Life, she thought, this one was mine.
She had loved all of it, even the terrible times when Vincent had run away to start a new life, when Haylin was injured and then when he had cancer, when Jet told her she had seven days to live. All of it. Every minute.
Franny thought she saw someone on the other shore, out in the distance, beyond the water and the snaky heat waves flickering over the surface, turning the air to mist. There was a girl with choppy black hair, the one who’d spent her last seven days with the people she loved, who had never left Franny, and who never would. When you have a sister, someone knows the story of who you were and who you would always be. They waved at each other across the water.
The Book of the Raven had warned that to break a curse you must love someone enough to pay the price and Franny did. She was willing to drown; it was her time anyway. She thought of the day when her nieces arrived in their black coats, holding hands, certain they were alone in the world. She thought of her brother, whom she’d felt responsible for since the day he was stolen from the hospital nursery, convinced he would never manage to watch out for himself. But he had. They had all managed. Franny was always going to be the one to break the curse. Here was her secret: she loved so deeply the depth could never be charted. She was in a boat out in the ocean; she was ready to do what she must. The water was waist high by now. It was cold but that didn’t matter. How strange to feel weighted down by the stones in her pockets. She held the Grimoire against her chest. It was already waterlogged and as she went deeper the pages disintegrated and ink pooled in black circles. Words floated everywhere, shimmering on the water. Words made up the world. The book was in Franny’s hands, but it was the past, over and done with. There was no point holding on, and so she did what she was supposed to. She let it go.
The skin of the toad became itself again, more green than black, restored and made whole. That was magic; that was how they had lived their lives. How lucky they had been. Oh, beautiful world. Oh, love that never ended. They had been through it all together, and now they were together once more. Franny saw Jet floating in front of her, young again. My darling girl who knew me better than anyone. The curse was dissolving. The toad Hannah Owens had found floating long ago, dead in the shallows, the one she had used to fashion the Grimoire, was alive after all this time. It was a natterjack, most unusual of creatures, one that appeared in a beloved book, The Time Garden, which Franny had read to Sally and Gillian when they were children. She watched as it swam away. This was what was meant to be, this was the path she had taken, this was how much she loved them and how well loved she felt in return.
* * *
People in the village wondered why the crows were putting up such a racket so early in the morning. What on earth could make them so agitated? Sally’s dreams had been filled with the clicking of the deathwatch beetle. When she opened her eyes she thought she was still dreaming, but, no, she was in the Three Hedges Inn, with a man in her bed, his broad back and torso taking up much of the space, the inked crow wings the first thing she saw when she opened her eyes. Ian’s breathing was even and deep, he was alive, and Sally was relieved. Last night they had stripped off their clothes and gotten into bed and the only thing he said to her was “I don’t care how we end up.” His mouth was close to her ear and his breath was hot. “As long as we’re together,” she heard him say, but she didn’t answer. They were walking a very thin line; the curse was still out there, and yet they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. Ian had told himself this couldn’t be it, but he knew this would come to be when he first saw her standing in his room; he imagined he would have laughed to think fate could happen this way, but there was nothing funny about it. How was it possible to want someone so much? He didn’t say another word until they were done, as if they would ever be done with one another. “This is it,” he told Sally. “You know it is.”
Now, in the first light of day, Sally spotted the red book that had been slipped beneath her door. She knelt on the carpet and turned the first page and there were the rules of magic.
Harm no one.
Know that what you give to the world will come back to you threefold.