Franny observed the historian. He was staring at Sally unblinking, his heart hammering against his chest. Franny could see the crow beneath his shirt when his back was turned to her. She nudged Vincent, leaning toward him to murmur, “Do you see what I see?” she asked.
“I don’t see that sort of thing anymore,” Vincent said, though it was plain as day, the emotion that must be avoided, the height of red magic, the impulse and the curse, what broke you in pieces, what you couldn’t give up even if you tried.
“I’ve heard rumors concerning a book by that name,” Ian claimed, forcing his scholarly self to take charge. “The author was a poet.” He frowned, clearly not wishing to say any more. The rumor was that Amelia Bassano had been betrayed by William Shakespeare, and that she’d had her revenge in the darkest way possible. Fortunately, her Book of Shadows was said to have been burned upon her death, as was the tradition with personal Grimoires, but perhaps the book had survived.
Annoyed, Gillian approached the historian directly. She was astonished to find she could spy his aura, when she hadn’t been capable of such magic before. His aura, however, was quite confusing; it continually changed color, first gray, then violet, then ink blue. “You have to help my sister. She saved you.”
Ian might have said many things, he might have answered as a fool, as he’d done often enough when he was young. Make me, see if you can, my life is my own, this curse has nothing to do with me, the book is only a rumor, and if it does exist, it is likely dark and unmanageable, I need time to recover, I am limping, can’t you see, there’s red powder on my hands and on my ceiling and my floor. He was a rebel and a loner and he had several important lecture dates to prepare for at which he was to discuss his book, soon to be published, twenty years of his life spent looking for magic, and now it was here, unbidden and refusing to leave.
“I intend to repay you,” he said, just as Franny would have predicted, for she had seen inside him when she spied the crow on his back and she knew his story. He stalked away, to call his lecture agent and cancel his speaking engagements. His back was to Franny again, and again she saw through him. She glanced over at Sally and wondered if she knew that crows were more intelligent than most men, and more loyal, and that you could not choose them, they must choose you, they must come to you and once they did they would never leave you, at least not of their own accord.
II.
On her next visit to the Reverend, Antonia decided to surprise him with a Chocolate Tipsy Cake. She would show him that, indeed, she could make something with care. Although she’d never baked before, she knew the recipe for the cake by heart, so last night she’d given it a try in her small kitchen, traipsing out to the nearby market to purchase dark chocolate, a sack of sugar, some fine cake flour. Antonia did her reading for her neurology class while the layers baked in battered tins, hoping for the best but not truly expecting it, glancing at the oven every once in a while just to make certain there was no smoke. She’d made the frosting out of butter and powdered sugar, cocoa, and vanilla. She knew that Jet waited for the cake to cool before frosting and waved at the tins with a dishtowel to help the process along. In the end, the layers were tilted and the frosting was too thick; she’d left out the rum, with only a splash for tradition’s sake, but it was a perfectly serviceable cake and she was rather proud of herself. She’d set the finished product on a plate jammed into the back seat of Gillian’s car, where it nearly fell onto the floor mat as she rounded a corner too quickly. At the retirement home, the admitting clerk, about to complain about the cake, was stared down by Antonia’s cool glance and no one stopped her when she made a detour into the lunchroom for a knife and two plates and forks. The Reverend was at his favorite spot by the window when Antonia arrived in his room. He was currently remembering fragments from the past he’d forgotten yesterday. How he’d loved to cut daffodils with Jet and deliver them to the cemetery, how they would sit there in lawn chairs that Jet kept for just such occasions in the trunk of her car, how they were so in sync they would not even have to talk, how they would walk past the new saplings and the old sturdy trees on the path back to the parking lot, where they would often have a lunch of egg salad sandwiches and pickles while sitting in the car before Jet brought him home. Today was one of his good days, when he could see and hear and remember. It became even better when the Owens girl came in with a cake and closed the door behind her. “I had the feeling you’d be back today,” Reverend Willard said.