Page 9 of Magic Lessons

A fine bit of guidance from a woman who’d so thoughtlessly loved the wrong man not once but twice. Even here, along the docks, where life swirled all around them, she couldn’t take her gaze away from Robbie. Likely it was true that the flaws you saw in other women you didn’t notice in yourself. Love everlasting, love wished for desperately, love that walks in through the door, love that is a mistake, love that is yours alone.

Robbie had fashioned a bargain with the captain of a ship from Amsterdam that, in his opinion, would favor everyone, including himself. Now that the deal had been struck, he was waiting with the horses, more than ready to go. He let out a low whistle and bowed, the most handsome man in three counties. Rebecca grinned and waved, as if her heart were in her hand. Anyone with even a bit of the sight could tell there would surely be trouble ahead.

“Is this what love is?” Maria asked her mother, who was gazing at Robbie on the pier.

“Oh, yes,” Rebecca said. “I’d die for it.”

In fact, she would. When Robbie was caught by the sheriff for crimes he had committed, she would be hanged alongside him, not for witchery, of which she would have likely been found guilty, but as an accomplice to horse theft, a crime with which her man was well acquainted. When there was gossip about Rebecca—she had herbs with her, and wore talismans on her wrists and at her throat—the jailers clasped iron shoes on her feet, and as witches are helpless in the grip of that metal, she could not work her magic, she could only weep tears that scalded the ground beneath them. Robbie would give a speech that many in the crowd, especially the women, would remember for years to come. He’d speak of a love that would never end, about the world they shared and the heaven they would share as well. He would quote from The Tempest, a revival of which he’d had the honor to be a part of, though his words to Rebecca were so heartfelt, everyone thought they were his own.

Hear my soul speak:

The very instant that I saw you, did

My heart fly to your service.

The crowd would listen appreciatively, for they were fine words, indeed, and many of the women would applaud, but they would hang him all the same. Rebecca could see bits and pieces of the event to come when she looked into a pool of water in the gutter. Still, that awful occurrence would not be for months, and the time they had together was precious, and part of a bargain Rebecca was willing to make. “Love is not always under our control,” she told her daughter.

“It will never be that for me.” Maria was already wearing the red boots, and although she adored the gift, she would avoid her mother’s path at all costs. She vowed she would never let love rule her life.

Mother and daughter said their good-byes on the dock, embracing one another, their true feelings surfacing. Despite all the time they had been apart, they had similar hearts, surprisingly easy to break, but they were strong when it mattered and it mattered now, for they both understood that they would not meet again.

The world was so much larger than Maria would have ever imagined, and all that lived in the sea seemed enormous as well: the creatures that swam alongside the ship spouting foul-smelling water, and slithering dark things that clung to the hull, fish whose mouths were filled with teeth, scaly sea snakes and blue crabs pulled up in nets overflowing with dark purple seaweed. At night the stars tore through the black sky, and when it rained the world itself seemed upside down, with water above and below. Strong men cried and called for their mothers during the worst of these storms, and fish leapt onto the deck to escape the roiling waves, but Cadin clattered into Maria’s ear that they merely needed to stay alive, nothing more. Take a breath, hold tight, and soon enough the sky would reappear, blue as glass, and the men would return to work, not remembering how they wept for their mothers’ arms. These same sailors did not soon forget that Maria could announce a storm before it appeared on the horizon, any more than they would forgo her remedies, for she was soon enough known to be a healer, and many of the men had learned to come to her when they were ill. She might have been in danger from their rough ways, for even at her young age she was a woman in most of their eyes, but no one dared to harm her or search her out in a dark corner. She knew more than most women twice her age; they could see it in her eyes, their own fates reflecting back to them.

Maria knew to use spirits of turpentine to prevent lockjaw, salt and molasses for a salve used on deep cuts that might otherwise poison a man’s blood, black or green tea steeped with boiling milk and nutmeg for dysentery. If a man among them had hurt Maria, he would only be damaging his own chances at completing the long journey whole and well. She was valued, and although none would admit it aloud, all the crew felt fortunate to have her aboard.

For Sea Travel

Hyssop tea will rid a man of worms.

Basil will preserve fish.

Borage can heal abscesses.

Ginger and vinegar for sores.

Mint for toothache.

If the cat on board sleeps in a coil, the weather will be bad.

If the sun rises red, there will be rain.

Do not take salt from another person’s hand at the table, or you will both have bad luck. If salt spills, throw a pinch over your left shoulder.

Blue thread sewn onto every piece of clothing, for protection.

Hannah had taught Maria how to keep weevils out of the biscuits, and for this the cook and all the passengers were extremely thankful. Rats could be done away with by the use of monkshood, caraway was good for spider bites, peony root guarded against storms, nightmares, and lunacy, for there were those who were made mad by the endless rush of the sea. Because of those she had cured, Maria was thought to be a saint by some, although there were others who were certain she was a witch, for sailors were a superstitious lot, and their traditions included attempts at seafaring magic. A silver coin was always placed beneath the mast, a page of paper was never to be torn in two on board, a brand was used to mark wooden masts to drive out evil spirits and keep the vessel safe in storms. Cadin, who might have been deemed unlucky, or perhaps seen as a harbinger of death and destruction, was welcomed when Maria insisted he was a black albatross. Although none of the sailors had ever heard of such a creature before, they all knew there were marvelous, new things to be found in the world every day, and since an albatross brings luck to sailors, no one dared to challenge Maria.

The captain, a Dutchman named Dries Hessel, who always wore a knee-length coat treated with tar and animal grease for waterproofing, did little that did not bring a profit. That was why he’d allowed the girl on board. He’d arranged to sell her for sixty shillings once they reached Curaçao, a good bargain, considering he’d paid Maria’s father only forty for her. A player in the theater survived as he must, and the captain of a ship assumed it was also his right to do the same, even when the object he sold was a person. Maria would be an indentured servant for a period of five years, and whoever bought her would own her outright during this time, then be legally responsible for freeing her on the appointed date that ended her servitude. That the girl had used her blue thread to sew up a wound Hessel suffered when a windstorm drove a splinter of the mast through his flesh had done nothing to change his mind regarding her fate. Nothing was free in this world, not a breath, not a life, not a journey.

Many on board were Portuguese refugees who had paid whatever price necessary for their passage, as they pursued an escape from persecution for their faith. Jews were not allowed in Spain or Portugal, or in England or France, and so they had set off for the New World, practicing their religion in secret until the time came when they at last found a place that offered a safe haven. Those who crossed the ocean wished to have the freedom to be true to themselves. For now, they were simply called the Portugals. They had brought dried codfish with them, and cheese made with thistle powder to set it rather than jelly from the hooves of animals, the rind covered by paprika to prevent rot. Maria learned their language, for she had an ear for such things, and made certain to help those women brought low by seasickness, with a spoonful of ginger paste and a slice of orange, carefully doled out to the ailing women and their children, for even the smallest taste of fresh fruit was a tonic. She listened to their stories, and observed them when they lit a candle on Friday at sunset, for candles were dangerous at sea, just as religion was dangerous on land.

At night Maria wrapped herself in her cloak and watched the stars appear in the sky, one by one at first, then whirls of constellations pricking through the darkness in a brilliant ceiling of light. How immense and beautiful the world was, especially to a girl who had never even been to town while growing up, never seen a shop or a market or a church filled with people as the bells rang on Sundays. She wished that Hannah could stand beside her on the deck of the ship and feel the future as she did, as a place where a woman might command her own fate. She was grateful that she had been found in that field of snow, and raised by a woman who was truly kind, just as she was grateful that her mother had given her the gift of sight. What was before her was still a mystery, even when she looked into the black mirror, for she had changed her fate when she came to cross the sea, although some aspects of the future remained the same: the daughter she would have, the man who brought her diamonds, the snow in the branches of the trees. When she saw bits and pieces of the time to come, she knew she would find the sort of freedom her mother and Hannah hadn’t known. There had always been women who commanded the same talents as Maria, and most had taken refuge from the world so they would not be tested by drowning. If a witch floated she was proclaiming her pact with Satan. If she drowned she was innocent, for all the good it would do her to be dragged, lifeless and bound, from the depths of a river or pond, often wearing iron shoes nailed to the soles of her feet. Maria’s predecessors would have thought her mad to be so far out at sea, with nothing but the waves around her, but she was convinced she had nothing to fear from water, only from men who saw evil where there was none.

On windy days, when it seemed the ship might take to the sky and the sailors tied themselves to the deck with ropes so they wouldn’t rise up into the whirling air, Maria kept Cadin safe inside her cloak and fed him bits of cracker. A ship was a terrible place to be as the weeks went by, with less food and water and all manner of pestilence, lice and rats, lightning and storms. There were times when those on board thought the end was near. Men who had never prayed before did so, many in a language none of the sailors could decipher. Women blessed their children and held them tightly so they might walk into the nets of death side by side. But Maria could see enough of the future to know they would reach their destination. She looked in her black mirror and saw that the sun would be stronger than any of the passengers would have thought possible and the streets would be made of red dirt and the trees would flower in every season.

“Hush,” she told the Portugals’ children when they cried. “We’ve almost reached the other side of the world.”

When they arrived, it was exactly as she had seen it would be, a land of oddities and miracles. The passengers looked out and blinked in wonder at where their journey had taken them. The cactus towered thirty feet tall, thorny acacia bushes bloomed with vivid lemon-colored flowers, and the divi-divi trees were bent over in the wind so they might look up to heaven. The children said these trees were little men wearing overcoats. There were yellow and orange birds in the sky, troupials and bananaquits, along with kingbirds and flamingos and hummingbirds no larger than bees that passed by a person’s ear and left that individual’s head ringing with a soft buzzing sound. There were birds that only flew at night, nighthawks and nightjars, black shadows in the dark and the dusk that drank dew from leaves as big as saucers. People of all sorts could be found here due to the Spanish slave trade and the settlement of Sephardic Jews. Many had on modest traditional clothing, long skirts called sayas worn over pants and shirts with combinations of two or three patterns.