Instead of burning the book, Maria went through the fields into town late at night, in the dark, as she had long ago, when she was mistaken for a crow. She carried the keys that unlocked the library door. She hid The Book of the Raven behind the loose bricks where long ago she had hidden her own journal. She left that book of magic in the place where she’d looked out the window to spy the magnolia, thinking that a miracle had taken place. She worked a few drops of her own blood into the mortar. In time, an Owens woman would discover the book, and use it as it should be used, with love and courage and faith.

Maria always wore the sapphire Samuel Dias had given her. Sapphire was the stone of wisdom and of prophecy that allowed the wearer to be true to herself. When he was gone, she let herself miss him. He was too tall for the bed, but it was empty without him. Maria often sat beneath the magnolia tree when he was at sea. Even in foul weather she found comfort there. When he returned he would bring back stories of seashells that were as big as cabbages, and mysterious birds with blue feet, of white bears that lived on the ice, and islands where every flower was red. He was arrogant and difficult, a man who liked to argue, but he was a man who could do more than talk. He knew how to listen.

She had been wrong about love. She had thought it was meant for fools alone, only to discover it was a fool who walked away from love, no matter the cost or the penalty. They waited for the curse, to see if it could find him, but after a while Maria was satisfied that the curse was convinced Samuel Dias had remained in the lake that had no end. He wasn’t the same person he’d been before he died, and a man could not be cursed twice. On dark nights, when she feared for the women in her family who were yet to be born, she found consolation in the knowledge that an Owens woman was made not only to seek remedies, but to fight curses.