When they hung up, Sally went down the hall and told her sister they had to bake a pie. Gillian slipped on her shoes and said, “What are we waiting for?”

  No questions were asked. That was one of the many things Sally had come to appreciate about her sister, she didn’t have to know every detail before she jumped in to help. They went down to the kitchen in their nightgowns. There was a bin of apples, and a canister of flour in the cabinet, and pie plates in the bureau. Sally could make quite a good crust, she liked to add rosemary, and although the pub’s kitchen was basic, she found a good amount of that fragrant herb in a tin on the counter, along with cinnamon and nutmeg. When they cut up the apples, the flesh of the fruit turned from white to red, just as some roses do, with pale buds turning scarlet once fully opened. It was not an ordinary pie. It was baked with love to call a daughter home. They had tea while the pie baked, Courage, which Franny had brought along. When the cook came at daybreak, a fellow named Lester, he would be surprised to find them sitting there in their nightgowns, sharing a plate of buttered toast, with the pie already cooling on the windowsill so that people in the village awoke thinking they were young again, and many came outside in their nightclothes to stand in their gardens and watch the morning sky lighten, for it was a beautiful day, without a sign of the rain to come.

  PART FIVE

  The Book of Dreams

  I.

  Ian found an account of Hannah Owens’s trial in a cardboard box stored in Cat’s Library, a dismissive report sentencing her to jail for witchery. It was not yet six a.m. when he made his discovery, for he hadn’t waited for the library to officially open. He might have broken in, he knew it was easy enough to go through the bathroom window, accomplished as a teenaged thief when he snatched cash from the drawer beneath the circulation desk. Fortunately, there was no need to break in. The librarian, Mrs. Philips, a longtime acquaintance of his mother, had been phoned and politely asked if Ian could do a bit of research. Everyone in town knew he was constantly working on his book, not that anyone thought he would finish it, and it had come as quite a surprise to one and all when Margaret Wright announced that his book was to be published the following spring by Bradbury Press, a small American publisher in a town called Waukegan, Illinois, a place no one had ever heard of and that some people guessed was a figment of Margaret’s imagination, since she’d been through so much with that son of hers, who had turned out perfectly fine after all.

  Since the librarian usually awoke at four a.m. anyway, to read in bed, she met Ian at the library with a coat thrown over her nightgown, unlocked the door, patted him on the shoulder and went back to bed with a pile of books, as per usual, allowing him to have the stacks to himself. In the town records, stored in the attic, Ian found what he wanted. Hannah Owens had been accused of all manner of evildoings by a witness who had testified that she spoke with Satan and had a tail like a common beast. She was a healer, unmarried, with no issue, all marks against her from the start. Her crimes were imaginary, but her punishment was not. And there was one aspect about Hannah that was quite unusual. Ian brought this information to the inn later in the morning for the Owens family to see. The air smelled sweet and reminded him of picking apples when he was a boy, the sweet-tasting variety called Witchery, a fruit that only grew out by Lockland Manor.

  When Ian arrived at the inn with the files, Vincent was the only one present in the lobby, holding a cup-to-go filled with lukewarm tea.

  “Take a look,” Ian said, handing over a copy of the records. “This Owens woman clearly wasn’t your average village resident.” In a world where more than ninety percent of the women were illiterate, Hannah had signed her name, and not with an X, but with a lovely flourish of letters, all well formed and quite readable. Those women who could read were usually members of the court where they might have access to tutors and libraries, but Hannah was clearly living in poverty. Before the time of her trial, she had resided in the cottage where the library now stood, but it had been taken from her by the town council to repay her victims for the witchery they had allegedly suffered at her hands.

  Ian had been ridiculously eager to show off his findings to Sally, and felt disappointment rising within him. “Aren’t we missing some people?” He meant Sally of course, but he didn’t want to show his hand, although in all likelihood the old man had the sight and was one of those individuals who could always recognize a lie.

  “Oh, they’re already gone. I’ve been left to meet you and let you know we don’t need you.”

  Flustered, Ian blurted, “I’m here because Sally needs me.”

  “Apparently not. It turns out Kylie is with that Lockland fellow. They’ve gone in search of her. They’ve got the address of a house he’s been renting on the High Street, number twenty-three.”

  “Fuck.” Ian stormed out of the inn, with Vincent following. “They should have waited. I know that little prick, and he’s more dangerous than you’d think.”

  “You try stopping my sister. And just so you know, he doesn’t stand a chance up against her,” Vincent responded, but Ian was no longer listening. He’d noticed Matt Poole parked in the lot, dozing in his van.

  “I’ve got to have this, Matt.” Ian was already opening the driver’s door so that Matt awoke with a start.

  “Have what?” For a moment Matt thought he was being robbed, and fortunately he recognized Ian before he reached for the hammer he kept under the seat just in case some drunken tourist got the idea to skip out before paying his fare. Ian’s mother, Margaret, had brought Matt’s sister, Lisa, back to health after things had gone wrong with her first pregnancy. Nowadays, Matt’s sister had two grown boys, and on the first of May, the day she might have lost her child if not for Margaret, she always brought Margaret Wright a Sticky Fingers Cake, made of fudge and rose truffle.

  “Hand over your keys. There’s nobody in need of a cab now anyway. Come on,” Ian urged when Matt stared, wide-eyed. “It’s important.”

  “This cab’s my bread and butter,” Matt complained. “You were always a wild driver.”

  “That was years ago, Matt. Come on.”

  “I don’t know why I do these things,” Matt grumbled as he gave over the keys. But the truth was there were no customers, and Matt could now sit out on the porch of the inn and take a nap, hoping Ian was a better driver than he was when he was young and there had been several accidents that had involved drink and trees.

  Ian was still a fast driver, and Vincent twice suggested slowing down. They pulled over once they reached the dodgy end of the High Street, where the houses were in ill repair. The thickets were so deep around the house, with thorny vines climbing over the porch and the roof, that it took a moment before Sally and Gillian could be seen at the door. There had been no answer to their knocking, and Sally was doing her best to open the lock with a hairpin, to no avail. Franny had made her way into the tiny, neglected yard, where a single lilac bush grew. She was peering through the window into the parlor, her hands up to the dusty windowpanes as she attempted to look inside. The glass was too cloudy to see through, but she could sense the ill will within the house, the darkly flickering remnants of left-handed magic. Vincent came up beside her. “This doesn’t look good.” He took note of two dead little house sparrows in the grass wrapped in twine.

  When he was young, Vincent had wandered through Lower Manhattan to places where left-handed magic could be found. He’d tried most of it, sympathetic magic in which wax figures were used along with blood magic in order to get what he wanted, which mostly was his freedom. He’d made his way downtown on dark streets at a time when he didn’t truly know who he was, only that he wasn’t the person his parents expected him to be. Whatever rules their mother laid down, he balked at; he went the other way, into the darkness, staying out all night at his favorite bar, called the Jester, drinking himself into a stupor, performing silly magic tricks, lighting fires with a snap of his fingers, turning off the lights with a puff of breath, hoping to impress people. Franny had been there with the cure for drunkenness, a mixture of cayenne, caffeine, St.-John’s-wort, and tomato juice, which she dispensed along with a tirade on his irresponsible acts. If Franny hadn’t pulled him back, anything might have happened. Back then, only she had known the truth about his sexuality; she knew without him saying a word, before he admitted it to himself. Young people were easily lost, they took chances, certainly he had, and he had compassion for those who fumbled around on the left side.

  “She’s just a girl,” he said of Kylie. “She doesn’t know what she’s doing.”

  “You make your choices and you pay for them unless someone with a clear head stops you,” Franny said grimly.

  “She thinks she can end the curse and save that fellow of hers,” Vincent said. “She’s got the book, so maybe she will. Our generation certainly didn’t manage to remedy anything.”

  It was only now, in this far-off place, that Franny remembered something Jet had said on the seventh night, after she’d come home from the library. The wind had picked up and the leaves had shuddered. It was their last night together, the time to say anything and everything.

  If anyone can do it, it’s you, Jet had told her. You’ve always been stronger.

  At the time, Franny had thought Jet meant she was strong enough to survive her sister’s death. Franny had responded, No, I’m not, for she had no idea how she would live without her sister. Jet had embraced Franny and said, Everything worthwhile is dangerous, then she’d gone inside, leaving Franny in tears. It was only now that she understood what her sister meant. Franny had been the one meant to end the curse all along.

  * * *

  Ian took the path to the front door, then hacked through the vines. If you didn’t know there was a house standing here, you’d think there was nothing but an overgrown wood. The stink of left-handed magic hung in the air, bitter, yet somehow enticing. “You were supposed to wait for me,” he told Sally.

  She blinked looking up at him and found herself thinking the most curious thing. Hadn’t she done that all of her life?

  “You’re supposed to be helping us,” Gillian chimed in. “Where were you?”

  “At the library. Doing research that concerns your family.” Ian handed Sally the information.

  Franny came over to see what he’d discovered. “A few sentences,” she said, shaking her head. So little had been written about Hannah Owens it was as if she had never existed.

  “Most didn’t even get that,” Ian responded. “If a woman doesn’t write her own history, there are very few who will.”

  Sally leaned toward her sister. “What did he just say?”

  “He’s talking about himself,” Gillian said. “His life’s work.”

  “No. He’s talking about us.”

  Since there was only one copy of My Life as a Witch in the library, Ian had photocopied the text. “You might want to take a look. Cora Wilkie lived here in the fifties and sixties when my mum was growing up. She’s still got a load of cousins in town. She lived out at the far point that’s more water than land.”

  “I doubt I’ll have time for it,” Franny responded briskly. All the same, she was developing a soft spot for Ian. He was tall and lanky, with broad shoulders, as her Haylin had been and he liked to talk, a trait she’d always appreciated in a man. Why, Haylin wouldn’t stop talking for a minute; when they walked through town he would stop and speak to all of the neighbors they met, even the ones who were terrified of Franny. “You should write about those women who were never written about,” she told Ian.

  Once again, he could see Franny as she’d been as a young woman. The long red hair, the freckles on her milky skin, the wide mouth set in a line when she was certain she knew the right thing to do. He’d felt quite empty now that he’d finished his book, adrift about what to do next.

  “The lives of the witches in Essex,” he said, considering.

  “Now you’re thinking,” Franny said. “Start with Cora. I’m sure she’ll manage to pay you back if you do.”

  Ian leaned over and kissed Franny.

  Gillian elbowed her sister, in shock. “Is he insane?”

  “Possibly.” Sally waited for her aunt’s reaction.

  To their surprise, Franny laughed. “It had better be good,” she told him.

  “It will be. I’ll dedicate it to you.”

  “Lord, no.”

  Still, they could all see she was flattered. As for Franny, she noticed that Sally was staring, wide-eyed. Wake up, girl! Look at what is right in front of you. Is your heart beating too fast? Are you shaky when you see him and when you walk away? Well, that’s love all right, and it will still be there, even if you want to pretend it’s not.

  Franny leaned in and kissed Ian’s cheek, then he was the one to laugh, and he bowed to her, as if she were a queen. Franny looked across the grass and nodded to Sally. You could live a little or you could live a lot.

  Vincent walked around the house. No birds sang here, always a sign. He found the back door that was now all but covered with hedges, and made his way inside. He had often looked for sympathetic magic on the Lower East Side, the strong stuff that could intensify an enchantment. He recognized the wicked ingredients on the small kitchen table: black wax, pins, black thread, madder root, belladonna, the berries of lords and ladies, the heart of a dove, a strange white bone, ashes, a black candle. Vincent sat down and placed his hands on the table. Down paths, down roads, through the woods, through the village. And then nothing. The path he could see when he closed his eyes stopped in the woods.

  Franny came looking for her brother. She sat across from him, her hands on the table, her fingers touching his, adding her power to his own. Take me wherever she might be, across the land or the water or out at sea. The table seemed to shudder, then it rose off the floor, faster than they expected, as if grateful for the release. They couldn’t hold on and could only watch as it hit the ceiling, sending bits of plaster fluttering down. Vincent stood to protect his sister, then brushed the dust from his coat. They’d been blocked by left-handed magic and the path turned to ash, making it clear Kylie could not be found this way.

  When they went outside the thornbushes closed over the back door.

  Sally and Gillian were waiting beside the lilac tree that had never flowered.

  “I’d say she was here until this morning,” Vincent said. There was still a scrim of ash over the grass, and when he’d held his hand on the door it was still warm.

  “Can you find her?” Sally asked her grandfather.

  “When I left for France, no one could find me. The same thing is happening now. You can’t find someone who refuses to be found.”

  “We can hope she seeks us out,” Franny added.

  “That’s not enough.” Sally was firm. What if Kylie never looked for them?

  “I know where he is,” Ian said. “Out at the manor house. He’s been camping out there on and off for years.”

  “We should go there now,” Sally said.

  “Of course,” Ian answered, ready to do anything she requested. Is this what it felt like? To say yes before he’d even thought it out? To want to please her so? “Let me go on my own. I know him.”

  “No.” Franny stopped him. “It has to be someone with bloodline skills.” She patted Ian’s arm. “I’m afraid that’s not you.” She turned to Sally. “If she’s on the left-handed path, she has to come to us. If we go after her, we’ll just chase her further away. Give her a little time.”

  “Not more than a few hours,” Sally said. It was Ian she spoke to now. “Then we’ll go.”

  * * *

  Margaret guessed the visiting Americans her son was bringing by would not have the stomach for many of their local dishes, with recipes hundreds of years old, stewed eels, for instance, considered a delicacy, with ingredients that could be caught in a wire basket in the fens and flavored with parsley grown in the kitchen garden, might be an acquired taste. Pigeon casserole, two plucked gamey birds baked into a coffin of crust, might not be their usual fare. Instead she baked a faux blackbird pie, so they might have a bit of the flavor of their county, replacing the main ingredient with magenta-colored eggplant. She had fixed her ploughman’s pasties, which had vegetable filling stuffed into the crust at one end and jam spooned in at the other, so that it was both a main course and a sweet. She’d made sure to cook Ian’s favorite ginger pudding as well, for that was a dish that brought good fortune to whoever took a bite. It was quite a crowd once everyone arrived, still a bit dazed from Matt Poole’s driving on the rutted, muddy road. The house was small, so they would dine outside.

  After everyone was introduced, Sally politely excused herself. “Just a breath of air,” she assured them, but everyone knew when a mother was grieving over her child. Margaret set down the pale blue plates she kept in the cabinet and gave Ian a look. Go to her now or there’ll be no going to her later.

  Even though Sally was already out the door and his mother hadn’t said a word, Ian grabbed a pair of high boots from the entryway and went off without another word to anyone, all of whom were tactful enough not to discuss the two who’d gone missing.

  “Tea?” Margaret asked Franny. The women were busy sizing one another up, intrigued by what they saw. One had practiced the Nameless Art all her life, the other had been born with magic.

  Franny took a muslin sack of tea out of her purse. It was what they all needed most of all. “I’ve brought my own.”

  “May I?” When Margaret was given the go-ahead, she sniffed the tea. Currants, vanilla, green tea, thyme. “Lovely.” She knew courage when it was right there in front of her.

  “There are no blackbirds in this pie, are there?” Vincent asked, amused as he peered into the wood-heated oven. “My sister has a penchant for crows.”

  “Goodness, no,” Margaret responded. “You’re not locals yet.”

  Gillian eyed the purple-black vegetables in the old sink where some unused eggplants soaked in a briny salt mixture. There was no running water and jugs had to be carried in from the well house.