The Rules of Magic (Practical Magic 0)(89)

She had the sight once more.

It was Samhain, the last day in October, when doors between worlds are open and impossible things are accomplished.

She began to work from Isabelle’s Grimoire, starting with the easy recipes: chamomile for blessing, hyssop and holly to dispel negative energy, and after a few weeks she progressed to one of the most complex spells, the dove’s heart love charm. She went to the butcher’s for the heart, and afterward there was all sorts of chatter on Main Street. People peered out their windows as she walked home with a bloody paper bag. She was to prick the heart she had carefully prepared for a client who was to say, My lover’s heart will feel this pin and his devotion I will win. There’ll be no way for him to rest nor sleep, until he comes to me to speak. Only when he loves me best will he find peace and with peace rest.

That night the porch light was on.



No trick-or-treaters ever came to the Owens house on Halloween. They were warned away by their parents and by tradition. But there were other people who were desperate to walk through the gate. The first woman came at dusk, knocking tentatively at the door.

“It’s probably someone trying to sell us something,” Franny said. “Ignore it.”

All the same, Jet opened the door. There was the woman who had bought Mrs. Russell’s house, the one Franny had run into years back when Isabelle had fallen ill.

“What on earth are you doing here?” Franny wanted to know.

“Your light was on.” The woman was unsure as to whether she should cross the threshold or back away. “I know what that means.”

Franny tossed her sister a dark look. Still Jet motioned to their neighbor, who after a glance around, proceeded to enter the kitchen.

“I suppose she wants something,” Franny groused.

“Everyone wants something,” Jet responded. “Even you.”

“It’s about my husband,” the woman said.

“Oh, God, not this again.” Franny groaned.

“What about him?” Jet had already put the kettle up for tea.

Their neighbor began to cry. Her husband was unfaithful, and it was tearing their family apart. It was then Franny realized that the girl she had met at the lake with the blue notebook was this woman’s daughter. Franny now wondered if that was why the girl had asked if she was a witch, if she’d been in search of a spell to set things right in her family. Perhaps she’d been the one to suggest her mother come to them.

“I may be able to help you,” Jet said.

“Really?” Franny said to Jet. “Are we going to do this?”

“Go to the refrigerator,” Jet told her sister. “It’s on the second shelf.”

For once Franny did as she was told. When she spied the dove’s heart on a blue willowware plate she laughed out loud. Here it was, their future and their fate. She had often found such unsavory items in the pantry or in the fridge where their aunt had stored away the more questionable ingredients. It might also be a way for them to survive their dismal financial state.

Franny turned to her sister, who was pouring cups of chamomile tea, good for the nerves. “Remember,” she told her sister. “There’s a charge for these things.”

“I’ll pay anything,” their neighbor told them.

Franny brightened then. Perhaps this wasn’t a completely worthless endeavor.

Jet went to the cabinet. There was the jar of engagement rings they’d forgotten all about. “Do you have one of these?”

The neighbor slipped off her diamond ring and handed it over.

“All right,” Jet said. “Let’s begin.”



When Haylin was wounded he was posted in a makeshift hospital in the delta, where the air was so hot it turned liquid. He had been there so long he no longer counted days. He no longer counted patients. One man after another was injured, some so dreadfully he would go outside and throw up into the dense greenery after he cared for them. When he himself was injured, he felt nothing at first. Only a rush of cold air, as if the wind had cut through him, and then the heat of his blood. He was immediately airlifted to the hospital in Frankfurt where he had previously worked, and, after surgery and intensive rehab, he was transferred to the American Hospital in Paris, on the Boulevard Victor Hugo. His father had insisted he be sent to the best private hospital in Europe, and the navy had relented. It no longer mattered; Hay was done with his service. He had read all of Franny’s letters, three times over, but he didn’t wish to upset her by informing her of the magnitude of his medical situation. Instead he called the last person anyone would have expected him to contact. His father. Later Franny would always say, “So if you had died your father would have been the one to contact me?” And he would always answer, “I wasn’t ready to die.”

Months had passed and she hadn’t heard from him. She was dizzy with worry, writing on a daily basis to the navy. She called and got no information. She phoned the Walker residence and was told there was no one there who wished to speak to her. Well, that was nothing new.

At last, Haylin wrote.

This is one thing I didn’t wish to share with you. The human body is so fragile, but more and more I think the soul has real possibilities.

She flew to Paris immediately and took a room at a small hotel near the hospital. She didn’t even take note of the name of the place. She left her suitcase and quickly showered and changed. She’d packed real clothes, not the raggedy stuff she usually wore. A Dior suit that had belonged to her mother. A pair of black heels. A purse her parents had given her one Christmas, purchased at Saks, which she had never before used. She didn’t intend to spend much time at her hotel, perhaps not even to sleep. It was merely a place to leave her suitcase.