Page 62 of The Book of Magic

Women here in Massachusetts had been drowned and beaten and hanged, especially if they were found to have access to books other than the Bible, for the Puritans had been convinced that they alone had the ear of God. On the morning of the wedding day, when several women in the family were sleeping off their hangovers, Margaret decided that she wished to see the spot where the witches here had been hanged. No one knew, she was told. The bodies had been buried secretly, in remote places, for they were not allowed into hallowed ground, although a few were dug up and reinterred in the town cemetery when the witch mania passed. All the same, that morning, before anyone else was awake, Sally had driven Margaret out to the hill where the gallows were thought to have been. There’d been a mist over the ground and the world was beautiful, as if it were brand new. Margaret Wright was a tough individual, but she cried on the hillside as the crows all rose from the trees.

“You’ll take care of him, won’t you?” Margaret had said to Sally.

“Ian can take care of himself.” Sally held Margaret’s hand in her own. They’d become quite close during Sally’s studies of the Unnamed Art. “You taught him that.”

It was likely true, but once you started worrying about someone it wasn’t easy to stop.

“Now, he’ll take care of you,” Sally told Margaret, and perhaps she was right. Just after the wedding service, while everyone was drinking rum punch, Ian had offered to go make his mother a cup of tea, for she’d always abstained from alcohol. True, he’d never returned to the garden with the promised tea, and Margaret had been forced to go in search of him, finding him reading at the kitchen table, ignoring the chaos around him. He had indeed put the kettle on, but then he’d been distracted by an old copy of The Magus that had belonged to Vincent.

“The kettle’s whistling,” Margaret said. She had never seen her son look happier. He was a handsome man, even with all that ink, and of course she saw that for what it was—his pain rising up, his story and his vow to look for magic.

“So it is.” Ian hugged her on the way to the stove and Margaret flung her arms around her son, for a moment not wishing to let him go. Such a display was very unusual for both, for they were not ones to easily show their emotions for one another. They stepped back after their embrace, a bit stunned. Love had done this to Ian Wright. He’d never quite understood it before, why it was written about with such fervor, why people did such profoundly stupid things because of it, sacrificing their futures and their lives, making foolish mistakes they’d live to regret. He knew scores of spells and incantations, in Hebrew and ancient Persian, in runic and Italian, but they’d meant nothing to him. Now he had stepped forward blindly into love, a madman and a fool and proud to be so.

“Where’s our Sally?” Margaret asked.

“Paying her respects to the dead.” When Ian saw worry arise on his mother’s face, knowing she thought it might mean bad luck if they were apart on their wedding day, he added, “I’ll have her for the rest of her life.”

When he was young and in jail, Ian had been told that the one tattoo a man should never get was his woman’s name. People would lie to you and betray you; they would cheat on you and make you wish you’d never met them, and there you’d be, marked by their name. Only fools made a pledge announcing a love that lasted forever, but he had done exactly that before they set out for Massachusetts. Across the wrist of his left hand, there was the fate he’d made for himself, a direct line to his heart, the last story he wanted to tell, Sally’s name, the most important bit of magic, the end and the beginning of his story.

While the guests gathered in the garden, Sally and Gillian exchanged a look, then left through the gate unnoticed. Birdie was in her stroller, already dozing when they took off, headed toward the end of Main Street, past the magnolia that grew on the library lawn. It was said that Maria herself had planted it there when she was a very old woman, helped by her daughter Faith and by her grandchildren, who were descendants of Thomas Brattle, who had written so eloquently against the witch trials and had secretly loved Faith.

The aunts were divided in death, buried in opposite sides of town. Jet’s plot was beside that of her first love’s, Levi Willard, and Franny was interred in the Owens Cemetery, beside her husband, Haylin Walker. It was a tradition to bring the recently deceased a slice of cake after a wedding; Gillian and Sally went to the town cemetery first, with Gillian pushing Birdie’s stroller along the gravel path. Sally held the plates of cake, along with a bunch of daffodils, Jet’s favorite flower. As they neared the gravesite, they saw that a canvas folding chair had been set up. An older man was there, with a sandwich and a thermos of coffee, a little white dog beside him. There were already daffodils on the grave.

The dog began to bark as Sally and Gillian approached.

“Daisy, stop,” the man commanded the dog, who ignored him and continued to yap. “So sorry,” he apologized. “She’s my watchdog.”

It was then the sisters recognized the stranger.

“We’re Jet’s nieces,” Sally said. “We remember you from her funeral.”

“I’m here every Sunday.” Rafael noticed the flowers Sally held. “Her favorites.” He watched as Sally placed the daffodils beside those he had brought, then added the plate of cake.

“We always bring a slice of wedding cake to those we love who are gone,” Gillian explained. “My sister Sally was married today.”

“You should come to the house,” Sally urged. “Dinner is being served right now.”

“What about the curse?”

“We’re rid of it,” Gillian assured him. The sisters exchanged a look. They knew how lucky they were. “Franny and Jet did it for us.”

Franny’s stone had been installed a year after her death. It was simple granite, taken from the cliffs towering above Leech Lake. The town council had voted to pass a special dispensation which allowed the removal of the granite from town land, which made sense, for long ago the Owens family had donated the outlying woods for community use. Sally and Gillian had both been terrified of Franny at first, and they laughed about it now, recalling her long black coat, her red boots, her pale as the moon skin, the way she narrowed her eyes when you were about to speak, as if she knew you were going to tell a fib before you yourself had even thought to do so. Jet was ready to love you, but you had to work to get into Franny’s good graces, although once you did, it was worth the effort.

When they reached her gravesite in the Owens Cemetery, Sally positioned the plate of Tipsy Cake on the earth. In a year the grass had grown tall and trout lilies and bloodroot had taken root in the dark soil. Sally and Gillian both lay on their backs, hands thrown over their eyes to shield them from the bright sunlight. Gillian had always had an open heart, but Sally had been convinced that she was born to love no one, and that no one would love her. Then she had come to the house on Magnolia Street and she’d taken her mean aunt’s hand and her heart had cracked open, just a little, but a little was enough.

“It’s a beautiful day,” she told Franny through the dark soil. “It’s my wedding day.”

“My little girl is named for you and Aunt Jet,” Gillian whispered.

They would be eternally grateful for their aunt’s love and sacrifice.

Dear, darling Franny, a thousand thank-yous.

Birdie was still napping in her stroller when they left the cemetery, a blanket over her to protect her freckled skin from the sun. She usually fell asleep without the least bit of fuss. Maybe she’d be trouble later, but she was perfect now. The sisters had a plan, one they’d kept to themselves, and there was just so long they could be missing from the wedding, so they hurried into the woods. There was no one at Leech Lake when they got there, except for a few dragonflies hovering over the calm surface. It was early in the season and the water was ice cold.

“This is crazy,” Sally said.

“Exactly,” Gillian replied. When would they be here together again? When would they have the chance?