The Rules of Magic (Practical Magic #2)(52)

“We wouldn’t anyway,” Franny said, “we’ve got a fixed spell on the door.” But she’d already filled a plate with chopped chicken and rice for the dog. She was pleased; everyone knew a dog was an antidote to alienation. “Happy birthday, dear Vincent.”

It was a cheerful dinner, and when it was over, Vincent took out the trash without being asked, around to the alley where there were a dozen garbage cans. He was actually whistling. After all, he’d never liked his youth, maybe he’d prefer being older. He inhaled the night air and listened to the city sounds he loved: sirens in the distance, laughter and catcalls on the street. It was then he noticed a card atop the trash can. The ink was faded, nearly invisible to the naked eye, but he managed to read the message. Abracadabra. It was Aramaic in origin, meaning I create what I speak, the most mystical and powerful blessing and curse. Begin by walking down Bleecker Street.

Vincent glanced around. No one was in sight, only the dark silky night. But he felt his pulse quicken. Clearly, he had somewhere to go.

He went out after his sisters had gone to bed. He did this nearly every night, but this time was different. He was not headed for the Jester and a night of drinking that would leave him blotto. He felt unusually elated as he headed down Greenwich to Bleecker. At the corner, he noticed the street sign was unfamiliar. It read Herring Street, the original street name of the address where Thomas Paine had lived, a name that hadn’t been used for over two hundred years. Something odd was happening. There had been a fusion between the present and the past; things that were logical and those that were impossible were now threaded together. Well, if this was the way his eighteenth birthday was to be celebrated, so be it. He was a man tonight. Legal in the eyes of New York State.

There was a mist rising from the asphalt as he followed along Grove Street, where Thomas Paine had died in 1809. In honor of Paine’s The Age of Reason, the surrounding lanes had virtue names: Art Street, now part of Eighth Street; Science Street, which became Waverly Place; and Reason Street, renamed Barrow. Only Commerce Street, running between Seventh Avenue and Barrow, was left with its initial name, a remnant of the past. Vincent realized he was headed onto an even tinier lane, one he’d never before noticed. Conjure Street. There he found a wood-and-brick town house with a knocker in the shape of a lion’s head. Once he went inside, he realized it was a private club, yet no one stopped him from approaching the bar.

He ordered a whiskey, not taking note of a man who came to sit beside him until he spoke. “I’m glad you could make it,” the stranger said. “I’m a fan.”

“Of folk music?”

“Of you.”

Vincent turned to him. The man beside him wore a gray suit and a shirt made of fine linen. For some reason, Vincent felt flustered. For once in his life he fell silent.

“I hope you don’t have a rule about not talking to strangers,” the man said.

He let his hand fall upon Vincent’s arm. Vincent felt stung, yet he didn’t pull away. He just let the sting he felt go on, as if he wanted it, as if he couldn’t understand how he’d ever lived without it.

“I’ve heard you play in the park. I go most Sundays.”

Vincent’s gaze settled on the man’s dark, liquid eyes. When he tried to answer, there was a catch in his voice. He, who had talked himself in and out of trouble his entire life, who had charmed the nurse who had stolen him on the day he was born and every woman since without ever caring about a single one, had fallen silent, as if bewitched.

“I’m thinking I should be an exception to the rule. Talk to me,” the man urged. “You’ll be glad you did.” Vincent’s new companion introduced himself as William Grant, who taught history at the progressive university the New School, although he seemed far too young to be a professor. “I’ve been waiting for you to notice me, but since you haven’t, I thought I’d invite you here. The card was from me. You know as well as I do, Vincent, we don’t have all the time in the world.”

William lifted his hand away to signal to the bartender for another round. In that instant something happened to Vincent. He realized he had a heart. It came as a great surprise to him. He sat back on the barstool, stunned. So this was it, and had been all along, the way a person felt when he was enraptured, when he didn’t care about anyone else in the room, or in the city for that matter. It had finally transpired, what he had seen in the mirror, the man he would fall in love with.

They went to William’s apartment on Charles Street. If there was anything Vincent might have done to stop it he wouldn’t have done so, for this occurred only once in a person’s life, and then only if he was lucky. It happened the way things happen in a dream. A door opens, a person calls your name, your heart beats faster, and everything is familiar, yet you don’t know where you are. You are falling, you’re in a house you don’t recognize and yet you want to be here, you have actually wanted to be here all of your life.

Vincent was shocked by the depth of his feelings. All of the women he’d had and he’d felt nothing. Now he was burning, he was at someone’s mercy, embarrassed by his own need. He, who prided himself on being a loner and not caring what anyone thought, cared desperately. When William ran his hands over Vincent’s body, his blood was hot, he wanted to be here and nowhere else. In the past the sex was only about what others might do for him. He had been selfish and thoughtless, but now he was a different man entirely. What they did together was a form of magic, maddening and ecstatic.