“They shouldn’t be.” Kylie thought of how angry she’d been at her mother, how she’d stalked away without a word. “I don’t need them.”
“Don’t you? What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Antonia wanted to know.
“I came to break the curse,” Kylie told her sister.
“If I wasn’t so pregnant I’d fly over and kick your ass. Forget that stupid fairy tale. You need to come home.”
“It’s not a fairy tale. Jet left a note about how to end the curse. I know I can bring Gideon back.”
Antonia had been driving in heavy traffic, and she now pulled over to the side of the road. Cars whizzed past her. She closed the windows to drown out the sound of the highway. “How do you plan to do that?” she asked.
“She left a note that she had hid an old book in the library. It has instructions for ending a curse. I just haven’t managed to find them yet.”
“If Jetty left a note it was probably for Aunt Franny, not for you. I’m sure she never meant for you to go wandering through England. Where are you exactly?”
Kylie gazed around. The sky was shadowy and dark, with bats flickering in the trees. “In Essex. The first one.”
“Well, come back to your own Essex County.” Antonia thought of her dreams, of a lake and a drowning, of a girl with red hair and their dear Jet, young once again. “You’re going to get into trouble there.”
“How is he?” Kylie was still wearing Gideon’s raincoat; it was the only thing that helped when she was shivering. She pushed her black hair out of her face and kept her back to the parked car, avoiding eye contact with the young American woman who was signaling for her phone to be returned.
“He moved his hand,” Antonia said. “He’s still in there.”
A sob escaped from Kylie.
“Come home now,” Antonia told her.
Kylie made the mistake of shifting her stance. The woman inside the car caught her eye and waved.
“I’d like my phone,” the young woman called. “We’ve got to go.”
“I’m kind of with someone here,” Kylie said.
“What do you mean with someone? Like a guide?”
“A man.”
Agitated, Antonia got out of the car. The baby was so low, standing still was uncomfortable, and she began to pace on the grass. She hated driving home to Cambridge at this hour of the day; there was too much traffic and the sun was in her eyes. Maybe that was why she felt like crying. What was left of the apple pie was in the car. Could it be that was why Kylie had phoned?
“What man?” Antonia wanted to know.
“He said he could help me. He’s cursed, too. I thought he could at first. Now I’m not sure.” Kylie felt humiliated and degraded by throwing in her lot with a stranger who wanted such dark results for those who had cursed him.
“Do you even know who he is?” Antonia asked.
“He’s somehow related to us. He’s taught himself left-handed magic.”
“Are you listening to yourself?” Antonia said to her little sister. “Even I know that means the Dark Art.”
“He understands me,” Kylie said stubbornly. She had left the book with him and it was dawning on her that her sister might be right. Trust was something a person earned.
“You’ve only just met him. He can’t understand you,” Antonia said. “He doesn’t even know you.”
“He’s told me things we were never told about our bloodline.”