Page 7 of The Book of Magic

It was lovely to all be together, but as time wore on, Jet realized that the beetle had followed her and was now directly beneath her chair. She could hear it chirping, more softly now, as if it barely had any energy. The time had nearly come.

Jet would never know the end of Kylie’s story, her darling great-niece who had been such a charming, awkward child, who loved to work in the garden and get dirty, who borrowed Jet’s novels and sprawled out on the window seat below Maria Owens’s portrait to read Wide Sargasso Sea and Jane Eyre. She would never get to meet Antonia’s child, or spend summer afternoons with her beloved Gillian, canning tomatoes or making soap as they did every year in the old cauldron they set up at the rear of the garden. She wouldn’t get to see Sally fall in love, the sort of love that would take up her whole heart, so that she didn’t hold anything back the way she had even with that wonderful Gary, the kind of love Jet had found with Rafael, despite the fact that they were forced to hide from the curse. Life was like a book, Jet thought, but one you would never finish. You would never know how people would wind up; the good often suffered and the wicked prospered and there was no explanation for the way in which fate was meted out as there was in novels. Fiction made sense of the world, perhaps that was why Jet had been a fanatical reader as a girl. When Levi Willard died, so tragically and before his time, novels had saved her. Sometimes, when the world looked especially gloomy, Jet returned to the ones that had helped her through her darkest hours. Wuthering Heights, The Scarlet Letter, and Fahrenheit 451, her favorite, a love letter to books.

“I’m tired.” Jet explained as she called for the check. “We’ve had a long day.”

Franny paled when she heard this. It was the evening of the seventh day, the time she had dreaded ever since the bees appeared. They left through the bar and perhaps Jet couldn’t quite bear for their night to end. She stopped to order a whiskey. For what was to come, she needed strength.

“Good idea,” Gillian said, calling over the bartender, a fellow named Jed who swore they had dated in high school, though Gillian, for the life of her, couldn’t remember him.

“Seriously?” Sally said to Jet, disbelieving. “You don’t drink.”

“Now and then.” Jet shrugged. “It helps me sleep.” As a matter of fact, the whiskey was delightful, tasting of smoke and wood.

“Why not?” Franny, who had never once ordered anything at the bar of the Black Rabbit, relented and joined her sister in a toast. It was their last night after all. They might as well do as they pleased. “To us,” Franny said.

Jet nodded. “Always and forever.”

Antonia and Kylie stood at the bar, Antonia because her belly wouldn’t fit in the space allotted when perched on a barstool, and Kylie to keep her company.

“Something for you, ladies?” Jed the bartender asked, though he was still gazing at Gillian.

“I’m pregnant and she’s underage,” Antonia answered. “So, no.”

“Thanks,” Kylie said to her sister. “I was just about to get my first Black Rabbit martini.”

Gillian overheard and came over to order one, letting Kylie have a sip. “Happy now?” Gillian asked. The martinis at the Black Rabbit were especially dreadful.

Kylie made a face and pushed the glass away. “Why do people drink these?”

“To get drunk,” Gillian said. “There’s no other reason.”

“Do you get the feeling something isn’t right?” Antonia asked their aunt.

Gillian looked past Sally, who was paying for the drinks, to the end of the bar where the aunts were on their second round of whiskeys.

“It all ends,” she said for some reason. There was no point in getting moody, so she shook her head, snapped her fingers, and grinned. “Even a night at the Black Rabbit.”

By the time they turned onto Magnolia Street, the aunts were tipsy. The magnolias had bloomed early this year, the white and mauve cups of petals high above them in the dark on twisted black branches.

How lucky, Jet thought. How I wish I had all the time in the world.

Franny and Jet walked slowly, their arms linked, taking so long to reach their corner, Sally had a feeling of dread when she turned to look over her shoulder. Her beloved aunts were old. She’d thought they were old when she was a little girl, for back then anyone over forty had seemed ancient. Now she was nearly to the middle of her forties, likely the age the aunts had been when she and Gillian arrived, and Jet and Franny were in their eighties. Franny carried an umbrella these days for she’d be damned if she used a cane and her knee had been bothering her, despite applications of lavender oil. As for Jet, she seemed both exhausted and jittery, a worrisome combination.

“I’ll just have a little rest,” Jet said once they reached home.

“What is wrong with her?” Gillian asked Sally after Jet had retired to her room, the Reverend’s dog at her heels. It was barely seven.

“I don’t know,” Sally said. “I’m worried.” If she had allowed herself to call up the sight, she might have known exactly what was happening, but it had been many years since she’d accessed any magic, and like all things that aren’t used, her talent had begun to waste away.

Franny reached to stroke Sally’s hair, which was not at all like her. She was not the touchy-feely sort. Not one bit. “She just needs some peace and quiet.”

Jet was already behind her locked bedroom door, sitting at her desk, another woman’s spell book open before her, a rare occurrence, for such books were meant to be burned upon the death of the writer, unless there was a family member to inherit the text. Jet understood that the Owens family beginnings were in England, in a rural area they referred to as the first Essex County since they lived in the second, which had been named by the Pilgrims for the home across the sea they had left.

The Book of the Raven had escaped destruction since the time it had been hand-printed in London, in 1615. On the first page, in sloping script, was the name Faith Owens, for Faith had found the volume in a New York City market. It begins at the beginning, had been written on the very first page. Below that line there was a quote from William Shakespeare, who had written of his admiration and desire for Amelia Bassano.

Love’s fire heats water, water cools not love.

How to exact revenge, how to break another’s heart, how to cause a rival to fall ill, how to escape from a cruel man, how to set fires without touching a candle, how to make figures of wax and cloth and blackthorn and scarlet thread that would cause grave results to an intended enemy, how to bring on a curse, and more important, how to end it. Near the end of the book, there was a warning. To end a curse, be prepared to give up everything. There was always a price to pay, one higher than anyone might have imagined. All the same, there would always be women in such dire situations they were willing to yield to the left side, those who had no choice, who had been trapped, chained, reviled, cast aside, cursed.