The Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman (1)

Once upon a time, before the whole world changed, it was possible to run away from home, disguise who you were, and fit into polite society. The children’s mother had done exactly that. Susanna was one of the Boston Owenses, a family so old that the General Society of Mayflower Descendants and the Daughters of the American Revolution were unable to deny them admission to their exclusive organizations, despite the fact that they would have liked to close the door to them, locking it twice. Their original ancestor, Maria Owens, who had arrived in America in 1680, remained a mystery, even to her own family. No one knew who had fathered her child or could fathom how she came to build such a fine house when she was a woman alone with no apparent means of support. The lineage of those who followed Maria was equally dubious. Husbands disappeared without a trace. Daughters begat daughters. Children ran off and were never seen again.

In every generation there were those who fled Massachusetts, and Susanna Owens had done so. She had escaped to Paris as a young woman, then had married and settled in New York, denying her children any knowledge of their heritage for their own good, which left them with nagging suspicions about who they were. It was clear from the start that they were not like other children, therefore Susanna felt she had no choice but to set down rules. No walking in the moonlight, no Ouija boards, no candles, no red shoes, no wearing black, no going shoeless, no amulets, no night-blooming flowers, no reading novels about magic, no cats, no crows, and no venturing below Fourteenth Street. Yet no matter how Susanna tried to enforce these rules, the children continued to thwart her. They insisted upon being unusual. Eldest was Frances, with skin as pale as milk and blood-red hair, who early on had the ability to commune with birds, which flocked to her window as if called when she was still in her crib. Then came Bridget, called Jet due to her inky black tresses, a girl as shy as she was beautiful, who seemed to know what others were thinking. Last there was Vincent, the adored youngest child, a surprise in every way, the first and only boy to be born into the family, a gifted musician who whistled before he could talk, so charismatic and fearless his worried mother took to keeping him on a leash when he was a toddler, to prevent him from making an escape.

The children grew up quickly in the last years of the 1950s, their odd behavior increasing with time. They had no desire to play games and no interest in other children at the park. They sneaked out the windows of the family’s shabby town house on Eighty-Ninth Street on the Upper East Side after their parents went to bed, cavorting on the roof, scurrying down fire escapes, and, as time went on, wandering into Central Park at all hours. They wrote with black ink on the living room walls, read each other’s thoughts, and hid in the basement scullery, where their mother could never find them. As if it were their duty, they broke the rules one by one. Franny wore black and grew night-blooming jasmine on her windowsill, Jet read every novel written by E. Nesbit and fed stray cats in the alley, and Vincent began to venture downtown by the time he turned ten.

All three had the gray eyes the family was known for, but the sisters were opposites in every way. Frances was sulky and suspicious, while Jet was kindhearted and so sensitive that a negative remark could make her break into hives. Jet was fashionable, following in her mother’s stylish footsteps, but Frances was usually rumpled, her hair left uncombed. She was happiest when her boots were muddy as she navigated the park, wandering through Sheep Meadow. Her gift with wild birds allowed her to bring them to her merely by lifting her hand. From a distance, when she ran so fast she was nearly flying, it seemed as if she spoke their language, and was meant for their world more than her own.

As for Vincent, he possessed such an unearthly charm that only hours after his birth a nurse in the maternity ward of Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital had tucked him into her coat in a failed kidnapping attempt. During her trial she’d told the court that the abduction was not her fault. She’d been spellbound, unable to resist him. As time went on, this wasn’t an unusual complaint. Vincent was spoiled rotten, treated by Jet as though he were a baby doll and by Frances as if he were a science experiment. If you pinched him, Frances wondered, would he cry? If you offered him a box of cookies, would he make himself sick by eating every one? Yes, it turned out, and yes again. When Vincent misbehaved, which was often, Frances made up stories filled with punishments for little boys who would not do as they were told, not that her cautionary tales stopped him. All the same, she was his protector and remained so even when he was far taller than she.

The school they attended was despised by all three children, though Susanna Owens had worked hard at getting them accepted, throwing cocktail parties for the board of the Starling School at the family’s town house. Though their home was ramshackle due to a lack of funds—their father, a psychiatrist, insisted on seeing many of his patients gratis—the place never failed to impress. Susanna staged the parlor for school gatherings with silver trays and silk throw pillows, bought for the event and then returned to Tiffany and Bendel the very next day. Starling was a snobby, clannish establishment with a guard stationed at the front door at Seventy-Eighth Street. Uniforms were required for all students, although Franny regularly hitched up her gray skirt and rolled down the scratchy kneesocks, leaving her freckled legs bare. Her red hair curled in humid weather and her skin burned if she was in the sun for more than fifteen minutes. Franny stood out in a crowd, which irritated her no end. She was tall, and continued to grow until finally in fifth grade she reached the dreaded six-foot mark. She had always had especially long, coltish arms and legs. Because of this her gawky stage lasted for ten years, from the time she was a glum kindergartener, who was taller than any of the boys, until she turned fifteen. Often she wore red boots, bought at a secondhand store. Strange girl, was written in her records. Perhaps psychological testing is needed?

The sisters were outsiders at school, with Jet an especially easy target. Her classmates could make her cry with a nasty note or a well-aimed shove. When she began hiding in the girls’ bathroom for most of the day, Franny swiftly interceded. Soon enough the other students knew not to irritate the Owens sisters, not if they didn’t want to trip over their own shoes or find themselves stuttering when called upon to give a report. There was something about the sisters that felt dangerous, even when all they were doing was eating tomato sandwiches in the lunchroom or searching for novels in the library. Cross them and you came down with the flu or the measles. Rile them and you’d likely be called to the principal’s office, accused of cutting classes or cheating. Frankly, it was best to leave the Owens sisters alone.

Franny’s only friend was Haylin Walker, who was taller than she by three inches and equally antisocial. He was a legacy doomed to be a Starling student from the moment of his birth. His grandparents had donated the athletic building, Walker Hall, dubbed Hell Hall by Franny, who despised sports. In sixth grade Hay had staged a notorious protest, chaining himself to the dessert rack in the lunchroom to demand better wages for workers in the cafeteria. Franny admired his grit even though the other students simply watched wide-eyed, refusing to join in when Haylin began chanting “Equality for all!”

After the janitor apologetically cut through the chains with a hacksaw, Haylin was given a good talking-to by the headmaster and made to write a paper about workers’ rights, which he considered a privilege rather than a punishment. He was obligated to write ten pages, and handed in a tome of nearly fifty pages instead, duly footnoted, quoting from Thomas Paine and FDR. He couldn’t wait for the next decade. Everything would change in the sixties, he told Franny. And, if they were lucky, they would then be free.

Haylin despised his background of wealth and privilege and wore torn, threadbare clothes and boots so old there were holes in the soles. All he wanted was a dog and permission to attend public school. His parents denied him both of these wishes. His father was the largest shareholder in a global bank that had been based in Manhattan since 1824, which was a great cause of shame for Hay. By the time they were in high school, he had considered legally changing his name to Jones or Smith so no one could connect him with his family and their infamous greed. One of the reasons he trusted Franny was because she was utterly unimpressed by externals. She didn’t care if he lived in a penthouse on Fifth Avenue, or that his father had a butler who had been to Oxford and wore a morning coat and polished boots.

“What a lot of bother,” Franny always said.

Most important, they had science in common. Haylin was currently studying the effects of cannabis on his calorie intake. So far he’d gained five pounds in less than a month, becoming addicted not to marijuana but to jelly doughnuts. He seemed easygoing, except when he talked about biology or injustice or his dedication to Franny. He trailed after her, not seeming to care if he made a fool of himself. When they were together, he had an intense gleam in his eye that Franny found disconcerting. It was as if there was a whole other part of him, a hidden self that was fueled by emotions neither he nor Franny was ready to confront.

“Tell me everything about you,” Haylin often asked her.

“You already know me,” Franny answered. He knew her better than anyone. Better, she sometimes feared, than she knew herself.

Unlike Franny and Jet, Vincent made his way through school with ease. He had taken up the guitar and in no time had surpassed his teacher, and soon enough packs of infatuated girls followed him through the school hallways. His interest in magic began early on. He pulled quarters from classmates’ ears and lit matches with a puff of breath. In time, his talents increased. With a single look he could make the electricity in the Owenses’ house go haywire, with lights flickering, then fizzing out entirely. Locked doors unlatched when they hadn’t been touched, windows opened and closed when he was near. When Franny asked how he accomplished such things, he refused to divulge his methods.

“Figure it out,” he said with a grin.

Vincent had posted a sign on his bedroom door, ENTER AT YOUR OWN PERIL, but Franny walked right in to search the place. There was nothing interesting in the desk drawers or the closet, but when she reached into the cobwebby space beneath her brother’s bed she discovered an occult handbook called The Magus. Franny knew its history, for it was on their mother’s list of forbidden books. It had been so popular when it was published, in 1801, that not enough texts could be printed. People committed robbery in their desire to own it, and many devotees kept it hidden under the floorboards. Vincent’s well-worn copy was still just as potent as ever. It smelled like sulfur, and as soon as Franny saw it, she had a sneezing fit. If she wasn’t mistaken, she was allergic to the thing.

The Magus was so hot to the touch she burned her fingers on its binding as she plucked it from its hiding place. It was not the sort of item a person picked up on a whim. You had to know what you were looking for, and you had to have the courage to handle it.

Franny flung the text on the kitchen table as Vincent was having his lunch. There went the potato salad and the coleslaw, splattering across the tabletop. The spine of the book was black and gold, cracked with age. When it hit the table the book groaned.

“Where did this come from?” she asked.

Vincent stared at her and didn’t flinch. “A used book kiosk outside the park.”

“That is not true,” Franny said firmly. “You’ve never been to a bookstall in your life!”

Vincent could flimflam other people, even Jet could be fooled by his charm, but Franny harbored an instinct for such things. Truth felt light and green, but a lie sunk to the floor, heavy as metal, a substance she always avoided for it made her feel as though she was trapped behind bars. Still, Vincent was the most appealing of liars and Franny felt a swell of love for her brother when he shrugged and told the truth.

“You’re right. They couldn’t sell it in a bookstall,” he confided. “It’s still illegal.”

Any copies that had been unearthed at the turn of the century had been burned on a bonfire in Washington Square and there was a little-known law forbidding the book to be kept in libraries in New York City or sold in bookstores. Inside the book now splayed upon the table Franny spied images of witches led to a gallows hill. The date printed below the illustration was 1693. A chill of recognition ran through her. She’d recently written a report for history class on the Salem trials and therefore knew this to be the year when many of those set to be tried escaped from New England in search of a more tolerant place, which they found in Manhattan. While the antiwitchcraft mania raged in New England, spurred on by politics, greed, and religion, ignited by Cotton Mather and the infamous and cruel judge John Hathorne, in New York only two witch trials had taken place, in 1658 and again in 1665, one in Queens, the other on Long Island, then called Yorkshire, in the town of Setauket, both involving residents who had ties to Boston. In New York, Franny had discovered, it was possible to be free.

“Why would you want this thing?” Franny’s fingertips had turned sooty and she had a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach.

Of course it would be like Vincent to be interested in the occult, rather than something ordinary, like soccer or track and field. He was suspended from school on a regular basis for general mischief, pails of water tumbling down, cans of pepper spray going off. His ongoing behavior was a great embarrassment to their father, who had recently published a book titled A Stranger in the House, an analysis of troubled adolescents dedicated to the children, none of whom had any intention of reading it, though it was something of a bestseller.

Franny could guess where The Magus had come from. The place on their mother’s list they were never to go. Downtown. It was rumored that what was outlawed in other parts of Manhattan could be found there. Hearts of beasts, blood of men, enchantments that could prove to be lethal. The chief reason their mother did not allow them to journey to Greenwich Village was that it was viewed as a society of bohemians, drug addicts, homosexuals, and practitioners of black magic. Yet Vincent had managed to find his way there.

“Trust me, it’s nothing to worry about,” he muttered, quickly retrieving The Magus. “Really, Franny, it’s just a lousy book.”

“Be careful,” Franny admonished him.

Perhaps she was also speaking to herself, for she was often alarmed by her own abilities. It wasn’t only that birds were drawn to her or that she’d discovered she could melt icicles with the touch of her hand. There was some scientific logic behind both of those reactions. She was calm and unafraid when birds flapped about, and her body temperature was above average, therefore it was logical for ice to melt. But one night, while standing on the fire escape outside her bedroom, she’d thought so hard about flying that for a moment her feet had lifted and she’d hung in the air. That, she knew, was empirically impossible.

“We don’t really know what we’re dealing with,” she murmured to her brother.

“But it’s something, isn’t it?” Vincent said. “Something inside of us. I know our mother wants us to pretend we’re like everyone else, but you know that we’re not.”

They both considered this. The girls had their talents, as did Vincent. He could, for instance, see shadowy bits of the future. He’d known that Franny would come across The Magus today and that they would have this conversation. In fact, he’d written it down on his skin with blue ink. He now held up his arm to show her. Franny finds the book.

“Coincidence,” Franny was quick to say. There was no other justifiable cause.

“Are you sure? Who’s to say it’s not more?” Vincent lowered his voice. “We could try to find out.”

They sat together, side by side, pulling their kitchen chairs close, unsure of what bloomed inside them. As they concentrated, the table rose up, hovering an inch off the floor. Franny was so startled she hit the tabletop with the palms of her hands to stop the rising. Immediately it returned to the floor with a clatter.

“Let’s wait,” she said, flushed with the heat of this strange moment.

“Why wait? The sooner we know what this is, the better. We want to control it, not have it control us.”

“There is no it,” Franny insisted, logical as always, well aware that her brother was referring to magic. “There’s a rational explanation for every action and reaction.”

After the incident in the kitchen, the table was always tilted, with plates and glasses tending to slide off the top, as if to remind them that whoever they were, whatever their history might be, Vincent had been correct. They were not like anyone else.

None of this experimentation would have pleased Dr. and Mrs. Burke-Owens, had they known of such games. They were elegant, serious people who spent evenings out nursing a Tom Collins or whiskey sour at the Yale Club, for after receiving his B.A. at Harvard, the doctor had attended medical school in New Haven, a town their mother admitted she hoped never to visit again. They were both constantly on the lookout for signs of hereditary malfunctions in their offspring, and so far they were not especially hopeful. In his writings, Dr. Burke-Owens proposed a theory of personality that placed nature over nurture, stating there was no way to change a child’s core personality. Not only was the brain hardwired, he proposed, but the soul was as well. There was no way to escape one’s personal genetics, despite a healthy environment, and this did not bode well for Frances and Bridget and Vincent.

Luckily for them, their father was preoccupied with his patients, who furtively made their way inside through a separate entrance before descending to a basement office in the Owenses’ town house. While therapy was in progress, Vincent often sneaked down to the coat closet to search a patient’s pockets for cash, mints, and Valium. Then all three children would lie on the kitchen floor, relaxed by the little yellow pills Vincent had found, sucking on Brach’s Ice Blue mints as they listened in to the sobbing confessions that filtered up through the heating vent. Due to these eavesdropping sessions they knew about obsessions, depressions, manias, sexual appetites, and transference long before most people their age knew what a psychiatrist was.

Every year a box of lavender-scented black soap wrapped in crinkly cellophane would arrive from Massachusetts. Susanna refused to say who the sender was, yet she faithfully washed with it. Perhaps that was why she had such a creamy, radiant complexion. Franny discovered the potential of the soap after she nicked a bar one Christmas. When she and Jet sampled it, the soap caused their skin to shine, but it also made them so silly they couldn’t stop laughing. They filled the sink with bubbles and splashed water at each other and were soon soaked to the skin. When their mother found them throwing the slippery bar of soap back and forth like a hot potato, she snatched it from their grasp.

“This is not for children,” she said, though Franny was nearly seventeen and Jet would turn sixteen next summer.

Surely their mother was hiding something from them under the clouds of mascara she wore. She never spoke of her family, and the children had never met a single relation. As they grew older their suspicions grew as well. Susanna Owens spoke in riddles and never gave a straight answer. Uncross your knives, she’d insist if there was a quarrel at the table. Butter melting in a dish meant someone nearby was in love, and a bird in the house could take your bad luck out the window. She insisted that her children wear blue for protection and carry packets of lavender in their pockets, though Franny always threw the packets away the minute she was out of her mother’s sight.

They began to wonder if their mother wasn’t a spy. Russia was the enemy, and at Starling students were often made to crouch beneath their desks, hands over their heads, for bomb-safety drills. Spies had no family connections and dubious histories, just as their mother had, and they spoke in double-talk, as she did. They fudged their histories to protect their true backgrounds and intentions, and Susanna never mentioned attending college nor did she discuss where she grew up or reveal anything about her parents, other than claiming they had died young while on a cruise. The Owens children knew only the slimmest facts: Susanna had grown up in Boston and been a model in Paris before settling down with the children’s father, who was an orphan with no family of his own. Their mother was terribly chic at all times, wearing black and gold sunglasses even on cloudy days, and lavish designer clothes from Paris, and she always wore Chanel No. 5 perfume, so that every room she was in was deliciously scented.

“And then you all came along,” Susanna would say cheerfully, when anyone could tell having children had been a trial for her. It was obvious she wasn’t meant for domestic life. She was a terrible cook and seemed puzzled by all household duties. The washing machine caused her endless grief and often overflowed. The stove was on the fritz more often than not, and every culinary dish she attempted came out half-baked. Even macaroni and cheese was an ordeal. A hired woman came in once a week to mop and vacuum, but she was fired after Susanna found her teaching the children to use a Ouija board, which was confiscated and burned in the fireplace.

“You know the rules!” she cried. “Do not call up darkness when you are unprepared for the consequences.” Susanna looked quite mad, stuffing the Ouija board into the flames with a poker.

Her penchant for the rules only made her children more curious. Why did their mother draw the curtains on May Day, leaving them in the dark? Why did she wear sunglasses on moonlit nights? Why did she panic when they ran out of salt and quickly rush down to buy some at the market? They looked for clues about their heritage, but there were few keepsakes, although one day Franny discovered an old photograph album wrapped in muslim on the top shelf of the hallway closet. There were faded pictures of women in a lush, overgrown garden, a troupe of girls in long skirts grinning at the camera, a black cat on a porch, their mother when she was young, standing in front of Notre-Dame. When Susanna found Franny curled up on the settee in the parlor studying the album, she immediately took it away. “It’s for your own good,” she said tenderly. “All I want for you is a normal life.”

“Mother,” Franny sighed. “What makes you think that’s what I want?”

What is meant to be is bound to happen, whether or not you approve. One June morning, their lives were forever changed. It was 1960, and all at once there was a sense that anything might occur, suddenly and without warning. It had been a great relief when the end of the school year arrived, but life at home was stifling. New York City was a cauldron of pollution and humidity. Just as the temperature climbed into the nineties and the siblings were already bored out of their minds, a letter arrived in the mail. The envelope seemed to pulse, as if it had a beating heart. There was no stamp, yet the U.S. Post Office had seen fit to slip it through the mail slot in their front door.

Susanna took one look and said, “It’s from my aunt Isabelle.”

“We have an aunt?” Franny asked.

“Good God, not her,” Dr. Burke-Owens remarked. “Don’t open that letter.”

But Susanna had already slid her nail under the flap of the envelope. She had a strange expression, as if she were opening a door long closed. “It’s an invitation for Franny. Everyone gets one when they’ve turned seventeen. It’s a tradition.”

“Then I should go,” Franny was quick to say. Anything to get away from her mother’s rules.

“If you do, nothing will ever be the same,” her mother warned.

“Unlikely,” Franny said, retrieving the envelope. Above all she was brave, and when no one dared to step in, she always would. And the letter was addressed to her, not their mother.

“Massachusetts must be avoided at all costs,” their father interjected. “Contact with any of the family will inflame characteristics which are currently dormant.”

Franny ignored her father, intent on the old-fashioned handwriting that resembled the tracks of a bird.

You may leave home this afternoon and arrive by dinnertime.

“Did you go when you were seventeen?” Franny now asked her mother.

Susanna blinked her wide gray eyes. Caught in Franny’s gaze, she couldn’t tell a lie. “I did,” she admitted. “Then I left for Paris and that was the end of that. But you.” She shook her head. “I don’t know about letting you go alone. You’re so rebellious as it is.”

“I am not!” Franny said with her customary defiance.

Vincent stepped on Franny’s foot to silence her. He was desperate to have an adventure. “We’ll go with her,” he said.

“We can watch over her,” Jet added.

Their minds were made up. They would escape for the summer. While their parents argued, Franny and Vincent and Jet went off to pack, shouting to each other not to forget swimsuits and sandals, excited to at last discover where they’d come from.

When they brought suitcases and backpacks and Vincent’s guitar into the kitchen, their mother was sitting alone at the table, her eyes rimmed red. They gazed at her, confused. Was she ally or enemy?

“It is a formal invitation,” Susanna said. “I’ve explained to your father that it wouldn’t do to be rude to my aunt, but I’m not certain he understands.” She turned to Vincent and Jet. “You will watch over Franny?”

They assured her they would.

“Isabelle will surprise you,” Susanna told them. “There will be tests when you least expect them. You’ll think no one is watching over you, but she’ll be aware of everything you do. And you must promise that you’ll come back to me,” she said tearfully. She was rarely so emotional, and her children took note of her despair. It made going to Massachusetts seem all the more worthwhile.

“Of course we’ll come back,” Franny said. “We’re New Yorkers.”

“It’s only for the summer,” Jet reassured their mother.

Everyone had to leave home eventually, didn’t they? They had to set out on their own and find out who they were and what their futures might bring. But for now all Vincent wanted was a bus ticket, and when he looked at his sisters he could tell they agreed. No going back, no retreat, no settling for the ordinary lives they had been made to live every day.

They arrived on Midsummer’s Eve, the summer solstice, when the day is so long it seems for once there is all the time in the world. The roses were in bloom and a green blur of pollen drifted through the darkening air. As they walked through the small town, neighbors came to stand at their windows and gawk. It was common knowledge that any strangers dressed in black would likely be heading to Magnolia Street. Most people avoided the Owens family, believing that any entanglement with them could taint not only your present, but your future as well. It was said that some members of the family could place a single horse hair into a pan of water and turn it into a snake. If they threw dust in a circle, you had best not cross over, not even when the dust disappeared, for you might fall into a hole of desire or regret and never arise again.

“Not very welcoming,” Jet said in a worried tone as the neighbors glared at them.

“To hell with them,” Fanny remarked. Had her sister learned nothing at the Starling School? Other people’s judgments were meaningless unless you allowed them to mean something.

At fourteen, Vincent was already too handsome for his own good. He was six four and imposing despite how skinny he was. Now he shook his fist in the air and jeered at the local spectators. In an instant, there was the clicking of locks up and down the street.

“Excellent,” Vincent said. “We won’t have any trouble with them.”

He stood out wherever he went, but especially here, in a small town where boys his age were playing baseball in a dusty field, wearing baggy jeans, stopping their game to observe the outsiders walking through town. Vincent wore his black hair slicked back and had his guitar slung over one shoulder despite his father’s declaration that a guitar, like a sports car, was an extension of a damaged male ego. “So I’m damaged.” Vincent had shrugged. “Who isn’t?”

When they reached the end of Magnolia Street they stopped, daunted for the moment. The house was huge, with tilted chimneys and scores of windows fashioned out of green glass. The entire property was encircled by the wrought-iron fence, but there wasn’t a gate in sight.

“Do you feel something here?” Vincent asked his sisters.

“Mosquitoes?” Franny guessed. She surveyed the muck-laden puddles in the huge vegetable garden. “Probably a good chance of dysentery.”

Vincent made a face and said, “No pain, no gain,” then went to investigate. The garden was so lush and green it made one dizzy. There was a henhouse, where some brown and white clucking chickens pecked at seed tossed on the ground; a potting shed surrounded by plumy weeds that were taller than Vincent; and a padlocked greenhouse, which looked extremely promising as a potential hideaway.

“Over here,” Vincent called after clearing away some of the thorny shrubbery. He had managed to discover a rusted gate that led to a bluestone pathway. His sisters followed to the porch, charging up the steps. Franny was about to knock on the door when it opened of its own accord. All three took a step back.

“It’s just an old door,” Franny said in a measured voice. “That’s all. It’s a hot day and the wood frame expanded.”

“You think so?” Vincent drew himself up to his full height and peered through the shadows. He could feel the current in the air. “There’s a lot more here. Hundreds of years of it.”

Isabelle Owens was in the kitchen, her back to them as she puttered about. She was a formidable woman; her frame might be small, but her attitude was commanding. Her white hair was pinned up haphazardly, and yet despite her age, her complexion was perfect. She had worn black every day of her life and she did so today. Franny stared until their aunt suddenly turned in her direction, then Franny impulsively ducked down behind a potted plant, her heart pounding against her chest. Vincent and Jet followed suit, sinking down beside their sister, holding their hands over their mouths so as not to explode with laughter. They’d never seen Franny so flustered.

“Hush,” she hissed at them.

“I thought you’d all show up, so what’s stopping you from coming inside? Are you rabbits or brave souls?” their aunt called. “A rabbit darts away, thinking it will be safe, and then is picked up by a hawk. A brave soul comes to have dinner with me.”

They did as they were told, even though they had the sense that once they did they would be entering into a different life.

Franny went first, which was only right, as she was the firstborn and the protector. Plus she was curious. The kitchen was enormous, with an ancient pine table long enough to seat a dozen and a huge black stove, the sort that hadn’t been sold for decades. Isabelle had made a vegetable stew and a plum pudding, along with freshly baked rosemary bread. Willowware platters and bowls had been set on the table along with old pewter silverware in need of a shine. The house had no clocks, and there seemed the promise that time would go at a different pace entirely once they stepped over the threshold.

“Thank you for inviting us,” Franny said politely.

One had to say something when one didn’t really know the person with whom one was about to spend an entire summer vacation, especially when she appeared to possess some sort of power it was clearly best to respect.

Isabelle gazed at her. “If you really want to thank me, do something about what’s in the dining room.”

The siblings exchanged a look. Surely, this was one of those tests their mother had warned about.

“All right.” Franny rose to the challenge without even asking what it was. “I will.”

Her brother and sister trailed after her, curious. The house was enormous, with three floors. All the rooms had heavy draperies to keep out the sun, and, despite the dust motes in the air, all contained gleaming woodwork. Fifteen varieties of wood had been used to craft the mantels and the paneling on the walls, including golden oak, silver ash, cherrywood, and some varieties of trees that were now extinct. There were two staircases, one a chilly back stairs that twisted around like a puzzle, the other an elegant stairway, fashioned of mahogany. They stopped to gaze up the carved staircase to where there was a window seat on the landing. Above it was a portrait of a beautiful dark-haired woman wearing blue.

“That’s your ancestor Maria Owens,” their aunt told them as she led them to the dining room.

“She’s staring at us,” Jet whispered to her brother.

Vincent snorted. “Bullshit. Pull yourself together, Jet.”

The dining room was dim, the damask curtains drawn. As it turned out, there was no spirit to dispel, only a small brown bird that had managed to slip in through a half-opened window. Every year on Midsummer’s Eve a sparrow found its way in and had to be chased out with a broom, for any bad luck would follow it when it flew away. Isabelle was about to hand over a broom that would help with the job, but there was no need to do so. The bird came to Franny of its own accord, as the birds in Central Park always did, flitting over to perch on her shoulder, feathers fluffed out.

“That’s a first,” Isabelle said, doing her best not to seem impressed. “No bird has ever done that before.”

Franny took the sparrow into her cupped hands. “Hello,” she said softly. The bird peered at her with its bright eyes, consoled by the sound of her voice. Franny went to the window and let it into the open air. Jet and Vincent came to watch as it disappeared into the branches of a very old tree, one of the few elms in the commonwealth that had survived the blight. Franny turned to their aunt. Something passed between them, an unspoken wave of approval.

“Welcome home,” Isabelle said.

Once they’d settled in they couldn’t imagine why they hadn’t spent every summer on Magnolia Street. Aunt Isabelle was surprisingly agreeable. Much to their delight it turned out she couldn’t care less about bad behavior. Diet and sleeping habits meant nothing to her. Candy for breakfast, if that’s what they desired. Soda pop all through the day. They could stay up until dawn if they wished and sleep until noon. They weren’t forced to tidy their rooms or pick up after themselves.

“Do as you please,” she told the siblings. “As long as you harm no one.”

If Vincent wanted to smoke cigarettes there was no need for him to hide behind the potting shed, although Isabelle let him know she disapproved. Smoking fell under the category of harm, even if the person Vincent was harming was himself.

“Bad for the lungs,” Isabelle scolded. “But then you like to tempt fate, don’t you? Don’t worry, it will all work out.”

Their aunt seemed aware of parts of Vincent’s psyche even his sisters weren’t privy to. Vincent had never let on that he often experienced a rush of alarm when he passed a mirror. Who, in fact, was he? A missing person? A body without a soul? He was hiding something from himself, and perhaps it was best if he listened to some advice. He stubbed out his cigarette in a potted geranium, but remained unconvinced that he should care about his health or his habits.

“We’re all killed by something,” he said.

“But we don’t have to rush it, do we?” Isabelle removed the cigarette butt to ensure that the nicotine wouldn’t poison the plant. “You’re a good boy, Vincent, no matter what people might say.”

The only light in town turned on after midnight was on the back porch of the Owens house. It had been lit for hundreds of years, first by oil, then by gas, now by electricity. Moths fluttered through the ivy. This was the hour when women came to visit, looking for cures for hives or heartbreak or fever. Local people might not like the Owens family, they might cross to the other side of the street when they saw Isabelle on her way to the market with a black umbrella held overhead to ward off the sun, but as soon as they were in need, they battled the thornbushes and vines to reach the porch and ring the bell, knowing they were welcome when the porch light was turned on. They were invited into the kitchen, where they sat at the old pine table. Then they told their stories, some in too great detail.

“Be brief,” Isabelle always said, and because of her stern expression they always were. The price for a cure might be as low as half a dozen eggs or as high as a diamond ring, depending on the circumstances. A token payment was fine in exchange for horseradish and cayenne for coughs, dill seeds to disperse hiccoughs, Fever Tea to nip flu in the bud, or Frustration Tea to soothe sleepless nights for the mother of a wayward son. But there were often demands for remedies that were far pricier, cures that might cost whatever a person held most precious. To snatch a man who belonged to another, to weave a web that disguised wrongdoings, to set a criminal on the right path, to reach someone who was standing on the precipice of despair and pull them back to life, such cures were expensive. Franny had stumbled upon some of the more disquieting ingredients in the pantry: the bloody heart of a dove, small frogs, a glass vial containing teeth, strands of hair to boil or burn depending on whether you wanted to call someone to you or send them away.

Franny had taken to sitting on the back staircase to eavesdrop. She’d bought a blue notebook in the pharmacy to write down her aunt’s remedies. Star tulip to understand dreams, bee balm for a restful sleep, black mustard seed to repel nightmares, remedies that used essential oils of almond or apricot or myrrh from thorn trees in the desert. Two eggs, which must never be eaten, set under a bed to clean a tainted atmosphere. Vinegar as a cleansing bath. Garlic, salt, and rosemary, the ancient spell to cast away evil.

For women who wanted a child, mistletoe was to be strung over their beds. If that had no effect, they must tie nine knots in a strong rope, then burn the rope and eat the ashes and soon enough they would conceive. Blue must be worn for protection. Moonstones were useful in connecting with the living, topaz to contact the dead. Copper, sacred to Venus, will call a man to you, and black tourmaline will eliminate jealousy. When it came to love, you must always be careful. If you dropped something belonging to the man you loved into a candle flame, then added pine needles and marigold flowers, he would arrive on your doorstep by morning, so you would do well to be certain you wanted him there. The most basic and reliable love potion was made from anise, rosemary, honey, and cloves boiled for nine hours on the back burner of the old stove. It had always cost $9.99 and was therefore called Love Potion Number Nine, which worked best on the ninth hour of the ninth day of the ninth month.

After listening in, Franny had decided that magic was not so very far from science. Both endeavors searched for meaning where there was none, light in the darkness, answers to questions too difficult for mortals to comprehend. Aunt Isabelle knew her niece was there on the stairs taking notes, but said nothing. She had a special fondness for Franny. They were alike in more ways than Franny would care to know.

Fortunately, Isabelle was up late with her customers, and could be depended upon to nap in the afternoons. Francis and Jet and Vincent therefore had the gift of long languid days when they were left to their own devices. They trooped into town, past an old cemetery where the only name on the headstones was Owens. They stopped at the rusty fence and stood in silence, a bit overwhelmed by all those mossy stones. When Jet wanted to explore, the others refused.

“It’s summer and we’re free. Let’s live a little,” Franny said, grabbing hold of Jet’s arm to pull her past the cemetery gates.

“Let’s live a lot,” Vincent suggested. “Or at least as much as we can in this hick town.”

They ordered ice cream sodas at the linoleum counter of the old pharmacy, lingered on leafy lanes, and sprawled on the grass in the park to watch the territorial swans chase badly behaved children through the grass, which left them in gales of laughter. Their favorite activity on especially hot days was a hike to Leech Lake, a spot most people avoided, for if a swimmer waded into the murky depths past the reeds, scores of leeches awaited. Franny kept a packet of salt in her backpack to disperse any of the leeches that attached themselves, but for some reason none even came close.

“Be gone,” she cried, and they were.

The Owens siblings spent hours sunbathing, then they dared each other to dive off the high rock ledges and take the plunge into the ice-cold, green water. No matter how deeply they dove, they immediately popped back up to the surface, shivering and sputtering, unable to sink or even keep their heads underwater.

“We’re oddly buoyant,” Jet said cheerfully, floating on her back, splashing water into the air. Even in her old black bathing suit she was gorgeous, the sort of young woman in bloom who often incites jealousy or lust.

“You know who can’t be drowned,” Vincent remarked from his perch on a flat rock. He had learned all about this in The Magus, with illustrations of women being tied to stools and sunk into ponds. He shoved his long hair back with one hand, knowing his father would pitch a fit when he arrived back in the city with this thick mop. When his sisters didn’t respond and merely looked at him with confused expressions, he provided the answer. “Witches.”

“Everything can be explained with scientific evidence,” Franny said in her blunt, forthright manner. “I don’t believe in fairy tales.”

“Franny,” Vincent said in a firm tone. “You know who we are.”

She didn’t like her brother’s implication. Were they subhuman beings, among those creatures to be feared and chased by mobs through the streets? Was that why the neighbors avoided them, and why, on that odd day in the kitchen when they had tested themselves, the table had risen?

“I love fairy tales,” Jet said dreamily. She felt like a water nymph when she floated in the lake, a pure elemental spirit. She toweled off before placing a lace cloth over a table-shaped rock, where she set out a lunch of egg-salad sandwiches and celery sticks. She’d filled the thermos with Frustration Tea from a recipe she’d found in Aunt Isabelle’s kitchen. Anyone partaking of this drink would be granted good humor and cheerfulness, attributes of which Jet believed Franny was sorely in need.

A grin spread across Vincent’s face as they discussed their inability to sink. “I think what we are is pretty clear.” He raised his arms and the finches in the thickets took flight in a single swirling cloud. “See what I mean? We’re not normal.”

“Normal is not a scientific term,” Franny said dismissively. “And anyone can frighten a finch. A cat could do that. Try calling them to you.” She held out one hand and several finches alit, chattering in her palm until she blew on them to shoo them away. She was quite proud of this particular ability.

“You’re proving my point!” Vincent laughed. He jumped into the lake, and then all but bounced, as if repelled. “Check it out!” he cried cheerfully as he floated just above the water.

That night at supper, Vincent gave his sisters a look, then turned to their aunt and asked if the stories he’d heard about the Owens family were true.

“You know who you are,” Isabelle responded. “And I suggest you never deny it.”

She told them of an Owens cousin named Maggie, who had come to stay one summer, and tried her best to befriend the locals, telling tales about her own family. How they danced naked in the garden, and took revenge on innocent people, and called to the heavens for hail and storms. She went so far as to write an opinion piece for the local newspaper, defaming the Owens name, suggesting they all be incarcerated.

The family locked the door and told Maggie to go back to Boston. The outside world being against them was one thing, but one of their own? That was another matter entirely.

Maggie Owens was so enraged when she was cast onto the sidewalk with her suitcase that she took up cursing, and with every curse she grew smaller and smaller. Some spells work against you, or perhaps the Owens cousins inside the house threw up a black reversing mirror. Each wicked word Maggie spoke was turned back upon her. She couldn’t even unlatch the lock on the door. Whatever magic ran through her blood had evaporated. She’d denied who she was, and when that happens it’s easy enough to become something else entirely, most likely the first creature you see, which in her case was a rabbit darting through the garden. Maggie went to sleep in the grass a woman, and awoke as a rabbit. Now she ate weeds and drank milk that was left to her in a saucer.

“Keep your eyes open,” Isabelle told the siblings. “You may see her in the yard. This is what happens when you repudiate who you are. Once you do that, life works against you, and your fate is no longer your own.”

Jet’s favorite place to be was the garden. She adored the shady pools of greenery where azaleas and lily of the valley grew wild, but ever since they’d been told their cousin’s story, she was anxious when rabbits came to eat parsley and mint and the curly Boston lettuce that was planted in neat rows.

“We’ll never be turned into rabbits, if that’s what you’re thinking,” Franny said. “We’re not so foolish.”

“I’d rather be a fox,” Vincent announced. He was teaching himself a Ramblin’ Jack Elliott song on the guitar. “Stealthy, sly, under the radar.”

“I’d prefer to be a cat,” Jet said. Their aunt had six black cats. One, a kitten named Wren, had grown particularly attached to Jet and often followed her as she pulled weeds. Jet had a nagging suspicion that Isabelle had told the story of their wayward cousin directly to her, as a warning for all those times she’d wanted to be an ordinary girl.

A large, fearless rabbit was glaring at them. It had black whiskers and gray eyes. Jet felt her skin grow cold. “Maggie?” she said in a soft voice. There was no answer. “Shall we give her milk?” she asked Franny.

“Milk?” Franny was contemptuous. “She’s only a rabbit, nothing more.” Franny tossed some tufts of grass in the rabbit’s direction. “Shoo!” she commanded.

To their dismay the rabbit stayed exactly where it was, solemnly chewing dandelion greens.

“It’s her,” Jet whispered, nudging her sister.

“Maggie?” Franny called. She didn’t believe their aunt’s story for a minute, yet there was definitely something odd about this creature. “Get out!” she told the thing.

Jet thought it might be better to ask than to command. “O rabbit, please leave us be,” she said respectfully and sweetly. “We’re sorry you’re no longer a woman, but that was your doing, not ours.”

The rabbit obeyed, hopping into the woody area where the beehive stood. While Jet piled up ragweed and brambles she decided she would faithfully set out a saucer of milk every morning. Franny watched the retreat of the rabbit and wondered if beneath her sister’s gentle nature there wasn’t more than she and Vincent had imagined. Perhaps they didn’t know her as well as they believed.

By now Franny had her own suspicions about their heritage. She had taken to going off by herself on rainy afternoons. While the others were lazing about she’d spent time at the public library, paging through old, inky issues of the Salem Mercury and the Essex Gazette. She’d discovered a legacy of witchcraft associated with the Owens family. In the town ledger, kept in the rather shabby rare book room, there was a list of crimes members of their family had been charged with in an era when any woman accused of unnatural acts might be drowned in Leech Lake. Witches, however, couldn’t be drowned unless they were properly weighed down with stones in their pockets or their boots or stuffed into their mouths, which were then sewn shut with black thread. The Owenses’ wrongdoings included bewitchment, enchantment, theft of a cow, using herbs to relieve illness, children born out of wedlock, and enemies who had suffered bad fortune. The first accuser had been John Hathorne, the judge at the trials that had been responsible for the deaths of so many innocent people.

Franny had come upon a notation that suggested Maria Owens’s journal was stored in the rare book room. The journal was stowed in a drawer that the librarian had to unlock with an iron key. The lock stuck, coming free only after much prodding. Inside the drawer was the thin book with a stained blue-gray cover, meticulously secured in plastic wrapping.

“Be careful with that,” the librarian warned. She was clearly afraid of the slim volume, which she herself refused to touch. She offered a pair of white gloves to Franny to slip on to ensure that she wouldn’t damage the delicate paper. There was so much dust in the room Franny had a wicked sneezing fit.

“You have exactly twenty minutes,” the librarian said. “Otherwise trouble could ensue.”

“Trouble?” Franny was curious.

“You know what I mean. This is a book of spells Maria Owens wrote while in prison. It should have been set on fire, but the board of the library refused to do so. They thought destroying it would bring bad luck to us, so we’ve kept it all this time, like it or not.”

Beware of love, Maria Owens had written on the first page of her journal. Know that for our family, love is a curse.

Franny worried over the mention of a curse. For all the time they’d been away she had been writing letters to Haylin. On Friday afternoons she brought them to the post office and picked up the ones he sent her via general delivery. In New York, Haylin was studying the ecosystem of the Loch, the meandering stream in a wooded area of Central Park called the Ravine. Fireflies that gathered there blinked on and off in sync. It was as if they had a single heartbeat, sending out the same message through the dark. Such incidents had been reported in the Great Smoky Mountains and in Allegheny National Forest, but Haylin seemed the first to have discovered the phenomenon in Manhattan.

That summer, Franny went to the rare book room every day to read the journal. The librarians grew to know her, becoming accustomed to the tall red-haired girl who came to examine spidery script so tiny she had to use a magnifying glass to make out the words of the remedies and cures. Franny brightened up the place with her quest for information and history, and a few of the librarians allowed her a full hour with the text, though it was strictly against the rules. They believed all books should be read, for as long as the reader liked.

When Franny came to the last page of Maria’s journal, she understood that a single broken heart had affected them all. Maria had been cast out by the father of her child, a man she never named. Suffice it to say he should have been my enemy, instead I fell in love with him and I made the mistake of declaring my love. She wanted to protect her daughter, and her granddaughter, and all of the Owens daughters to follow, ensuring that none among them would experience the sorrow she’d known or ruin the lives of those they might love. The curse was simple: Ruination for any man who fell in love with them.

Reading this, Franny paled.

It’s not the same here without you, Haylin had written in one of his letters.

Then, clearly embarrassed that he’d overstepped certain boundaries, he’d crossed out that line and wrote Boring here instead. But Franny had seen through the smear of black ink and knew the truth. It wasn’t the same without him either.

Do not ask what the spell is, or how it was accomplished. I have been betrayed and abandoned. I do not wish this for any member of my family.

“Don’t you think I look like her?” Jet asked one day when she found Franny sitting pensively on the window seat studying the portrait. One of Maria’s remedies called for the beating heart of a dove to be taken from the bird while it was alive. Another included collecting the hair and fingernail clippings of a disloyal man and burning them with cedar and sage.

“You don’t want to look like her,” Franny was quick to respond. “She ended unhappily. Trust me, she was miserable. She was accused of witchery.”

Jet sat beside her sister. “I wonder if that would have happened to me if I was alive at that time. I can hear what people are thinking.”

“You cannot,” Franny said. And then, after a look at her sister, “Can you?”

“It’s not that I want to,” Jet said. “It just happens.”

“Fine. What am I thinking right now?”

“Franny,” Jet demurred. “Thoughts should be private things. I do my best not to listen in.”

“Seriously. Tell me. What am I thinking right now?”

Jet paused. She gathered her long, black hair in one hand and pursed her lips. Since coming to Massachusetts she had grown more beautiful each day. “You’re thinking we’re not like other people.”

“Well, I’ve always thought that.” Franny laughed, relieved that was all her sister had picked up. “That’s nothing new.”

Later, when Jet went out into the garden, she stood beneath the lilacs with their dusky heart-shaped leaves. Everything smelled like mint and regret.

I wish we were like other people.

That was what Franny had been thinking.

Oh, how I wish we could fall in love.

One bright Sunday the sisters awoke to find a third girl in their room. Their cousin April Owens had come to visit. April had been raised in the rarefied world of Beacon Hill. With her platinum blond hair pulled into waist-length braids, and the palest of pale gray eyes, she looked like a painting from an earlier era, yet she was oddly modern in her demeanor. For one thing, she carried a pack of cigarettes and a silver lighter, and she wore black eyeliner. She was bitter and fierce and she didn’t give a hoot about anyone’s opinions other than her own. Strangest of all, she kept a pet ferret on a leash; it ambled beside her, instantly making her far more interesting than any other girl they’d met.

“Cat got your tongue?” she said as the sisters stared at her mutely.

“Most certainly not,” Franny said, snapping out of her reverie. “If anything I’d have the cat’s tongue.”

“Well, meow,” April purred.

April had visited this house last summer when she’d turned seventeen, and now she’d run off from Beacon Hill and come back to the one place she’d been accepted. Her presence was an unexpected surprise and, in Franny’s opinion, completely unnecessary. April dressed as if ready for Paris or London rather than a small New England town. She wore a short black skirt, a filmy blouse, and white leather boots. She had on pearly pink lipstick, and her long pale hair had a thick fringe that nearly covered her eyes. She’d begun to unpack: chic clothes, makeup, several candles, and a battered copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover, which had been banned and had only recently been published in America.

“I’d love to read that,” Jet said when she saw the racy novel everyone was talking about.

April tossed her cousin the book. “Don’t get corrupted,” she said with a grin.

Their cousin was clearly far more sophisticated than they. She was a wild child, doing as she pleased, refusing to be constrained by the social mores of Beacon Hill. There was a blue star tattooed on her wrist that had caused her to be grounded for several months. She had another on her hip, but that one hadn’t yet been detected by her prying, fretful parents. Ever since childhood she’d rarely been out of eyeshot of a nanny, a tutor, or Mary, the long-suffering housemaid, whose hair had turned gray as she dutifully did her best to keep up with her charge’s shenanigans. According to Dr. Burke-Owens’s theories, such ingrained behavior couldn’t be stopped; it was like a tide, rising to flood-like proportions despite anything placed in its way.

April had been to several private schools and each time had been asked to leave. She didn’t believe in authority and was a born radical. She told the girls that she could turn lights on and off at will and recite curses in four languages. She had been sent on trips to Europe and South America and had learned things from the men she met that would have made her parents woozy with anxiety had they known about her exploits. She seemed to have no fear of consequences, or perhaps it was only that Aunt Isabelle had allowed her to see her fate and she knew there was no way to avoid her future. She would fall in love once, and with the wrong man, and she wouldn’t change it for the world.

“I hope you’ve had some fun while you’ve been here,” April said to the sisters. “Isabelle doesn’t care what we do. You’re entitled to enjoy yourself, you know, and you might as well do so now, because it will most likely end badly for all of us.”

April was such a know-it-all Franny couldn’t stand her. “Speak for yourself,” she said with a scowl.

“We’ve had a grand time here,” Jet offered in an effort to change the subject. “We’ve been swimming at the lake almost every day.”

“Swimming!” April rolled her eyes. “No curses? No spells? Have you even looked in the greenhouse?” When they stared at her, she was exasperated. “This is pathetic. You’re wasting your time. There’s so much you could learn from Isabelle and you’re blowing it by being children.”

“We are not children.” Franny stood up. The lamp beside her bed rattled and came perilously close to the edge of the table. At six feet, with her blood-red hair curling with anger, she was enough of a presence so that even April took heed.

“No offense,” April backtracked. “I’m just telling it like it is.” She lit a fragrant sage candle and began tossing her belongings onto a chair in a jumble of socks and bras and teeny Mary Quant outfits she’d bought on a trip to London. Jet picked up one of the lovely shirts and examined it as if it were a treasure.

“I imagine you’ve heard about the Owens family curse,” April said. She sat on the bed and made herself comfortable, with the ferret immediately falling asleep in her lap.

“Curse? That sounds dreadful,” Jet said.

“Oh, Jet, you can’t believe anything she says,” Franny warned. She’d kept Maria’s writings to herself so as not to upset her sensitive sister.

“Well you should,” April responded. “We have to be careful or we can ruin ourselves and the other person. The other person will fare far worse. It’s always been this way, so take my advice and don’t bother falling in love.”

April continued to pat her ferret, which she referred to as her familiar, implying he was more of a soul mate than a pet. Such things occurred when creatures of different species were drawn to one another and were so intimate in their relationship they could read each other’s minds.

“He knows what you’re thinking,” she assured her wide-eyed cousins.

“Unlikely,” Franny responded. There was no scientific proof to suggest such a thing was possible.

“Well, he just let me know you pretend to have no feelings but you really care much more than you let on. I agree with him.”

“You’re both wrong.” Franny sulked, though she worried that she had somehow revealed her innermost self to a member of the weasel family.

“Well, wrong or right, my parents plan to kill Henry,” April said matter-of-factly. The ferret was surprisingly docile with bright, unblinking eyes, reminiscent of April’s. “They think we have an unhealthy relationship. If they ever dare to do so, I plan to get back at them any way I can. I suggest you do the same when the need arises. Our parents want to keep us locked up. Remember, it’s us against them. In fact, don’t trust anyone.”

“Not anyone?” Jet said, distraught.

April studied her cousins, shaking her head. They clearly knew nothing.

“There are people in this world who wish us harm. Especially in this town. It’s been that way since the 1600s.” April sprawled back and made herself comfortable. “I’ll need to have one of the beds. Bad back. Ballet accident. Who gets to sleep on the floor?” she said with the authority of one who had been a guest the summer before. “And I get all of the down pillows.”

The sisters exchanged a fleeting look. If they didn’t watch out their cousin would take over. They excused themselves and went directly to Aunt Isabelle to ask if April could sleep downstairs in the extra guest room. It was so much larger, they explained, plus April had informed them that she snored, so it would be far better for the sisters to have the attic to themselves. Also, it was possible that they were allergic to the ferret.

When they told April that she wouldn’t be sleeping in the attic, she had the nerve to thank them. “Reverse psychology,” she said with a grin. “I wanted the downstairs bedroom. More privacy.”

Franny narrowed her eyes. “We’re not susceptible to reverse psychology. We know all about it. Our father is a psychiatrist.”

“I’ve been to more headshrinkers than you’ll ever meet,” April informed them. “Tell them you can’t sleep and your parents don’t understand you and you can pretty much get any drug that you want.”

Vincent heard voices and came to the topmost stair.

“Well, well,” April said when he appeared on the attic landing. “Aren’t you gorgeous.”

It was not a question, and so there was no need to answer. Vincent shrugged, but he didn’t disagree.

“An Owens man is bound to have more power than the seventh son of a seventh son. I suspect you’re a wizard.”

“Well, thank you,” Vincent responded, pleased by her attentions.

“He’s hardly a man,” Franny said dismissively. “He’s fourteen. And learning magic out of a book does not make him a wizard.”

April gave Franny the once-over. Perhaps she had met her match, but she doubted it. Franny had a hard exterior, but she was also quite innocent.

By now, Jet and Vincent were drawn in by their cousin’s brash glamour as April held forth, enlightening her younger cousins. She told them how to slip out the window and climb down the drainpipe if they wished to sneak out, and warned that there were mice hiding in the bureau drawers and beneath the beds.

“Watch out for the beehive,” she recommended. “The honey is so sweet anyone who eats it immediately wants to have sex.”

Jet and Franny exchanged mortified glances, while Vincent grinned and asked, “How do you know?”

April threw him a world-weary look. “I’ve tried it,” she said.

“Sex or the honey?” Vincent teased.

“What do you think?” April stared at him with such intensity that he shrugged and gave up. She’d won that round. “You do understand that we’re different from other people.” When met with silence April knew she had them in thrall. “I can’t believe how naïve you all are. Where do you think your power comes from? We’re bloodline witches. Which means we have no choice in the matter. It’s a genetic factor. Like blue eyes or red hair. It’s who you are.”

“Don’t tell me who I am,” Franny shot back.

“You can argue all you want,” Vincent said. “I don’t care where it comes from, as long as I have it. While you debate, I’m actually going out to live my life, wizard or not.”

He took the narrow stairs two at a time all the way to the first floor. He then went out through the kitchen, letting the screen door slam behind him. They could hear his boots clattering on the porch steps. The girls went to the window to watch him stride down Magnolia Street.

“Headed for trouble,” April said cheerfully.

“How do you know that?” Jet wondered.

April grinned. There was definitely a family resemblance. “Because I’m headed for the very same place.”

During the time April stayed with them, she and Vincent left the house together each morning. They said they had taken up running, which they vowed would become a huge trend someday. But whenever they returned they were wearing their black clothes and boots and they clearly hadn’t broken a sweat. Jet and Franny both resented being cut out of their mysterious doings. Franny was jealous of the time Vincent spent away from them, but it was April whom Jet wanted to know better, if only to borrow some of her cousin’s fabulous clothes.

Still, each day April and Vincent continued to disappear without a trace, clearly looking for the trouble they would one day find. At last Franny spied them in the rare book room at the library, intent on The Magus. The two of them had gleefully set the glass-drop chandeliers to shaking, which had the librarians frantically calling town hall to see if there had been an earthquake. The cousins were so engrossed they didn’t notice that Franny had entered the room until she threw herself into a chair directly across from them. Then they looked up, blinking, caught in the act. They were glad they had earlier set a spell on Franny so she would never know what they were up to.

“Brilliant,” Franny scolded. Her eyesight was fuzzy, as if she couldn’t quite see the trouble they were brewing. “Practicing the dark arts in a public place. That will make the locals love us.”

“Screw the locals,” April responded. “Did you know this was the spot where the old jail stood? Maria Owens sat here in chains. It has enormous power.”

“It’s a library. Somehow I didn’t think of you two as library hounds.”

“I am not a hound,” Vincent said.

“I can’t believe this is where you spend your time,” Franny said.

“We also smoke pot at the lake,” April cheerfully revealed.

“Our lake?” Franny said to Vincent, truly hurt now.

“We don’t own it. April has a right to go there.” Vincent seemed even more reckless than usual. “And we only go there occasionally.”

“So what are you up to?” Franny asked her brother.

“What trouble could happen in a library?” When Vincent’s languid smile spread across his face Franny nearly forgave him for sharing secrets with April. But not quite.

“If you’re with her,” Franny said, nodding to their cousin, “plenty. Just be aware that April is a narcissist.” She’d heard her father use this term for many of his patients, devil-may-care people who never thought about anyone but themselves. “I think you’ll regret this alliance,” she told her brother.

“He won’t,” April said. “And you’re not the first one to tag me with that diagnosis. I’m disappointed in you, Franny. I thought you were more original. If you’re doing so much research here, did you find out anything about the secret?”

“What secret?” Franny said.

“If I knew, it wouldn’t be a secret,” April said smugly. “I’ve heard my parents whispering about it. It’s probably something horrible and unexpected. I suppose it will hijack us when we least expect it. It has something to do with the curse. Some dark past that everyone wants to forget. So it looks like you don’t know as much as you think you do.”

After that Franny had nothing to do with April. Jet, on the other hand, continued to find their cousin fascinating. She loved to try on April’s miniskirts and skintight jeans and lacy dresses. When Jet dressed up in them she looked like someone completely different, and she liked what she saw.

One night, when thunder was rolling across the sky, Jet looked out the window to spy April and Vincent playing strip poker in the garden, laughing and tossing off shirts and shoes. Not even the rain stopped them. April certainly didn’t seem Vincent’s type, yet they were thick as thieves. Those two instinctively knew how to have fun, something at which Jet and Franny were both painfully inept.

There came a hot morning when Vincent was sleeping late and Franny was at the library when April knocked on the attic door. Jet was in bed reading an annotated copy of Emily Dickinson’s poems that she’d found on a bookshelf in the parlor.

April grabbed the embossed edition from Jet’s hands. “Let’s get out of here.” When Jet hesitated, April made a face. “You can’t read and pull weeds for the rest of your life. Try doing as you please and see how it feels.”

If this was an offer of friendship, who was Jet to decline? So off they went to Leech Lake on a whim, with a cooler of beers bought at the corner store thanks to a fake ID April had obtained in Harvard Square for twenty dollars and the promise of a kiss that was never granted.

When they reached the lake, Jet undressed behind some shrubbery. She was wearing her old black bathing suit under her dress, but was still modest. April, however, hadn’t bothered with a suit. She merely slipped off her clothes, dropping them onto the grass. She was even more beautiful naked, a pale exotic creature so daring she climbed to the highest rock, then dove in without a moment of hesitation. Like the siblings, she floated right back up to the surface. She shook her fist in the air. “Just try to drown me!” she called out to some invisible enemy. “Oh, come on,” she crooned, when Jet looked scandalized. “Don’t be such a baby.”

Later, while they dried off in the sun, April unbraided her hair, which looked like snow as it fell down her back. There was a smear of mud on her face, and she had a lost expression, appearing more thoughtful than usual. “I can see the future, and I thought that would help me know my path, but I keep walking right into every mistake.”

“Everyone makes mistakes,” Jet said. “It’s part of being human.”

April gave her a contrary look. “That’s not exactly what we are. Or don’t you get that?”

“We’re human enough.”

“You must have a special talent.”

“I can tell what people are thinking,” Jet admitted. April was the first person other than Franny to whom Jet had confided this skill. She was always embarrassed to be anything other than normal, as if she were proving those dreadful girls at the Starling School right.

“Really?” April’s interest in her cousin was piqued. Perhaps Jet wasn’t as mousy as she seemed.

“I don’t want to know. It’s so intrusive, it seems morally wrong, but I can’t seem to stop it unless the person blocks me by putting up a force field around her mind. Franny’s good at that. She just shuts down emotionally. She never lets anyone in. I guess that’s her strength.”

“Try with me,” April insisted. “I won’t block you. What am I thinking right now?”

Jet knew this was dangerous business. She kept her eyes downcast. “You wish you could stay here,” she said in a consoling voice.

“Anyone could guess that. Tell me something no one else would know. Show me your talent.”

They were sitting across from each other. The rest of the world dropped away when they took each other’s hands and looked into each other’s eyes. They both cleared their minds. They could hear bees in the tall grass and the flickering of birds that skimmed over the lake, and then, all at once, they couldn’t. Everything around them fell silent. It was just the two of them, and as April’s mind opened to her cousin, Jet gasped, startled by April’s deepest thoughts. By now she had realized that people were surprising creatures. Still, she would have never guessed Vincent was the problem.

Jet thought it best not to reveal too much. Beneath all the bluster and sophistication, April was terribly vulnerable. Jet realized that when April left, she would miss her cousin. To avoid any embarrassments, she simply said, “You wish you could come back to New York with us. You asked Vincent, but he said it was impossible.”

Tears rimmed April’s eyes. “You know. I can tell that you do.”

“I wish I could help you.” Jet had never wanted the sight less than she did right now.

April shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. My parents would never let me go. They want me to be like everyone else. My mother says I don’t apply myself and that’s why I don’t fit in. She doesn’t believe it, but I’ve tried to be like other people. It doesn’t work.” April’s skin was hot and flushed, her usually perfect complexion blotchy. “It’s very difficult to live with parents who disapprove of your every thought and deed.”

“You’ll get away from them,” Jet assured her. “Just not yet.”

“I’m fated to lose everyone I ever love,” April said. “I already know that.”

“Of course you are,” Jet responded in her calm, measured tone. “That’s what it means to be alive.”

The next morning a long, black car pulled up in front of the house. April’s parents had hired a driver, sent to retrieve her and bring her back home. The horn honked several times and an annoyed Isabelle went out to make sure the driver hushed, which of course he did as soon as he set eyes on her. April could have made the departure difficult; she might have hidden in the cellar or run out the back door and found her way into the woods. But in the end her fate had come to meet her and it always would.

“Here I go. Back to Beantown, where I’ll never hear the end of my failures.” She took Henry and went to pack, running into Franny in the hall. The ferret looked especially sad, as if he knew his fate as well. “We’ll always be involved with each other,” April told Franny. “You know that, don’t you?”

Franny had the sense that her cousin was right, still she said, “I doubt it. We live in different worlds.”

“Actually, Franny, we don’t.”

Because of the sad tone of her cousin’s voice, Franny offered to carry her suitcase to the door.

“The next time I see you everything will be different,” April mused.

“Isn’t it always?” Franny said, sounding harsher than she felt.

“I suppose your brother can’t be bothered with saying good-bye,” April said.

“Vincent does as he pleases,” Franny remarked. “Anyone who truly knows him knows that.”

When Jet came to say her good-byes, she and April lingered near the green-tinged windows. From this vantage point, they could see through the glass into the garden. Vincent was out there, dozing in the hammock. He picked up his head when the horn beeped again, gazing at the limo with disinterest before resuming his nap.

April turned away from the window. “What’s done is done.”

Jet went to embrace her cousin, for she knew what April was thinking. He couldn’t even say good-bye. April certainly wasn’t the first person to have fallen for Vincent, or the first to be wounded by his indifference. She’d been new and daring and exciting, but that had faded as time went on. Now she was just a girl who could easily be hurt.

“Good luck,” Jet said.

“Thank you.” April’s eyes were filling with tears. Not everyone was who she pretended to be, including their out-of-control cousin. “Good luck to you, too.”

Franny and Jet continued to work in the garden early in the mornings, before the heat of the day was upon them. They wore heavy gloves so they could tear out the poisonous plants that grew wild: jimsonweed, holly, foxglove, nightshade, mandrake, rue. While they sweated, Vincent lay in the hammock strumming his guitar. He had been composing a song about April. Called “The Girl from Boston,” the ballad was about a young woman who will do anything to win her freedom. In the end she drowns in Leech Lake, sinking into the green water.

“Can’t it end differently?” Jet asked her brother. “Can’t love conquer all?”

“I think it’s a perfect ending,” Franny piped up. “She should get her comeuppance.”

“A song is what it is.” Vincent shrugged. “This one’s tragic.”

Despite the warning girls in town had been given by their mothers, many of them came to peer over the iron fence, enthralled by the handsome young stranger, won over by his long, dark hair and his pure, expressive voice and his tender rendition of “The Girl from Boston.” Vincent would occasionally wave, which sent his fans into hails of giggles. The girls applauded and shrieked as if they were in the presence of a star.

“Don’t they have anything better to do?” Vincent muttered.

“You know this town,” Franny answered. “Apparently not.”

Vincent was beginning to wish he could be released from his own rakish charms. His reputation had reached fever pitch, with increasing crowds of high school girls circling the house. Finally he gave in and let them have him. He tried one girl after another, but none held his interest. In the end he couldn’t tolerate their foolish notions. The locals seemed silly and unsophisticated. When it came down to it, he simply didn’t feel anything for them; they barely registered.

Then came an evening he was seduced by someone far more experienced, a neighbor who’d come to buy Aunt Isabelle’s black soap, the very stuff their mother used every night. When Mrs. Russell spied Vincent in the kitchen she was instantly in thrall. How lazy and gorgeous he was, so tall and darkly charismatic. As soon as Isabelle left the room to fetch the soap, the neighbor went right over to Vincent to whisper in his ear, saying she would make his dreams come true. She slipped one hand down his jeans to entice him. No one could call her subtle, but Vincent was drawn to rule breakers. Who was he to deny her the opportunity to defile him? She told him it was only an inappropriate flirtation; no one could fault them for that. After all, she had a son his age who was away at summer camp.

Vincent began climbing into their neighbor’s window at night. He learned far more about sex on this summer vacation than most fourteen-year-old boys learn in a lifetime, for Mrs. Russell seemed insatiable. Vincent tolerated her because when he closed his eyes, she might have been someone entirely different, and sometimes he was surprised by his own imaginings. All the same, he considered his escapades to be an education, nothing more.

When Mrs. Russell’s husband went on a business trip, Vincent was convinced to spend the night and then it went too far. She’d suddenly said something about being in love. Fear coursed through him at the very idea. Mrs. Russell was in her late thirties, the age of his mother. He realized how old she was when he stayed all night and saw her in the glare of the bright morning sun. It was something of a shock. She was haggard and dull, with sagging breasts. Her nose appeared to be crooked, and there were hairs in her chin he hadn’t noticed before. If anything, she reminded him of a very large rabbit.

Vincent came to his senses all at once. This was not what he wanted. He climbed out the window in a panic, not bothering to dress, while Mrs. Russell slept on unawares, snoring softly. Vincent fled in shame, clothes in hand, desperate to get away. To his chagrin, he bumped into Aunt Isabelle on the porch. He was stark naked and mortified, thankful the vines cast shadows in which he could hide himself, at least a bit, from the spotlight of his aunt’s fierce glance.

“Your fling not what you thought it would be?” she asked in a knowing tone.

Though Aunt Isabelle had a sober expression, Vincent could tell his exploits were a source of amusement for her. She turned her back while he dressed, then brought him out to the greenhouse, where there were dusty pots of Spanish garlic and rosemary. In a corner there grew lemon thyme and lemon balm and lemon verbena. Vincent had already broken in and explored and it was here that he and April had often come to smoke marijuana.

There were varieties of plants that needed special care on the shelves, including night-blooming cereus, jasmine, foxglove, miracle leaf, angel trumpet, and comfrey. From beneath the rows of plants, Isabelle looked through a heavy black book Vincent hadn’t previously noticed.

Isabelle opened the book. “It’s easy to bring love to you,” she told him, “but getting rid of it is another matter entirely. If you can call whatever just went on love.”

“I wouldn’t call it that,” Vincent admitted.

“I’d agree with you there.” She leafed through the book. “There are rules to all this, you know. First, do no harm. You need to remember that.”

“I’ll try,” Vincent said.

“Trying is not quite good enough.” Isabelle turned to a page marked Protection.

Black cloth, red thread, clove, blackthorn.

When Mrs. Russell woke to find Vincent gone, she had rushed after him, not caring if she caused a scandal. She was enchanted; much like the nurse who had tried to kidnap him hours after his birth, when her attraction to him was impossible to fight. They could hear her on the porch, banging on the door so hard the sound echoed across the garden. She really had no shame. Isabelle muttered a few words, which forced their neighbor to retreat to her own home. Then Vincent’s aunt turned to him. “You seem to be addictive, so you’d better learn to deal with the problem now. I assume you already know your fate. Or do you fear knowing?”

“I don’t fear it,” Vincent said, bravely, but in fact he did.

Isabelle reached for the black cloth that covered an object stored on the floor beside the potting soil and the bulbs which would be planted in autumn. There stood a three-sided mirror, the glass painted black. There were no mirrors in the old house, and when he now spied his image he understood why. Members of their family saw not only their current reflections but also the images of what was to come. There in the greenhouse, on this cool morning, Vincent saw his future before him. It was a twist of fate he had guessed at before. But seeing it so clearly, he turned chalk white.

Aunt Isabelle offered him a glass of water, but he shook his head and continued to stare. There were blurred images of a little girl on the grass and of a man on a hillside and of a park he didn’t recognize where the paths were made of stone. And larger than any of these images there was the shadowy twin he had caught sight of throughout his life, whenever he peered into mirrors or passed by store windows. A self inside him, one he’d done all he could to avoid. Now, however, he had no choice but to look. In doing so, he understood who he was. In that moment, in his aunt’s greenhouse, he felt more alone than ever.

Isabelle made the charm for him, sewing so quickly her fingers seemed to fly. Vincent had to wait through the day, for he was told to leave the amulet on Mrs. Russell’s porch when the moon was waning, then he must draw a circle around himself in the dust and stand in place until he knew it was time to go.

“How will I know?” he asked.

Isabelle laughed. “You’ll know.”

Vincent kissed his aunt, thanking her.

He lay low for the day, holed up in the greenhouse, ignoring his sisters when they called to him. At last it was time. As he walked back to the neighbor’s he realized that the magic tricks he’d taught himself were childish foolishness. What mattered was the blood that ran through him, the same blood that had flowed through Maria Owens. Once, when he’d cut himself in a tangle of brambles on the way to the lake, drops of his blood had burned through the fabric of his shirt. This was what bloodline magic was. It was inside him.

On this night he followed his aunt’s instructions. He left the charm on a wicker chair on Mrs. Russell’s porch and stood within a circle of dust until he felt her attraction to him evaporate. The electricity around him fizzed, and the air turned calm. There was the sound of crickets calling and a wind arose that would end later the next day. Upstairs, in her bed, Mrs. Russell fell into a dreamless sleep and when she woke she had no aspirations other than to have a decent cup of coffee and a toasted English muffin. Her son came home from summer camp. Her husband returned from one of his many business trips.

When Vincent next ran into Mrs. Russell, in his aunt’s kitchen, come for a bottle of vinegar from an old Owens recipe that used molasses and rainwater, he felt a chill. The vinegar was useful for impotent men, of which her husband was one. When Mrs. Russell raised her eyes to meet his, Vincent could tell she didn’t recognize him. It was as if she had never seen him before, let alone taught him the intricacies of what a woman such as herself wanted in bed.

In the days that followed, Vincent tried his best to uncover his natural abilities. As he sat with his sisters on a wooden bench in the park, he decided to teach the two vicious swans in the pond a lesson. He studied them with absolute concentration, and soon enough they rose into the air, hanging above the water for a terrified instant before splashing back down. They were stunned for a moment, then took off on wing across the pond, squawking like chickens.

“That should teach them,” he said.

“All swans fly,” Franny insisted. “That’s not magic.”

But between April’s assertions and the swans’ reactions, Franny was intrigued. She embarked on a quest to methodically test her siblings’ abilities.

When she began her experiment, Vincent shook his head. “It’s a waste of time. We have the sight, Franny. Just admit it.”

Still, Franny wanted evidence. She had her brother remain in the parlor and stationed Jet in the attic, with no possibility of communication as they scanned duplicate index cards. Each could guess the word that the other had seen one hundred percent of the time. Franny tried it with numbers as well.

“We may simply have ESP,” Franny said. “I’ll need further documentation.”

Vincent laughed at that assessment. “Franny, we have more than that.”

Secretly, Franny had also been testing herself. Interested in the idea of levitation, she placed small items on the cherrywood desk in the parlor, then closed her eyes and willed them to move. When that didn’t work she asked nicely and soon had the ability to cause a tape measure to jump off the desk. She practiced daily, but it was clearly Vincent who had the strongest power. He didn’t even have to try. When he sauntered into the room books leapt from the library shelves. It was so effortless, like a bird lifting into a tree, the papers fluttering, the volumes crashing to the floor. You have the gift, Franny thought as he sprawled onto a velvet love seat. She hadn’t before realized how much he resembled Maria Owens. She thought it likely that he had as much power, perhaps more.

Vincent laughed, as if she’d spoken aloud. “Yes, but I’ll probably waste it,” he said. “And don’t kid yourself, Franny,” he told his sister. “You have it, too.”

As it so happened, Franny soon found herself pulled into consciousness in the middle of the night, awaking with a gasp. It was as if someone had reached into her soul and grabbed her to pull her out of her sleep. Her name had been spoken, although how, and by whom, she had no idea. It was the green heart of the summer, and cicadas were calling as heat waves moved through the air. It was a perfect night for dreaming, but Franny felt she had no choice but to answer the call. She left the attic and slipped down the back stairs in her nightgown. She pushed through the screen door and went past the porch, where the wisteria was so twisted children in town swore the vine had been fashioned out of an old man’s arms and legs.

It was pitch dark, and Franny crept forward carefully, doing her best not to trip over the holes the rabbits had dug. When she narrowed her eyes she noted that she wasn’t the only one out in the yard. Aunt Isabelle was making lye by pouring water through wooden ashes while talking to herself in a low tone. Now that Franny’s eyes had adjusted to the dark, she spied a mound of dried lavender on the ground, along with a basket of spices, and a pail of what looked like liquid midnight, but was in fact licorice-infused oil.

“The best soap is made in March in the dark of the moon. But since you’re here now, we’ll do it tonight. Soap must be made by someone in the family. That’s why I called you. If you weren’t the right person you would have gone on sleeping. But you woke, so the job is yours.”

Isabelle had interrupted a curious dream Franny had been having about a black bird eating from the palm of her hand as she sat on a bench in Central Park. The crow had told her his name, but now that she was awake she’d forgotten what it was. She’d read that Maria Owens was thought to have the ability to turn herself into a crow in order to accomplish her witchery. This conclusion was based on the account of a farmer who had shot at such a bird in his cornfield. The very next day Maria was seen with her arm bandaged.

“I don’t see why it has to be me.” Franny was barefoot and the earth felt damp. “Jet can do it.”

Isabelle gave her a hard look. Her expression sent a deep chill through Franny. It was to be her, that much was clear.

Franny noticed the book that was kept in the greenhouse had been brought outside. The fat, overstuffed tome reminded her of a black toad, for it was bound in a covering that resembled frog skin, cool to the touch. It was filled with deeply personal information, some too dangerous ever to repeat. If there were no family member to inherit it, it would be burned when the owner died, out of respect and according to tradition. Some called such a collection a Book of Shadows, others referred to it as a Grimoire. By any name it was a treasured text of magic, and was imbued with magical power. Writing itself was a magical act in which imagination altered reality and gave form to power. To this end, the book was the most powerful element of all. If it wasn’t yours and you dared to touch it, your hand would likely burn for weeks; small raised lumps would appear, causing a rash that was often impossible to cure.

The journal in the library had been written during the last year of Maria’s life, but this, her secret book of spells, had been hidden beneath the floorboards of the house. The Grimoire contained instructions on how to craft talismans, amulets, and healing charms. Some formulas were written in ink that was specially made from hazelnuts or madder; others were written in the writer’s blood. There were lists of herbs and useful plants; remedies for sorrow, illness, childbirth troubles, jealousy, headache, and rashes. Here was a repository of a woman’s knowledge, collected and passed on.

“This is where the recipe for our soap came from. They may have the journal Maria wrote in her last year at the library, but we’ve kept the important book hidden. It may be the oldest Grimoire in this country. Most are burned when the owners pass on, to ensure that they don’t get into the wrong hands. But this one never gets into the wrong hands. We make sure of it. From Maria onward, it has gone to the strongest among us.” The Grimoire was so crammed with papers that scattered pages fluttered to the ground as Isabelle handed it over. “When the time comes, you’ll be next.”

The book opened in Franny’s hands. On the first page were the rules of magic.

Do as you will, but harm no one.

What you give will be returned to you threefold.

Fall in love whenever you can.

The last rule stopped Franny cold. “How is this possible?” she asked. “We’re cursed.”

“Anything whole can be broken,” Isabelle told her. “And anything broken can be put back together again. That is the meaning of Abracadabra. I create what I speak.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Then you will face a life of unhappiness.”

“Did you accept it?” Franny asked.

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

“Not fully. But I grew to enjoy it.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jet nodded, stunned by the events of the summer.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“It isn’t,” the boy assured her.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Me?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Courage, thank you.”

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

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

“Isn’t that caution?” Franny asked.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tonight it smelled of love.