Magic Lessons (Practical Magic #0.1)(67)

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The old man knew about them. He often didn’t remember what year it was, or what country he was in, but certain things were unmistakable and unforgettable. The sounds of love, for instance, were obvious. He heard them at night, and was glad that his son could find pleasure in this cruel world. Now Maria was late to breakfast, and Abraham chuckled to think of the reason. He was sitting at the table, having managed to get himself down the stairs. The black dog and he were both waiting to be fed. They were patient even though the hour for breakfast had long passed and their stomachs grumbled. On most days, Maria was awake long before the old man rose from bed, while the morning was still dark. But today the sun had been up for hours, and the old man and the wolf were still waiting.

When Maria finally came downstairs she was wearing her black dress, neatly buttoned. She had taken the time to comb the tangles from her hair and she had washed her face with black soap. She looked refreshed even though she’d barely slept.

“I thought I heard something last night,” Abraham said when Maria finally came downstairs. “Very late, when people should be asleep.”

“You heard nothing,” Maria insisted as she boiled water for Abraham’s tea. Abraham Dias liked his tea strong, with a slice of lemon when Maria managed to find one of those precious citrus fruits at the market stands.

“I know what I heard. Maybe now he’ll stay.” The old man always had bread and butter in the morning, which Maria set before him. Keeper was fed a portion of meat and bones.

“He won’t.”

“New York would be good for him,” the old man insisted. By now, Samuel Dias was a wealthy man and could easily turn his attentions to another line of work, one that was within the realm of the law. He could import rum from Cura?ao, or bolts of silk from France; he could find himself a warehouse, and an office nearby if he lived on Maiden Lane. “If he were here, you’d know when he was coming down with the fever. He’d be in your care.”

Maria threw Abraham a look. “That won’t happen,” she assured him, brewing herself a cup of Release Me Tea, a mixture that loosened love’s hold on a person, especially when combined with bitters and fresh radish root.

“He could be convinced,” Abraham said. “Especially if you helped me do so.”

In Abraham Dias’s opinion, if a man had to live on land, there was no better choice than Manhattan. Portuguese Jews from Brazil had come in 1654 when Portugal reclaimed Brazil from the Dutch, bringing the Inquisition with them. These original Portugals were greeted by governor Peter Stuyvesant, who had been unwilling to accept the group of twenty-three souls with no country and no home until he was pressured to do so by the original owner of the house on Maiden Lane, Jacob Barsimon, who had worked for the Dutch West India Company. The new immigrants were not allowed to build a synagogue, but the men met daily, and Abraham Dias had gone to these gatherings on Friday evenings in a small house near the harbor. In 1655 Jewish taxpayers had paid for nearly ten percent of the price to build the wall, later the site of Wall Street, to separate the city from the wilderness beyond. Although they were outsiders, Jews were watchmakers, tailors, butchers, importers of rum and chocolate and cocoa. Manhattan was a tolerant city, and if you didn’t provoke your neighbors or call attention to yourself, you could do as you pleased and worship as you liked.

“Let your son be who he is,” Maria told Abraham. “A man who lives at sea.”

“A man can change,” Abraham Dias assured her. After all, he was about to plant vegetables in the garden, his hands deep in the earth, which, at this late date, he found to be an unexpected pleasure.



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Maria went to the North River on the west side of the city to buy haddock and cod so she might simmer a broth of fish bones for Samuel’s supper, to strengthen his constitution. He had been healing all through the month of his recovery and was much improved. In the afternoons he sat in the garden with his father in the pale green sunlight, listening to stories he’d heard dozens of times before, and enjoying each one. He’d recently helped his father put in a row of lettuce, which distressed Maria. Why would Samuel bother with planting vegetables when he wouldn’t be there to see them grow?

She predicted he would be gone by the end of the week, and once away from her, he would be safe. The Queen Esther was docked, and it was likely most of the crew had begun to run out of funds and would soon be ready to be back at sea. If Maria wasn’t mistaken, she could see a flicker of longing for the sea in Samuel’s eyes when the wind picked up and the sea chilled the air, a hunger for his old life in which he didn’t have to sit at the dinner table at an appointed hour, here where the stars weren’t half as bright as they were out at sea. He was drawn to the harbor, where he stared out beyond Hell Gate. New York was blue and gray, a city surrounded by water, which called to him even though he wished to stay. The broad North River, later to be renamed the Hudson, ran two ways: seawater rushed to the north; fresh water flowed into the ocean. It was a river that couldn’t make up its mind, and Samuel appreciated that. He was born under the sign of water, and was himself often of two minds. He yearned to leave and he didn’t want to go. He had recently constructed a boat out of parchment by folding it this way and that for Maria’s amusement. Men on ships found all sorts of entertainments to while away the hours at sea. How to make a valentine out of shells, how to turn paper into cranes and birds and fish and boats, how to tell stories, how to be completely silent. When Maria set the paper boat in the river, it had turned one way and then the other. In the end, it did not set forth on either tide, north or south, but instead continued on in a circle until Samuel plucked it from the sea. It was a sign of his own indecision. On some mornings he packed his bag, on others he could not imagine ever leaving New York.