Magic Lessons (Practical Magic #0.1)(19)

“Mrs. Jansen wouldn’t like a bird here. She’ll say it’s filthy and will ruin her house,” Juni warned, not that Maria cared.

“Mrs. Jansen doesn’t need to know.”

Juni smiled at her then. The new girl seemed more interesting than most, and she thought she would be pleased to see how the household was provoked by someone who didn’t seem concerned with their rules.

As soon as Maria was rid of her grimy clothes that she had worn day in and day out, and had washed with strong soap and water so hot it stung, she began her new life. She was only a girl and exhausted from her journey, but she would do as she must in order to survive. There were two other servants sharing their chamber, sisters from Manchester, England, who had only another year to work off their debt.

“We’ll be gone in the blink of an eye,” the sisters boasted simultaneously, for they had the habit of saying the same thing at the same time. They thought they were better than Juni because her mother had been a slave, and better than Maria, who was so young and inexperienced.

Maria waited for the other girls to go to supper, then she hid her Grimoire beneath the floorboards before going off to explore. She knew well enough to keep her bloodline a secret, for her talents could bring her luck or misery. It was a curious place she found herself in, the opposite of all she had known. Where there had been darkness, there was now light. Where there had been a solitary life, there was now a bustling household. Much of the living space was outside, and as she crossed the courtyard she marveled at how in this arid, subtropical land there could be a garden that was so lush. She walked along a path that was bordered by mangoes and Jamaican apple trees and brilliant flowering aloe vera speckled with yellow blooms. It was here she set Cadin free. She had crafted an amulet to wear around her throat with a single black feather, so she knew he would always be called back to her, no matter how far he might go. The bird studied her from the branch of a guava tree, then rose into the dusky air of this new world of theirs. By now it was evening. The moon itself seemed different here, glowing with pale silver light. In the salt flats there were miraculous birds, flamingoes, white and scarlet ibis, green herons, great blue herons, and the black-crowned night heron that cried in the dark as if it were a woman pleading for her life. But of all of these, it was the robber crow that was most beautiful to Maria, for he had more compassion than any man she had ever met, and far more loyalty.



* * *



At supper, Maria was served funchi, a soft cornmeal dish, along with a small bowl of stoba, a spicy stew flavored with papaya, leftover from the Jansen family’s dinner. It was a large household, the Jansens and their three daughters, all nearly grown and looking for husbands. Juni and the sisters explained there was more than enough work for them all; they were pleased that Maria had come to stay. As for Maria, she was polite and cheerful, for Hannah had always said there was no need to ever let anyone know what you were thinking. Why be punished for your thoughts or beliefs? Maria believed no one should have her life signed over to another, but she kept quiet, knowing that, in the end, she would do as she pleased. To amuse the other girls she told fortunes by examining the lines on their hands. She had informed them that for women the right hand was the fate they were born with, but the marks on the left hand told the story of what they had experienced, the choices that had changed their original fates. The heart line was always most interesting; it was the mark that showed who was selfish, who would be content, and whose heart would be easily broken. She told them all they would fall in love and marry, which was true enough, leaving out the details they wouldn’t wish to hear: who would fall in love too easily and who would find sorrow and who would make a choice she would later regret. The Manchester girls were pleased with Maria’s special talent and called her their little sister. Little sisters would do well to be cunning, and it was wise for Maria to get along with everyone, at least for as long as it suited her, and it would have to suit her until she was free. She had one last precious orange left from those her mother had given her, and this she shared with the other housemaids before they fell into their white metal beds, the girls so happy to have her among them that no one complained when she left the window open on warm evenings to make certain that Cadin could always come home.





1679

III.




No one knows where time goes, all the same it disappears. Maria had turned fifteen in this strange land that still seemed like a dream. Every color was vivid, and when she stood in the brilliant light she sometimes found herself yearning for the dark green of the forest where ferns turned black in the frost. She didn’t wish to be a servant, she wouldn’t wish it on anyone, still she continued to do the work expected of her, seeing to the list Mrs. Jansen gave her each morning. She had become an excellent cook, and had learned to leave and enter a room without making a sound, walking barefoot on the tiles so as not to disturb the members of the Jansen family. Maria combed the Jansen daughters’ hair, washed in rum to keep it strong, and stitched their wedding dresses. She learned that eggs would keep well in limewater, that quicksilver beaten into egg whites could poison bedbugs, that lamp wicks would not smell bad if the cotton wick yarn was rinsed with vinegar, then dried in the fresh air. She was taught to shake carpets rather than sweep them and to wash silk dresses in green tea to restore their shine. During the day, she kept her eyes lowered and kept her mind on the tasks at hand. At night, however, she did as she pleased after Mr. and Mrs. Jansen went to sleep on the sheets she and Juni had washed with a harsh soap composed of lye and ashes, before they were hung out to dry in the garden, to ensure that the fabric would smell sweet, scented by fresh air and the clouds of fragrance rising from flowerbeds.