The Rules of Magic (Practical Magic #2)(87)

Summer came and with it the sparrow. This time, however, the bird that could bring a year’s worth of bad luck was met by Lewis, who had perched on the dining room mantel. The poor hapless sparrow swiftly flew out the window.

“Good work,” Franny said to the crow.

Despite her flattery, he eyed her with suspicion. They were wary allies who both happened to adore the same person.

“Even if you don’t like me, come have a cookie,” Franny said, for she knew the crow liked anise biscuits and she’d just made some. She had been thinking of various ways for them to earn money. The house had its own trust to support its upkeep, but without the shop, the sisters had no regular employment. Franny had made the rash donation to the library and there was no shop to help them pay the bills. She thought of baking for profit, but it was so time-consuming. Her biscuits were chewy and probably wouldn’t sell, and the ingredients of the tipsy cake were so costly—the bars of chocolate, the extrafine, aged rum—they’d never bring in a cent.

Franny put in an application at the dress shop, but when the owner saw her name, she quickly said the job was filled, a blister already forming on her tongue as she spoke. So much the better, really, as Franny had no interest in clothes and wore the same black dress and red boots, which were mud-caked and in need of new heels. Her rejections continued at the pharmacy and the grocery store. The baker looked positively terrified when she walked in the door. His customers didn’t favor anise, he said, and as for rum in a cake, well that would never do. The shopkeepers did their best to be pleasant enough, though they all had a frantic look in their eyes when she came into their shops, the bells over their doors refusing to ring. She had that effect. She stopped things with her chilly manner.

“It’s really not a job for you,” the bookshop owner had said when she went to ask for a job. “Perhaps your sister?”

Of course people would prefer Jet. She was kinder and much more well mannered, and Franny did look savage with her wild red hair and her threadbare black coat. She had lost weight and was gawky, as she’d been when she was a girl. Even when she dabbed powder on her freckled skin she looked sulky and unkempt. And those boots, well, they gave her away. Red as heartbreak. An Owens woman, through and through.

In the summertime, Franny missed Vincent more than ever. She went to Leech Lake, where she stood on the grassy bank to strip off her clothes, then she waded in to float in the cold, green water. No leeches came near. There were only dragonflies skimming over the surface of the lake.

You know who we are, Vincent had said to her that first summer, and she had, but she hadn’t wanted to admit it. She didn’t want to be condemned because of her family history or be pigeonholed as an Owens. She longed to be free, a bird in the sky over Central Park, unconnected to the fragile world. None of that seemed to matter anymore. In the shallows of the lake, she closed her eyes and floated through the cattails. The water turned jewel-blue once she reached the depths, which were said to be bottomless. There were rumors of ancient fish living in the deepest parts of the lake, creatures that hadn’t been seen for a hundred years, but all Franny saw were frogs in the shallows, and occasionally an eel slipping through the reeds.

One day she noticed some girls watching her. She swam to shore, where she ducked behind some thornbushes and swiftly dressed.

“You’re a good floater,” one of the girls said to her.

“Thanks,” Franny said, wringing out her hair. The water that fell onto the ground was red. The other girls all took off, but one stayed behind. The one who had spoken.

“Is that blood?” the girl now asked.

“Not at all. It’s hair dye.” It was neither, it was simply the way her hair reacted to water, but Franny wasn’t about to explain that to a ten-year-old. She’d never cared for children. She hadn’t much liked herself when she was one.

The other girls had scattered to climb up the rocks.

“That’s dangerous,” Franny called. No one paid attention to her, except for the one girl who was still staring at her. “Not that it’s any of my business,” Franny said brusquely.

“Is it true that you can’t be drowned?” the girl asked.

“Anyone can be drowned. Given the right circumstances.” The girl was plain but had a bright spark of intelligence in her eyes. “Why do you ask?”

“I thought you were a witch.”

“Really?” By now Franny was slipping on her boots. She wore them in every season. Even in summer. They were so much better than shoes for gardening. “Who told you that?”

“Everyone says so.”

“Well, everyone doesn’t know everything,” Franny responded. She sounded crotchety, even to herself. The girl was carrying a backpack. A blue journal peeking out caught Franny’s attention. It was one of the notebooks she’d left in the library. “Are you writing?” she asked.

“Trying to,” the girl said.

“Don’t try, do.” She realized she sounded exactly like Aunt Isabelle when she was irritated. She hadn’t meant to be a wet blanket and had no wish to discourage this clever little girl, so she changed her tone. “But trying is a start. What is your story?”

“My life.”

“Ah.”

“If you write it all down, it doesn’t hurt as much.”