Page 75 of The Rules of Magic

“Not at all. It’s hair dye.” It was neither, it was simply the way her hair reacted to water, but Franny wasn’t about to explain that to a ten-year-old. She’d never cared for children. She hadn’t much liked herself when she was one.

The other girls had scattered to climb up the rocks.

“That’s dangerous,” Franny called. No one paid attention to her, except for the one girl who was still staring at her. “Not that it’s any of my business,” Franny said brusquely.

“Is it true that you can’t be drowned?” the girl asked.

“Anyone can be drowned. Given the right circumstances.” The girl was plain but had a bright spark of intelligence in her eyes. “Why do you ask?”

“I thought you were a witch.”

“Really?” By now Franny was slipping on her boots. She wore them in every season. Even in summer. They were so much better than shoes for gardening. “Who told you that?”

“Everyone says so.”

“Well, everyone doesn’t know everything,” Franny responded. She sounded crotchety, even to herself. The girl was carrying a backpack. A blue journal peeking out caught Franny’s attention. It was one of the notebooks she’d left in the library. “Are you writing?” she asked.

“Trying to,” the girl said.

“Don’t try, do.” She realized she sounded exactly like Aunt Isabelle when she was irritated. She hadn’t meant to be a wet blanket and had no wish to discourage this clever little girl, so she changed her tone. “But trying is a start. What is your story?”

“My life.”

“Ah.”

“If you write it all down, it doesn’t hurt as much.”

“Yes, I can imagine,” Franny said.

The girl scampered onto the rocks to join her friends. She waved and Franny waved back.

As she walked home Franny thought that the girl at the lake had been perfectly right. It helped to write things down. It ordered your thoughts and if you were lucky revealed feelings you didn’t know you had. That same afternoon Franny wrote a long letter to Haylin. She had never told anyone what her aunt had whispered with her last breath. But now she wrote it down, and when she did she realized it was what she believed, despite the curse.

Love more, her aunt had said. Not less.

Jet remembered how much she had enjoyed puttering in the garden when she began working there again. Everything flourished under her touch. She planted spring onions and mint and cabbages and rue and basil and Spanish garlic. She put in lemon thyme, lemon balm, lemon verbena, foxgloves, and zinnias, making sure to plant rosemary and lavender by the back door, where it had grown when Isabelle was there. The Reverend gave her some of his bulbs so she could grow clutches of daffodils and bring her own flowers to the cemetery on her visits. Some were white with orange centers, some were golden, some were butter yellow. When they bloomed she cried because she knew another year had gone by and it was all happening so fast.

The more dangerous plants were ordered from the Owens farm in Rockport, Maine, and these Jet grew in the greenhouse, still locked with an old iron key. No reason to take a chance that teenagers who could easily mistake wolfsbane for marijuana might manage to get inside and binge on poison. There, behind glass, she kept belladonna; hemlock; nightshade, which could induce visions and was said to be in the ointment that allowed witches to fly; henbane, known as black nightshade, used by men to attract women and by women to bring rain; mandrake, an herb said to scream when plucked from the ground by its roots; thorn apple, used for healing and for breaking hexes, but only in tiny amounts, otherwise death might result.

One day she saw the old rabbit, Maggie, near the greenhouse, hiding from the cat. Franny had come out and they stood there together. It was definitely Maggie, with her black whiskers and sad eyes.

“Let’s set her free,” Jet said.

Franny went over and grabbed the rabbit before it could hop away. “Now what?” she asked.

Jet went to open the gate, and Franny followed.

“She’ll just wind up in someone else’s yard,” Franny said.

“Yes, but it will be her choice.”

Franny put the rabbit down on the sidewalk. For a minute it huddled there, staring at them.

“You’re free,” Franny said, waving her hands. “Go on!”

Maggie took off down the street, running so fast they never saw her again.

“Good riddance,” Franny said.