Page 45 of The Rules of Magic

He gave her an address and told her to come see for herself. Franny packed up the ingredients she thought she might need, then leashed the dog and took off. Vincent’s instructions were odd, however, and the streets unfamiliar. Finally she came to Conjure Street. It was dusk when she thought she saw Vincent on the stoop of an old town house, but Harry didn’t bark to greet him and it was another man who waved to her. Franny approached, suspicious. The dog, on the other hand, went right to the stranger, who introduced himself as William Grant. Although he wasn’t especially handsome he had charisma and even Franny was engaged by his manner.

“I’m meeting my brother here.” Franny was studying William more closely. His dark sensitive eyes, his intensity.

“I am as well.”

“Really?”

There had been so many people who’d been mad for Vincent; Franny assumed she’d simply come across one more admirer. She had persisted with her childhood task of watching over her brother. Every week she dropped a protection amulet into his jacket pocket, made of black cloth and bound by red thread, containing clove and blackthorn. Often, however, she found the amulets discarded in the street.

“And I’m here to meet you, too,” the fellow said. “Your brother was too shy to be here when we first spoke.”

“My brother? Shy? We’re not talking about the same person.”

William laughed. “This is all very new to him.”

“But not to you?”

“Well it is if you mean falling in love.” When Franny didn’t answer, it was William’s turn to study her. “You can’t be surprised. He thinks you knew before he did.”

She’d certainly known that Vincent had never been in love with a woman. That neighbor of their aunt’s who had seduced him, the college girls, the waitresses, the fans of his music, all were meaningless. He rarely saw them more than once, and often couldn’t remember their names. But William Grant was different. Franny knew it as soon as her brother came outside to join them. She could tell when he looked at William.

“So now you know,” Vincent said.

“I think I always knew,” Franny said.

“Well, then, now it’s out in the open.”

“I’m sure you don’t mind if we speak privately,” Franny said to William, taking her brother by the arm.

“Not at all.” They left William with the dog, who seemed perfectly content to be entrusted to this stranger.

“He has the sight,” Vincent protested as Franny directed him toward an alley. “There’s no privately. It’s all out in the open. You might as well speak in front of him.”

Her brother could be so irritating when he pretended to be dense. “You know you’re not supposed to do this,” Franny said.

“Be with a man?”

“Fall in love!” They both laughed, then Franny’s expression darkened. “Seriously, Vincent. The curse.”

“Oh, fuck it, Franny. Aren’t you sick of being ruled by the actions of people who are long dead? Maybe everyone is cursed. Maybe it’s the human condition. Maybe it’s what we want.”

Franny was truly worried. There was no one of whom she felt more protective. She thought of sitting beside his crib with a canister of salt, refusing to leave him after he’d been returned to them. She had seen a halo around him, the sign of a beautiful, but short, life. Franny had the salt with her now, but here he was with a grin on his face. And there was William Grant, watching them, concerned, clearly mad for her brother.

“Franny,” Vincent said. “Do not argue with me. Let me be who I am.”

As she threw her arms around him, she forgot about the salt and the rosemary and the curse and the ways fate could surprise you.

“Then I wish you happiness,” she said, for that was really all she’d ever wanted for him.

There was a crow on the lamppost on New Year’s Day. They’d had a small dinner, stuffing a goose with Aunt Isabelle’s recipe, which included chestnuts and oysters sure to inflame the erotic center of anyone who partook of the meal. Vincent and William took off after helping to wash up, laughing as they packed some of Vincent’s belongings. He was so often at William’s apartment it seemed he lived there. After he’d gone, Franny saw that he’d left The Magus at home, which she took to be a good sign. She went after it, thinking she would hide it under a loose floorboard in the kitchen, and perhaps Vincent would forget about it entirely. But when she went to grab the text, it burned her fingers. “Fine,” she said to the book. “As long as you leave him be.”

As Franny and Jet stored away the dishes, Jet noticed the crow in the yard. “Isn’t that Lewis?”

Franny went to greet him, having not seen him in more than two years. When she held up her arms he came to light on her shoulder. No matter what anyone said about crows, there were indeed tears in his eyes.

“Is it Haylin?” Franny asked.

The crow rested his beak against her cheek and she knew that it was. She went inside and found the phone number of Dunster House.