Page 17 of The Witches of Cambridge

“She’s been practicing locking people out since she was a little girl,” Lionel teased.

“You are both too softhearted,” Lauren shot back. “You’re easily fooled.”

First-year Lilith members were asked to collect spells that were not easily found to share with their sisters, and the Bells’ library was very helpful for their research. Ava found herself gravitating to love magic. How to stop a man from betraying you. How to find your soulmate. How to burn someone’s heart so that they can’t stay away from you. Eros spells to call someone to you. Phila spells to bind you together. Fold a paper with your beloved’s name written on it, then pierce the name with a nail and he will never get away from you. Use blood, hair, and fingernails. Gather together honey, apples, a red candle. Carve your beloved’s name in the candle and burn it until it reaches the apple and honey and he will soon be at your door.

Lauren noticed Ava gazing into the fireplace, spots of color rising on her cheeks as she stared into space.

“Stop mooning over him,” Lauren said. Love magic was her least favorite endeavor.

“I’m not mooning,” Ava insisted, but they both knew that was exactly what she was doing. She was stewing in disappointment, besotted with Jamie whether or not she liked it.

“If you can’t stop thinking about him, I can help you.” Lauren said all they needed to do was begin a leaving ritual. They could construct an effigy out of string and straw pasted together with a thin glue made of bird bones, then paint on his dark eyes and dark hair. Once they burned the figure, Ava would never think of him again. “A few words, a bit of flame, and he’ll be gone,” Lauren assured her.

“I’ve read all about such things in those poisonous green grimoires. They made it clear when you set a spell like that, there’s always a price to pay. That’s left-handed magic.”

“So what? It would be worth it,” Lauren said.

Ava shook her head and went back to her reading. Not to me, she thought. Never to me.

On Christmas Eve there was a huge dinner at Lilith House that took all day to prepare. The meal was begun with corn chowder and fresh oysters from the fishmonger; then there were garlic mashed potatoes, bottles of red wine, and a turkey stuffed with apples and figs. The women went into the garden and built a snowwoman who wore a long black dress, then lit candles that caused the ice on the trees to shimmer and shine. Ava was used to the somber Christmases of her childhood, where prayers were said around the kitchen table and the dinner was boiled beef and potatoes. At the start of their meal, Lauren stood up and read one of her favorite Emily Dickinson poems.

Witchcraft was hung, in History,

But History and I

Find all the Witchcraft that we need

Around us, every Day—

The holiday time was lazy, meant for reading and drinking hot chocolate and walking Jack out to Fresh Pond, where the ice was so thick they dared to walk over the water, holding hands and praying they wouldn’t slip through the ice. On New Year’s Eve, they burned the Yule log in the huge stone fireplace in the library, then each one, first Lionel, then Lauren, then Ava, took a charred bit of wood to fashion into a protective amulet to wear on a black string. Lauren had begun drinking whiskey, and Ava was in the kitchen fixing brownies, but these homey activities weren’t enough for Lionel, who wasn’t about to waste the first night of the year sitting at home. He wanted something and he wasn’t quite certain how to get it. Love magic was dangerous, it could backfire in a thousand ways, and anyway he wanted someone to fall in love with him without enchantments, someone who would walk up to him and choose him all on his own. He planned to visit the club where he’d nearly been arrested and stand in the alley, hoping that the man he’d thought was an angel might appear once more.

“Going out to look for love?” Lauren laughed when Lionel grabbed the keys to the Jeep.

“I might be.”

“How do you even know what love is?” she scoffed, thinking of all they’d lost as children. Instantly, she thought of Claire, one of the seniors at Lilith House, who claimed to be madly in love, yet who could be heard crying in her bed. If that was love, Lauren wanted nothing to do with it.

Still Lionel shrugged. “You know when you care more about them than you do about yourself.”

Free yourself, he suddenly thought. Free someone else.

Lionel got into the Jeep, which had been in the family for decades, and drove to the hospital, where most of the staff was on holiday. He went directly to the lab in the basement, where the lysergic acid studies were being supported by the CIA’s mind control program. It was said that there were those in the government who believed LSD could be used as a psychological weapon in the cold war against Russia. Chemists were doing their testing on beagles, a breed chosen because they were so gentle and kindhearted. Lionel stood in the center of the lab and whispered a freeing spell he remembered his father reciting when they had discovered a fox trapped in a cage while walking in the woods.

Your life is your own. You belong to no one else.

When the locked cages in the lab opened, Lionel gathered the dogs and brought them out to the Jeep. For many, who’d been born and bred in cages, it was their first breath of fresh air. He took them out to the MSPCA, an organization founded in Boston when a philanthropist read about two horses that were raced to death. He decided to keep one of the beagles, who had sat in the front seat with his head resting on Lionel’s knee. He named the dog Houdini in honor of the escape he’d made. They drove around a bit, then Lionel double-parked outside the Tasty Sandwich Shop in Harvard Square, open twenty-four hours a day, known for its fabulous greasy food. At the Tasty students sat alongside people who lived on the street; professors wrote their lectures here, carpenters and plumbers left their tool kits by the door. Lionel went in and ordered them both burgers. The beagle thoroughly enjoyed his as they sat together in the parked Jeep. That’s where Lionel was at midnight, when the year slipped into 1951, and he was perfectly happy with the company he kept.

“Happy New Year,” Lionel said to his canine companion, which was answered by the lovely sound of contented chewing. Once they were home, the beagle immediately made himself comfortable on the couch, although he slept with one eye open, and who could blame him?

“What do you see, old man?” Lionel asked, for the beagle had a way of looking right through you.

“This is how you spend New Year’s Eve?” Lauren said when she spied her brother with his new best friend. “Dognapping? I thought you were looking for love.”

“This is love,” Lionel said. “You just don’t recognize it when you see it.”

Jamie had gone home for the holidays, and the visit had been a disaster. He’d had a fistfight with his older brother, Brent, who liked to remind Jamie of what a failure he was. Brent enjoyed telling Jamie that he’d never be admitted to law school, and in return Jamie suggested that most attorneys were criminals anyway, insulting both of his brothers and his father, at which point his father told him he could shut up or leave.

“You’re wearing the watch, aren’t you?” Brent said in a mocking tone, pointing to Jamie’s wrist. Each man in the family was given a Vacheron Constantin when he entered Harvard. “You’re one of us forever.”

But Jamie knew that he wasn’t, and that day he stormed out, appropriating Brent’s parked Jaguar, grabbing the keys from beneath the visor, knowing where they were hidden before being told. He wished he could keep driving to a place where no one would care about his family or Harvard or whether he was a winner or a loser. But he’d promised to finish school when his father got him out of the legal fix he’d been in when he was arrested for buying marijuana in Central Square. He drove back to his empty dorm room, even though Eliot House was closed for the holiday break. He jimmied open the bathroom window and pulled himself through, dropping onto the cold tiled floor. The heat was turned off, and the place felt haunted.

He’d begun frequenting a bar in North Cambridge called O’Malley’s, and that was where he headed when he went out. No one knew him there. He was just a lanky, good-looking kid who drank too much and was surprisingly good at darts. For him, it was a spot where he could get as far away from himself as possible, which was a huge relief.

But tonight, Jamie got so drunk he became disorderly. The other customers were workingmen whom Jamie respected far more than he did his father and brothers, but they knocked him right off his seat after Jamie launched into an incoherent quarrel with a fellow who supported Senator McCarthy. The fight was immediately broken up, for these men didn’t have time to play around. They tossed Jamie into the street, informing him that if he couldn’t behave himself, he shouldn’t come back. Isn’t there someplace you should be tonight? one of the fellows said. Go find some girl who’s crazy about you.

They laughed when he didn’t respond. Jamie was a smart aleck who liked to use his extensive vocabulary when provoked, but the truth was written all over his face. He was the victim of unrequited love. Prep school couldn’t teach you all you needed to know in this world, and neither could Harvard. So that was it, and they pitied him as he sat on the pavement, long legs stretched out. Only a fool makes a fool of himself, they told him. If you’re in love, go do something about it.

Jamie had misplaced his brother’s car keys, which was unusual for him, so he left the Jaguar parked illegally and staggered down the street. It was the coldest night of the year, and he walked until he wound up on Brattle Street. He found his way as if by magic. He’d always been able to find lost things and places, keys and books and kitchen spoons. But what of a girl he couldn’t seem to get enough of? He found that he couldn’t go any farther when he reached the hedges. He saw the yellow glimmer of light inside the house, and there was smoke from the chimney, and the shadows of wild cherry trees, whose seeds were known to be poisonous. The back door opened and closed and there she was. The guys at O’Malley’s were right, he was a fool. He heard her call Hello, but he’d already taken off as if his life depended on it, which he supposed it did, the life that he had always known, the one he was accustomed to, a life without love.