Magic Lessons (Practical Magic #0.1)(4)
This was true magic, the making and unmaking of the world with paper and ink.
* * *
It was said that if any of God’s creatures could think like a man, it would be a crow, for they have minds that never rest. Cadin was a great collector and brought back all manner of treasures discovered in the surrounding villages and towns, found at the great estates as well as the laborers’ hovels, spied from above by his bright vision of the world below. What belonged to others was fair game for him to steal, and rich or poor made no difference; they all had something worthwhile. He could flick in through a window and flit out again, or dive into a trash bin, or pick through a garden. Buttons, spools of thread, coins, children’s poppets, horse hairs, and once, on a bright blue day when he could see farther than any other beast or man, he brought back a hairpin, clearly stolen from a lady in a castle, a lovely, intricate object that had tiny rubies set into the silver. Maria, now nearly eight, was in the meadow when Cadin swooped down to drop this miraculous find at her feet. He had been somewhat wounded in his attempts at stealing the treasure he now offered, and there was a small scar on his head.
Maria wore a blue skirt and a woolen bodice with narrow sleeves, along with stockings Hannah knitted and a linen smock. The child was still as fearless as ever. What fell from the sky, she was happy to collect and examine.
“Oh, look, Hannah,” she cried. “My Cadin’s a robber.”
Hannah came around from the apothecary garden as Maria was studying the pin that had been cast into the tall grass. In the girl’s hands the silver turned black in an instant, as if brushed with dark paint, though the rubies shone more brightly because of her touch. Hannah clutched the leeks she had gathered to her chest, and felt an ache inside her bones. The wide-brimmed straw hat she wore to protect her from the sun fell from her head, and she didn’t bother to go after it. What she had long suspected had now been shown to be true. She’d felt it from the start, that first day under the junipers when she spied the baby in her basket, a rare sight that had spread cold pinpricks along her spine. As she’d unwrapped Maria from her blanket, she’d spied an unusual birthmark in the shape of a star, hidden in the crease of the girl’s inner elbow. Right away she wondered if this was the cause of the child’s abandonment, for bloodline witches were said to be marked in such sly, concealed places, on the scalp, upon the small of the back, at the breastbone, along the inner arm. It was one thing to learn magic, but quite another to be born with it.
Ever since, Hannah had kept watch for telltale signs. Over the years omens had appeared, one after the other, clear evidence of the child’s unusual nature. As soon as she could speak, Maria could predict the weather, just as a crow can tell when a windstorm will come, often beginning to fly erratically hours before the first gusts. Maria could taste snow in the air and know the skies would open before rain fell. She had the ability to speak backwards, an unsettling trait, and it sometimes seemed she could converse in the language of birds, calling the crow to her with a sharp clacking sound, and chattering with magpies and doves. Even the cheeky sparrows came to her when called, and sat in the palm of her hand, calmed by her presence and comforted by her touch. When only a babe, she cut her finger on a thorn bush, and the blood that spilled onto the ground had burned through the grass, turning it black. That was when Hannah first felt her suspicions to be correct, but if she wanted undisputable proof it was now right in front of her, for silver turns black when held in a witch’s hand.
“I ruined it,” Maria said, frowning as she showed off the blackened hairpin.
“Nonsense. You’ve made it far prettier. See how the red stones glow?” Hannah had the girl turn around so that her long hair could be gathered and tacked up with the crow’s pin to keep the tangled mass atop her head. “Now you look like a queen.”
Later Hannah caught the girl staring in a handheld mirror. It was black painted glass in which a person could see her future if she knew what to look for. Some called it scrying or prophesizing, but it could only be properly handled by a true witch. Hannah chuckled when she saw how entranced Maria was by her own countenance, for clearly the girl had the gift of sight. Still Hannah feared for her fate, for this was the day when Maria realized she would be beautiful, for all the good it would do her in this cruel, heartless world.
* * *
Whatever her heritage might be, there was magic in Maria. At eight, her letters were more shapely than Hannah’s. At nine, she could read as well as any educated man. Had she been allowed access to books in Latin and Hebrew and Greek, surely she would have learned those ancient languages as well. Hopefully, her canny intelligence would benefit her when she was on her own, a future Hannah fretted over, and the cause of many sleepless nights. A child unprotected was at the mercy of those who wished to ill-use her. As the ultimate protection against the merciless ways of fate, Hannah began work on the only legacy she could give the child, a personal journal called a Grimoire, meant for the eyes of the user alone, a book of illumination in which cures and remedies and enchantments were documented. Some called such a text a Book of Shadows, for it was meant solely for the use of the writer and the formulas within often disappeared when looked at by a stranger. The first Grimoire was said to be The Key of Solomon, perhaps written by King Solomon, or, far less impressive, by a magician in Italy or Greece in the fifteenth century. The book contained instructions for the making of amulets, as well as invocations and curses, listing the rules for summoning love and revenge. Solomon was believed to have been given a ring engraved with a pentagram that had the power to bind demons, and there were those who said that the angel Raziel gave Noah a secret book about the art of astrology, written on a single sapphire and brought with him on the Ark. The Sworn Book of Honorius, an ancient magical treatise Hannah had found in the royal family’s library when she was a girl, advised no woman should be allowed to read its incantations and invocations. Those women who could read were revered and feared, for they were the most skilled in love magic.