Page 9 of The Rules of Magic

“We don’t own it. April has a right to go there.” Vincent seemed even more reckless than usual. “And we only go there occasionally.”

“So what are you up to?” Franny asked her brother.

“What trouble could happen in a library?” When Vincent’s languid smile spread across his face Franny nearly forgave him for sharing secrets with April. But not quite.

“If you’re with her,” Franny said, nodding to their cousin, “plenty. Just be aware that April is a narcissist.” She’d heard her father use this term for many of his patients, devil-may-care people who never thought about anyone but themselves. “I think you’ll regret this alliance,” she told her brother.

“He won’t,” April said. “And you’re not the first one to tag me with that diagnosis. I’m disappointed in you, Franny. I thought you were more original. If you’re doing so much research here, did you find out anything about the secret?”

“What secret?” Franny said.

“If I knew, it wouldn’t be a secret,” April said smugly. “I’ve heard my parents whispering about it. It’s probably something horrible and unexpected. I suppose it will hijack us when we least expect it. It has something to do with the curse. Some dark past that everyone wants to forget. So it looks like you don’t know as much as you think you do.”

After that Franny had nothing to do with April. Jet, on the other hand, continued to find their cousin fascinating. She loved to try on April’s miniskirts and skintight jeans and lacy dresses. When Jet dressed up in them she looked like someone completely different, and she liked what she saw.

One night, when thunder was rolling across the sky, Jet looked out the window to spy April and Vincent playing strip poker in the garden, laughing and tossing off shirts and shoes. Not even the rain stopped them. April certainly didn’t seem Vincent’s type, yet they were thick as thieves. Those two instinctively knew how to have fun, something at which Jet and Franny were both painfully inept.

There came a hot morning when Vincent was sleeping late and Franny was at the library when April knocked on the attic door. Jet was in bed reading an annotated copy of Emily Dickinson’s poems that she’d found on a bookshelf in the parlor.

April grabbed the embossed edition from Jet’s hands. “Let’s get out of here.” When Jet hesitated, April made a face. “You can’t read and pull weeds for the rest of your life. Try doing as you please and see how it feels.”

If this was an offer of friendship, who was Jet to decline? So off they went to Leech Lake on a whim, with a cooler of beers bought at the corner store thanks to a fake ID April had obtained in Harvard Square for twenty dollars and the promise of a kiss that was never granted.

When they reached the lake, Jet undressed behind some shrubbery. She was wearing her old black bathing suit under her dress, but was still modest. April, however, hadn’t bothered with a suit. She merely slipped off her clothes, dropping them onto the grass. She was even more beautiful naked, a pale exotic creature so daring she climbed to the highest rock, then dove in without a moment of hesitation. Like the siblings, she floated right back up to the surface. She shook her fist in the air. “Just try to drown me!” she called out to some invisible enemy. “Oh, come on,” she crooned, when Jet looked scandalized. “Don’t be such a baby.”

Later, while they dried off in the sun, April unbraided her hair, which looked like snow as it fell down her back. There was a smear of mud on her face, and she had a lost expression, appearing more thoughtful than usual. “I can see the future, and I thought that would help me know my path, but I keep walking right into every mistake.”

“Everyone makes mistakes,” Jet said. “It’s part of being human.”

April gave her a contrary look. “That’s not exactly what we are. Or don’t you get that?”

“We’re human enough.”

“You must have a special talent.”

“I can tell what people are thinking,” Jet admitted. April was the first person other than Franny to whom Jet had confided this skill. She was always embarrassed to be anything other than normal, as if she were proving those dreadful girls at the Starling School right.

“Really?” April’s interest in her cousin was piqued. Perhaps Jet wasn’t as mousy as she seemed.

“I don’t want to know. It’s so intrusive, it seems morally wrong, but I can’t seem to stop it unless the person blocks me by putting up a force field around her mind. Franny’s good at that. She just shuts down emotionally. She never lets anyone in. I guess that’s her strength.”

“Try with me,” April insisted. “I won’t block you. What am I thinking right now?”

Jet knew this was dangerous business. She kept her eyes downcast. “You wish you could stay here,” she said in a consoling voice.

“Anyone could guess that. Tell me something no one else would know. Show me your talent.”

They were sitting across from each other. The rest of the world dropped away when they took each other’s hands and looked into each other’s eyes. They both cleared their minds. They could hear bees in the tall grass and the flickering of birds that skimmed over the lake, and then, all at once, they couldn’t. Everything around them fell silent. It was just the two of them, and as April’s mind opened to her cousin, Jet gasped, startled by April’s deepest thoughts. By now she had realized that people were surprising creatures. Still, she would have never guessed Vincent was the problem.

Jet thought it best not to reveal too much. Beneath all the bluster and sophistication, April was terribly vulnerable. Jet realized that when April left, she would miss her cousin. To avoid any embarrassments, she simply said, “You wish you could come back to New York with us. You asked Vincent, but he said it was impossible.”

Tears rimmed April’s eyes. “You know. I can tell that you do.”

“I wish I could help you.” Jet had never wanted the sight less than she did right now.

April shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. My parents would never let me go. They want me to be like everyone else. My mother says I don’t apply myself and that’s why I don’t fit in. She doesn’t believe it, but I’ve tried to be like other people. It doesn’t work.” April’s skin was hot and flushed, her usually perfect complexion blotchy. “It’s very difficult to live with parents who disapprove of your every thought and deed.”

“You’ll get away from them,” Jet assured her. “Just not yet.”