Magic Lessons (Practical Magic #0.1)(25)

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Maria served dinner, carrying a blue-and-white tureen from Amsterdam, wearing her best silk dress, one that had belonged to the Jansens’ youngest daughter. It was a pale sky-blue, the same shade as the walls, so that she appeared to be more shadow than woman. A maid should not be seen. Indeed, none of the guests paid the slightest attention to her, and when the visiting daughters and their husbands wanted a drink or a plate of food they gestured to her as they would to a dog. She was embarrassed that Mr. Hathorne would now know she wasn’t a member of the household and would see her true circumstances. Tonight she had refused to go barefoot, but instead wore her red boots. Let him see who she truly was. Let him back away from her if that’s what he wished to do.

Cadin was tapping at the window, but Maria was forced to ignore him. She was in service, and if the family knew she kept a black bird under their roof they would be furious. There were no crows on the island and black animals of all sorts were considered unlucky. Besides, Cadin had taken an instant dislike to John. Perhaps he was jealous, as familiars often were, for they wished to be closer to their human companion than anyone else. Maria wagged her finger at the window. Go away, she thought, although the farthest the bird went was to the branch of a nearby tree.

When Maria brought the platter of fish to present to John, he most certainly knew she was there. Clearly, she was not a daughter, but a housemaid, not that this seemed to bother him. He quietly said, “Is this turtle?”—a sly reference meant for her alone. He glanced at her and there it was, the connection between them, a thread that pulled them close.

“No, sir, but if you’d prefer turtle, I’ll see what I can do.”

Hathorne laughed and shook his head. “This is fine. But I forgot to thank you for showing me to the docks.”

“When I was ‘miss.’?”

“You’re still ‘miss.’?” No one was listening to them. “You will always be that to me.” He spoke softly and in earnest when he asked her to meet him in the courtyard. He pleaded, saying “You must, you must,” which was not at all like him. He himself seemed surprised by his ardor. But on this night he was so outspoken, he quickly turned to observe the others around the table, and was relieved when he saw they hadn’t noticed his behavior. “Please, miss, meet me there.”

When Maria could get away, she did so. She blushed to think of what she had conjured up, the first man to be in love with her. She was fifteen, the same age Rebecca had been when she first spied Thomas Lockland. Maria left her apron on the counter next to the pile of dishes in the kitchen, and she didn’t respond to Adrie’s disapproving expression. Men went to war and women fell in love, heedless and for reasons they might never understand. She could stop this and put it to rest right now. She could make an amulet for protection and speak the words that would keep him away; she could fashion an image of him and bury it in the earth outside her window where the centipedes nested, and he would never return. Instead, she ran a comb through her hair, and found her way to the courtyard. Turn back, something inside her said, but there was an element of defiance in her soul ever since the fire. Rebecca had told her that life was short and she should do as she pleased.

They met beneath the Jamaican apple trees, which bore pear-shaped fruit with red skin and white flesh. Cadin was perched in one of the boughs, and he created such a racket that Maria waved him away. But before he obeyed her, he dove at the stranger in a flutter of feathers, knocking the hat from Hathorne’s head.

“That’s a foul creature,” John declared.

“No more than I am,” Maria said, hurt by his estimation.

“If you believe so, then I’m mistaken.” By then the bird had flown from the garden and was no threat to him. “He must be another miracle.”

“He is, as a matter of fact.”

“If this is your opinion, I will agree.”

“Will you?” Maria was pleased.

He might have agreed to anything at that moment, for he received a kiss for agreeing with her, and then many more. Juni was asleep, her face to the wall, when Maria finally came to bed. The Jansens were in their chambers, sprawled out on newly pressed sheets woven in Amsterdam. Maria sat at the window when she returned to her room, her hair undone, her mind racing. She knew nothing about this man and yet she had given herself to him. This was what had befallen her, a madness of sorts, powerful and potent, brought on without a potion, without a spell. She did not wish to understand her mother’s actions, which had always seemed foolhardy and irresponsible, and yet she did.

This is the way it happens. You walk into a room with blue walls. You kiss a man in the garden. You feel your heart and bones and blood. You wait for him like a bird in a cage.



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On the second night they were together John vowed that he loved her, on the third night she was his, on the fourth night he gave her a sapphire on a silver chain that she said she would never take off, on the fifth night he brought her a small packet of diamonds to do with as she pleased. This was what she had seen in the black mirror, her future and her fate. He had presented her with what seemed an impossible gift for a girl such as herself, and yet here were seven small diamonds, shimmering in the palm of her hand. This was her future, a man who promised to cherish her. And so she let him slip his hands beneath her dress in a dark corner of the courtyard, she let him do whatever he pleased, for he said she was his heart’s desire, that he would always adore her. She told him that when they lived together she would plant lilacs outside the door; she would make a special entrance so that Cadin could come and go as he pleased; she would always wear blue, because Hathorne favored it so. Five days of dreams can seem like years, that was how well she thought she knew him. She did not need the sight, and instead let her heart lead her. But on the sixth night he didn’t appear. Maria sat in the courtyard until the sunrise of the seventh day, a number that represents all that is good and all that is evil. There were seven heavens and seven deadly sins, for seven was the most magical number of all, the one that led to wisdom, even for those who would rather remain blind to the truth.