Already, people were forgetting that Tom Lockland had ever been among them, although every May there would be a town gathering to remember this day so that no one would forget how easily everyday life could be suddenly disrupted, for disaster was always a moment away, in the wind, in a red rain, in the illness that had spread through the village on a beautiful spring day.
IV.
Antonia dreamed that a toad had stopped in front of her on a grassy path. She was barefoot, frantically searching for her sister, but the toad was in her way. “Go on,” she told it. “Move.” In response it burped up a silver key. Don’t you understand anything? someone said to her, and when she looked toward the lake she saw Jet, young again and a bit disappointed by how dense Antonia was. You already have everything you need.
Antonia scrambled out of bed, waking Ariel, who was confused. They’d gone to bed early and had barely slept an hour.
“Is it the baby?” Ariel asked, but Antonia didn’t answer. She had already gone to the living room to search through her purse. Ariel had followed her, a sheet wrapped around her body.
“We have to go now.” Antonia did feel a strange pressure inside of her, but that wasn’t what caused her to hurry.
“Where are we going?” Ariel asked as they went into the bedroom and pulled on their clothes.
Antonia leaned on the bed. The pressure was deep, a tight band around her middle. A few breaths and it was gone. “The law office.” She held up the silver key that would open the box of Maria’s papers.
“Right now?” Ariel asked.
“It should have been yesterday,” Antonia answered. “It should have been three hundred years ago.”
* * *
The metal box was stored in the subbasement, at the bottom of an old filing cabinet that contained the Owenses’ documents, the deed to the property on Magnolia Street, along with an accounting of bills from the carpenters, birth and death certificates, wills, records from the Owens School for Girls, letters written in Portuguese tied in blue ribbon, and a faded envelope on which Do not read unless you have the book had been scrawled in pale ink. Antonia had asked to be alone, and Ariel, though concerned that Antonia’s pains seemed to be sharper and closer together, went up to her office to brew coffee that turned out to be too bitter to drink.
The paper was so thin Antonia could see through it, the ink fading as she read, worrying her as it disappeared, word by word.
The Book of the Raven nearly ruined my daughter Faith’s life. I could have destroyed it, but it was written by a woman of knowledge who wrote it in order to grant the reader her heart’s desire, whether it be revenge or love. It will instruct you on the way to end our affliction, then you must pass it on to the next woman who needs the raven’s knowledge.
I thought a curse would protect us, but curses come back to you threefold. There is only one way to put an end to it. Courage. My letter is written for the bravest among us. To save a life, a life must be given.
To end the curse, the book in which it was originally written must be destroyed. The Grimoire which was mine must be no more.
The future rises from the ashes of the past,
Begin at the beginning and end at the end.
To have a blessed future, dispose of a cursed past.
Return it to its element, no matter how deep.
Antonia sat back on her heels and took a breath, feeling a wave within her that she had no power to fight or resist, nor would she want to. She panted until the burst of pain diminished, then scrambled over to her purse on her hands and knees to search for her phone. As she punched in the number she looked up to see Ariel perched on the stair, her face drawn with worry.
“I don’t know if you realize this, but you’re having a baby,” Ariel said.