The Rules of Magic (Practical Magic #2)(21)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Look up.”

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

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

“More or less,” Franny whispered back.

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

“I suppose so.”

“It is definitely studying you.”

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

She fainted right then and there in the grass.



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“We wanted simple,” Franny said.

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