All of the early seedlings had been planted, including Gillian’s Zebra tomatoes, and the herb garden was flourishing in the mild April weather. She remembered when she and Vincent had sat knee to knee in the kitchen in their family’s apartment on Eighty-Ninth Street and together they had made the table rise. Their very first act of magic. “We have it, Franny,” he’d said, as enthralled as she was terrified. Now she sat in a garden chair that was damp with droplets from yesterday’s rain shower. With the letter in hand she felt a swell of love for her brother. She swiftly opened the envelope, slipping her finger under the flap. In her hurry, the paper cut across her skin and a drop of blood flowed, staining the envelope with a dark, nearly black flush. She noticed that Vincent had written his return address in Paris. He hadn’t done that when he sent the card about William’s passing. Then she knew. He wanted to be found.
Franny scanned every word, then read the letter again. Vincent wrote that when they lost something dear to them, he would help find it again. As a boy he always managed to navigate without a guide or a map, and lost objects were his specialty. Their parents might hide books or clothing they found unacceptable, but Vincent always tracked down the confiscated belongings hidden in the cellar or in the back of a closet. All Franny could think of was Vincent, whom she had missed terribly. She could feel the sun on her skin, and the breeze from the east. Her dear brother, back from the dead and the disappeared, a victim of the curse, a believer in love, the person she trusted most in the world, assuring her that fate would bring them together again.
V.
Four weeks after the funeral, Kylie remembered that she had her aunt’s copy of The Poems of Emily Dickinson. She had planned to read a poem a day, but the loss of her aunt Jet continued to sting and she felt paralyzed by grief. She hadn’t read a single one, still, there was the book on Kylie’s night table. She reached to turn on her lamp, then let the pages fall open.
This is the Hour of Lead—
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow—
First—Chill—then Stupor—then the letting go—
It was then Kylie noticed that a letter had dropped from in between the pages. It was addressed to Franny, but here it was, a bird that had flown into her lap. Kylie unfolded it, her heart thudding against the cage of her ribs.
My darling girl,
If there be a cure, seek till you find it. If there be none, never mind it.
The curse Maria Owens placed on herself and us to protect us from love has nearly ruined our family. Look where we keep our books. There is a cure in The Book of the Raven.
But beware, it is the most dangerous book of all. It grants your heart’s desire, but the price you pay is steep. I was already dying, so I couldn’t be the one.
The one among us with the most courage will break the curse.
It’s always been you.
Kylie thought of the cousin at the funeral, going on about an Owens curse. It was nothing, she’d been told. It was a myth. Clearly, her aunt Jet had thought otherwise. All the same, Kylie folded the note and stored it in her drawer. As far as she was concerned, she already possessed her heart’s desire, and he was waiting for her just around the corner.
* * *
Kylie and Gideon Barnes were sprawled in the grass on the Cambridge Common where General George Washington had amassed his troops during the American Revolution. May had come at last, bringing with it the end of the term. Gideon was studying, and she was looking at the sky, thinking about the letter she’d found.
“Do you believe in curses?” Kylie asked.
“I believe Latin is an impossible language.”
“Seriously.”
He kissed her as his answer.
She drew away. “Does that mean no?”