The First Midnight Spell

by Claudia Gray

  But that was ridiculous. It wouldn’t be “a baby”; it would be Nat’s child. That made all the difference. Surely when she saw Nat’s baby in her arms, it wouldn’t feel like a burden at all.

  She hadn’t thought Nat was watching her get dressed, but as soon as she had pulled herself together, he said, “You should go back.”

  “We’ll go back together.” Elizabeth held out her hand.

  But he didn’t take it. “No. I want them to know—at least to know that I let you go, of my own free will.”

  With a laugh, Elizabeth said, “What do you mean, let me go? I wanted to be here with you. You know that.”

  Nat turned to her then, and the look he gave her—it was as though he had never seen her before. No. As though he had never really known her. His eyes widened, and too late, she realized that he had glimpsed some fragment of the truth. Maybe he didn’t understand what she really was . . . but even those who knew nothing of the true Craft believed in witches.

  “Did you do this?” he asked, and his voice shook. “Did you do this to me?”

  Elizabeth no longer believed in the First Laws, even the law that said no witch should ever speak of the Craft to a man. So she could have told him the truth. If she believed in his love for her, in the rightness of their being together, why not?

  She told herself Nat wasn’t ready to hear it yet. “No, of course not. Why would I do such a thing?” Elizabeth managed a laugh. “You wouldn’t have had to come get me with an ax in that case, would you?”

  “I don’t know.” Nat buried his face in his hands. “Please, go. Just go.”

  “Is that how you treat your future wife?” She attempted to smile, to make a joke of it.

  Nat shook his head, never looking up at her. His shoulders were bowed as though he were carrying a tremendous weight. Why now, when he should be so happy and so satisfied?

  The spell was too strong, Elizabeth thought. Sometimes stronger spells leave a person dazed in their wake. She’d simply have to come up with another spell to cast on Nat, one that would restore his good spirits. Once she’d done that, they could begin their lives together properly.

  Then, from outside, someone shouted, “Nathaniel Porter! We know you’re in there!”

  “Oh, my Lord, have mercy upon me,” Nat breathed.

  “Nat!” Another man’s voice cried out. Elizabeth clutched Nat’s jacket to her chest, feeling more naked than she had before. “Is the girl alive? Tell us that much.”

  “I’m alive!” Elizabeth called, unable to believe anyone could think Nat a murderer.

  “Let her go,” the first man said, “before you make us come in there after you.”

  Nat called back, “She’s coming out. I swear it.”

  Elizabeth pulled at Nat’s sleeve. “Walk out with me. They’ll see I’m fine, and that you and I—that you’ll make things right.”

  “I can’t. Please, Elizabeth, go back home. And try to forgive me.”

  She looked up at him in mute incomprehension. “Forgive you?”

  His shirt was still half-open, his well-muscled chest still exposed. Elizabeth felt as if he had been holding her against him only moments before. How had this gone so wrong?

  It was the men outside—those fools. They were ruining everything. Well, she’d go out and explain to them that Nat was going to marry her, so there was no point in worrying about the night before. Without another word to Nat, Elizabeth tugged on his jacket and stepped out of the ramshackle barn into the early-morning light.

  She gasped. At least a dozen men ringed the barn, all of them carrying some form of weapon, whether it was a small knife or a pitchfork. The one who frightened her most was Daniel Pike; he held a rifle.

  “No!” Elizabeth held out her hands. “No, you can’t hurt him!”

  “Get out of the way, girl,” Pike said. He looked less like he’d come to save her, more like he thought it might be fun to kill a man.

  “I won’t!” She dropped to her knees in front of the door so that nobody could go in without getting past her. “You don’t understand what happened!”

  “We all saw it,” said another of the men. His voice was gentler. “Come away, child. You’re not yourself after a thing like that.”

  They’re going to hurt Nat, Elizabeth thought wildly. She had to stop them. There were spells she could cast, spells of protection and confusion, spells of safety she could wind around Nat like a warm blanket against the winter’s chill.

  But she didn’t have her charms. Not her pearl, not her jade, not even the modest bits of quartz and shale and malachite. Without them, it didn’t matter how many spells she knew or could invent; it didn’t matter which memories she called upon. The elements grounded the spells, and if she didn’t have them, she was powerless. Elizabeth hardly ever allowed herself to do anything without her pouch of charms in a pocket or even under her pillow. Last night, in the rush of knowing Nat’s desire for her, she’d made an exception. She’d allowed herself to get caught up in passion.

  Now, when Nat needed her powers the most, she was powerless.

  Pike stared at her, eyes hard. “This is no place for a woman. Get on out of here.”

  Elizabeth shook her head. It felt as though her breath had been stolen from her lungs, as though her legs wouldn’t work even if she tried to walk.

  Powerless. The very thought of it paralyzed her. That was a horror even greater than Nat’s plight. To be powerless before men—unable to use her magic, even in the slightest—the reality of it made Elizabeth shudder. How did other women walk around in the world so defenseless, so wretchedly unarmed? If she couldn’t bear one more moment, how did they stand their lives?

  It’s only for the moment, Elizabeth reminded herself. Nat needs you now. You’re not only stronger than these fools; you’re also smarter, so use it.

  “Nat’s back to himself,” she said. Elizabeth’s voice shook as she spoke, and she despised her own weakness, but she told herself that was what the men would expect to hear. Frightened, traumatized, pleading: Yes, that was the image they needed. “He’s not like he was last night, not any longer.”

  “Doesn’t change what he’s done,” said one of the men in the back, who then called out, louder, “Lower than an animal! You ought to be hanged! You will by God be hanged for this!”

  “No, no!” Elizabeth held out her hands. Sunlight had begun to break through clouds, but it only made her feel more exposed. Her thin dress was damp with dew, hanging from the few ties she’d made in it. “You mustn’t—you must not make this worse.”

  Daniel Pike gave her a look of pity, as though she were a workhorse being beaten by its owner. He must have thought her driven mad. Elizabeth could have clawed his eyes out.

  Then, from the other side of the barn, she heard a crash. Elizabeth’s heart leaped; for one instant she thought Nat had simply knocked away one of the loose boards in the walls to escape that way. But no. Her body flushed with the fire of shock as she realized the men were instead breaking in.

  They’d drag him into town, but then she could set it right—

  “Christ have mercy,” said one man from inside. Another said, “Yank his legs. Be sure.”

  Be sure of what?

  Pike pushed her aside, impatient to see what the others had seen. Elizabeth sprawled on the grass, but once the door was open and the men were rushing past her, she could glimpse inside the barn. Her would-be rescuers were gathering in the center of the barn, staring upward, at a body hanging from the rafters.

  Nat’s body.

  You should be hanged, one of the men had shouted. Elizabeth had put suggestibility into the spell. Nat had taken his shirt off and used it to fashion a noose.

  “Cut him down!” she cried. It took several minutes for a hanged man to die; everyone knew that.

  Everyone also knew that a hanged man sometimes broke his neck in the drop. Nat hadn’t fallen very far—but he’d fallen far enough. Already he was dead and gone, beyond the reach of magic forevermore.r />
  “Shhh, child,” Aunt Ruth kept saying, although Elizabeth had not made a sound. It felt as though her last futile cry to save Nat would be the last thing she ever said, as though there could be no more reason to speak again. Aunt Ruth had shooed out all the children, removed Elizabeth’s torn clothing, washed her off, and put her in one of her own shifts. Although Aunt Ruth had paused as she washed Elizabeth’s thighs and saw the smudge of dried blood there, she said nothing about that. Instead she draped a quilt around Elizabeth’s shoulders and sat her by the fire.

  The next few days passed in a daze worse than any nightmare. Elizabeth did not leave their little house; for once she was not expected to look after her siblings or help with any of the chores, but she could take no pleasure in that. The empty hours echoed, devoid of meaning. Yet she lay in bed, hour after hour, trying not to think.

  From the front room, Elizabeth could sometimes hear whispers—Aunt Ruth telling other women how brave Elizabeth had been, how fragile she still was. A few of them asked if Elizabeth had revealed exactly how much Nat “did to her.” They were gossips, just gossips, pretending to be horrified when really they wanted to revel in the details.

  (Nat’s hands in her hair, his breath hot against her neck, Elizabeth’s legs winding around his as she looked up at the stars—)

  Elizabeth shut her eyes tightly and pretended not to hear.

  One visitor never appeared: Prudence Godwin. Although Elizabeth noticed this absence, she didn’t wonder at it. Pru was no gossip.

  But then, one day about two weeks on, there came a sharp rapping at the door that sounded unlike any of the others. Elizabeth stirred herself as Aunt Ruth went to the door.

  She heard Aunt Ruth say, “Widow Porter,” and then she sat bolt upright.

  “Is she awake?” Widow Porter said. Her voice was as brisk and firm as ever; she sounded the way she did on any other day. “I must speak with her.”

  “Elizabeth’s not seeing anyone at present,” Aunt Ruth began. “The shock has so deeply unsettled her.”

  “Do you believe it hasn’t unsettled me?” Widow Porter demanded. “We’ve had our days to mourn. Now it’s time for answers.”

  Slowly Elizabeth’s hand snaked under her pillow for her bag of charms. She tucked it into the sleeve of her cloak as she put it on over her nightdress.

  Widow Porter was a very powerful witch. If she’d come here for revenge, Elizabeth would have to work quickly. But how could she defend herself against the leader of the coven?

  She intended to fight.

  Elizabeth walked into the front room before Aunt Ruth could come get her. “I’m here,” she said, meeting Widow Porter’s gaze.

  “There.” Widow Porter nodded, grimly satisfied. “I had a feeling you weren’t the type to be easily crushed.”

  “No,” Elizabeth replied.

  Aunt Ruth looked between them, confused. “What do you mean, answers?”

  Widow Porter shut her eyes for a moment—a moment in which Elizabeth realized how drawn she looked. Wisps of her hair trailed from her cap, and though she’d always looked younger than her years, the lines in her face had deepened almost overnight. She had no son now, and Elizabeth felt a jolt as she remembered she wasn’t the only one mourning Nat’s death.

  He could have lived and been happy with me, if it weren’t for your rules! But Elizabeth kept her expression steady.

  Then Widow Porter said, “I mean black magic.”

  Aunt Ruth gasped. Elizabeth didn’t move.

  “My son was a good man.” Widow Porter’s voice shook, but she kept on. “As fine a man as I’ve ever known. He did not become obsessed and deranged for no reason. He wasn’t the sort. But black magic can destroy a man’s soul.”

  “Who would do such a thing, and why?” Aunt Ruth said.

  “Why?” The question was punctuated with a short, bitter laugh from Widow Porter. “For revenge. That tells us who.”

  Revenge?

  From her pocket Widow Porter withdrew a square of fabric, which she dropped onto the table and spread out. Stitched there in dark red thread was part of a symbol, a circular shape with odd lines through it, though the shape did not appear to be complete. Elizabeth had never seen either cloth or symbol before.

  “When I questioned Goodwife Crews about Nat’s—madness—she claimed to know nothing.” Widow Porter’s eyes blazed with righteous fury. “Yet I found this in her sewing basket, and then she could deny her true loyalty no longer. This is a symbol proving fealty to the One Beneath.”

  Aunt Ruth sat down heavily. Even Elizabeth felt slightly dizzy as she said, “Goodwife Crews—she broke one of the First Laws, but only to save her child—”

  “So she claimed,” said Widow Porter. “Just as she still claims to not to have struck at me through my poor dear boy. But think on it, Elizabeth. Catherine Crews could easily have come to any woman in Fortune’s Sound and asked us to cast the spell of healing on her child’s leg, or to work some magic that would put her husband to sleep or coax him from the house. Even in such an emergency as that one, there were ways for her to save her son without breaking one of the First Laws.”

  Elizabeth hadn’t considered that before. Neither had Aunt Ruth, apparently, because her face was white as she said, “Why would she do such a thing?”

  Widow Porter braced her hand against the table, staring down at the cloth. “The temptation of power. Selfishness. Greed. Any of the reasons women turn down the path of darkness. We shall never know, for I tell you now that Goodwife Crews is not long for this world.”

  She’d already cast a fatal spell, then. Sometime in the next few days, Catherine Crews would succumb to an “illness” that would not raise suspicions among the men in town.

  All Elizabeth could think was that she’d been saved by Catherine Crews’s foolishness. Had another witch in Fortune’s Sound not resorted to black magic as well, surely in time Widow Porter’s suspicions would have turned to her . . . but now they never would.

  “Goodwife Crews used her son’s sickness as a test,” Widow Porter said. “She wanted to see if she could get away with it. I caught her. I punished her. She struck back, and the price is the blood of my beloved Nathaniel. I have repaid that blood for blood. I only regret that you were made to suffer as well, Elizabeth. Perhaps knowing exactly what happened, and why, will help you in time. It’s always better to have answers, even when they are not the answers we would wish.”

  Elizabeth nodded mutely. The dark red symbol on the cloth seemed to be burning its way into her mind; she could never have forgotten it.

  “I must ask one difficult question,” Widow Porter said. “Elizabeth, have you yet had your courses?”

  Shame heated Elizabeth’s cheeks. Even close female relatives rarely spoke of such things. “Yes,” she whispered. Her monthly bleeding had come only five days after her night with Nat.

  “Then you are not with child.”

  “No.”

  To her surprise, Widow Porter shared her relief. “Praise God,” she said. “Had you started a baby, we should have been forced to cast spells to rid you of it.”

  Aunt Ruth jerked back as if struck. “What do you mean?”

  Widow Porter recited one of the First Laws: “No witch shall bear a child to the son of another witch.”

  “It wouldn’t be as though I’d done it on purpose,” Elizabeth said, though she regretted the words almost immediately. Best for Widow Porter to go on thinking her a good girl, one who had never meant to interfere with the First Laws.

  Gently Widow Porter patted her shoulder. “Of course not. And none would blame you for your part in it. We all saw how it happened.” Her voice shook, but only for a moment. “Yet such a child must never be born. There are reasons behind the First Laws, reasons that go far deeper than you have ever known.”

  “What reason?” Elizabeth demanded. “Tell me.”

  “Such a child would be a perfect vessel for black magic—for the work of the One Beneath. They would be led into
temptation, or tricked into submission. That child’s future would be destroyed, and the harm the One Beneath could then do in our world would be—unimaginable. The First Laws are all that protect us from Him.”

  Those words shattered something inside Elizabeth, something she hadn’t known was so fragile. She had always believed there was no real reason for her not to be with Nat. But if there had been, then all this—everything she’d done—

  She started to cry, and both of the older women hugged her. She hated them for pitying her, so much that it drove out anything else she might have felt, like remorse.

  After that day, Elizabeth began to resume her normal life. People whispered behind her back, and stared at her, but nobody spoke openly about what had happened that night with Nat. Nor did she.

  (One afternoon she allowed herself to walk by the churchyard in the hopes of seeing Nat’s burial place. Only after finding no new grave did Elizabeth remember that he had committed suicide, and no suicide would ever be allowed to lie in consecrated ground.)

  It was nearly six weeks on before she came face-to-face with Pru.

  They were walking in opposite directions along the main road in town. Elizabeth smiled absently—then was struck by the coldness in Pru’s stare. At first she thought Pru might walk away to avoid her, but instead Pru hastened to her side and said, “I need to talk with you.”

  “Really? Bad job you’ve done of it, then, not coming to talk with me since—”

  “Don’t say it. Just come along.”

  They went together on one of the winding roads that led out of town. Once they were alone, Elizabeth said, “Whatever can you have to say?”

  “You know what I’m going to say,” Pru retorted. “You’ve known I was going to say it for a long time, which is why you’ve been avoiding me, too.”

  Elizabeth preferred to think she was beyond anything so cowardly as avoiding Pru, but she simply tossed her hair. “I don’t have any idea what you mean.”

  “Let’s pretend you don’t. Let’s pretend you weren’t making up spells for stealing beauty, just so you could catch Nat’s eye. Let’s pretend you hadn’t told me you didn’t care about the First Laws if it meant you could be with Nat. Let’s pretend he didn’t become obsessed with you afterward as a result of black magic.”