The Rules of Magic (Practical Magic #2)(91)

He then turned to Franny with a map he allowed her to use. After she found Vincent’s grave listed she made her way to it, past Marcel Proust’s grave site; past the site of Adolphe Thiers, the prime minister under King Louis-Philippe whose nineteenth-century ghost was rumored to tug on visitors’ clothing if they came close; past the lipstick-kiss-covered grave of Oscar Wilde.

There at last was Vincent’s headstone. Agnes Durant had ordered it, since Franny and Jet had been too distressed to do so at the time. It was very stark and beautiful. A white stone with his name and the dates of his birth and death. Franny leaned down and kissed the stone. She stayed until it was pitch dark. Perhaps she thought if she waited long enough he would manage to find her. But the place was deserted, and at last she went back to where the taxi was waiting. Vincent had always known his life would end young, but she was thankful that somewhere a new one had begun. She asked to return to the hospital. She would sleep in a chair in the lounge until visiting hours began.



She had become jealous of Paris. Haylin had fallen in love with the hospital. Every day that he was stronger he seemed more at home. He had begun to meet with the doctors not just about his own case but also to discuss the histories of other patients. He’d been an excellent surgeon and would be again. Rather than stand during an operation, he could sit in a chair that rose up so there would not be pressure on his good leg.

On days when Hay was busy, Franny walked through the city. She liked to go to the café in the Tuileries, a place Madame Durant had told her Vincent had frequented, and to the Ile de la Cité, where she sat on a wall near the cathedral so she might watch the river, and to the garden of the Rodin Museum, where the budding roses were impossibly large. One day she found herself in the Place Vend?me. She had been following a crow, aimless, with no particular destination in mind, until the bird had led her here.

She went into the Ritz and asked if she might use the telephone. Allowed to do so, she called Madame Durant, who lived around the corner, on the Boulevard de la Madeleine. She was invited to tea. Just a short visit, that was all that could be managed, for Madame was preoccupied with plans to leave the city for her country house. The housekeeper was waiting at the door, poised to show her in. It was a very beautiful tall house, covered with vines. The shutters were painted black, but the light was so glorious who would ever want to try to shut it out?

“Well, here you are,” Madame Durant said, kissing Franny lightly. “What a surprise.”

But the truth was, she knew Franny would arrive someday. It was difficult to keep the truth from someone with the sight. Every once in a while Franny thought she could see Vincent in a field of yellow flowers. Now, she and Madame Durant sat by the window at a marble table. The light fell through the room in bright bands, illuminating some things, and leaving other items in the dark. The furniture was upholstered in apricot silk and the walls were fabric, gold brocade. The woodwork was all painted a pale blue that might have been white, but wasn’t. Franny thought her mother would have loved the room.

“We were roommates during her time here. We had a small apartment that we adored. But Susanna thought everything was beautiful,” Agnes said. “When she was in love.”

“Yes, the man she ruined.”

“She didn’t ruin him, dear. He drowned. They were on a sailboat and she, being one of us, couldn’t save him because she could not dive underwater. She tried. She was hospitalized after because of the cold. But it did no good.”

Franny was stunned by the idea that she and her mother were so alike. She remembered waking from a deep sleep as a child to find her mother sitting in a chair by her bed, watching over her.

“She was crushed, but she went on with her life in New York. When she gave birth to you she wrote me a long letter about how perfect you were.”

“You must be mistaken,” Franny said. “I was her problem child.”

“Oh, no. With your red hair and your curiosity you were perfect to her. She said she knew you would grow up to be a beauty and to be difficult. Which I see has come to be true.”

“Difficult, yes,” Franny said, embarrassed not to have known anything about her mother’s true feelings.

“Well, we can’t really know our parents, can we?” Agnes said, reading her thoughts. “Even for those with the sight, parents are unfathomable creatures.”

After the maid came in with tea in bone china cups, Franny took note of a photograph of Vincent on the mantel. He was wearing a white shirt, sitting under a striped umbrella, the blue sky behind him.

“When was that taken?” she asked.

“When he first arrived in Paris. We met in the park.”

“He was here in autumn. That looks like the height of summer.”

Madame changed the subject to more current issues. They spoke a little of Haylin and his interest in the hospital. Then Madame glanced at her watch. Her car had arrived. It was time to go. Madame Durant walked Franny to the door.

“Can I not see him? Or know where he is?” Franny asked.

“It’s best to let go,” she told Franny. “That way he stays safe. In truth it is easier to let your old life disappear in order to start anew. And there’s the matter of the curse. Now it can’t find him either. He has a new name and a new life. Therefore love is possible.”

They were at the door when something overtook Franny and she simply couldn’t leave. Without a word to her hostess, she turned and took the staircase to the second floor. The carpet was plush, cream-colored. The walls were a lacquered red. Off the hallway was a bedroom, and then a sitting room, and then a plush bath tiled with marble. The last door in the hallway was closed. Franny hastily pushed it open, her heart thudding. The room, however, was empty.