Page 23 of Magic Lessons

Beneath a pear tree, where he stood in the dark, John Hathorne knew exactly what he’d heard. A woman’s anguish that was louder than the gunfire, louder than the last calls of the crows in the sky. He knew her voice, and why shouldn’t he? He was the cause of her grief.

She couldn’t bring herself to bury Cadin and leave him forever earthbound. Instead, she set a fire on a flat ledge not far from the lake and burned his body. The smoke was as white as the snow had been in Devotion Field on the day he found her. Her dear black heart, her companion, her familiar, her friend. She sank down and sobbed and didn’t leave his ashes until first light. By then the wind had carried him into the sky where he belonged.

Maria had been weakened from the metal bullet lodged in her arm, for iron is a bane to witches. In the countryside of England, iron chains were kept in every prison, with cuffs small enough to fit a woman. Maria went to the cabin, and while Faith was still sleeping, she took up a knife to dig out the bullet, though her hand was bruised as well. As she did so, she spoke backwards, asking for justice for Cadin. She made a poultice of balm of Gilead and boiled sage to dress her wound, then fixed a sling for her arm, using the shawl embroidered with birds from Curaçao, the country where it had been so easy to dream of miracles. She wound a white bandage over her hand, but it didn’t hide the bruise in the shape of a crow that had risen on her skin.

When she went to Hathorne’s house, the two silver hairpins were in her hair, one from Cadin and one from her mother, the sort of adornment Puritan women were forbidden to wear, not that such rules mattered to Maria. She wore a black dress, for she was in mourning as surely as any widow. As she walked down Washington Street, her daughter in her arms, the neighbors peered out and began to whisper. People were drawn into their yards, waiting behind the hedges to see what would happen next. Over two hundred crows had been shot, and there were those who vowed that Maria had been among them, and that she wore the sling to disguise what was not an arm, but a wing. “Shapeshifter,” the neighbors whispered. “Look at the hem of her skirt,” they said. She had walked through the fields and there was no mud clinging to her. Surely this had been done by magic, they insisted, and there were those who vowed that every night Maria flew above the treetops, flinging stones upon roofs. Some people said that the red-haired daughter of hers was a demon, not a girl.

Maria knew what they thought, and as she walked by their houses, she ran a stick along their fences, the sound clattering. It sounded as if crows were calling, and the noise sent chills down people’s spines. Doors slammed shut. Windows rattled. Soon the street was empty.

She stood in front of the house with black shutters and knocked on the door, calling out for John Hathorne. No one answered, so she pounded harder, breaking a tiny bone in her hand that would always cause her pain on damp days. With Cadin’s death, something inside her had changed. Now she knew she had read the black mirror incorrectly. Perhaps she’d been won over because although she’d been a servant, John seemed to have seen her as something more. Or so she’d wished. She had fallen under water, under a spell, in love with love. She had seen it happen a hundred times before, as she sat in the dark listening to Hannah’s advice to the women who came to her door. Is it the man you want, or the feeling inside you when someone cares?

In the parlor, Hathorne heard his name called. It sounded like a curse, for it was said forward and then it was reversed. When he didn’t appear, Maria looked in the window and saw a figure peering out. Ruth Hathorne, soon to have her second child, which she prayed would be another boy. Ruth’s heart was racing. She knew a witch when she saw one. Even Ruth’s little son had known her for what she was. Now the woman had taken a strange black book from her satchel and was reading from it, her lips moving quickly. Ruth knew that books had power; that was why she secretly studied letters so that she might read the Scriptures. But this woman at their door was clearly expert at reading, and therefore even more dangerous than Ruth had first imagined. She hid her son in a wardrobe and told him to be quiet. “If a woman in a black dress comes for you, do not go with her,” she said.

Ruth had never demanded anything for herself and had never before raised her voice, but now she called for her husband in a frantic tone. “Come here now. She’s looking for you!”

Maria could hear Ruth Hathorne cry out behind the locked door. Good, she thought. He’ll have to face me. He’ll have to accept Faith as his own.

By now, Ruth was too frightened to go look out the window; instead, she held a looking glass up to the street, to reverse any spells this witch might set upon her. Her mother had come from the west of England and had taught her folk medicine that she kept to herself, cures her husband would never have approved. Tonight she would bathe with salt and vinegar to cleanse herself and insure that evil thoughts could not cling to her. But Maria held no ill will toward her, only pity. They were sisters, really. Had they held up their palms, one beside the other, the same love line would have run through each of their hands until the middle of their palms, when the lines were diverted. This is how he’ll hurt you, this is the way you will blame yourself, this is your salvation, this is what you can see if you open your eyes.

Hathorne came into the room in a fury when he heard Ruth demanding that he deal with Maria Owens. Was it his fault he’d been enchanted? He was a victim as much as Adam had been, tempted into sin. “Why have you not sent her away?” he asked his wife.

Ruth threw him a desperate look, but he insisted.

“It’s woman’s work,” he said. “Just as you send away a peddler.”

Ruth whispered a prayer to protect herself as she opened the door. She wore a gray dress, with her cap covering her hair. She was pretty and pale and confused, but most of all she was frightened.

“He said you must go away,” she told Maria. Her voice sounded small and weak, even to her own ear.

“I’m not here to hurt you.” Maria felt a tightening in her throat. She was the woman she had never expected to be, someone who had broken another woman’s heart. “Please understand. I didn’t know about you.”

“I beg of you.” Ruth closed her eyes, as if by doing so she could make this dark-haired beauty vanish. She did not wish to see Maria’s eyes; people said they were silver, like a cat’s. “Don’t harm us.”

Maria took Ruth’s hand and Ruth’s eyes flashed open. Her eyes were so pale, so blue. They could feel the heat of one another’s blood. Maria let go. All she wanted was for this woman to hear her.

“Let him tell me himself,” Maria said, “and no harm will come to you.”

Ruth went inside and closed the door, her heart hitting against her rib cage. She was little more than nineteen years old, a motherless child, and now the mother of John Hathorne’s only son. Her own beloved mother had whispered in her ear before she and Ruth’s father were exiled to the wilderness of Rhode Island: Trust no one but yourself.

John was waiting for her, his expression wary. Tonight he looked older than his years; she could see the man he would be as he aged, his looks gone, his humor turned dark, a man who sat in judgment of all others. When you make certain choices, you change your fate. Look at your left hand and you will see the lines shifting into what you have made of yourself.

“Well?” he said.

At fourteen Ruth had been grateful that he’d married her, for she’d had no one, and knew nothing of the world. All she knew was this town. The elm trees with their black leaves, the bricked streets, the houses with their wooden shutters, the fields where the crows came to eat corn, the harbor with its boats straining to be free of their moorings, the endless winters with blizzards of snow. He’d told her to close her eyes and pray the first night they were together. He’d said not to cry, for it would displease God. She had done as she was told on that night and ever since, but now she lifted her chin when she spoke to him.

“She will speak only to you.”

“For that I blame you,” Hathorne muttered.

“And I you,” Ruth said in a soft voice.

At last he went outside wearing his coat, his face set in a dark expression. He had not seen Maria for who she was in the bright light of Curaçao, but he most certainly saw her now. He’d heard of such creatures, women who were beyond God’s watch and were said to devour a man’s soul and make a mockery out of decency. His wife’s erratic behavior was one more mark of her power.

“You’re not to come here,” he scolded Maria. He knew the neighbors were watching. They were always watching in this town. He stood on the other side of the fence.

“What coward asks his wife to do what he fears to do?”

“We cannot quarrel. No good will come of it.”