Magic Lessons (Practical Magic #0.1)(51)

Soon after Nathaniel Hatch disappeared, women in need of cures began to come to Maria’s door, always late, when most of the good people in town were in bed. Anne Hatch’s mistreatment was not as much of a secret as she had wished it to be, and it quickly became known that she’d had assistance in righting her life. In these times, most people turned to homemade remedies that could often cause more harm than good. They believed babies who died in their cradles had the life sucked out of them by Satan’s emissaries or by cats, which were thought to be untrustworthy, evil creatures. They thought that the skin of an eel could cure rheumatism, and believed that beating a child who had fits, with a thin switch cut from a young tree, would drive the devil from his body. Now, for the sake of themselves and their children, they turned to Maria Owens for other remedies.

Frustration Tea for granting good cheer, good for those who grieve.

Caution Tea for wild children, such as boys who carry shotguns or dream of running off to sea.

Fever Tea, to nip high temperatures in the bud, made of cinnamon, bayberry, ginger, thyme, and marjoram.

Courage Tea as an antidote for fear, grief, and facing the world’s trials, one cup reminds you to always be who you are.



On these nights, Faith sat on her bed in the dark, with Keeper beside her, and her favorite old poppet close by as she listened to the voices in the kitchen. She quickly came to understand that her mother’s visitors often came to deal with illness, and when it came to the matter of love, there were only certain kinds that Maria would approach. Love that made a woman willing to walk through the brambles late at night and beg for a remedy. As for herself, Maria never spoke John Hathorne’s name; all the same Faith knew that her mother had been betrayed by a man who was a judge. When they went to town on market days and passed the courthouse, Faith would linger behind, close her eyes, and imagine her father at his desk. John always felt a chill when she did this, and he would go to look out the window. Each time he spied her standing in the cobbled streets, he closed the shutters and turned away.

“What’s keeping you?” her mother would call.

“Not a thing,” Faith would say. But each time she grew more convinced, and by her next birthday, when she turned six, Faith Owens had already made a vow that she would never fall in love.





III.


There was a woman who came through the fields at night, but unlike Maria’s customers, she never once knocked on the door. Martha Chase didn’t believe in magic, and yet she was drawn here, made to get out of her bed and walk through the fields in her nightdress. She had spied Faith Owens by the lake, running on the rocks without stockings or shoes as if she were a wild child. She had often returned to watch Faith play, hiding behind the inkberry bushes, crying hot, salty tears.

Martha wore her rope of pale hair pinned beneath a white bonnet, which she removed only once a month, to wash her hair in a basin in a locked room. She’d had a husband, but he died of the spotted fever, and she had to dig his grave herself and had been quarantined for three months after his death. It didn’t really bother her to be rid of him. He had been a cruel and distant man and she would not miss him for a minute. If the truth be told, she’d had a fierce distaste for her husband and had never approved of his lust and the desires that coiled and uncoiled depending on how much rum he had to drink. What tore at her was that her future seemed to die on the day of his funeral, for his absence on earth meant she would not have a child of her own.

She did her best to have no pride, to follow the Scriptures, and to never veer from the righteous path. But she, too, had a desire, one that flamed so brightly there were times when a hole burned through her dress and singed the fabric at her chest, as if her heart could not contain what it wanted more than patience, more than obedience, more than honor, more than deliverance. She wanted a daughter. Her marriage had lasted years and she had tried every remedy. Now she stood in the woods, lurking in the dark as she watched the red-haired girl climb around the shore of the lake or collect vegetables in the overgrown garden, and she thought it so unfair that a witch should have what she herself wanted most in the world.



* * *



Martha Chase was at the shop buying fabric for a new gray dress, for her own dresses had been washed and pressed so many times they were threadbare, when she spied the child near the bins of flour and arrowroot and loaf sugar. For an instant she believed the Lord had heard her prayers and had delivered her heart’s desire, this angel of a child she had been watching from afar as she slunk through the woods in her nightdress, for this time the girl seemed to be there all alone. She was about to go speak with her when quite suddenly the dark-haired woman, the one people said was a witch, came down the aisle to take the child’s hand.

Martha felt a storm of spite rising inside. She was a plain woman, but not as simple as she proclaimed to be, she was haughty, for she believed she had been chosen to be in the Lord’s light. Her jealousy was turning into a ruthless desire, and with such an emotion came a plan. The girl and her mother wore colorful dresses that Maria had sewn, with purple skirts, dyed with cedar and lilac leaves, and yellow bodices, tinted with bayberry leaves. They went up and down the aisles of the shop, like chattering birds. There were barrels of Indian meal and rye, stored with a cold stone in the flour to keep them cool and stop them from fermenting, which could cause all sorts of maladies, including nausea and hallucinations. The girl’s mother was buying beans to soak, along with a tub of local honey, some dried plum-colored currants, and a bag of flour. Martha overheard the witch tell the little girl she would fix Indian pudding and that treat would be their supper. The witch then bought a bag of English tea, at a dear price. Martha didn’t waste her funds on expensive coffee beans or tea when there were homegrown substitutes, like Liberty Tea, made from loosestrife or a mixture of strawberry, currant, and sage.