Page 80 of The Book of Magic

“Good. It’s nearly five and I have to wash up and get over to the inn.” Miss Hardwick patted Kylie’s shoulder before she went to collect her teacup to rinse.

The cover of the book did indeed burn Kylie’s fingertips and she slipped on the gloves before sinking down on the floor. She sat back on her heels as she turned to the first page. There was an envelope tucked inside, another note in Jet’s familiar sloping script.

Dear One,

Do not use The Book of the Raven unless you are prepared to lose everything. This book will lead you to the end of the curse. Start in the city where it was written.

Kylie examined the frontispiece on which the author had drawn a sketch of a raven in black ink. 1615, London. When Faith Owens found the text at a market in Manhattan in the seventeenth century, she had written her name in the lower left-hand corner. The Book of the Raven by Amelia Bassano was a private journal, written for her own purposes, but she had others in mind as well, those she wished to help. Women who had no access to what they needed most in the world often turned to the left, and it was occurring once again here in the Owens Library as Kylie joined those who had walked the Crooked Path before her. It often began with women who were given away to men they didn’t love, who were too poor to make their own decisions, who lived lives they would have never chosen, who couldn’t be published but who wrote anyway, women who had been cursed, women who needed to save someone, no matter the cost. This was the dark side and to reach it a woman must take a chance, close her eyes, make the leap, do whatever must be done.

On the back of the envelope was Jet’s last thought, hastily scrawled, in a shakier hand than usual, for she’d been in a great hurry on the seventh day.

Everything worthwhile is dangerous.

Kylie slipped the book into the pocket of her raincoat. She could feel it there, as though it had a beating heart, a story written in blood. Miss Hardwick was rinsing out a teacup in the tiny kitchen when Kylie passed by. She made sure to keep her voice calm as she said her good-byes to the elderly librarian. “Thanks, Miss Hardwick,” she called. She was already making a to-do list: go to her dorm room, pack a bag, grab her passport, get to Logan Airport. “I appreciate your help,” she told the librarian. “I’m off.”

“Good night,” Miss Hardwick called back as she set the teacup to dry on the counter. “And good luck. Jet said the person who came for the book would need it.”

By the time Sally returned with her coat and her keys, Miss Hardwick was headed out the door. The light in the rare books room had been flicked off, the glass cabinets locked.

“Wait a second.” Sally glanced around. She felt a chill along her spine. “Where’s Kylie?”

The crystal beads of the chandelier above them in the entranceway swayed as a breeze came through the open door.

“Oh, she’s gone off with the book,” Miss Hardwick responded as they left together.

“Gone off?” Sally asked. “With what book?”

Miss Hardwick was in a hurry to get to the Black Rabbit Inn; five o’clock was looming, and she did like her nightly whiskey. All the same, she paused on the pavement. She’d known Sally ever since she was a child, and had always pretended not to notice when Sally checked out more books than the rules allowed. Sally had been a melancholy girl, but a sweet one, and a major reader. Little Women, The Secret Garden, all of the Edward Eager books, with Half Magic and Magic by the Lake withdrawn several times, and then, during the summer when she turned twelve, as much Jane Austen as she could get her hands on, Persuasion and Pride and Prejudice and Emma. She had always watched over her sister, who had been a wild little thing, not a huge reader, but one who had been drawn to books that seemed beyond her years, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, for instance, and Shirley Jackson’s We Have Always Lived in the Castle.

“The one that Jet put on the shelf, dear,” Miss Hardwick explained. “The Book of the Raven.”

Sally turned terribly pale upon hearing this news. She looked as if she might faint. What book was this?

“Would you like to join me for a drink?” Miss Hardwick suggested. Not only was the whiskey excellent at the Black Rabbit, but the martinis were famous for the punch they packed, and tonight the special was meat loaf, a local favorite.

“Where did that book come from?”

“Jet left it. I thought it was for Franny, but apparently not. It was in the Do not resuscitate section.” Sally looked even more puzzled. “The magic section. It was a little joke your aunt Jet and I had. If a patron took out a book from that section, they were responsible for what happened next.”

“What sort of book was it?”

Sally looked as she had when she was a girl, suspicious and intelligent, her eyes bright with worry.

“It was the sort that burned your hands as a matter of fact,” Miss Hardwick said. “Your aunt said it was a Book of Shadows and that I should stay away from it.”

Sally had gone stone-cold. A left-handed Grimoire.

They went out together and Sally, though preoccupied, returned a wave to Miss Hardwick as she walked toward the lights of the inn. The notion of a book she’d never heard of made her nervous, for she’d believed that she was aware of every volume in their collection. And yet, how much damage could one small book do? How powerful could it be? That was when Sally began to run, because she knew the answer. Words were everything, stories were more powerful than any weapon, books changed lives. She ran along the spotty pavement to Magnolia Street and when she arrived she saw that the gate was open. Gillian’s battered black and white Mini had been parked on the road at a curious angle, and Gillian, herself, was out on the porch waiting for her.

“We came when we heard about Gideon,” Gillian said. “Kylie left a message for Antonia.”

There was Antonia, up on the porch with Franny. Kylie had run off and now must be found, they all agreed that was the logical way to proceed. But Antonia noticed that her mother and aunt Gilly were stealing worried glances and speaking about the curse. Pure nonsense, was Antonia’s first thought. Seventeenth-century superstition. How could they take this seriously, although clearly they did. Antonia recalled that her mother had spoken harshly to the cousin from Maine who’d blurted out something about a curse at Jet’s funeral.

Sally had often been a distracted parent, too wrapped up in her own hurt and guilt when she lost her husbands to entirely be there for her daughters, and it had fallen upon Antonia to be the dependable one in the family. She was the serious older sister who made certain Kylie did her homework, who corrected math and science papers, and who’d suggested that Kylie apply to Harvard so they would be together in Cambridge. Antonia was the daughter who never reproached her mother, or asked for the limelight, the clever girl who did as she was told, who went to bed on time and always was at the top of her class. But as practical as Antonia was, she had a story she kept to herself. Until she’d become pregnant, sleep had eluded her, and she’d always had a problem with lucid dreams that often absorbed her wholly, seeming more real than the life she lived. To avoid dreaming she stayed up, buzzed on coffee and schoolwork, reading until all hours. When she’d first started medical school, her circadian rhythms were so off, she’d gone to a sleep clinic but had received no satisfactory answers. Since becoming pregnant, coffee was out of the question, and she’d been dreaming more all the time. If this had been any other day she would have said nothing about the disturbing dream she’d had the night before, but her sister was missing, and it was time for her to speak her mind.

“I dreamed of a death by drowning,” Antonia said after a measured pause, uncomfortable when Sally and Gillian turned to study her, both clearly nervous. “It was one of us.”

“People in our family can’t drown.” Gillian was quick to dismiss the dream. Talk of drowning was never a good idea, not in their family.