The Rules of Magic (Practical Magic #2)(97)

They had the macarons and a fragrant tea that always made them feel especially brave. “Always choose courage,” Regina told her girls. She wasn’t worried about Gillian, who loved to walk on a tightrope set up between the trees, but cautious Sally was another story. “Don’t live a little,” Regina would whisper to her older daughter when she tucked her in at night. “Live a lot.”

Regina had fallen in love with the girls’ father when they were students at Berkeley. They’d dropped out to live on the land and for the first year they’d lived in a shack, sleeping together in one sleeping bag, mad for each other. They were still so in love they hadn’t spent a night apart. Sorrow was not in either of their natures. At last their father told their mother that it was high time they had a little vacation. He surprised her with plans for a second honeymoon.

Regina my beautiful queen, he said, let’s celebrate our lives.

He kissed her on the mouth and made her laugh and after that she seemed more like her old self, the one who knew how to have fun and who always took her daughters outside to dance in the rain. They packed their suitcases, promising to bring home presents and chocolate bars. The girls stood at the window waving, and they watched their parents dance on the lawn before they waved back and headed off for their trip.

But something had gone wrong. That much was evident. The girls were woken in the middle of the night by their babysitter, a teenager who had become so hysterical the sisters couldn’t make out a word she said. They clutched each other and tried to make sense of the babysitter’s ramblings. She mentioned a phone call from the sheriff, and then she talked about fire and water, which they knew never mixed. She called them poor pathetic creatures and wondered what would happen to them now. As the babysitter considered their future, her despair set her into fits of uncontrollable weeping.

It was pouring, buckets of cold, stinging rain. No one could dance in this sort of weather. The trees were shuddering without the sisters willing them to do so. Leaves fell like a black blanket. Birds that always gathered at Sally’s window disappeared. The girls waited for their babysitter to catch her breath and stop crying. They had never been up in the middle of the night and they knew bad luck when it came to them. It tapped on the door, quietly at first, then it pounded, insisting on being let in.

Gillian, fair and usually fearless, clutched her stuffed bear and stood in a corner, terror creeping up her spine. Sally, dark and serious, sat on the bed and held the babysitter’s hand to calm her. This was the moment Sally had been dreading, when the life they had enjoyed was turned upside down. Her grandmother had confided that it happened to everyone sooner or later. Sally had always thought it would be later, but as it turned out it was now.

Their parents had taken a canoe down the Russian River, loaded down with their father’s fishing equipment and their mother’s paints and canvases and the pastels that had been sent from Paris. When the rains commenced, suddenly and without warning, the canoe overturned. Daniel nearly went under in the rushing tide, but he managed to hang on to the hull of the boat. Their mother, so buoyant she could not be drowned, floated alongside him, saying encouraging words so he wouldn’t give up. When they at last made it to shore, they were grateful for their luck. There was a small motel, and they checked in to wait out the storm, but they must have dozed off and they didn’t hear the storm worsen. When lightning struck the building they were tangled together in bed, deeply asleep, not recognizing that there were curses in this world, and they were still there, their arms around each other, when the fire began, with smoke filtering through the walls of their room.

The babysitter informed the girls that the sheriff’s office would soon be sending someone over. Since there was no family, the sisters would be taken into protective custody. “They’ll find you someplace to live. It might not be together, but you won’t be alone.”

“But where will Mommy and Daddy be?” Gillian asked. Her voice trembled and her eyes brimmed with tears. “When are they coming home?” Gillian said.

Sally had very dark gray eyes and a somber expression. “Don’t you get it?” she said to her sister. “They’re not.”

“That’s impossible,” Gillian said. “We have to have parents.”

Sally turned to the babysitter. She was the take-charge sister, and in this moment it was clear that she had better begin to do so. “Can you make a phone call?”

The babysitter covered her puffy eyes with a damp cloth and said, “Maybe later. I’m too upset right now.”

Sally stood up, took hold of Gillian’s hand, and led her into the parlor.

“No one is splitting us up.” She went to the telephone and opened her mother’s datebook. She quickly began to page through it. Fortunately, she knew how to read. She remembered an enormous bouquet of wildflowers from Massachusetts had been sent to their grandmother’s funeral. The card had been signed With love from Bridget and Frances Owens. That meant they were family.

“What are you looking for?” Gillian wanted to know.

The girls were in their pajamas and their feet were bare. They both had a shivery feeling.

“Granny said that if anything ever happened I should call our family.”

“We have a family?”

Sally brought the phone to the babysitter, still reclining on the couch, and had her dial.

“Go pack,” Sally whispered to Gillian as she took hold of the phone. “Get our best dresses. The ones Granny bought us.”