Practical Magic (Practical Magic #2)(76)

“They arrived this afternoon and they’re exhausted,” Gillian says. “This is not a good idea. They don’t like company. Plus, they’re ancient.”

Ben Frye pays no attention, and why should he? The aunts are Gillian’s family, and that’s all he needs to know. He lopes right into the kitchen, where Antonia and Kylie and Sally stop eating the minute they see him; quickly they turn to see the aunts’ reaction. Ben doesn’t catch on to their anxiety any more than he notices the fiery scent rising from the pot on the stove. He must presume the smell emanates from some special cleaning fluid or detergent, or perhaps some small creature, a baby squirrel or an old toad, has curled up to die underneath the back doorstep.

Ben goes over to the aunts, reaches into the sleeve of his rain slicker, and pulls out a bunch of roses. Aunt Jet accepts them with pleasure. “Lovely,” she says.

Aunt Frances runs a petal between her thumb and forefinger to verify that the roses are real. They are, but that doesn’t mean Frances is so easily impressed.

“Any more tricks?” she says in a voice that can turn a man’s blood to ice.

Ben smiles his beautiful smile, the one that made Gillian weak in the knees from the start and that now reminds the aunts of the boys they once knew. He reaches behind Aunt Frances’s head, and before they know it, he has pulled from thin air a chiffon scarf the color of sapphires, which he proudly presents.

“I couldn’t accept this,” Frances says, but her tone isn’t quite so cool as before, and when no one’s looking, she loops the scarf around her neck. The color is perfect for her; her eyes look like lake water, clear and gray-blue. Ben makes himself comfortable, grabs a piece of pizza, and begins to ask Jet about their trip down from Massachusetts. That’s when Frances signals to Gillian to come close.

“Don’t screw this one up,” she tells her niece.

“I don’t intend to,” Gillian assures her.

Ben stays until eleven. He fixes instant chocolate pudding for dessert, then teaches Kylie and Antonia and Aunt Jet how to build a house of cards and how to make it fall down with a single puff of air.

“You got lucky this time,” Sally tells her sister.

“You think it was luck?” Gillian grins.

“Yeah,” Sally says.

“No way,” Gillian says. “It took years of practice.”

Just then the aunts both tilt their heads at the very same time and make a very little noise low in their throats, a kind of click so close to silence that anyone who wasn’t listening carefully might mistake it for the faint call of a cricket or the sigh of a mouse beneath the floorboards.

“It’s time,” Aunt Frances says.

“We have family business to discuss,” Jet tells Ben as she leads him to the door.

Aunt Jet’s voice is always sweet, yet the tone isn’t one someone would dare to disobey. Ben grabs his rain slicker and waves to Gillian.

“I’ll call you in the morning,” he declares. “I’ll come over for breakfast.”

“Don’t screw this one up,” Aunt Jet tells Gillian after she’s closed the door behind Ben.

“I won’t,” Gillian assures her as well. She goes to the window and takes a look at the backyard. “It’s awful tonight.”

The wind is tearing shingles from the roofs, and every cat in the neighborhood has demanded to be let in or has taken refuge in a window well, to shiver and yowl.

“Maybe we should wait,” Sally ventures.

“Bring the pot around back,” Aunt Jet tells Kylie and Antonia.

The candle in the center of the table casts a circle of wavery light. Aunt Jet takes Gillian’s hand in her own. “We have to see to this now. You don’t put off dealing with a ghost.”

“What do you mean, a ghost?” Gillian says. “We want to make certain the body stays buried.”

“Fine,” Aunt Frances says. “If that’s how you want to look at it.”

Gillian wishes she’d had a gin and bitters herself when the aunts did. Instead, she finishes the last of her cold coffee, which has been sitting in a cup on the counter since late afternoon. By tomorrow morning the creek behind the high school will be deep as a river; toads will have to scramble for higher ground; children won’t think twice about diving into the warm, murky water, even if they’re dressed in their Sunday clothes and wearing their best pair of shoes.

“Okay,” Gillian says. She knows her aunts are talking about more than a body; it’s the spirit of the man, that’s what’s haunting them. “Fine,” she tells the aunts, and she swings open the back door.

Antonia and Kylie carry the pot out to the yard. The rain is quite near; they can taste it in the air. The aunts have already had the girls bring their suitcase over to the hedge of thorns. They stand close together, and when the wind rustles their skirts the fabric makes a moaning sound.

“This dissolves what once was flesh,” Aunt Frances says.

She signals to Gillian.

“Me?” Gillian takes a step backward, but there’s no place to go. Sally is right behind her.

“Go on,” Sally tells her.

Antonia and Kylie are holding on to the heavy pot; the wind is so strong that the hedge of thorns whips out, as if trying to cut them. The wasps’ nests sway back and forth. It is definitely time.