Page 69 of The Rules of Magic

“There’s nothing to think about,” Franny said. “We have to get him out.”

“It’s we, is it? But isn’t this when I go to jail?” he asked with a grin.

“It’s when you rescue someone.” Franny entwined her legs with his. She understood why ancient monsters were often made of two creatures, with two hearts and minds. There was strength in such a combination of opposites.

“Not you, I gather,” he murmured. “Because I wouldn’t mind rescuing you.” He held her beautiful red hair in one hand and told himself this wasn’t love. He had to keep reminding himself of that. All the same, he knew he would step blindly forward to do whatever she asked. That had always been the case.

“Before you, I was the Maid of Thorns. I had no heart at all. You already rescued me,” Franny said right before she asked him to risk everything, unaware that she had been asking him to do so ever since they’d first met, and that he had been willing to do whatever she wished him to, even during the time they’d been apart.

In the hospital, Vincent’s thoughts were cloudy, fragile things. They’d shaved off his hair and had him wear a uniform that barely fit his tall frame. He was not allowed a belt or socks, lest he try to commit suicide with them by hanging. He had gone berserk in the dormitory and was then shot up with medication and plunged into a cold bath. Then they tied him up so they could carry him down the hall to this small room. There were mice, he could hear them. He could hear footsteps in the hall. Here were the things to stay away from: metal, ropes, water, fear. He felt himself weakening by the second.

His face was bruised from the altercation in the dormitory, and he had lost a good deal of weight. He was a wraith, a shadowy creature. He was thankful William couldn’t see him, didn’t know what he had become. They continued to feed him medication that caused him to be plodding; it was Thorazine, a wretched pill that made him descend into a woozy state of mind. The Vincent he had been previously had been banished to some distant part of the past, but not completely. He still knew how to play the game, and soon realized he could pretend to swallow the pills, even open his mouth to show they were gone, while keeping them tucked up along his gum. He would then spit them out when the nurse left him alone, then he’d hide them under the radiator. The first clear thought he had was a memory of an interview he had read with Jim Morrison, a singer and poet he admired for his rebellion.

Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.

Freedom was the instinct of every mortal being, even those who thought they had no hope. This was his deepest fear, to be trapped and jailed, like his ancestors. If he hadn’t been surrounded by metal he could have willed his window to open and climbed out, then dropped to the ground. He then would have stopped traffic and hitchhiked to the city, slipping into a car with any stranger who would have deposited him on a city street, so that he might disappear into the crush of people at Forty-Second Street and call William from a pay phone. But he could not reach that part of himself. He had lost himself in this place, as had so many others before.

All he could do was keep his eyes closed and do his best to get through the day. I’ve tried before, I’ve locked the door, I’ve done it wrong, I’ve done it right. He did not eat or fight back. He shivered with cold even when the heat was turned up high, the old metal radiators pinging. He still had marks on his wrists from being bound when he’d thought he could fight his way out. At night he tried to get back the piece of his soul that had disappeared when they brought him here in irons.

He went over the spells he remembered from The Magus, doing his best to recall the magic that had once come to him so easily. He was convinced Aunt Isabelle’s story of Maggie the rabbit was meant for him when he was hiding from himself, denying who he was. Now in the glinting half-light of the hospital room he practiced spells he had memorized. Although the newspaper on a cabinet fluttered and fell off the shelf, and a bowl and a plate rattled when he muttered curses, the aura of the place soon overtook him. It affected his brain and his soul alike. He couldn’t even turn off the bright light that was kept on through the night. He was a rabbit in a cage. For most of the day he sat on a mattress on the floor. His feet were bare, long white feet that didn’t look at all familiar, the feet of the dead.

To make himself aware that he was still alive, to save himself in some small way, he made himself think of the lake in Massachusetts, how cold and green it was, and of the garden where he’d played his first songs, and of April Owens standing in the grass in California, hands on her hips, telling him not to make promises he couldn’t keep. He remembered Regina tagging after him, and the surprising swell of love he’d felt for her when she said she wanted to remember him. He transported himself to that moment, and he stayed there, in California. He no longer smelled the Lysol the janitors used to clean the floor, but rather there was the woodland scent of eucalyptus, so fragrant it made him dizzy.

He heard the door to his locked room open, but he was too far inside his head for it to matter. He had perfected the ability to hover somewhere outside of his own body, something he had learned from The Magus. He was in California and the grass was golden. Nothing else mattered. He could stay forever if he wished. Would you like some flowers? Regina was saying. All of the flowers were red, and in the center of each, a bee drowsed. Someone sat down on the chair. Likely a nurse with his medication. Best ignored. He stayed inside his mind, fading into the tall golden grass.

“Wake up, kid,” a man’s voice said. “You’d better pull yourself together.”

Vincent gazed across the room, his eyes slits. He glimpsed a man in a naval uniform. It was Haylin.

“Medical personnel are allowed in,” Haylin told him. “I have about twenty minutes, so you need to listen to everything I say.” He then tossed something to Vincent, and without thinking Vincent reached up and caught it. It was a set of car keys. It woke him up.

“What are these?” Vincent’s mouth felt like cotton when he spoke. His eyes hurt when he opened them wider. Light poured in and he rubbed at his eyes with his fists.

“They’re yours. You’re driving a Ford.” Hay stood to drape his jacket over the pane of glass cut into the door. “We don’t need the staff to know what we’re doing.” He took off his shoes and his shirt, then stopped and gestured when he took note of Vincent sitting there in shock, unmoving. “Can you hurry up? You leave for Germany tonight and trust me—you do not want to miss your flight. Your sisters and William will have my hide if something goes wrong.”

Vincent smiled. He remembered how to do that.

“Let’s go,” Haylin urged. “Step one. Get the hell out. But just know this. You can’t contact any of us. You have to make a clean break, otherwise we can be implicated and charged with abetting a federal offense.”

In the parking lot the car was exactly where Hay said it would be. A rented Ford. He was to drive directly to Kennedy Airport, renamed in 1963 for their fallen president. He had Hay’s ticket and passport and the two thousand dollars in cash Franny had sent along. She’d sold Maria’s sapphire and was glad to have done so for Vincent’s sake. Once safely in Germany, Vincent would be on his own, free to go where he pleased. Before leaving, though, he’d had to punch Hay.

“Right in the mouth,” Hay had advised. “It’s filled with blood vessels and will look much worse than it is.”

Vincent then was instructed to tie Hay up—Hay had obligingly handed over his tie and his belt—and then to cover Hay with a blanket so no one would notice the switch until it was too late. And it was already too late. He was gone. A navy man and a doctor, with proof of it in his pocket. He looked official, with his buzzed hair, his head nearly bald. He drove with the windows down. He could feel his abilities coming back to him. He passed lights on the parkway and they clicked off. He turned on the radio without touching it. It was dusk, his lucky hour, the hour when he’d met William, when he’d gone onstage in Monterey, when he made his way to freedom, knowing he could never come back, understanding that this was the way one life ended and another began.

There was no reason for the authorities to doubt that Dr. Walker had been beaten and robbed. After the investigation he was given another ticket to Germany and a new passport. He and Franny knew they could not see each other in case one or the other was being watched. Still they dared to meet one last time, in Central Park, at night. It was easy enough to disappear into the lilac-colored shadows on paths they knew so well. The leaves on the trees looked blue, the bark violet. Franny had Vincent’s dog with her. Harry walked slowly, for he had aged since Vincent’s disappearance. All the same Franny kept him on a leash, for fear he’d take off and search for his master. She tied the dog to a bench when Haylin came up the path in the dark. They climbed the rocks above Turtle Pond and sat with their bodies so close they were touching. The water was green and luminous.

“Should we swim?” Haylin said.

It was a joke, but neither laughed. They wished they could go back to that moment when Franny didn’t dive in and change what could never be changed. Franny rested her head on his chest. His heart seemed too loud. Lewis was in the tree above them. Looking down, he made a clacking sound.

“He’s a funny pet,” Haylin said. “He’s so aloof, yet he follows you everywhere.”

“I’ve told you before. He’s not a pet. He’s a familiar. And you’re the one he’s following. He’s never really liked me. We’re too much alike. Two crows in a pod.”

“I see.” Haylin threaded his fingers through her hair. “You’re a beautiful bird.”

He was still a drowning man every time he was with Franny, and now he had to give her up again. They would not be able to write or see each other, lest Hay’s involvement with Vincent’s disappearance be reexamined. He had done enough. Franny would not ruin him any more, although he very much wished that she would.