As she prepared to go, Franny noticed her reflection in the silvered mirror above the bureau. She looked so young she laughed to see herself. What a life she had, most of it unexpected. She would not have it any other way, not even the losses. This life was hers and hers alone.
The deathwatch beetle was beside her as she pulled on her red boots, it was dark as ink, curious and devoted to its mission. “Stop being so bossy,” Franny told it. “I know where I’m going.”
Give a life, save a life. That was the way to break the curse. Kylie would wake in the morning as if she had never been ill and the curse would be broken after three hundred years. Franny didn’t need to drink tea for courage; it was something she’d been born with. She looked down to spy her fate in the palms of both her left and right hands, the future she’d been given and the one she had made for herself crossing over each other to become one. This last day, this final deed of love. A life for a life. And even now she knew the truth, how lucky they’d been. Franny scrawled two notes, one to leave on her pillow beside The Book of the Raven, the other to slip under Vincent’s door.
You did everything right, my dear brother. Live a lot.
On her way along the corridor, she paused at Sally’s room and fit the red book under the door. It was not as large as the first book, for Franny’s script was small and not as elegant as the writers of the past. There were no striking illustrations of plants and symbols, she hadn’t time for that; the pages were plain, but they would do. It was a book of practical magic, containing their history, past, present, and future, with plenty of blank pages for the future, Franny had made sure of that. Write what you must, write what you will leave behind, write magic.
* * *
It was still dark when Franny took the carpeted stairs to the lobby, holding on to the oak banister to take some of the weight off her knee, stopping to grab a coat from the rack. A maid who came in early to sort the laundry would later swear she’d spied a young woman with red hair go out the door. She was carrying a large book and she didn’t look back. There were bees swarming the chimney of the Three Hedges Inn and swirls of pollen in the air, dusting rooftops and windowpanes as the bees’ hum entered into people’s dreams so that everyone in town slept more deeply, with many not waking until noon had come and gone.
Franny proceeded down the High Street, then turned and found her way on the small lanes where the hedges were twelve feet tall and the birds were still sleeping in their nests. It was a beautiful morning, perhaps the most beautiful day there had ever been. She’d had everything. A breath, a blink, a kiss, who needed more? Like any witch, Franny could smell water. She crossed Devotion Field where there were oxeye daisies, and poppies, and wild chamomile, and, in the shadows, enchanter’s nightshade, named for Circe, who changed men into animals with her curse. Franny did not blame Maria, who swore her oath with a rope threaded around her throat. For those few instants, Maria Owens had forgotten that love was more important than life itself, even if it was a riddle no woman could solve.
Love was inside every story. Love lost and love found, red love that stained your heart, the darkest love that twisted into despair or revenge, love everlasting, love that was true. You carried love with you wherever you went. The sky had cracked open with fragile blades of light; greenfinches flew over the tall grass and magpies chattered with their arrogant calls. Crows soared above the treetops as Franny tread through the grass. For a moment the sky was black, then when the crows passed by the world was ablaze. Franny stood there for a moment to take it in. She understood why her sister had felt lucky even when she knew the end had come. Oh, beautiful world; most glorious day. Franny paused in the place where Hannah Owens’s cottage had been. Perhaps she knew, or perhaps the past called out to her. It was possible to spy scraps of charred wood in the weedy grass. The earth was still marked by the fire, black and ashy in spots where only nettle and bindweed would grow. There were shoots from the poison garden Hannah had kept, stalks of yarrow and black nightshade, wolfsbane with its magenta hooded flowers, foxglove that could slow a heart, a mysterious plant named lords and ladies laden with berries that should not be touched, that could be used as a poison or as a cure depending on who gathered them.