The Rules of Magic (42 page)

Jet remembered how much she had enjoyed puttering in the garden when she began working there again. Everything flourished under her touch. She planted spring onions and mint and cabbages and rue and basil and Spanish garlic. She put in lemon thyme, lemon balm, lemon verbena, foxgloves, and zinnias, making sure to plant rosemary and lavender by the back door, where it had grown when Isabelle was there. The Reverend gave her some of his bulbs so she could grow clutches of daffodils and bring her own flowers to the cemetery on her visits. Some were white with orange centers, some were golden,
some were butter yellow. When they bloomed she cried because she knew another year had gone by and it was all happening so fast.

The more dangerous plants were ordered from the Owens farm in Rockport, Maine, and these Jet grew in the greenhouse, still locked with an old iron key. No reason to take a chance that teenagers who could easily mistake wolfsbane for marijuana might manage to get inside and binge on poison. There, behind glass, she kept belladonna; hemlock; nightshade, which could induce visions and was said to be in the ointment that allowed witches to fly; henbane, known as black nightshade, used by men to attract women and by women to bring rain; mandrake, an herb said to scream when plucked from the ground by its roots; thorn apple, used for healing and for breaking hexes, but only in tiny amounts, otherwise death might result.

One day she saw the old rabbit, Maggie, near the greenhouse, hiding from the cat. Franny had come out and they stood there together. It was definitely Maggie, with her black whiskers and sad eyes.

“Let's set her free,” Jet said.

Franny went over and grabbed the rabbit before it could hop away. “Now what?” she asked.

Jet went to open the gate, and Franny followed.

“She'll just wind up in someone else's yard,” Franny said.

“Yes, but it will be her choice.”

Franny put the rabbit down on the sidewalk. For a minute it huddled there, staring at them.

“You're free,” Franny said, waving her hands. “Go on!”

Maggie took off down the street, running so fast they never saw her again.

“Good riddance,” Franny said.

“Good luck,” Jet called after the creature.

The cat always followed Jet about, but one day Wren disappeared and when she returned home another black cat, soon called Sparrow, followed. After that there was another named Goose, and then yet another enormous long-haired cat, whom they called Crow, since he seemed far more interested in Lewis than he did in the other cats, even though the bird did little more than spend his days drowsing in a sunny spot on the porch. As it turned out, Wren was bringing home cats from an animal shelter on the other side of town, climbing in through a broken window, then leading them to Magnolia Street.

“You're becoming a cat lady,” Franny observed.

“They chase away the rabbits,” Jet responded.

“Yes,” Franny said with a grin. “But they never catch them. I'll bet old Harry could. If he wanted to. Which he clearly does not.”

The dog was usually up on the porch with Lewis. Two old creatures who never were pets, and who now needed their food to be mixed with water, which was easier on the digestion. She wondered if the old dog dreamed of Vincent, as she did. She liked to imagine her brother in a village in France, strolling through the dusk with William, past fields and woods. Occasionally his song came on the radio. Jet always turned it off. Vincent's voice was too painful a reminder for her. But Franny would take the radio into the garden. She loved to listen to Vincent and was glad that people remembered him. Sometimes cards would
arrive in the mail, postmarked from Paris. She kept these and tied blue ribbon around the stack she had collected. Only their address was written out, but the message was clear.
I'm still here.

The light on the porch was broken. Charlie Merrill had tried his best to fix it, but to no avail. “Circuits are shot,” he said. “It will cost a fortune to rewire. I recommend leaving it be.”

Franny, nervous as ever about money, was quick to agree. So what if their doorway was dark? They certainly didn't expect visitors. It was fall, their favorite time of the year, and the evenings grew dark at an earlier hour. Jet had visited New York, as she did once a month, keeping her destination to herself, meeting Rafael at the Oak Bar. He was by far her oldest and best friend.

“You look different,” he had told her the last time she saw him. “Happy.”

Indeed, Jet had the feeling something was about to happen. And then one day when she was collecting the last of the rosemary that grew beside the door, thinking about Aunt Isabelle's clients who often arrived at this hour, the porch light switched on.

Jet stood up, holding the rosemary. It was wilted brown, but as she watched, it became green in her hands. Her gray eyes rimmed with tears. What she had lost had returned. When two girls passed by the fence she knew what they were thinking, although she was too well mannered to ever tell.

She had the sight once more.

It was Samhain, the last day in October, when doors between worlds are open and impossible things are accomplished.

She began to work from Isabelle's
Grimoire,
starting with the easy recipes: chamomile for blessing, hyssop and holly to dispel negative energy, and after a few weeks she progressed to one of the most complex spells, the dove's heart love charm. She went to the butcher's for the heart, and afterward there was all sorts of chatter on Main Street. People peered out their windows as she walked home with a bloody paper bag. She was to prick the heart she had carefully prepared for a client who was to say,
My lover's heart will feel this pin and his devotion I will win. There'll be no way for him to rest nor sleep, until he comes to me to speak. Only when he loves me best will he find peace and with peace rest.

That night the porch light was on.

No trick-or-treaters ever came to the Owens house on Halloween. They were warned away by their parents and by tradition. But there were other people who were desperate to walk through the gate. The first woman came at dusk, knocking tentatively at the door.

“It's probably someone trying to sell us something,” Franny said. “Ignore it.”

All the same, Jet opened the door. There was the woman who had bought Mrs. Russell's house, the one Franny had run into years back when Isabelle had fallen ill.

“What on earth are you doing here?” Franny wanted to know.

“Your light was on.” The woman was unsure as to whether she should cross the threshold or back away. “I know what that means.”

Franny tossed her sister a dark look. Still Jet motioned to
their neighbor, who after a glance around, proceeded to enter the kitchen.

“I suppose she wants something,” Franny groused.

“Everyone wants something,” Jet responded. “Even you.”

“It's about my husband,” the woman said.

“Oh, God, not this again.” Franny groaned.

“What about him?” Jet had already put the kettle up for tea.

Their neighbor began to cry. Her husband was unfaithful, and it was tearing their family apart. It was then Franny realized that the girl she had met at the lake with the blue notebook was this woman's daughter. Franny now wondered if that was why the girl had asked if she was a witch, if she'd been in search of a spell to set things right in her family. Perhaps she'd been the one to suggest her mother come to them.

“I may be able to help you,” Jet said.

“Really?” Franny said to Jet. “Are we going to do this?”

“Go to the refrigerator,” Jet told her sister. “It's on the second shelf.”

For once Franny did as she was told. When she spied the dove's heart on a blue willowware plate she laughed out loud. Here it was, their future and their fate. She had often found such unsavory items in the pantry or in the fridge where their aunt had stored away the more questionable ingredients. It might also be a way for them to survive their dismal financial state.

Franny turned to her sister, who was pouring cups of chamomile tea, good for the nerves. “Remember,” she told her sister. “There's a charge for these things.”

“I'll pay anything,” their neighbor told them.

Franny brightened then. Perhaps this wasn't a completely worthless endeavor.

Jet went to the cabinet. There was the jar of engagement rings they'd forgotten all about. “Do you have one of these?”

The neighbor slipped off her diamond ring and handed it over.

“All right,” Jet said. “Let's begin.”

When Haylin was wounded he was posted in a makeshift hospital in the delta, where the air was so hot it turned liquid. He had been there so long he no longer counted days. He no longer counted patients. One man after another was injured, some so dreadfully he would go outside and throw up into the dense greenery after he cared for them. When he himself was injured, he felt nothing at first. Only a rush of cold air, as if the wind had cut through him, and then the heat of his blood. He was immediately airlifted to the hospital in Frankfurt where he had previously worked, and, after surgery and intensive rehab, he was transferred to the American Hospital in Paris, on the Boulevard Victor Hugo. His father had insisted he be sent to the best private hospital in Europe, and the navy had relented. It no longer mattered; Hay was done with his service. He had read all of Franny's letters, three times over, but he didn't wish to upset her by informing her of the magnitude of his medical situation. Instead he called the last person anyone would have expected him to contact. His father. Later Franny would always say, “So if you had died your father would have been the one to contact me?” And he would always answer, “I wasn't ready to die.”

Months had passed and she hadn't heard from him. She was dizzy with worry, writing on a daily basis to the navy. She called
and got no information. She phoned the Walker residence and was told there was no one there who wished to speak to her. Well, that was nothing new.

At last, Haylin wrote.