Page 69

I read a few pages and put it down, half-relieved, half-disappointed. I don’t know what I was expecting to find inside the covers, but it’s not this. Instead of a history of witchcraft in New England, names of Salem families, or even accounts of the infamous trials, it’s a collection of stories gathered from all corners of New England having to do with magic. The first story is the tale of a girl who takes spectral trips in the body of a yellow bird, and is one day captured by a farmer who makes her his wife. In return for her hand in marriage, the farmer must allow her to return to her bird form every full moon. It’s fanciful, the kind of fairy story I would have told to Emeline years ago. Flipping ahead I see that another is about an old woman who lives in the woods and lures children to her cottage. Nothing good happens to the children. I flip ahead. My fingers stop as a page goes by, and I quickly thumb back to it.
There’s an illustration, one of many sprinkled throughout the book. This one shows a young woman with a tangle of dark hair flying about her head. Her hands are outstretched in front of her, little lines of movement hastily drawn in emanating from them, as a man and woman cower in the corner. The man is, rather futilely, holding up a cross, and the woman buries her head on the man’s shoulder in terror. But it’s the young woman’s hand that I can’t tear my gaze from. Outstretched, vibrating, sending invisible power through the air.Just like with Tommy Bishop. Just like with Cyrus.There’s a caption beneath it, but I don’t read it.
I slam the cover shut, as if hoping to keep all the stories and pictures therein contained to the page, and not let them spill out into reality. Quickly, I slip the book under the cushion of the window seat and take upIvanhoe,desperate to bury the image of the girl with outstretched hands with tamer stories of knights and chivalry.
But I’m soon jolted from my world of maidens in distress by a shrill laugh cutting the air. Aunt Phillips has a caller, one of the ladies from the Fragment Society, a fashionable group that makes and distributes clothes to the city’s poor. If they distribute half as much clothing as they do gossip, then there shouldn’t be a bare back in all of Boston. I’ve successfully ignored them for two hours, but now the woman is rising to leave.
“Well, I really must be going now. It looks like snow and I don’t trust Jack once the streets turn slippery.”
Aunt Phillips clasps her friend’s hand from her seat. She has a habit of taking a turn for the worse whenever she has company, and takes to her chair as if she were an invalid so that her guests must kneel beside her to talk. “Oh, that’s too bad,” she says. “We’re having company for dinner and it would have beensonice if you were able to join us.”
I put down my book and wait for her friend to leave. After much cheek kissing and hollow promises of future engagements, we’re finally alone together.
“I didn’t know anyone else was coming over.” I’m only just keeping my head above water with Aunt Phillips, and I don’t know if I can play along with dinner guests now too. I’m so tired, and the book of magic stories has my head flying in a hundred different directions at once.
“Hmm? Oh, Mr. Thompson said you wanted to see him, so I invited him over for dinner first before you young people talk.”
My book slips from my hand. “You...you invited Cyrus?”
“Yes, won’t that be nice?” She glances over as if noticing me for the first time since speaking. “Is that what you’re going to wear?”
Dazed, I look down at my striped cream dress. It’s the one I wore the day I walked home with Mr. Barrett, the one that his body pressed against as he drew me close to him at the fork in the road. I’ve worn it for almost a week straight now. The hem is stained brown from dragging through the muddy street on my walks, the puffed sleeves limp. “Yes, why?”
Aunt Phillips sighs and beckons me to her, pressing her lips together as if she has to deliver some distasteful news. “Sit down, my dear. I know your parents have taken a...lax approach when it comes to your upbringing, but you’re in my home now and I’m determined to do everything I can to ensure that you have a bright future. Cyrus Thompson can give you that future. If you’re worried that he’s not going about it in the proper way by informing your parents, don’t worry, I’ve already written to your father to let him know. Now, go upstairs, change into something decent and try to shake off whatever cloud you’ve been living in for the past few weeks.” She pauses. “And why hasn’t Mr. Thompson been back for so long? Did you two have a falling-out?”
I grumble something about having a disagreement, which I suppose is only half a lie.
She gives a dismissive wave of her hand. “Well, whatever it is, find a way to settle it. It won’t do to let some silly little thing come between you two.”
Yes, because blackmail is such a silly little detail.
* * *
Dinner is a blur of excruciatingly polite conversation from Cyrus, excited titters from Aunt Phillips and a steady flow of wine poured out for both of them by Blake. If I thought that what happened the other week in Aunt Phillips’s parlor would deter him, I’m sorely mistaken. Cyrus acts as if nothing out of the ordinary took place at our last meeting. In fact, he is extra solicitous tonight, and more than once I catch him gazing at me as if I were a particularly fine pair of boots or aged bottle of Madeira—or whatever it is that someone like Cyrus covets—which he can’t wait to get his hands on. I pick at my food in gloomy silence as Aunt Phillips and Cyrus discuss the establishment of the new Mercantile Library Association, to which Cyrus is desperate to gain membership. There’s so many of these societies and associations cropping up in Boston every day that I can’t keep them all straight.
“It would open up so many doors, and the connections would be invaluable for business,” Cyrus says, before pausing. “Lydia.” He puts his glass down and turns to me. “You’re awfully quiet tonight. How are you finding Boston since your return?”
I glare at him.
“You’ll have to excuse her,” Aunt Phillips hurries to explain. “She’s been a bit under the weather lately.”
Cyrus gives a little wave. “That’s quite all right. You know,” he says around a mouthful of roast lamb, “Lydia and I were just talking the other week about the funny things that people remember after a long time. About Tom Bishop, isn’t that right, Lydia?”
My fork wavers in my hand as I silently plead with him to stop, but he only winks at me, his eyes alive with delight.
He has Aunt Phillip’s full attention. “Bishop...” She tilts her head in thought. “Wasn’t that the boy down the street? You got into some sort of fight with him?”
“Cyrus, please—”
“That’s right,” Cyrus, says, beaming. “You have a sharp memory, Mrs. Phillips.”
Aunt Phillips colors like a schoolgirl, tutting at his compliment.
“Oh yes, Lydia has quite a talent, it seems.” He puts down his glass and furrows his brow. “I’m not sure I even know how to explain it, come to think of it. Something she does with her eyes, and her hands if I remember correctly.” He gives a little laugh. “I even got to see something of a demonstration of it the other—”
“Cyrus!” My face is on fire. “Aunt Phillips doesn’t want to hear about that,” I choke out.
Aunt Phillips opens her mouth to protest, but Cyrus flashes a charming smile and says, “Well, I certainly don’t want to bore your gracious aunt. Perhaps it’s best left for another time.”