The Rules of Magic (Practical Magic #2)(74)

“Don’t say how could you,” he said when he saw her expression. “It’s the better option. Better than being drafted at any rate. I go as a doctor, and maybe I get to do some good.”

They went into the kitchen and Franny made her own recipe for Courage Tea, which they both needed.

“You didn’t marry her,” Franny said in as offhand a manner as she could manage. Color was rising in her face, but she forced herself to sound calm. “That Emily.”

Hay shrugged it off. “That Emily didn’t deserve marrying someone who didn’t love her.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t worry about her. She married someone else. Someone better.”

“I doubt that.”

“Do you want to discuss love and marriage? Is that why you phoned after all this time? Your message said it was urgent.”

“I don’t mind if I have to beg for your help if that’s the way things are between us,” she said. Then she added, “Do you want a slice of chocolate cake?” She had made it that very morning and the scent was intoxicating. They both felt mildly drunk just from the smell.

Hay laughed. “So it’s the kind of help that needs a bribe. Just tell me, Franny.”

“It’s Vincent. He was the first number in the lottery.”

“Shit.”

“Of course he can’t go.”

“Thousands of men are doing exactly that, Franny.”

“Not Vincent. It would break him.”

“Is he so different from everyone else?”

“Yes,” Franny said. She thought of the day the nurse had tried to kidnap him. How quiet he had been when he’d been found, how wide his eyes were. That was the first night she sat by his bedside, keeping watch.

“Because he’s a homosexual? Plenty of homosexuals serve this country, they’re braver than most.”

Franny was taken aback.

“Of course I know,” Hay said. “How could I not? You knew, so I knew, too. There was a time when I always knew what you thought. Or at least I believed I did.”

“So you’re a mind reader?”

“I’m a navy doctor with no power to help him.”

“Well, that is not the reason he can’t serve. Vincent cannot do harm to another. It’s out of the question.” It was the very first rule of magic. “And if he goes he won’t come back.” Anyone with sight could tell that her brother was a man whose fate was a brief life. “You can help him, and I know how. If there was any other way, I wouldn’t ask.”

“Will I wind up in jail if I do what you ask?”

“I don’t think so.”

“You don’t think so? That’s rich. This is the way it always is. Do you care about me at all or am I just some pawn?”

She cried then, hands over her eyes.

“Not that,” he said, taking little comfort in how agitated she had become. She so rarely wept. “All right, fine. I’ll dive in. I’ll drown if that’s what you want.”

She went to sit in his lap. She didn’t care if she was supposed to stay away.

“Franny,” he groaned, as if in pain. “Let’s not start this all over again.”

“You’re still angry because I didn’t go after you into the pond. Because I wouldn’t steal you away from your engagement party.”

“It doesn’t matter now,” he said pointedly. “I’m likely going to wind up in jail doing whatever you want me to, so let’s not talk about the damned pond.”

“I want to explain! I physically can’t go underwater. I can’t be drowned. None of my family can, not unless they fill our boots with stones.”

Hay laughed. “You’re all witches?”

He likely didn’t believe anything she’d told him, but still he kissed her and told her he didn’t care if they were witches or warlocks or zombies or Republicans. He was a rational man, a doctor, ready to throw his life and career away for her, so what did it matter? They were entitled to do as they pleased, at least in bed. Eyes brimming, she now told him that what they did mattered greatly, for her family was afflicted and whomever they loved would be brought to ruin unless she could figure a way to break the curse.

“Is that why you were always running away?” Hay was moved to see her distress. “You should have told me, Franny. I have the answer. We’ll trick the curse. We won’t marry and we won’t live together. We’ll never speak of love. That’s how we’ll fight it. We’ll just outwit the damned thing. We’ll never say the word love aloud. We’ll never think or breathe it. If we do that, nothing can get in the way.” He shrugged then. “Well, almost nothing.”

They went upstairs to her room. Haylin took his deployment orders from his inner coat pocket before he got undressed. He would be leaving for Germany in a few weeks. His specialty was surgery, and there, where the worst of the wounded would be airlifted from Vietnam, he would get his share of practice.

Once in bed Franny knew that, despite the curse, she could no longer fight what she felt even if she never spoke of it aloud. She thought of one morning at Aunt Isabelle’s when she’d gone into the garden alone. The air was still and dark, the light just beginning to lift in the east. There was the rabbit in the grass. Franny went as close as she could to lay down a saucer of milk. I will never be you, she insisted. I won’t pretend to be something I’m not. At last it was true. It felt grand to be herself, a woman who knew how to love someone. They would simply pretend, to everyone except one another. Franny whispered to Haylin all that she ever was and had been. She told him that she had always known what the future would be, and he said that if what she said was true, then she should have known a very long time ago that this was meant to be.