The Rules of Magic (Practical Magic 0)(98)

“What about everything in our room?”

Sally shook her head. They would be traveling light from now on. “You can take Arthur and Pip.” Gillian’s stuffed bear and her toy mouse. “I’ll take Maxine.” Sally’s stuffed black dog.

Sally waited for someone to answer. The person who picked up turned out to be a mean old lady.

“Do you know what time it is?” said the annoyed voice on the line.

“I can’t tell time,” Sally admitted.

“Who is this?”

“Sally Owens. Who is this?”

“Frances Owens,” the old woman said, sounding surprised.

“You sent the flowers. My grandmother said to call our family if anything happened.”

There was a pause. “And did it?”

A police cruiser was pulling into the driveway. The headlights were so bright Sally shielded her eyes. When the lights were turned off Sally blinked. She would have to tell the people at the funeral parlor that her parents should be dressed in black, with no shoes. That was the way their grandmother had been buried. She and Gillian would wear their best dresses and, out of respect, be shoeless as well.

“Oh, thank God,” Sally heard the babysitter say when the officers knocked on the door.

Sally held the phone receiver tightly. “We’re coming to live with you,” she said to the mean old lady. At least she and Gillian would be together. Gilly had returned, dragging along their party dresses. Hers was violet and Sally’s was pink trimmed with lace. “Good,” Sally said. “Those are the right ones.”

“What are you saying?” the woman on the phone asked in an upset tone. “What happened?”

The officers approached the girls solemnly. They’d taken off their hats and one policeman got down on one knee so he could talk to the sisters at eye level. “I think you need to hang up the phone, little girl,” he said.

“Oh, no,” Sally answered. She handed the receiver to him. “This is our aunt. She’ll make all the arrangements for us to go and live with her.”



The plane ride was their first and it was horrible. There was a storm over the middle of the country, with lightning streaking the sky, which terrified both girls.

“Lightning never strikes twice,” Sally said firmly, to reassure both herself and her sister. All the same Gillian vomited twice into a paper bag that Sally then handed to the flight attendant. They were in their flimsy party dresses and they both had small leather suitcases under their feet. Sally had taken along practical things, toothbrushes and toothpaste, photographs of their parents, a comb, pajamas and slippers. Gillian had stuffed in all of her other party dresses, so many that her suitcase barely shut.

“Don’t you girls have anything warm to wear?” the flight attendant asked when they were finally landing. “It’s Boston, after all. There could be snow.”

Neither girl had ever seen snow. For a moment they were excited as they peered out the window and spied huge white flakes.

“Oh, Arthur,” Gillian said to her stuffed animal. “I think you’re going to like it here.”

Sally sat back in her seat, worried. It was dark in Boston and the snow was swirling and their parents weren’t coming back and the old lady she’d spoken to had been mean.

The flight attendant walked them off the plane and through the terminal. It was already cold and they weren’t yet outside. Ice coated the windowpanes. People spoke loudly, in rough voices. Someone said it was wicked nasty out tonight. The sisters held hands. They didn’t like the sound of that.

“I actually don’t think Arthur’s going to like it here,” Gillian muttered in a dark voice.

“Of course he will. Where do you think bears come from?” Sally said primly. She herself was shivering. “They like cold climates.”

“There are bears in California,” Gillian protested. “Daddy said he saw one.”

“I think that’s your family,” the flight attendant said, pointing.

The sisters turned quickly to look. There were two women in black coats, one very tall, and the other shorter, with snow-white hair. They both had red balloons tied to their wrists so the girls would see them. The shorter one carried a black cane with a carved raven’s head. She waved and called out their names. Sally and Gillian stopped, frozen in place. This most assuredly could not be their family.

“I don’t like them,” Gillian said.

“You don’t even know them,” Sally said reasonably.

“I don’t want to.” Gillian’s voice sounded the way it always did before she began to cry. “They’re old.”

“Granny was old.”

“No she wasn’t. She was beautiful. That’s why her name was April.”

“Let’s go, girls,” the flight attendant urged.

They had reached the arrivals gate. What was done was done. What was to begin was on the other side of the gate. They could run, but to where? The police were in California, and they’d be split in two and given to people who wouldn’t care if Gillian was afraid of the dark and Sally liked to eat the same thing for breakfast every day, oatmeal topped by a spoonful of honey.

The girls looked at each other, then approached their aunts.

“There you are!” the one who said she was Aunt Jet cried cheerfully. “Aren’t you opposites! I think I’ll call you Night and Day. You’re late, but a late start means an ending that will be right on time.”