The Rules of Magic

by Alice Hoffman

This is what happens when you repudiate who you are. Once you do that, life works against you, and your fate is no longer your own.”

“I’m fated to lose everyone I ever love,” April said. “I already know that.” “Of course you are,” Jet responded in her calm, measured tone. “That’s what it means to be alive.”

Do as you will, but harm no one. What you give will be returned to you threefold. Fall in love whenever you can.

“Anything whole can be broken,” Isabelle told her. “And anything broken can be put back together again. That is the meaning of Abracadabra. I create what I speak.”

“Unable are the Loved to die, for Love is Immortality,” the boy said. When he saw the way Jet was looking at him he laughed. “I didn’t come up with that, Emily Dickinson did.” “I love that,” Jet said. “I love Emily Dickinson.”

“You’re an Owens, aren’t you? That most certainly would not fly with him. He wishes the Owens family had disappeared long ago. Again, depraved.”

“I have zero interest in games like this,” Franny informed their cousin. “She believes in logic and empirical evidence,” Jet informed April. “So do I,” April said. “I’m the scientist here. I’ve been studying arachnids in my spare time. Especially those that murder their mates after reproducing. I feel it will give me insight into the odds we Owens women have.”

“I just do the best I can to face what life brings. That’s the secret, you know. That’s the way you change your fate.”

In this short Life That only lasts an hour How much—how little—is Within our power.

Life is a mystery, and it should be so, for the sorrow that accompanies being human and the choices one will have to make are a burden, too heavy for most to know before their time comes.

Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.