“You’ll love this place,” Ariel told her as they went inside a restaurant called Incanto. “I used to come here with my grandfather every Friday.” There was no sign on the door, but the courthouse was nearby and Incanto was a great favorite with attorneys and judges.
As she followed Ariel inside the tiny restaurant, the idea of being cursed in matters of love struck Antonia as something she should take seriously. They were immediately seated at a table by the window and it was clear that Ariel was a regular, as the ma?tre d’ knew her by name. By now, Antonia’s head was pounding. As the bread was served, a plate of salted butter that was left for them began to melt. Antonia pushed it away. That old wives’ tale about butter melting when someone was in love was utter nonsense. It simply couldn’t be. Exhausted, Antonia closed her eyes while Ariel ordered white wine. “Just water for my date,” she heard Ariel say.
Antonia was remembering more of the dream she’d had the night before. There had been dragonflies darting through the air and the day was so brutally hot steam was rising from the surface of the water. Her hands had stopped smarting from the nettle as she went deeper, even though she knew it was dangerous. She thought she heard a voice calling her back to shore. She thought the sky was filling with clouds as a shadow was cast, but the shadow was formed by the crows winging above her, gathering in masses, as they did when trying to protect one of their own. She didn’t look back, she didn’t care anymore, she went deeper, and cursed or not, warned or not, she reached for Ariel right there in a restaurant on Charles Street and kissed her as if she had never kissed anyone before, because the truth was, she was already drowning.
III.
There was a train from the station on Liverpool Street that ran from London to Witham in Essex in under an hour. The view out the window was a blur, first urban and gray, and then the deep flickering green of the lush countryside splotched with sunlight that faded as the hour grew later. Once off the train, Kylie was directed down the street by a ticket taker, and there she found a local bus that made so many stops in a string of little towns that it took nearly another hour to reach Thornfield. It was a small village, with most houses dating to the seventeenth century, many with mossy slate or tiled roofs and gardens set behind stonewalls. The area was famous for its roses, many of which had already begun to bud in bursts of salmon and crimson along with a pitch-black variety that was known as the Thornfield Rose.
The village was considered picturesque and had been featured in many guidebooks about the region, most of them showcasing the forest on the edge of town, where some of the most ancient trees in the county could be found, huge oaks, hundreds of years old, which were said to sing on gusty days. Children in the village stood out on the street or in their gardens to listen for the trees when the wind came up. Magic had been here longer than the school or the library or the firehouse and had become part of everyday life. Elderly women were respected, and a little feared, for many had retained the old knowledge and held on to that bit of power; they could protect themselves, leaving salt outside their doors and planting lavender for luck. On All Soul’s night most everyone stayed home. People held house parties and insisted it was too chilly to venture out, but the truth was people frequently became lost in the fens on the occasion of that night. Now, on the verge of summer, with the unfolding roses incandescent in the fading light, people still kept the windows in their children’s bedrooms closed at night. Doing so protected against the damp, the children were told, but the mist doesn’t need double locks and drawn curtains. It was magic lurking out there, rising from the fens and shadowing the lanes. People walked with torches in the fluttering twilight, and usually avoided trekking alone in remote places. But when they needed a cure, when their children couldn’t sleep, when their lovers left them for another, they knew where to go.
* * *
Kylie stopped at a shop called Marian and Jason’s Teahouse. There was a Thornfield Rose bush outside the door of the shop, with one black flower already blooming. Bees were gathering, droning in the falling dusk, drawn to the scent of the blooms. Kylie had lost her appetite; each time she thought of Gideon in his hospital bed, she felt sick to her stomach, but once inside the shop she ordered a scone to keep up her energy, along with a cup of tea, to which she added three sugar cubes. The scone arrived with a curious dollop of heavy cream on the plate and a small pot of shimmering black jam. Marian Dodd, the owner and cook, looked at Kylie, unblinking, when asked if she might know a resident called Thomas Lockland.