Free The Rules of Magic by Alice Hoffman Page A

and up the back stairs. Breathless, they sat in the attic listening to sirens. People in town said it was an accident, they saidthat lightning was unpredictable, and the boys had been foolish to run through the stinging rain in their Sunday clothes. But Franny knew better. It was the curse.

    They dressed in scratchy black dresses scented with mothballs they’d found in the attic but made certain to stay away from the crowd of mourners, remaining poised under some old elm trees. Jet cried, but Franny was tight-lipped; she blamed herself for what had happened. April’s point was well taken. This was what love did, even in its mildest forms, at least in their hands.
    When the girls came home sweating through their woolen dresses, Isabelle offered them advice along with glasses of lemonade flavored with verbena. “Avoid local people,” she said simply. “They’ve never understood us and they never will.”
    â€œThat’s their problem,” Vincent commented when he overheard.
    Perhaps he was right, but from then on, the sisters rarely ventured beyond the garden. They wanted to make sure there were no more tragedies, but it was too late. People ignored Franny, with her glum expression and blood-red hair, but Jet had become a legend. The beautiful girl worth dying for. Boys came looking for her. When they saw her on the far side of the old picket fence, with her long black hair and heart-shaped mouth, they were even more ardent, despite the fate of their predecessors, or perhaps because of it. Vincent came out and threw tomatoes at them and sent them running with a snap of his fingers, but it didn’t matter. On one day alone, two unhingedfellows went ahead and did crazy, senseless things for the love of a girl they’d never even spoken to. One stood in front of a train barreling toward Boston to prove his mettle. Another tied iron bars to his legs and jumped into Leech Lake. Both sealed their fates.
    The sisters went directly to the attic in a state of shock once they’d heard the news. They would not eat dinner or speak to their aunt. When night fell they stole out of the attic window and climbed onto the roof. There were thousands of stars in the night sky. So this was the Owens curse. Perhaps because no one had yet figured out how to break it, it was stronger than ever. The whole world was out there, but for other people, not for them.
    â€œWe have to be careful,” Franny told her sister.
    Jet nodded, stunned by the events of the summer.
    Then and there they made a vow never to be in love.

    Franny told Jet not to go to the funerals of the boys whose names she didn’t even know. She wasn’t responsible for other people’s illogical actions, but Jet sneaked out the window and went anyway. She stood in the tall grass, her hair tied up, her eyes rimmed with tears. She wore the black dress, though the weather was brutally hot. Her face was pale as snow. The same reverend had presided over the grave site services for all four funerals. Now Jet could hear his voice when the wind carried as he recited a quote from Cotton Mather.
    Families are the Nurseries of all Societies: and the First combinations of mankind.
    A boy in a black coat had come through the woods. He had a somber expression, and kept his hands in his pockets. Like Jet, he was overdressed for the hot summer weather.
    Wilderness is a temporary condition through which we are passing to the Promised Land.
    At first Jet thought she should run, the stranger might be another suitor, ready to do something crazy to win her love, but the tall, handsome boy was staring at the gathering, his eyes focused on the speaker. He paid her no mind.
    â€œThat’s my father,” he said. “Reverend Willard.”
    â€œThey killed themselves over me,” Jet blurted. “They thought they were in love with me.”
    The boy gazed at her, a serious expression in his gray-green eyes. “You had nothing to do with