The Rules of Magic (Practical Magic 0)(5)

“We have an aunt?” Franny asked.

“Good God, not her,” Dr. Burke-Owens remarked. “Don’t open that letter.”

But Susanna had already slid her nail under the flap of the envelope. She had a strange expression, as if she were opening a door long closed. “It’s an invitation for Franny. Everyone gets one when they’ve turned seventeen. It’s a tradition.”

“Then I should go,” Franny was quick to say. Anything to get away from her mother’s rules.

“If you do, nothing will ever be the same,” her mother warned.

“Unlikely,” Franny said, retrieving the envelope. Above all she was brave, and when no one dared to step in, she always would. And the letter was addressed to her, not their mother.

“Massachusetts must be avoided at all costs,” their father interjected. “Contact with any of the family will inflame characteristics which are currently dormant.”

Franny ignored her father, intent on the old-fashioned handwriting that resembled the tracks of a bird.

You may leave home this afternoon and arrive by dinnertime.

“Did you go when you were seventeen?” Franny now asked her mother.

Susanna blinked her wide gray eyes. Caught in Franny’s gaze, she couldn’t tell a lie. “I did,” she admitted. “Then I left for Paris and that was the end of that. But you.” She shook her head. “I don’t know about letting you go alone. You’re so rebellious as it is.”

“I am not!” Franny said with her customary defiance.

Vincent stepped on Franny’s foot to silence her. He was desperate to have an adventure. “We’ll go with her,” he said.

“We can watch over her,” Jet added.

Their minds were made up. They would escape for the summer. While their parents argued, Franny and Vincent and Jet went off to pack, shouting to each other not to forget swimsuits and sandals, excited to at last discover where they’d come from.

When they brought suitcases and backpacks and Vincent’s guitar into the kitchen, their mother was sitting alone at the table, her eyes rimmed red. They gazed at her, confused. Was she ally or enemy?

“It is a formal invitation,” Susanna said. “I’ve explained to your father that it wouldn’t do to be rude to my aunt, but I’m not certain he understands.” She turned to Vincent and Jet. “You will watch over Franny?”

They assured her they would.

“Isabelle will surprise you,” Susanna told them. “There will be tests when you least expect them. You’ll think no one is watching over you, but she’ll be aware of everything you do. And you must promise that you’ll come back to me,” she said tearfully. She was rarely so emotional, and her children took note of her despair. It made going to Massachusetts seem all the more worthwhile.

“Of course we’ll come back,” Franny said. “We’re New Yorkers.”

“It’s only for the summer,” Jet reassured their mother.

Everyone had to leave home eventually, didn’t they? They had to set out on their own and find out who they were and what their futures might bring. But for now all Vincent wanted was a bus ticket, and when he looked at his sisters he could tell they agreed. No going back, no retreat, no settling for the ordinary lives they had been made to live every day.



They arrived on Midsummer’s Eve, the summer solstice, when the day is so long it seems for once there is all the time in the world. The roses were in bloom and a green blur of pollen drifted through the darkening air. As they walked through the small town, neighbors came to stand at their windows and gawk. It was common knowledge that any strangers dressed in black would likely be heading to Magnolia Street. Most people avoided the Owens family, believing that any entanglement with them could taint not only your present, but your future as well. It was said that some members of the family could place a single horse hair into a pan of water and turn it into a snake. If they threw dust in a circle, you had best not cross over, not even when the dust disappeared, for you might fall into a hole of desire or regret and never arise again.

“Not very welcoming,” Jet said in a worried tone as the neighbors glared at them.

“To hell with them,” Fanny remarked. Had her sister learned nothing at the Starling School? Other people’s judgments were meaningless unless you allowed them to mean something.

At fourteen, Vincent was already too handsome for his own good. He was six four and imposing despite how skinny he was. Now he shook his fist in the air and jeered at the local spectators. In an instant, there was the clicking of locks up and down the street.

“Excellent,” Vincent said. “We won’t have any trouble with them.”

He stood out wherever he went, but especially here, in a small town where boys his age were playing baseball in a dusty field, wearing baggy jeans, stopping their game to observe the outsiders walking through town. Vincent wore his black hair slicked back and had his guitar slung over one shoulder despite his father’s declaration that a guitar, like a sports car, was an extension of a damaged male ego. “So I’m damaged.” Vincent had shrugged. “Who isn’t?”

When they reached the end of Magnolia Street they stopped, daunted for the moment. The house was huge, with tilted chimneys and scores of windows fashioned out of green glass. The entire property was encircled by the wrought-iron fence, but there wasn’t a gate in sight.