the living room, wearing her black dress, hands folded in her lap as she watched the door, as if she expected their parents to walk through, maybe then time would have rolled backward, maybe then Levi would still be alive.

Vincent, bleary-eyed and ravaged, had on a black suit he hadn’t bothered to press. When he came out of his room barefoot, Isabelle insisted he go back for his boots. That was the way in which their family members were buried and it was disconcerting to see Vincent without shoes. At the funeral home on Madison Avenue the coffins were closed. The mortician had been instructed that both their mother and father must wear black and be barefoot. Franny had chosen a Chanel dress for their mother and handed over her favorite red lipstick and Maybelline mascara, for she never went without her makeup and Franny was not about to have that change. For their father, Vincent had taken a Brooks Brothers suit from the closet, along with one of the white shirts he had had tailored in London. Franny had straightened her own unruly hair with an iron and dabbed on pale lipstick so that she might look presentable. There was no way to hide the wound on Jet’s face, though Franny tried with some powder from one of their mother’s gold compacts. It looked as though blue flowers had been stamped on Jet’s skin. Even when it healed, a jagged line would run down one side of her face.

Not that Jet cared. Nothing would be punishment enough for having lived through the accident. She kept seeing Levi put his arm out and step in front of her, and then she saw stars, and he called her name, or maybe it was only a sigh, the last of his life and breath rising up.

“You know he was related to us,” Vincent told Franny.

“No.” She looked at her brother. “How so?”

He shrugged. “Isabelle wouldn’t tell me.”

“Jet has lost the gift,” Franny said sadly. “I didn’t know that could happen.”

Their sister was still sitting in the chair, though the car had come for them. She barely seemed to breathe.

“She’ll get it back,” Vincent said. “It’s in her blood.”

At the chapel in Manhattan vases of orange and red gladiolus were set onto the polished tables. Aunt Isabelle sat with them in the front row. No one in the family cried. Although they were crushed, crying in public was unacceptable. Several of Dr. Burke-Owens’s patients who were in attendance were inconsolable. After the service, Franny and Vincent shook the hands of those who had come to pay their respects, while Isabelle sat in the parlor with Jet. Hay was there, along with his parents, who were polite and distant and quick to suggest that Haylin hurry along. But he wasn’t about to desert Franny, even though a limo was waiting to take the Owens siblings to the cemetery in Massachusetts for the interment.

“She has to leave,” Mr. Walker muttered. “Their car is here.”

“Fuck the car. I want to go with you,” Hay told Franny. “I should be there.”

Aunt Isabelle had come up behind them. “I like him. He should come with us.”

“Impossible,” Franny said. She wanted to keep Haylin away from her family’s troubles. It was bad enough that she must now introduce her aunt to the Walkers.

“You’re quite rich,” Isabelle said to Mr. Walker. “And yet you seem to have so little.” Haylin grinned when he overheard her remark.

“You’re quite rude,” Mr. Walker said.

“My niece and her husband are about to be buried. Who’s the rude one?”

“I think we know the answer to that one, Dad,” Haylin said.

Franny took her aunt by the hand to lead her away. “Not here,” she urged. “Not now.”

“What do you think I would do to that horrid man?” Isabelle said. “Believe me, he’ll bring on his own bad luck. His son, well, he’s another story. He’s the real thing.” She waved at Haylin and he waved back. Unlike most people, he was completely undaunted by Isabelle Owens.

Franny went to explain that there would be only family in Massachusetts, and all of the Owenses gathered in one place was far too much for any outsider to deal with.

“I don’t mind,” Haylin said. “Especially if they’re all like your aunt.”

“I’ll phone as soon as I’m back,” Franny promised.

The burial was to be held in the small graveyard in Massachusetts, the one they’d once peered at through the mossy iron fence, not especially interested, not even when they realized the old headstones were all engraved with the name Owens. Now their parents would be there, even though their mother had spent her entire life trying her best to get away from her family. And yet this place had continued to have a hold over her. In the end she knew she belonged with her relations. Her will had stated that both she and her husband were to be buried there, side by side.

Driving along the Massachusetts Turnpike, Jet had to be sedated. She took Valium on top of the painkillers she’d been given for her cracked ribs. Even then, she continued to shake. Vincent had discovered the limo had a bar. He gulped down scotch with the intention of getting good and drunk. Isabelle had insisted on sitting with the driver so she could give him directions. When she heard the clanking of bottles, she turned and gave Vincent a hard look.

“Let’s not have a scene today,” she suggested. “There’ll be trouble enough.”

“People are dead. To hell with good behavior,” Vincent muttered, low enough so that their aunt wouldn’t hear, but of course she did anyway and she gestured to Franny.

Franny returned the bottle of scotch to its proper place. “We need to get through this without incident,” she said darkly.

“Franny, we’re not getting through anything without incident,” Vincent said. “Isn’t that obvious?”

“Try,” Franny urged. She nodded to Jet, who was not paying attention to anyone and seemed caught up in her own sad world. Jet stared out the window, tears flowing down her face. “Let’s just get her through this,” Franny whispered to her brother.

Ever since the accident she had felt the burden of being the oldest. Overnight, and without warning, Franny no longer felt young. She was not going to get what she wanted or do as she pleased. She had come to understand that as she and Vincent sat together in the hospital. Today she had pinned up her straightened hair and had taken a black Dior cape from her mother’s closet, which carried the scent of Chanel No. 5, Susanna’s perfume. Franny knew that from now on she would be held hostage by her responsibilities.

When they reached the cemetery, the Boston Owenses, most of whom they’d never met before, had already gathered. They were introduced to April Owens’s disapproving parents, although April was nowhere in sight. Some cousins from Maine who had a farm known for its miraculous rhubarb, which could cure almost anything, from influenza to insomnia, were in attendance, and of course Aunt Isabelle sat in the front row, beside Franny. A heat wave had begun, but Isabelle wore her long black dress and a shawl she had knitted to keep evil at bay. All of the women had bunches of hyacinths, which Jet and Franny were given as well. The flowers were to remind them that life was precious and brief, like the hyacinth’s bloom.

The minister was married to an Owens and led a congregation in Cambridge.

“I look forward to seeing you in the fall,” he told Franny. They all knew she’d been accepted to Radcliffe.

“Perhaps,” Franny demurred, not wanting to commit herself.

Franny assisted their aunt over the tufted grass when they left the burial site. They went into a small bleak hall where cakes and coffee were displayed on a lace-covered table. There were pots of hyacinths everywhere.

Isabelle’s voice held real tenderness. “We never know the end of the story until we get there. Let me suggest a possibility for the immediate future. You three could move in with me.”

Franny shook her head. “It’s not possible.”

“At least stay for the rest of the summer,” Isabelle urged. “Give yourself some time to decide what comes next.”

“Thank you, no,” Franny told her aunt. “We’ll go back to New York.”

“Suit yourself. That tall boy will be happy, but will you?”

They could hear a siren. On the street a police car led a long line of cars, including a hearse. Levi Willard’s funeral procession was passing by.

“It’s a shame,” Isabelle said sadly.

“Because he’s a member of our family?” Franny asked. She very much wanted to know the secret April had spoken of.

“Because this could have been avoided if his father had learned not to hate. I think we should refrain from telling Jet that his funeral is taking place today. It’s too much for her to bear.”

“So you’re not going to tell me anything,” Franny said.

“Yes, if you must know, we’re related to the Willards.”

“Why is that a secret?”

“Why is anything a secret? People want to protect themselves from the past. Not that it works.”

Franny left her aunt to search for Vincent and Jet, whom she found in a corner.

“Let’s get out of here,” Vincent said. He was half-drunk, never a good state to be in.

“There’s April.” Jet pointed to the opposite corner, where April was sitting on an overstuffed chair, a baby girl on her lap. They approached with caution.

“Seriously?” Franny said, in quite a state of shock. “A baby?”

“I’m sorry about your parents.” April turned to Jet. “And I’m sorry about Levi. I heard he’s being buried today.”

Franny gave April a look that was so harsh and foreboding April felt smacked. She understood what she was being told and quickly backtracked, surprised by how much more powerful Franny now seemed.

“Or maybe it’s tomorrow,” April hedged. “Don’t ask me. I don’t have a moment to think straight.”

“Hello, baby.” Vincent sat on the edge of a coffee table and offered his hand, which the baby grabbed and held on to. No female wanted to let him go. This one’s name was Regina. Her eyes, of course, were gray.

“I suppose you can fight fate, but I’m glad I didn’t fight this,” April said of her daughter.

“You wouldn’t have wanted to,” Jet remarked with real emotion. “She’s a gorgeous baby,” she added when Franny looked puzzled.

Now Franny’s curiosity was piqued. “What happened to Regina’s father?”

“Drowned,” April said. “Wouldn’t that be my luck? Flash flood. What are the scientific odds of that?”

“Not a very high probability,” Franny remarked. April’s lie had fallen to the floor, heavy as lead, but Franny didn’t dare kick it, for fear of what other disturbing information might spring out at them.

“Well, congratulations are in order,” Vincent said, itching to have a drink. He stood and saluted, then found his way to the bar, where whiskey sours, their parents’ favorite cocktails, were being served.

Jet bent to tickle the baby. For a moment she seemed to have forgotten the tragic circumstances of the day. “Adorable,” she said. “Look at those big eyes.”

April seemed a bit softer than she used to be. “I really am sorry for your loss,” she told Jet. By now her daughter was whimpering. “Hold her for a minute,” April said to Franny, as she went to retrieve a bottle of formula from her bag. Franny begged off, saying she’d never had much to do with children and hoped to keep it that way. But a baby cannot be denied, and April grimaced and deposited the infant in Franny’s arms anyway. “Nonsense,” she said.

Regina instantly stopped fussing as she stared up at Franny.

“See!” April said, when she returned. “You’re not who you think you are.”

Franny was stung. “I’m exactly who I think I am!” She quickly gave the baby back and gazed at their new relation, her heart softening, as the baby sucked on her bottle.

They went back to Aunt Isabelle’s for supper, mostly homey casseroles that the Owenses from Maine had left. Creamed spinach and macaroni with pearl onions and for dessert their famous rhubarb pie. None of the siblings could eat. Jet went out to the garden. Vincent and Franny sat in the parlor and played gin rummy, which was difficult since each could guess the other’s cards a hundred percent of the time. Franny eased off her insistence on good behavior and didn’t say a word when Vincent poured himself a tall glass of their aunt’s scotch, hidden in a bureau, which they’d found in the first days of the summer when they’d come to visit.

After the guests departed, Isabelle went to lie down for a while, fully dressed, with her boots on. Her drapes were not drawn, and she spied Jet sneaking out the gate, clearly in a hurry. It was a two-mile walk, so once Jet got to town, she looked for the cab that was usually parked at the bus station. Luckily one was there, idling at the curb. She got in and asked to be taken to the big cemetery at the edge of town, where the four boys had been buried the previous summer. They were about to pull out when the taxi’s door opened and Isabelle got in. The driver watched her in his rearview mirror, in a panic. Isabelle Owens on her way to a cemetery was a passenger no one wanted.

“Do you have business at the cemetery, Miss Owens?” the driver asked in a nervous tone.

“We all will have business there sooner or later,” she answered brightly.

“I’m going alone,” Jet said.

“I think it’s a bad idea for you to go, but if you insist, I’m going with you.” Isabelle tapped the back of the driver’s seat. “Hurry up. And I’ll need you to wait for us.”

Levi’s funeral was over, but as they walked the path they spied the newly turned earth. The Reverend was still there. He did not have any intention of leaving his son. Jet turned pale when she spied him in his black jacket, sitting on a folding chair that had been left from the service.

Isabelle linked her arm through Jet’s and they walked forward over the grass. Birds were calling in the treetops and everything was emerald green. The grass had recently been mowed and the scent was midsummer sweet. The Reverend was looking down, and therefore saw their shadows before he saw them.

“Do not come any closer,” he said.

“We’re here to pay our respects,” Isabelle said. “I’m sure you would do the same if the situation were reversed.”

The Reverend raised his eyes. Gray-green, just like Levi’s. “But I don’t have to, because my son is dead and she’s alive,” he said, nodding to Jet. “This is the reason you’ve been cursed.”

“Your relative set that in motion, ours had no choice in the matter. And really, the truth is, because of them our fates and our histories are joined.”

Jet looked at her aunt, confused.

“And yet here I am,” the Reverend said. “At the grave of my son.”

Jet sank to the ground, dizzy. Isabelle did her best to get her back on her feet. The Reverend stood and watched, alarmed.

“Help us,” Isabelle commanded.

The Reverend took one of Jet’s arms and Isabelle the other and they guided her to the chair.

“Breathe slowly and deeply,” Isabelle said. She went to stand beside the Reverend, her cousin, since his side of the family were direct descendants of the man who was the father of Maria Owens’s daughter. “She’s just a young girl who happened to have fallen in love,” she said to the cousin who denied their shared family lineage. “In what world is that a curse?”

The Reverend couldn’t answer. He was broken and carried three hundred years of history and hatred.

“When we can forgive one another, we can begin to break the curse. You know that as well as I.”

The Reverend looked at Jet and Jet could see how he’d been devastated by what had happened. She managed to get to her feet. She stood before the grave, wishing she could be buried there as well, that her hands could be intertwined with Levi’s, and she could live in this place beside him.

“We should go before they close the gates,” Isabelle said.

The Reverend followed them at a distance.

“He should hate me,” Jet said to her aunt. “He has every reason.”

“Hatred is what got us here in the first place,” Isabelle said.

When they reached the taxi, Isabelle told the driver to wait. As soon as the Reverend arrived at the gates, Isabelle asked the driver to get out and assist him and have him sit in the front seat so he could be driven home. The Reverend looked surprised, but he was exhausted, so he did as he was told. He got into the taxi and stared straight ahead and there was no talk of any kind until they reached his house on the far side of town. The taxi stopped and the Reverend got out without a word or a look back.

When they returned to Magnolia Street, Isabelle asked Franny and Vincent to join them in the garden. They would be leaving for Manhattan in the morning, so it was time. On some nights it was best to remember the past, and not shut it in a drawer. Three hundred years ago people believed in the devil. They believed if an incident could not be explained, then the cause was something wicked, and that cause was often a woman who was said to be a witch. Women who did as they pleased, women with property, women who had enemies, women who took lovers, women who knew about the mysteries of childbirth, all were suspect, especially to the fiercest and cruelest judge in the area, John Hathorne, a man so terrible that his great-great-grandson, the author of The Scarlet Letter, tried to deny his own heritage by changing the spelling of his name.

The affair happened when Maria was young, and it was unexpected for both of them. Hathorne showed her one side of him, for he was a brilliant man, a magistrate, a justice of the peace in Essex County, and he had a soul, before it had been shattered by unhappiness and pride when he sent nineteen innocent people to their deaths and ruined the lives of many others. But when Maria met him none of this had happened, and she was enamored of him and perhaps he truly loved her. He was the one who gave her the sapphire and sent her away with a small bag of diamonds when the affair ended, hoping to ensure she would never be back, for he had a wife and a family and she was a young girl with whom he should never have tampered. Perhaps he felt he’d been enchanted, for from then on he looked for witchery in the world, and was the only magistrate associated with the trials who had never repented his actions.

They were therefore all descendants of a witch-finder and a witch, and therein lay the very heart of the curse’s beginnings, for they were fated to try their best to deny who they were and to refute their true selves. The Willard side of the family was related through one of Hathorne’s granddaughters, who had married a relation of John Proctor, hung as a witch when he tried to defend the innocent women being brought to trial.

“We were not there when these dreadful things happened, when women were accused of being crows and messengers from hell. We were neither the judge nor the accused, but we carry these things with us, and we have to fight them. The best way to do this is to be who you are, every part of you, the good and the bad, the sorrowful and the joyous. You can never run away. There is nowhere to run to. I think your mother knew that in the end, and that is why she came back here to be buried. We are who we are from the start.”

It was very late by now and the moon was red. Jet sat in the grass, her mouth set in a thin line. When you are young you are looking forward and when you are old you are looking back. Jet was young but she was already looking back. On this evening, when the crickets were calling, when the birds were all sleeping in the thickets and even the rabbits were hushed, Jet didn’t know how it was possible to forgive those who had wronged you or how it was possible to forgive yourself for those you had wronged.

They sat in the garden where Maria Owens had planted seeds so long ago. Life was short, it was over in an instant, but some things lasted. Hate and love, kindness and cruelty, all lingered and, in their case, all had been passed on. When they finally straggled inside, rain had begun to fall. It was a green, fresh rain, the sort most needed in summer, when everything is burning hot and thirsty. Usually the sisters shared the attic, but on this night Jet said she was too hot to go upstairs. Instead she sat in the parlor, waiting for the sun to rise, her suitcase packed. In the morning she told everyone she was perfectly fine, even though she wasn’t, even though she wished she was still on that green hill where Levi had been buried, where the grass smelled so sweet, where there was no beginning and no end.

The limo drove them back to Manhattan through a gray drizzle. The streets were empty and hot. They piled out onto Eighty-Ninth Street and stood on the sidewalk. They’d lived here all their lives, yet it didn’t feel like home. Franny found she couldn’t bring herself to go inside. Vincent helped Jet out of the car, then looked at Franny, wanting to know what was to happen next.

“Go on,” she told him. It was now thundering but Franny wouldn’t budge. “Go,” she insisted, and so they did while she remained where she was, though soon enough the clouds opened, leaving her soaking.

She had lost not only her parents but her future as well. Cambridge was no longer a possibility. How could she leave Jet and Vincent and go off to school? Though she was eighteen, little more than a girl, she, too, had begun to look backward.

When it came to the future she was certain she would never get what she wanted.

When Haylin didn’t hear from her as promised, he sprinted to Eighty-Ninth Street. He spied her standing in the driving rain and ran faster. When he reached her, he pulled her close and bent to kiss her. There was no need to say anything. The weather was still hot and pavements steamed as raindrops hit the cement. All of Manhattan smelled of hyacinths. “I’m always going to love you,” Hay said.

He came upstairs with her. They slipped through the parlor and went to the cook’s bedroom. They could hear the wet gusts of rain as the windows rattled. Hay took off Franny’s sopping clothes. She was shivering and couldn’t stop. The sky outside was murky and black with yellow heat waves rising from the pavement. Haylin kissed her, and when he grabbed off his own clothes they fell onto the bed together and neither thought about anything but each other. It was a single bed covered with the white coverlet that Susanna Owens had bought in Paris when she was a young woman mourning her lost love. The more Haylin loved her, the more Franny broke apart. Was this what had happened to her mother in Paris?

She told Hay that she wanted his hands all over her, and he was happy to oblige. She yearned to forget everything that had ever occurred in the past and only be in this moment.

“Oh, Franny,” Haylin said. This was his first time, too, which was what he had always wanted. To only be with Franny. When they were done, Haylin was lying on the floor on his back, naked and exhausted, terrified that he had already lost her as she drifted away. He watched Franny where she was poised on a chair by the window. The rain had stopped and Lewis was outside, his plumage gleaming wet as he pecked at the glass. Franny let him in and toweled off his slick feathers.

“Come back,” Haylin called to her.

Franny shook her head. She was naked except for Haylin’s T-shirt. She had exquisite long legs.

“Franny!”

She ignored him, for she had already decided what was between them must end. After what had happened to Levi, she no longer had the courage to take the chance of ruining Hay.

“We’ll be all right,” Hay said as if he knew her thoughts. “We’ll be happy in Cambridge.”

But it wouldn’t be all right. Franny went to lie down beside him. She stroked his shoulders and torso. He was so beautiful and young. “Where did we meet?” she asked. She wanted to remember everything when it was over.

“Third grade. The lunchroom. You had a tomato sandwich, which I thought was very strange. Who eats a plain tomato sandwich?”

Tomatoes were in the nightshade family and Franny had always adored them. “How do you recall these things?” She kissed his cheek, which was rough with stubble.

“I remember everything about you. I was waiting all that time for you to love me.”

They could hear music from the living room. The night had passed for them without sleep, in a dream of heat and longing. It was already noon. Vincent was playing guitar. They could hear him singing “Stand by Me” in a haunting voice.

Franny had no choice but to tell him. “I can’t leave Jet and Vincent.” She’d known it ever since the hospital.

Hay had no intention of letting go. “They’ll be fine. You have to go forward with your life.”

Franny kissed him and didn’t stop. Let him remember only this. The softness of her mouth, how her thighs opened to him when he wanted to be inside her. Maybe then he would forgive her more easily on the day her gray eyes turned to ice, when she appeared not to care, because she knew that was her fate, to avoid love at all costs and then to pretend it didn’t break her apart when she finally told him they were through.

Now that they had their freedom, they didn’t know what to do with it. No one put out the garbage. There were piles of trash in the kitchen that had begun to stink. Before long two rats had taken up residence in the broom closet, creatures Franny dealt with by flinging blocks of Swiss cheese inside for them. All at once she noticed how dilapidated everything was: the paint was chipped, the lights flickered, only one burner on the stove worked, and then not until Franny blew on it to light the flame. The town house had been deteriorating for some time, with no funds for repairs. As it turned out, the family was in debt and had borrowed heavily from the bank. So many of their father’s patients had been seen gratis, and their mother had spent whatever small inheritance she’d had years ago. The house would have to be put on the market. Jet hated the idea, and barely left her room. It therefore fell to Vincent and Franny to attend a meeting at their parents’ attorney’s office and listen to the lawyer address their dismal financial situation until Vincent said roughly, “Who the fuck cares?” storming out when he realized how broke they were.

“I believe the meeting is over,” Franny said. Before she departed, she signed all the necessary paperwork. As the eldest she was assigned to be her brother and sister’s legal guardian. It was up to her to make decisions. And, without a word to the others, she’d already made several of them.

Occasionally, their father’s patients would leave bouquets of flowers at the back door, which Franny immediately threw in the trash barrel. Several members of the psychoanalytic society had sent sympathy cards, which were burned in the fireplace. What was done was done and could not be undone. How much Franny missed her parents was unexpected. She wished she could sit down and talk to her mother, whom she discovered had convinced the local shopkeepers into giving them credit. She wished she could ask her father how to get rid of the flying ants in his office and how he had found time to write his book early in the morning before anyone else in the family was yet awake. She now understood why they had chased after Jet that night. It was fear of the Willards and their shared history of judges and victims. If only, Franny thought, but the list of what she wished she could have changed was too long and there was no way to rewrite their history.

Vincent spent most days sleeping, then he crept out in the evenings, not saying where he was headed, although they all knew the only place that currently interested him was the Jester. He didn’t come home till the wee morning hours, clearly having been up to no good, smelling of whiskey. He’d stopped going to school, and perhaps that was just as well; they could no longer afford Starling’s high tuition. When Vincent was at home, he wasn’t alone. He brought home countless girls, including Kathy Stern, the nymphomaniac, kleptomaniac patient of their father’s. Once she was ensconced in Vincent’s bedroom, she refused to leave. From listening in through the heat vents during Kathy’s therapy sessions, Franny knew Kathy had a wicked fear of birds. She let Lewis into the room, and before long Kathy ran screaming out the door in her underwear as the crow pulled on her hair, fistfuls of which were left on the floor. Later they realized Kathy had stolen their mother’s gold and pearl Chanel necklace.

“She was hilarious,” Vincent said. “She has a notebook listing all the men she’s ever slept with. She took photographs of their dicks and taped the photos in her book. She said she was going to make a collage out of them. So how could I deny her?”

There wasn’t anyone to tell Vincent no, except for Franny. Since their parents’ deaths, he refused to take anything seriously.

“Don’t you get it, Franny?” he said. “We have to live now, while we can. It will all be over soon enough.” He was almost sixteen, tall and dark and brooding, usually carrying a guitar, which made him all the more attractive, and all the more dangerous both to whoever might fall for him and to himself.

As for Jet, she remained in bed long after the doctors insisted she was fine. Her cracked ribs had healed, her bruises were fading, and what had been gashes in her hands and knees were thin red striations no one would recognize as wounds. The only thing that remained was the scar on her face, a jagged line shaped like petals on a stem that could be seen only in certain sorts of light.

“What’s the point?” she would say when Franny suggested they go for a walk.

Jet’s hair was so tangled a brush would no longer go through it. She didn’t bathe and ate only crackers and ginger ale. She slept with the edition of Emily Dickinson that Levi had given her. Inside he had written Forever—is composed of—Nows. Because they could hear Jet crying at all hours, Franny nailed the second-floor windows shut just to make sure her sister couldn’t make the rash decision to leap.

More and more Franny turned to Haylin, though she knew it was a mistake to do so. She had vowed to be with him only once, yet they were together every day. The closer they became, the harder the inevitable break would be. She should have told him about the future that loomed, but she couldn’t speak it aloud. Not now and not ever, she should have told him. Not if it will bring you to ruin. Every day she planned to end it, but instead of breaking up with him, she had sex with him in the spare room until they were both depleted and euphoric. Then they would lie there entwined and watch the crow fly through the room like a shadow.

“My mother would be mortified,” Franny confided. “She had an aversion to animals.”

“Lewis is not an animal,” Haylin said. “He seems to know what you’re thinking.”

“Are you saying he’s my familiar? That would make me a witch.” Franny rested her face against Haylin’s chest. She could hear his heartbeat, which gave her great comfort. She thought of the entries in Maria’s journal, and kept quiet even though she longed to tell him everything.

“I don’t care what you are, as long as you’re mine,” Haylin told her.

On the day Jet finally came out of the bedroom her stunning black hair was shorn as short as a boy’s. She’d used a pair of nail scissors and the ends were choppy. She was paying her penance. She had ruined all of their lives. She knew why Franny’s eyes were often brimming with unshed tears, and why her sister was still wearing the dress she had worn to their parents’ funeral. Franny had locked herself in her father’s office, the desk strewn with scattered papers, dust motes spinning through the air, and there she had telephoned the admissions office at Radcliffe to withdraw her acceptance. She did so in secrecy, but her voice had risen through the vents, the way their father’s patients’ tearful confessions had during their therapy sessions, and Jet had overheard.

“Oh, Jet, you’ve cut your hair,” Franny said when she witnessed what her sister had done.

Jet was still in her nightgown, barefoot. She resembled a cat, with a cat’s suspicion and mistrust, a gorgeous creature despite her attempt to ruin herself. Jet had already decided she would not be finishing high school. She felt far too old for that, and from that day forward, she wore only black. She rid herself of the girlish clothing she’d favored in the past—frilly, floaty dresses in shades of pink and violet—giving it all to Goodwill. Her clothes no longer suited her, for she wasn’t the same person she’d been before her birthday. That girl was gone forever. Sometimes she went back to the scene of the accident. She could no longer hear other people’s thoughts and was so alone she felt like a moth in a jar. She sat on the curb, like a beggar woman, but no one passing by could grant her forgiveness and that was something she certainly couldn’t allow herself.

Her one salvation was the novels she read. On nights when she thought it might be better not to be alive without Levi in the world, she opened a book and was therefore saved, discovering that a novel was as great an escape as any spell. She favored Jane Austen and the Brontës and Virginia Woolf, reading one book after another. On most days, she was happy not to leave home. She, who was once the most beautiful girl in two states, who had inherited their mother’s gorgeous features, now seemed mousy and unremarkable, a bookworm who could hardly be convinced to look away from the page. Boys no longer noticed her, and if they did, she made it clear she wasn’t interested. She walked late at night, when the avenues were deserted, as if tempting fate. She felt a kinship with the lonely, forsaken people drifting through the streets at that blue hour.

Seeing her sister’s distress, Franny wrote to their aunt. Surely there was a remedy to help Jet through this terrible time. Two days later a crate arrived with Jet’s cure. Franny laughed when she looked inside, then immediately went to wake Jet.

“Isabelle sent you something.”

Jet sat up in bed and wiped the sleep from her eyes.

“It’s not a rabbit, is it?” Jet asked.

“Goodness, no.”

Jet rose from bed and knelt to peer inside. There was a small black cat. Wren, who had followed her in their aunt’s garden. She scooped it up and dissolved into laughter, a lovely thing to hear after such a long period of mourning. The cat sat completely still, surprised by the attention.

“Oh, she’s perfect! You have your crow,” Jet said to Franny. “Now here’s my Wren.”

Jet let the cat onto the bed to play with a ball of blue string. She stroked her and told her what a lovely little cat she was, but her eyes never lit up, and Franny remembered what Isabelle had written on the card that had accompanied the cat.

A remedy such as this can only last so long.

A real estate agent soon began showing the neglected house to prospective buyers. Every now and then the siblings would discover strangers being led through as they were told how a little remodeling could easily restore the true beauty of the house. Vincent kept his room locked and he drew a skull on the door in black ink.

“Stay the fuck out,” he told the shocked Realtor, who wore a pillbox hat, of the sort Jacqueline Kennedy wore.

The agent had known Susanna Owens from the Yale Club and was showing the house as a favor. Anyone else would have quit in light of Vincent’s shenanigans. The nearly tame rats in the broom closet, the flickering lights, the smell of spoilt milk in the kitchen sink. The Realtor didn’t dare to open Vincent’s door, and made what she hoped were reasonable excuses. Just a small child’s room, potential buyers were told. You’ll need to paint and plaster. This was the way to avoid the drained bottles of whiskey, the hashish and marijuana, a fancy glass hookah pipe, piles of unwashed clothes, stinky boots, books of magic, and an amazing collection of record albums stored in orange crates. Even Franny was told she must knock before entering his room. Now that they were leaving, Vincent, who’d never seemed to give a damn about their home, was in despair. “I don’t see why we have to sell the place,” he complained.

“Because we’re broke,” Franny said with a forthrightness her brother didn’t appreciate.

“You can’t make me leave if I don’t want to,” he groused.

He kept his locked room dark. So much the better. Less costly electricity bills. They were counting pennies now. Dodging the shops where their parents had run up tabs: the butcher, the baker, the liquor store. They sold the living room furniture at a bad price, and did the same with a rug from Persia that had always been in the dining room. The entire town house was shadowed by the siblings’ spiritual agony, therefore Franny tried her best to get her brother and sister out when prospective buyers came by, not that it did a bit of good. They hung around the home they couldn’t wait to escape from in the past. In the end, Franny paid Vincent ten dollars each time he vacated before a showing. He then stomped out of the house and went to the Ramble, where he could concentrate on the only thing other than music that held his interest. Magic. He was focusing on his powers of intense concentration. He could make larger and larger objects move, at first with a shudder, then with a leap. Rocks fell from the cliffs above the paths. People stayed clear of any area Vincent claimed for himself when he set a circle that couldn’t be crossed. He carried The Magus under his coat, studying it so closely he had much of it memorized before long.

At last the house was sold to a lovely family who hoped to enter their girls into the Starling School. They wanted to move in as quickly as possible. Their lawyer suggested that Franny put whatever money they made from the sale into real estate. It was a good investment and they wouldn’t have to worry about making the rent. They could forget the East Side, however, it was much too expensive. It was suggested that Franny look downtown.

She took the M1 bus to the end of its route, then walked to Washington Square Park, where she stood beneath the historic white arch. Long ago, Minetta Creek flowed here and Washington Square was a swamp. In 1794, Aaron Burr changed the course of the stream, so his own nearby property would have a pond, and later, when the city began encroaching upon the creek, muskrats still abounded. It was an extraordinary place, but it also held great sorrow, for Minetta Creek, known by the Indian people as Devil’s Water, was a boundary for a cemetery that was in use from 1797 to 1826, a potter’s field where twenty thousand bodies were buried and where they rested, uneasily or not, to this day.

The Hangman’s Elm, said to be over three hundred years old, stood in the northwest corner of Washington Square Park. That was where witches were said to gather. The last execution in Manhattan took place here in 1820, when a nineteen-year-old slave named Rose Butler was hanged for burning down her master’s house. After that most people avoided the tree after dark, or at least they made certain to keep lavender in their pockets to bring them luck when they passed by. Folk magic could always be found in Manhattan, from the time English colonists valued the almanac in order to read astrology and magic parchments were sold as maps for treasure digging, along with divining rods and secret incantations. Divination and palmistry were studied. After the Revolution magic was so rampant, with peddlers selling forbidden books hidden in black covers, that ministers preached against it from their pulpits. The craft was dangerous and unpredictable, and witches were difficult to control, for they had minds of their own and didn’t hold to keeping to the law.

As Franny walked on, the neighborhood smelled like patchouli and curry. It was the end of summer and everyone who could afford to be out of the city was. The Village felt like a sleepy town. It was a different city here; the buildings were smaller and it was possible to see the sky. No one cared what you looked like or what you wore. Franny stopped at a café for a strong cup of coffee. Listening to the waiters argue in Italian, she felt transported. She went to a flower shop and bought a rose that was so dark it appeared black. At last she turned onto Greenwich Avenue and there she stopped. She had come upon a tilted little house that had a For Sale sign in the street-level window where there had once been a shop. There was a school next door and the children were out at recess. When Franny looked through the window she could see a pie-shaped yard filled with weeds. Shifting her gaze she spied a twisted wisteria and a few spindly lilacs. It was then she felt her heart lift.

She wrote the phone number of the Realtor on a scrap of paper and went on, across Sixth Avenue, past the Women’s House of Detention at 10 Greenwich Avenue. It was a huge prison plunked down in the center of the city, built in 1932 in the Deco style on the spot where the old Jefferson Market Prison once stood. Women shouted rude comments through the bars that guarded the open windows. It was hot on the street and far hotter inside the prison.

Help a sister, someone called.

Franny did the best she could. A cool wind rose to flit through the windows, down the hallways of the prison. For a moment, there was some relief from the heat. In response there were hoots of laughter and applause. Franny looked around. No one on the street was watching so she blew a kiss to those women who were locked away, and she left the wind gusting all the rest of the day.

Franny found Vincent in the Jester on Christopher Street. He was drinking absinthe and lemon juice, a sugar cube tucked into his cheek.

“Hey, Franny,” he said when he caught sight of her. “Fancy meeting you here.”

Two attractive girls from NYU sat in the booth with him, the prettier one slouched in the hollow of his arm. The girls seemed annoyed to see Franny and sent looks of frustration Vincent’s way. As if he cared about them. Franny didn’t know why he bothered. Was it to prove something to her or to himself?

#8220;Let’s go,” Franny said with a nod. Vincent could tell from her tone that she was deadly serious. “We’re moving.”

“What?”

Franny had received a notice from the attorney. They had enough to buy the ramshackle place on Greenwich and still have a nest egg of cash to survive on a shoestring for a while. After that they were on their own.

“The movers come this week. Our house has been sold and we’re going to a place we can afford. Or at least I hope we can.” She paid Vincent’s bill and waited for him on the sidewalk while he told his girlfriends good-bye. Then they walked side by side, boot heels clattering, two tall moody individuals with scowls on their faces. People crossed the street to avoid them.

“So we just leave home?” Vincent asked. “And what about Radcliffe?”

Franny gave her brother a sidelong glance. “You knew I was never going.”

“I wish you could have.”

They splurged on a taxi uptown. Then they stood in front of the house where they’d grown up and gazed at it sadly. They would likely not come back to Eighty-Ninth Street once they were gone. They would avoid it after they were settled downtown. You don’t go back to a place where you’ve lost so much.

“What about Haylin?” Vincent asked.

Today New York smelled like wet grass and jasmine tea.

Franny shrugged. “He’ll give up.”

“You’re selling him short. He’ll never let you go.”

When Haylin phoned, Franny told him he must go to Cambridge alone. He wouldn’t listen. He continued to call, so she stopped answering the phone. He came to their door at all hours, but she didn’t respond. Sooner or later he’d have to leave New York. It was now September. Everything in the park was fading to yellow, and huge clouds of migrating birds lit in the trees.

“You’re staying for me,” Jet said.

Franny shrugged. “You’re my sister.”

“But Hay?”

“Hay will be fine.”

“Will he?” Jet wondered.

“Yes, he will, but he won’t listen to me. You tell him the truth,” Franny said in a surprisingly small voice. “Cover for me.”

“What if you lose him for good?”

“Then it was meant to be.”

Jet was convinced she must talk to him. Haylin had posted himself at the Owenses’ town house, a determined expression on his face. He looked the way he had when he chained himself in the school cafeteria. Jet told him Franny had withdrawn from school and would not be leaving for Cambridge. In fact, they were moving downtown. There was no way to change Franny’s mind. Jet had already tried.

“If I just saw her,” Hay said. “If I could talk to her I think she would leave with me.”

“You know Franny, she’s stubborn.”

Haylin was already two days late for the semester and had missed registration; if he waited any longer they might retract his acceptance.

“Go,” Jet told him. “And don’t feel guilty.”

She went inside and locked the door, leaving Hay to stand there, dazed and despairing. He had no idea why Franny had done her best to stop love’s hold on him. He looked upward, shielding his eyes. The movers were packing up the town house. Vincent had suggested they leave everything behind—all he was taking was a backpack of clothes and his guitar—but Jet had taken great care in wrapping up the china her mother had brought home from Paris and had filled a trunk with Susanna’s chic clothing. She had boxes and boxes of books stacked in the hall. As for Franny, she took only the letters Haylin had written to her the summer she was away, and some of the clothing she’d worn when she was with him. She was packing it all into a single cardboard box when she happened to gaze out and see Haylin on the sidewalk. Her heart broke then; she could feel it tearing in two. He looked so alone out there.

The crow was peering out the open window. “Take care of him,” Franny said.

When Haylin turned to leave, the crow plummeted down to perch on his shoulder. Hay didn’t seem the least surprised. He had a cracker in his pocket, which he offered to his new companion. The two disappeared down the street, into the yellow haze of the park. They were both gone, her heart and her soul. The scent of chestnuts was in the air. It would be autumn soon. Hay would be in Dunster House, the crow would be perched on a rooftop in Cambridge, and Franny would be living at 44 Greenwich Avenue, following her fate, even though what she wanted most of all was headed in the opposite direction.