Witches don’t weep or drown or fall in love, Franny thought, and yet it happened all the time.
“Well, this one did,” Antonia insisted.
In her dream, there had been toads in the shallows, some inky in color, others vermilion, still others a deep opalescent green. A pile of black stones was carefully arranged on the edge of the shore. The dream was a portent of what was to come, and perhaps it was best if Antonia kept its content to herself. Her mother and aunt were so distraught she couldn’t bring herself to tell them that the drowned woman in her dream had red hair.
Antonia was asked to phone Kylie and, of course, she agreed. They were as close as sisters could be, speaking every day. If Kylie were to talk to anyone it would most certainly be her sister. Antonia made her way to the farthest section of the huge garden, past the beehives. She stood beneath one of the magnolias brought to Massachusetts long ago by a lovesick man who opened his beloved’s heart by planting trees. Dusk had fallen and the sky was streaked an inky blue. The air itself seemed heavy and dark. Antonia could feel her baby moving inside her. She had thought being pregnant would be annoying, but in fact she felt comforted by the baby’s presence.
Kylie picked up on the seventh ring. “I can’t talk,” she said.
“You have to talk.” Antonia was pacing in the grass, wet droplets clinging to the hem of a maternity dress that was more of a tent. “I’m so sorry about what happened to Gideon, but I can meet you at the hospital. We can get him the best care.”
“That won’t help.” Kylie already sounded very far away. “It’s the curse.”
Antonia stopped where she was. The magnolia was blooming, and the leaves were waxy and damp. “There is no curse. Yes, we’re different, but they would have told us if there was a curse.”
“I stopped in Cambridge for my passport. I’m leaving. If I don’t break the curse, Gideon won’t come back. This family has ruined our lives. Tell them I blame them for everything that’s happened. If they had taught us magic, I might have been able to fight the curse. At least I would have known not to fall in love.”
Antonia could usually talk her sister out of anything, convincing her not to dye her hair blue or attend Yale rather than Harvard, but now she wasn’t so sure. Perhaps it was best to join in. “Tell me where you’re going,” she said. “I’ll go with you.”
“Not this time. This time I’m on my own.”
She was gone before Antonia could say another word. It was then that Antonia remembered that it was just last week that Kylie had put a red rinse in her chestnut hair. Her dream came back to her, the red-haired woman drowning. She went back to the porch where Gillian sat on the top step. Sally was pacing. She knew bad signs when she saw them. A cat in the road. A cloud in the shape of a noose. A daughter who felt betrayed by her own mother. The full moon lifting into the sky.
“She said you ruined her life,” Antonia informed her mother and aunt. “She’s left and she won’t say where she’s going. All I know is that she has her passport.”
Sally sank down on the stairs beside her sister. Here they were, in the place where they’d first learned who and what they could be. There was a ring around the rising moon, a sign of trouble to come. They’d seen it before and now it was back. Gillian might argue that the rainbow manifestation was caused by the reflection of light through ice crystals, but Sally remembered the phrase of Shakespeare’s, Something wicked this way comes, the title of a book she’d loved as a girl. On this night the sisters held hands, reaching for each other without thinking, just as they had when they first came to Massachusetts, when the world was dark and cruel and they had no idea what might await them.
Franny had slipped inside and returned with a hastily packed bag. It was the one she’d used long ago when she had gone to Paris for Vincent’s funeral. Her nieces turned toward her, her dear girls, her last chance to love someone.