The Book of Magic

Kylie calls Gideon’s room every day and has the nurse hold the phone to his ear. Tom touches a moon-shaped witch’s mark on her wrist. Kylie feels close to him because he, not her family, talks about magic. Tom only wants to use magic for destruction. He hexed Ian to steal the Red Skin book, but couldn’t use it because of the password Ian put on it. Before Kylie arrived, he burned it, and it seemed to scream, like a mandrake being pulled. In the present, he starts a fire, and they both strip. Tom makes Kylie assert that she would do anything to save Gideon. They perform a ritual with Solomon’s Key.

The next day, she wakes up covered in ash and discovers that her hair has turned black. Overnight, vines grew around the house. Tom leads Kylie away from the house, and they hear a nightingale. When she passes ferns, they turn black. They walk through the forest to the ruined manor of Tom’s family. Tom spins Kylie around and then builds a fire. Kylie can telepathically stoke the flames, and Tom is proud. Hikers come near but see the smoke from the fire and retreat. Kylie misses Gideon.

Antonia has dinner with Scott, and he says she seems more emotionally open and vulnerable. He encourages her to fall in love and assures her that she’ll be a good mother. Afterward, she calls Ariel, and they have sex. Antonia dreams about walking in a wedding dress with Jet, who is her age. Jet tells her to use the book to find Kylie and says people regret what they don’t do more than what they did when they get old. Ariel asks about the dream when Antonia wakes up, and Antonia tells her. They talk about how Ariel was on the swim team in school.

Antonia worries that getting together might be a mistake because of the curse. While putting on jasmine essential oil, Ariel says she believes in making mistakes. She has read about the curse in the family files, as their lawyer, and isn’t afraid of it: “[E]verything is dangerous. That is the human condition” (269). They admit that they love one another.

Later that day, frustrated not to reach Kylie on the phone, Antonia visits the Reverend. He tells her that Jet said one should bake an apple pie to find a lost daughter, and that he wants to eat an apple pie. When Antonia returns to the house, she finds more Post-it notes asking for magical help. She finds Maria’s old cookbook in the kitchen with a recipe for Lost Daughter’s Pie. There isn’t time to make her own crust, so she uses saltine crackers.

When it’s done cooking, Antonia allows the pie to cool on the windowsill, as the directions say, and then takes it to the Reverend. He says that it’ll bring Kylie home because it was made with love. Then, he says he’ll officiate her wedding if she gets married. The butter pats in the pie melt, indicating that Antonia is in love. The Reverend gets sleepy, and Antonia hums “The water is wide. I cannot get o’er it” (275). He remembers how Jet used to sing that song. Antonia takes the leftover pie home and drives with the windows down. Then, her phone rings.

Tom steals Kylie’s phone and throws it in a ditch. Later, he asks her to run to the store while he looks at The Book of the Raven. Kylie walks through the forest and sees the hikers from before in the store’s parking lot. One woman says she saw Kylie camping at the manor and asks if she’s lost. Kylie says she has lost her phone. The woman agrees to let Kylie borrow her phone to call Antonia.

Kylie tells Antonia she’s in Essex and is going to break the curse. Antonia says the note was for Franny, not Kylie: Franny is meant to break the curse. Antonia insists that Kylie come home. She also tells Kylie that Gideon moved his hand. The woman asks for her phone back. Kylie ignores her and confesses to Antonia that she’s working with a man involved with left-handed magic. Kylie says she has changed, doesn’t recognize herself, and texts a selfie showing her new black hair. The woman continues to ask for her phone. While Antonia is saying she loves Kylie and her family will come to get her, Kylie hangs up.

Using a protection spell, Kylie steals some food from the store. Meanwhile, Antonia looks at the selfie and still recognizes her sister. She calls Sally. They talk about Bad Tom leading Kylie to the left-handed side. Antonia tells Sally to “bake an apple pie and put it in the window” (283), explaining that it’s a Lost Daughter spell that Jet shared with the Reverend. Gillian immediately agrees to help Sally bake the pie in the pub’s kitchen in their nightgowns. The cook finds them there in the morning as the pie is cooling.