Magic Lessons (Practical Magic #0.1)(108)
By now Samuel had reached the lake; he had already stripped off his black coat as he ran into to the shallows, nearly stumbling as he pulled off his boots. The Hopwood brothers tried to stop him as he raced past, perhaps they thought he was the devil himself and it was their duty to attack him, but Maria still had the book of magic in her hands and she made it impossible for them to cause any more damage. They were stuck where they were, unable to move, hip-deep in the water, yet convinced they had been set on fire. The water had turned from green to black, so murky it was impossible to see anything at all. For a moment Maria stopped speaking. Faith and Samuel had both disappeared. In that moment of silence, when she stopped reading from the book, the brothers all but trampled one another as they ran to shore and through the woods, afraid for their lives, desperate to be as far away from Maria as possible, as if distance made any difference to a curse.
Samuel resurfaced, then dove again. He was an expert swimmer, but the lake was muddy and he had to feel his way. A dark creature swam beneath him, a huge eel he could barely see, but the eel pushed Faith upward so that Samuel could grab the girl by her cloak, hauling her out of the chains that bound her to the wooden chair, which now sank and went on sinking to the endless bottom of the lake. When Samuel tried to swim to the surface, he realized the waterweeds had hold of him, wrapped around his ankles and legs. He was caught, but he pushed Faith upward and watched her rise to the surface through the bits of sunlight that pierced the cloudy water.
Samuel knew that he was drowning. His leg was trapped no matter how he tugged. He moved his arms, still trying to swim, not yet giving up, but it was happening whether he fought against it or not. He had seen other men drown, they had fallen from the riggings of ships, or leapt into the currents while drunk, and he had wondered how it felt to be taken by the water, if it was a struggle or if it was more like a dream. He hadn’t had a breath for so long his heart was stopping. He thought of Maria on the dock in Cura?ao and how he had fallen in love with her then, even though he was bent over with pain.
Samuel now felt an even sharper pain across his chest from the pressure of the water; it began in his heart and seared through his arm, then his throat, and finally his head. He had a single thought and it was she, and then he gave that up as well though it burned inside him. The way he was dying felt like a dark bonfire in a lake that had no end.
Faith was spitting water, alive, and so Maria didn’t wait another instant. She quickly filled her boots with stones, then shoved them back on. She repeated the incantation for protection, calling to Hecate, offering her devotion if only she could be granted this one thing. One time underwater, that was all she wanted. Maria ran into the lake, past her shoulders, past her neck. She dove and went under, the stones in her boots weighing her down. She saw through the darkness and there was Samuel Dias, floating in the mucky water, already a dead man. She dragged him out of the tangle of waterweeds that had held him down. The threaded roots were green and slimy and black, even though they opened into flowers on the surface. To float once more, Maria kicked off her boots, and as the stones fell into the bottomless darkness, she arose.
She pulled Samuel toward the marshy shore, a sob escaping from her mouth as she shivered; water streamed down her back and into her eyes. Maria had always been able to hear Samuel’s heartbeat when he was near and now she heard nothing at all. She tore open his shirt and pounded on his chest, her own breathing ragged.
Faith crawled over, drenched and in despair. “Goat,” she wailed. “Wake up.” There was no answer and Faith began to cry. She was on her knees beside her grieving mother, both coated with mud, weeds in the folds of their clothes, lake water dripping from their hair. Dias’s skin was pale and he was so very quiet. It was clear that he was gone. “You have to stop,” Faith told her mother. She knew death when she saw it. She’d seen it before. “Mother, he’s no longer with us.”
His spirit had left him and he was motionless. The beetle had stopped its clicking, for its work was done. Maria would not let this be their fate. She pounded on Samuel’s chest, again and again, in a fury. They had wasted time because of a curse; death was always possible, with or without magic. Her own mother had confided that there was an ancient bargain a person could make with the darkest powers, one that would bring back the dead to walk among the living. He will never be the same if you do. He will be a shadow self, a dark creature, but you will have him. Mothers had done this with children, only to have the rescued child run away into the woods, a feral creature with no memory of the past; wives had brought back husbands who had afterward left them for other women, or stolen from them, or murdered them in their sleep. Maria didn’t care. She was ready to make the bargain. She hit Samuel’s chest one last time, ready to take up a knife so that she might cut her arm to mix her blood with his, the beginning of this dreaded spell, but before she could, Samuel opened his eyes.
He had been dead until Maria forced his heart into beating. He’d returned from the dark water, from the darkness of the endless depth where he had seen his father sitting in a garden chair, waving him away. Don’t be a fool, Abraham Dias called to his son. She’s waiting for you, you stupid man.
Maria lay beside him in the grass, her arms around him. You cannot curse a man who has already died and come back. He has rid himself of one life and begun another, a life in which love is everything. He had been dead but now his eyes were open and the woman he loved was singing to him.