Magic Lessons (Practical Magic #0.1)(15)

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They went through the estuary, riding south. At times the horses were chest-deep in water. It was a glorious golden day. Riding behind her parents, Maria could hear a spray of her mother’s laughter, a beautiful, musical sound. There seemed a sea change in Rebecca now that Robbie had come for her; she was not a witch, merely a woman in love. Clearly she allowed her raw emotions to lead her astray. Maria thought of all the things she should have asked during the time she’d spent with her mother. She’d gathered knowledge about enchantments and remedies, but no knowledge about their own history. How they had come to be the way they were. What trick of nature were they? Why did their blood burn black? Why should they avoid water at all costs if they could not sink? For some, witchery was a choice, but not for them. It was in their very nature, and they must do their best with it, but how did a woman survive when she would surely be judged again and again? Now it was too late to ask. The future was upon them, and Maria could see it would split in two, their fates diverging as they went their separate ways.

Every once in a while the man who was Maria’s father would turn to gaze over his shoulder at her as if he continued to be surprised that she existed. There was clearly no room for her; the love between her mother and father was exclusive and couldn’t contain anyone else. Some love is like that; it only has room enough to fit two people, who can only see one another and include no one else. The love between them was the reason her mother could leave her in the snowy field, to hide Maria’s cap of black hair so that no one would suspect who the baby’s father might be. He’d never been apprehended as a robber, but he wouldn’t have escaped Thomas Lockland’s murderous rage had Lockland ever found out the truth and discovered his wife had a lover. As good an actor as he might be, Maria’s father would never have been mistaken for an innocent man.

They rode for a very long time, and when at last they came to the sea, Maria was both terrified and thrilled. The water stretched out before them, a wild blue field of waves. The sound was deafening, the possibilities enormous. There was another unknown world beyond their own, and frankly Maria was done with England, and had been since the fire in Devotion Field. She was glad that Cadin was on her shoulder, her one true friend, for the world seemed very big and she felt young and small. They stopped at an inn to take some food. Robbie went inside while Rebecca waited hidden in a yew hedge, so she would not be recognized should her husband’s family come searching after they found the manor house burned from the inside out. Robbie brought out some meat and bread and cheese. Maria fed the crow, but took nothing for herself.

“Do you wish to starve?” the man who was her father asked.

He said it more out of interest than concern. His eyes were pitch-black, and he had a wide mouth and high cheekbones, as she did. He was so handsome that women in London often followed him down the street; some fainted at the sight of him, as if he were the hero in the theatricals they’d seen come to life. A smile played at his lips as he spoke to Maria, for her presence continued to puzzle and amuse him. She was a great beauty, and in his experience that would bring her both good fortune and grief. In many ways Robbie was a simple man, and he stood in judgment of no one. He knew what Rebecca was and did not fault her for it. A witch was a funny thing, particularly when you loved her. If not for Rebecca, he would not be in the strange circumstance of trying to rescue a black-haired girl who stared at him with cold eyes, when they should have already left the county. He wished he could write a drama that would tell the story of the night when he first saw Rebecca and came under her spell. She was already married, not that it mattered to either one of them, for their love for each other consumed everything in their way, that much was clear to Maria.

“Tell me, girl,” he said to this strange daughter of his. “What is it you want in this world?”

“I wish to have a life that I can claim for my own, without paying for the crimes of my mother and father,” Maria told him. “Where do I go to do that?” When she squinted, the present was transparent, and she could view a future where Cadin flew above her in a different world, a place where every plant was one she had never seen before, a land in which there were trees with thorns and trees bent over in the wind, trees with blood-red leaves and those with branches as white as snow.

They were not far from a harbor, and gulls wheeled across the sky. The city of London was nearby, and smoke rose from the city’s chimneys in great black clouds. A city such as this was a wondrous and terrible thing where anything could happen. It was the place where one could find the end of her days or the beginning of her life. And yet Maria knew that this city was not the place where she would find her future.

Rebecca had come to stand beside her man. “That’s why we’re here,” Rebecca told their daughter. “So that you will have a life of your own. It’s your future we’re thinking of. We’re sending you away.”

“I can’t say I’m surprised,” Maria said with dark bitterness. What would they want with her when they were so involved with one another?

Her parents exchanged a look. She was difficult indeed. Still, she was theirs, and they meant to see she was safely away from Thomas Lockland’s family, who might wish her ill. There was a far-off place called Cura?ao, a Dutch Island where she might have a future that was very different from the solitary life in the fens that Hannah Owens had known. She could remain in a place where a woman alone had no rights to her own life or she could agree to her parents’ plan and travel half a world away where anything might be possible.