For more than two hundred years， the Owens women had been blamed for everything that went wrong in their Massachusetts town. And Gillian and Sally endured that fate as well: As children， the sisters were forever outsiders， taunted， talked about， pointed at. Their elderly aunts almost seemed to encourage the whispers of witchery， with their musty house and their exotic concoctions and their crowd of black cats. But all Gillian and Sally wanted was to escape. One would do so by marrying， the other by running away. But the bonds they shared， even into adulthood， brought them back--almost as if by magic...