Magic Lessons (Practical Magic #0.1)(104)

We do things when we’re young that we regret. I believed that love was my enemy, but I was wrong.

He folded the letter into his coat and made certain to lock the door when he left. It took less than two hours to get together a crew willing to sail to Salem, for there was no cargo and the lighter the ship the faster the journey. He was in a hurry, that much was true.



* * *



He recalled the woman who had given him directions to the jail and went to her house straightaway. Anne Hatch spied him through the window and opened the door, beckoning him to come up the stairs. “I remember you. The man with the tree.”

As she had years ago, when he first arrived in Salem, she fetched him a plate of chicken stew. He thanked her and ate, ravenous, and when he was finished he told her he had come for Maria once again.

“If she ever did come back here I figure she’d go out to that house she had,” Anne said.

He took the path in the woods, headed to the spot where he had planted the tree. It was dark when he arrived and the air was damp and cool. Exhausted, he lay down in the grass, using his satchel as a pillow and his coat as a blanket, falling asleep so quickly he didn’t hear the clacking sound in the ground beside him, a wretched noise he would have recognized as the one he’d heard outside the jail on Maria’s hanging day, the sound of a beetle no one in this world wishes to hear.



* * *



Hathorne was enraged when he returned home, for the final meeting of the magistrates had been filled with petty jealousies and hostilities, with judges blaming each other now that Governor Phips had dispatched a decree that the witchcraft trials must stop and those in custody be allowed their freedom. A clerk whose aunt was currently in jail left the courthouse and was quick to spread the news throughout the town. Soon there were families all over Essex County who were celebrating. They praised the governor’s wisdom; they lit bonfires in the fields, and brought wreaths of wildflowers to the hidden graves of those who had already been hanged, their bodies stolen by their families so that they might be secretly buried, for those deemed witches were not allowed even that last bit of dignity.

Faith was washing up after dinner. The family had dined, but Faith had made the cursed stew meant for John Hathorne alone, and had baked a crust for Revenge Pie, fixed from the bramble, what some people call blackberry, used in transference magic. Into the pie she baked the bird she had killed. After a few bites, his luck would turn; his roof would blow off in every storm, his son would set off to sea, he would not have a night of sleep. He sat at the table when he called for her; she brought out a tray with the stew and a plate of pie and a pot of Tell the Truth Tea.

Everyone else in the house was asleep. The peepers were trilling with their shivery song, for it was the time of year when everything comes alive, birds and bees and frogs. Faith had The Book of the Raven tucked inside her dress, burning her chest. She had a talisman in hand made after finding a blackthorn bush in the woods, a wild bitter plum whose shimmering black bark was covered by large black spines. She’d collected a handful of spines, even though her fingers bled, and she pressed them into a ball of wax and hatred, a charm to carry with her, which would increase her power and cause this man who was her father pain throughout his body, something unnamable and incurable. If she attached it to him, the revenge would be threefold, strong enough to burn a hole right through him. What she wished for was that forever after, throughout history, Hathorne would be remembered as a man who had no conscience as he had called for the murder of twenty innocent people. The colony itself seemed cursed. Crops failed, smallpox spread, and many wondered if God saw fit to punish them for acts against blameless people; a Day of Humiliation would be declared, a day of prayer and fasting, in the hopes that God would forgive them. But Hathorne would never ask for forgiveness; he would never ask for any sort of pardon from men or from God.

“At last,” he said when Faith set down his supper tray, so annoyed he might have been waiting for hours rather than minutes. Faith watched as he ate the stew. Afterward he downed a large tumbler of water. He was parched from the start of the enchantment. Faith felt quite thirsty herself. Perhaps being in his presence affected her more than she would have imagined.

“I have no need of an audience,” Hathorne said when he realized her eyes were on him. “I’m ready for my tea.” He, like so many men in Salem, most often took his meals alone, away from the distractions of his family. Faith cut him a piece of pie. Hathorne didn’t usually like sweets, but after one bite he couldn’t stop eating the blackthorn Revenge Pie.

“Ruth was correct about one thing,” Hathorne allowed. “You know how to bake.”

“I know more than that. I know you. But you, do you not know me?” Faith asked when he was through.

“I know when a girl is rude and improper if that’s what you’re trying for.” He felt defeated, for the governor’s edict and letter had made those who had judged the witch trials seem like fools, and worse, like criminals themselves. It was said that a Dutch doctor had influenced the governor to end the trials. John thought perhaps he would fight it. He had time before all of those now incarcerated could be processed and released, if they ever were. Lydia Colson, Elizabeth Colson’s grandmother, had already died in jail due to the harsh conditions and her frail health.

Hathorne would have chased the housemaid away after his supper, but he had a sudden urge to tell someone the truth about his life. Now that the governor had stopped the trials, he feared how the world would judge him. They would laugh at all he had tried to do in an attempt to rid the world of evil. Tonight he himself wavered in his beliefs. Perhaps all along the beast had been inside of him.