Magic Lessons (Practical Magic #0.1)(23)

Maria told Mrs. Jansen she grew rue in the garden to keep away flies, without mentioning that it also checked lust, something her clients often wanted to feed to their men, along with a tincture of wild lettuce to reduce longings. Perhaps Maria should drink such a mixture herself, perhaps she should bathe in lettuce water, as she had suggested to others in dire situations, for the pale green water was helpful in extinguishing desire. Instead she stood where she was, and that was how she came to tie her life to John Hathorne’s, despite the fact that she had sworn she would never belong to any man. Love begins in curious ways, in daylight or in darkness, when you are in search of it or when you least expect to find it. You may think it is one thing, when in fact it is something else entirely: infatuation, loneliness, seduction.

John Hathorne had been so deep in thought he hadn’t noticed her presence until he turned to see her. At first he believed he might have conjured her, for there were people who said a dream could be brought to life in the waking world. He had faith in the goodness of God, but he was also certain that life was a mystery and that one must fight against the forces that opposed mankind. All the same he was a man of thirty-seven, with a man’s flaws and weaknesses. He had never seen a young woman who was as captivating as Maria, and what was even more charming, it was clear she didn’t even know she possessed the power to enchant.

“I’ve acted in error,” Hathorne murmured. It was something he would say forever after; he would say it in his sleep, in his own bed at home, and on his last day on earth.

He was more than twenty years older than Maria, but that made no difference. He was tall, quite handsome, with distinctive features and an intense gaze. She saw the person he was at that very moment, the one he’d become ever since he stepped onto the dock here in Cura?ao. He’d let go of the darkness that was always pooled inside him in his Massachusetts life, and along with it the burden of being his father’s son, for William Hathorne had come to the new world in 1630 and was one of the first men to establish the Massachusetts Bay Colony. The elder Hathorne was a well-known, respected magistrate and trader, an assistant to the governor and a deputy representing the town of Salem for many years, a fierce persecutor of the more freethinking Quakers, a man who owned most of Salem Village. Everything John had done was to please William Hathorne, but the upright man John had forced himself to become had flown away like a night bird upon his arrival on the island and left him to return to the person he’d been as a boy, before he, too, had become a magistrate trained to judge others, before he’d taken over the family shipping business in which every cent must be accounted for, and every bargain must be in his favor.

He’d come to the house to take coffee with Mr. Jansen before they continued on to the Jansens’ warehouse, where they were to discuss their trade, but the courtyard had confused him, and he’d found his way to the dining room rather than the study and had entirely missed Jansen, who by now, annoyed to have been kept waiting, had already left for the docks. Jansen wasn’t the only one who was frustrated. Hathorne himself felt the trip would likely be a waste, and it had been, until he saw Maria Owens, who was wearing a blue ribbon in her hair for protection and luck.

Hathorne was a man from a county north of Boston, who often traveled into the White Mountains, so called because they were said to have snow all year round. He had a house in Newburyport and another in Salem. His ships brought iron ore and lumber from Massachusetts to trade for tobacco and sugar and coffee in Cura?ao and Jamaica. He had undertaken this trip to better know his business and understand how it might further prosper. He thought of the Antilles as places to be tolerated, full of uneducated, superstitious people, but as soon as he stepped off the ship he felt a sort of enchantment. The blistering heat had overwhelmed him, and the palette of endless blues was blinding in the stark light. The charm and heat of the island brought up a welter of emotions that Hathorne was unused to experiencing. New England was a place of darkness and, in the evenings, of fear. Wild beasts roamed the mossy woods, and the native people were angry at how much land had been stolen and settled. Where he came from, every moment must be accounted for, in the meetinghouse and at home, and punishments were fierce. There were the stocks for those who were known to commit crimes concerning both legal matters and matters of faith. There were rules that were never to be broken. But here on Cura?ao, he felt himself to be a different man, and that was the man Maria stumbled upon in the dining room.

She saw him not as he had been, or would be, but as he was at that very minute. He had been listening to the birds outside the window, and he stood in a block of yellow sunlight when she first spied him. Now that they were face-to-face, he ran a hand through his dark hair, confused by his own strange emotions. Hathorne looked younger than his age and he felt as if he was no more than twenty. He was not a man who easily let his appetites arise, and now he supposed it was joy he was experiencing; perhaps it was a gift to feel this way. Certainly, it was a feeling that was most uncommon. He came from Essex County in Massachusetts, named after the very place from which Maria fled in England, an omen she would not fully understand until much later, when she stood in a green field outside his house, a cold ocean away, a place where the ferns turned black in the winter, and evil was seen by those who lived their lives with fear and intolerance.

“I’ve somehow made a mistake. I’ve missed your father and I should be at the warehouse. If you could direct me, miss, I’ll be on my way.”