The Thinking Woman's Guide to Real Magic Read Online Free Page A

1830s. About half of the tilting, lichen-spotted stones bore the same surname, Clement. A family burying ground, filled over a few generations and then abandoned. Out of habit, Nora stooped to read one of the inscriptions, a few lines of verse written in the slanting pothooks of the time.
    Read this, take heed, and gain from my sad fate.
    For you the way is open. I must wait,
    Condemned for centuries long to guard this gate.
    Make haste, pass through, the hour is growing late.
    Strange, rather creepy. What was this about watching and guarding? The usual Protestant dogma of the period taught that the dead would sleep quietly until called for, when the Last Trump blew. The meek members of the resurrection, Dickinson said. Yet the speaker in this poem spoke as a restless ghost, spying on the living, guarding the gates of death. Of course, Nora thought, the nineteenth century was the heyday of the ghost story, but it was strange to find this view of the unquiet dead expressed on a tombstone.
    She looked at the name on the stone: Emmeline Anne Clement. Died May 11, 1833, AE 18 years, 3 months.
    May 11, today’s date. The coincidence wasn’t spooky as much as sad, that Emmeline Anne had died so young on a spring day that was the match to this one. “Poor Emmeline,” Nora said aloud. “I’m sorry you had such a short life. I hope it was a happy one.” Happier than mine, she thought morosely.
    She decided that she might as well make a note of the inscription, in case she ever got around to revising her tombstone paper. She put her hand on her back pocket, intending to sacrifice the flyleaf of
Pride and Prejudice
—but she had nothing to write with. Well, she could memorize the verses and write them down later.
    Nora read the poem aloud, then again to make sure that she had memorized it—she was secretly proud of how easily she could learn poetry by heart; none of the other grad students seemed to bother—and then straightened. The rain had stopped. The forest looked lighter.
    â€œEmmeline, I have to leave now,” Nora said. Having spoken to the dead woman already, she felt a dim obligation to say good-bye. She wondered what had happened to Emmeline Anne Clement on that other May 11. Fever, consumption, childbirth? There was no shortage of ways for young women to die in 1833. “I’m sorry that you had such a short life,” she added, “and that you’ve been waiting here for so long. I wish—”
    But, she reflected, what could you wish for the dead? Wasn’t that really the essence of death, to be beyond the power of hopes and wishes? Still, Nora had the urge to leave this lonely grave with some sort of blessing.
    â€œI wish that you were free of guarding that gate, if that’s what you want, Emmeline,” she said haltingly. “I wish you could move on to the next thing, or stage, or place, and be happy.”
    Edging among the stones back to the gate, Nora was a little surprised at herself. She remembered trying to talk aloud to EJ in the months after his death, telling him she missed him, but the one-sided conversations had never been much comfort. It wasn’t as though he could hear her.
    Nora closed the gate behind her as best she could, then set off back along the path. Thankfully, she noticed, her ankle felt better. The rain seemed to have stopped for good, and she caught glimpses of blue sky between the thick leaves overhead. It was warmer, too—almost hot—despite the shade in the forest. The ground had already dried. After a few minutes, the trees in front of her thinned out, giving way to an expanse of sunlit grass. She must be coming back to the mountaintop. All she had to do now was circle around the Bald until she found the path back to the cabin.
    But at the edge of the forest, she came to a dead halt. Stretching before her was a lush green lawn surrounding a long reflecting pool. In the center of the water a satyr embraced a