Magic Lessons

by Alice Hoffman

She would never again watch another woman burn.

  1674

  II.

  A crow can recall every route it has ever taken, and Cadin had been this way before. Crows are messengers, spies, guides, companions, harbingers of luck, deliverers of trinkets and treasures, tireless in all ways, more loyal than any other man or beast. This one had been connected to his mistress from the time she was a baby in her basket of reeds, which was why he knew her thoughts and wishes and was aware of the destination she wanted most. A familiar is such a creature, an animal or bird that sees inside to the very soul of its human companion, and knows what others might not. What fears there might be, and what joys, for it shares the emotions of its human partner. They were on their way west, to the house where Cadin had found the silver hairpin, which he’d daringly plucked from its owner’s long red hair, though she’d cursed him and thrown stones into the air aimed at him, managing only to graze him. He’d avoided her when she’d come to Devotion Field, bringing her troubles with her, but now he was headed directly toward her. He knew she was a complicated woman, and crows do not judge harshly, unless they have good reason to do so.

  They had come to the Thames estuary, where the footing was as much water as it was land, a river of grass. Once or twice Maria felt herself pulled down into the rich mud that had claimed so many souls who had dared, and failed, to cross here, but she could not sink. It was not in her nature to do so, and for that she was grateful. Her dress was soon enough soaked, but no earthly difficulties troubled her. She had seen something no girl her age should see, the murder of someone she loved. The violence she’d viewed had changed and embittered her. If she had been a child before, she was no longer. Her eyes were darker, an ocean gray; her mouth was set in a fierce, unyielding line. She was bitter, and in some ways stronger than before. A stormy cloud-clotted sky didn’t cause her to take shelter or find rest. Rain didn’t stop her. She was on a path she had decided upon as she watched Hannah tied to her door. With each step, Maria was more resolved. She raged at a world that would allow such injustice to occur. How could the rural, verdant beauty all around her be the domain of such cruelty, a place in which the larks chattered despite the dangers they faced, unable to keep silent as they sang the praises of the sky. Maria knew now that she was not like those around her. Why that should be, she now wished to understand. All she knew was what Hannah had taught her. Life was worth living, no matter what fate might bring. That was why Maria went forward. She had decided to find her mother.

  * * *

  Rebecca had returned to the manor house at the edge of a vast parkland that had once belonged to a king, unaware of her husband’s attack on Hannah. She assumed she would find him at home. She intended to act as if nothing was wrong, hopeful that Hannah’s spell had done the trick, making him fall out of love with her, so he was willing to let her go. But her husband wasn’t at home, and frankly she was grateful not to have to face him. A king’s fortunes could fail, and so had her husband’s. Thomas Lockland had royal blood, diluted by hatred and drink. Theirs was a case of love gone wrong. Such things happened even to the wisest of women. Rebecca had been young when she met her husband-to-be, at an age when she saw only what the outside of a man revealed. She was inexperienced enough to assume what they had was love because she wanted him, and want can be a hundred times stronger than need, and a thousand times stronger than common sense. She used the Tenth Love Potion, an enchantment only fit for those so desperate they did not fear the consequences, and there were always consequences. The payment for this potion was dear, and had, in the past, cost the user her well-being; it was the one that could turn a person inside out and destroy one or both parties. Desire, if handled incorrectly, could become a curse.

  It had been easy enough for her to bewitch him, but what was sent into the world came back threefold, so strong it was tainted. She had wanted him to burn with love for her, and burn he did, three times as much as anyone should, with a vicious passion that did more damage than Rebecca would have imagined possible. In time she had turned to another man, her one true love, and she’d kept that love a secret. This was the reason she had hid her pregnancy, concealed beneath shifts and cloaks, and why she had gone into the woods by herself to give birth, already having decided she must give the child away before Thomas took the baby from her. Perhaps Rebecca was too selfish to be a good mother; all the same, she wanted to ensure that Maria would never have a taste of the brand of love she herself had known, in which a woman was all but owned and had no choice as to her own fate, with or without the use of magic. She used blue silk thread to bring good luck when she initialed her own garments, and she did the same on the woolen blanket for her baby girl. Each day she had wondered what had become of the child, and if she had inherited the skills women in the family were known for. She had traveled to see who Maria had become, even though it meant risking the wrath of a man she feared.

  On the evening when Cadin brought Maria to the manor house, Rebecca was celebrating being alone. She had loosened her hair and had begun to drink the rum imported from the West Indies that her husband kept under lock and key, for she could open the catch with a flick of her wrist and a hairpin. Thomas Lockland’s brothers were currently ailing after breathing in the fumes of the poison garden, and Thomas, himself, was unable to move or speak, in such a state his family worried that he might lose his life. He had been brought to his family’s home, north and farther from the sea, so that his sisters could care for him. The Locklands had no cause to trust Rebecca, who had already planted the apple seeds from the amulet Hannah had crafted, so that in time there would be an orchard where the variety of apple called Everlasting brought true love to anyone who ate the fruit grown in this valley. Rebecca was grateful to be alone in the huge, drafty house, and even more grateful to be rid of her oppressor, for magic can only do so much when an initial spell has already been set.

  As the night fell, however, she felt a nest of nerves coiling around her heart. That evening at dinner, a spoon had fallen, a sign that meant company was coming, something Rebecca most assuredly didn’t want. She had been a selfish girl, but she was a cunning woman and she knew that everything came in threes, including death. She took a bowl and filled it with water and ink, and there she saw Hannah, nailed to her door, and Thomas in his bed, suffering from poison. Rebecca feared that she, herself, might be the third one to be afflicted. She was waiting for death to come through the door, perhaps her husband’s sisters would send their own husbands and sons to come here and fill Rebecca’s boots with stones before wrapping her in chains and throwing her into the river where the weeds grew tall as a man and the rushing current led to the sea.

  The knock on the door was light, however, not death’s hand, but the tapping of a bird’s beak. It was the crow, the robber who had been here many times before. Women who are unlucky in love must throw their silver out the front door if they want to improve their fortunes, and Rebecca had often done so. There was a field of silver, tarnished from the witch’s touch, and the meadow appeared glazed with light when the moon rose. It was a perfect treasure trove for a curious crow.

  “Leave here!” Rebecca demanded, for she recognized the creature that had been cheeky enough to take the comb from her hair. If she wasn’t mistaken, he still had a scar on his head from one of the rocks she’d thrown to chase him off.

  Cadin knew what this woman was capable of, and he flew away, his wings obscuring the rising moon. Rebecca stepped over the threshold, one hand over her eye so that she could see him well enough to spell him and be rid of him once and for all. But then she spied Maria and all else fell away. There was the baby she’d left in Devotion Field, now a dark fury of a girl in sopping clothes, her black hair in knots.

  Rebecca went to meet her daughter halfway. The grass was damp and she left footprints behind, each one turning as dark as some of the choices she had made. In truth she was anxious, for the girl was an unusual creature; even Rebecca, who usually cared only about her own affairs, could s
ee that. Talent is something you’re born with. It’s a gift and a curse, and it’s often cause for jealousy from those who are without it, although in this case, Maria’s talents brought Rebecca a good deal of pride. She was a mother, after all. She might not look like one or act like one, yet she had a mother’s heart. Great power was something to be celebrated.

  “Why did you give me away?” Maria called out with more emotion than she wished to reveal, for this was the question she’d been carrying inside her ever since she’d come to learn that Hannah was not her mother.

  “For your own safety.” An excuse was an excuse, but this one was true.

  “To protect me from my father?”

  Maria was too clever to accept an easy answer. There was no reason for Rebecca to lie anymore, and even if she had, Maria would have known. It was clear the girl had the sight. What was to come was in the corner of Maria’s eye, so that she spied both the present and the future. A death, a blessing, a love affair. She could see it all, and the world knew it and responded to her. White moths were collecting in the grass all around her. Doves gathered in the branches of one of the oldest elm trees in the county. Robbers had been hanged from its branches; the tree had turned blood red wherever a rope had been tied, and the ground beneath it was red as well. No grass grew here. The Lockland family had a legacy of greed and cruelty, and even the trees knew their history.

  “My husband was not your father,” Rebecca admitted in a soft voice.

  “But surely I had one.” Maria’s face was pinched. She felt twisted inside. Hannah Owens had been her family, and now she felt alone in the world. “Or perhaps you no longer remember who he was, as you failed to remember that your husband would punish whoever might help you. Your men came to kill the woman who raised me.” Maria met her mother’s gaze, unafraid. She blamed Rebecca for Hannah’s death, and it was in her nature to speak her mind. She could already tell, her mother might be more learned when it came to magic, but of the two, Maria was stronger.

  “I did not mean for that to happen,” Rebecca vowed. “She was a good woman. That was why I left you with her. I never thought my husband would be able to follow my trail.” Rebecca’s red hair nearly reached to her waist. She was vain and she always had been, but her expression showed heartfelt remorse. “I laid out cayenne, pepper, and lavender to confuse his dogs. I thought he’d prefer his drink to me and that he’d be too filled with rum to find where I’d been. That was my mistake. I underestimated the power of the Tenth. I know I can’t undo what has been done, but even if I am at fault, I wish you would stay with me. If you ever have a child and lose her, a tragedy I wouldn’t wish on any living soul, then perhaps you will forgive me.”

  Maria scrutinized the house, three stories of pale stone with a cobbled courtyard, the home of the Locklands for over two hundred years. She looked at her mother, who had given birth by herself in a snowy field despite her fine manor house, and who had initialed Maria’s blanket with blue silk thread spun halfway across the world by glowing worms that turned into moths with bright wings.

  Perhaps it was meant to be. Maria would take a chamber on the second floor. The largest one, with a lock on the door so she could have her privacy, for magic was a private affair, even between mother and daughter, and magic was all she cared about now.

  * * *

  Although Rebecca could neither read nor write, when it came to matters of love, she was an expert. Her Grimoire was filled with runic marks, the ancient alphabet of alchemy. She used these symbols to denote which herbs to use and which to avoid, which spells were best to recite in the waning or waxing of the moon, to bring forth the power of the earth and sky, incantations which were dangerous in a novice’s hands. She taught Maria the eight lesser love charms, and the Ninth Potion, which was so potent one must wear gloves during its preparation. The Tenth Potion was the one she herself had used, and she did not recommend the use of that enchantment. If she knew Maria had copied it into her own Grimoire, at the very back of her book, she did not say; she only told her daughter to be vigilant. There were sinister aspects of magic, and what you brought into this world was your responsibility, to deal with forevermore.

  Rebecca herself was drawn toward the dark, what some people called left-handed magic, and she certainly didn’t care about any man’s wrath, even after her years with her husband, who had known enough about her skills to set out a circle of salt around her and tie her to an iron chair before he beat her, for salt and iron deplete a witch’s talents. Of course he would want to change her once he knew what she was; that was the way their love first unraveled. Rebecca knew how to blind a man and how to make him see again, what herbs would help to bring on a pregnancy, as well as those that would end that condition. Rebecca was as acquainted with the many forms of magic as she was with the corners and walls of her own bedchamber. She was a seeker of revenge, fearless since her first day on earth. She, too, had grown up as a motherless child, and because of this Rebecca had learned to survive by her wits early on. Her own mother was a witch who had disappeared after her daughter’s birth. Rebecca was an outcast from the start, for her father did not wish to have her in his household. It was no mistake that Rebecca had left her daughter in Devotion Field rather than with a nurse, as she had experienced the terrors of such a childhood. For what was perceived as a bit of magic—a white deer that came to her, unafraid; the sight of the red crescent mark on her leg—she’d been slapped and beaten by her nurse, then locked in a dark room until she learned to keep her talents to herself. The nurse had granted Rebecca one meal a day, unless she stole from the pantry, which she always did. She thanked that horrible woman now. The nurse had taught her how to survive, and Rebecca made her way on her beauty and her talents to the home of the Locklands, but she had wanted a real home for her daughter. She’d heard of Hannah Owens and her remedies and had chosen Hannah to raise her child with kindness and a gift for the Nameless Art. Now, after all these years, she had the chance to mentor the girl herself. Rebecca felt that she was Maria’s proper teacher, with access to private knowledge known only to the women in their family. They’d come from a long line of women whose blood burned black in the snow, who could cure or wound with words and herbs, who spoke to birds and bees, who changed the weather and were either feared or respected by their neighbors.

  Studying under her mother’s tutelage, Maria wrote down lists of herbs and useful plants in her Grimoire, along with remedies for sorrow, illness, childbirth ailments, jealousy, headache, rashes, desire. There were other spells, not medicinal treatments, but spiritual, ancient enchantments that began with the Hebrew word Abracadabra, I create as I speak, taken from the even earlier Aramaic chant, Avra kadavra, It will be created in my words. Some spells were too dangerous to use, unless there was no choice, for they could wound the practitioner as well as the object of their conjuring. Spells for revenge or survival, in which the spell maker’s own blood was used as ink to ensure that only she could read the words. Sympathetic magic, using poppets and lifelike figures, and, when revenge was involved, pins and hooks. Poisons that were tasteless and odorless, but stung like a wasp before they could be noticed. Black magic, red magic, blood magic, love magic. Rebecca divided both the world that she walked through and the world that was unseen into these categories. Maria kept her book under the floorboards beside her bed. No women came here asking for Rebecca’s help even if they might have wished for it. They were all too frightened of her. She did not mind if a subject had to take ill, or die, in order for her to get her way. A pin in a poppet, a vial of blood, a bird bled to death on the hearth—all of it was in her book, brought to bear when deemed useful.

  There was a distance between Maria and her mother, for they were still strangers to each other, and they saw their place in the world quite differently. Maria had grown up learning to help those in need, while Rebecca thought only to help herself. Still Maria was interested in all Rebecca had to teach her. They were blood relations, after all, and one often knew what the other wa
s thinking before the words were spoken aloud. Each also had the ability to keep secrets by throwing up a screen that blocked her most private thoughts. Shared blood didn’t account for everything. They were different as night from day. Maria knew in her heart that if she’d been the one in that snowy field, she would have never left her child on her own.

  For Love Gone Wrong

  Vervain eases the pain of unrequited love.

  A cobweb on a door means your beloved has been untrue.

  To bring about passion: anise seed, burdock root, myrtle leaves.

  Amulets for luck are made of blue beads, dove feathers, mistletoe, wishbones.

  All spells increase with the waxing moon, decrease with the waning moon.

  Place two eggs under the bed to cleanse the atmosphere—destroy afterward. Do not eat or you will swallow bad fortune.

  A mirror beside you reflects back the evil eye.

  For protection against love: black cloth, red thread, clove, blackthorn.

  In the year 1675, when Maria turned eleven, there was another epidemic, of smallpox. Some towns and villages were emptied of all of their inhabitants, and the doors to houses swung open and robbers ruled the roads. It was a sorrowful and ruthless time. All the same, Rebecca often disappeared at night. It seemed she had a destination she would not or could not refuse when it called to her. She tossed a cape over her shining hair, gazed at herself in the painted black mirror that revealed the future, then ignored her fate and did as she pleased. She was headstrong and had always been so, especially in matters of love, as had been true for her own mother. The women in their family had the talent of the Nameless Art, but Rebecca admitted, they all had difficulties with love. They were prone to ignore the rules and the warnings inside their own hearts and heads. Love could ruin your life or set you free; it could happen by chance or be a well-planned decision.