Magic Lessons (Practical Magic #0.1)(71)
“What is that supposed to be?” the peddler asked.
Jack Finney had grown fond of this odd girl through his dealings with her, for she had an endearing sort of charm. In his travels, he always looked for editions of books she might favor. He was a Cornishman who’d come to this country with nothing, after his wife and child had died of the pox. He’d wanted to be as far away from England as possible, but now he felt lost in this vast, flat land of Brooklyn, and it was a pleasure to speak to someone with whom he felt at ease. As far as he could tell, the girl was an outcast just as he was, a loner by nature or by design. Though she was now eleven, and had lived at the end of the world for nearly three years, she was less a child than anyone of her age the peddler had ever seen. She spoke with assurance and without the vanity and self-centeredness of childhood. Faith bit her lip when she was thinking and narrowed her eyes, and now she paid strict attention to the concoction on the stove.
“It’s a remedy,” she told Jack Finney. “If you let me have one of your glass jars, I’ll tell you the secret.”
She went on to teach him how to cure a cough. He wished he’d been aware of this cure when he’d had a child of his own who’d been ill with a similar disease, heartbreaking to watch when at the very last his daughter could not draw a single breath.
Finney gave Faith a jar with a cork top for her mixture. “How did you learn all this?” he asked.
Faith shrugged. She remembered bits and pieces, and sometimes whole spells, but the truth was, she’d been born with the knowledge. She returned to the house where she’d seen the crying woman, then knocked at the door and told the distraught mother that a spoonful of the tonic given twice a day would stave off the boy’s coughs. The woman was suspicious, but after Faith went on her way, she tested the cure by tasting a spoonful herself. There were no ill effects, so she gave a dose to her son. His coughing stopped that very night, and before long he was out and about, healthy as anyone.
The women in Gravesend took note of the child’s healing. Though Faith was only a girl, they began to seek her out. Perhaps she was too young to be a proper witch, but she seemed to have a natural talent for the Nameless Art. In time, people in need knew where to find her, within the cemetery gates on Friday evenings, the traditional time for working love spells, mirror magic, health tonics, and potions for reconciliation. Faith often suggested castor oil, milk, and sugar, a children’s tonic her mother had fixed in Boston, along with summer savory for colic. She made most use of the recipe for Fever Tea, to nip high temperatures in the bud, made of cinnamon, bayberry, ginger, thyme, and marjoram.
Faith climbed out her window no matter the weather, as soon as Martha Chase was in bed, for she hated to disappoint one of her clients, some of whom waited hours for her to appear and came from the far-off towns of Bushwick and Flatlands. Faith had recently bought a black book from the peddler to use as a journal. Finney had added a small bottle of ink and a pen, and she’d written down all she could remember from the nights when women in need came to her mother’s door. How to end toothache and insomnia and skin rashes, how to cast away bad dreams and regret, how to make amends, how to find happiness.
For her services, Faith was paid whatever a client might have. A bag of apples, forks and spoons, coins, pies, and once she was granted a pair of heavy black stockings. The payment didn’t matter. What mattered most was that Faith was still herself, even though the iron bracelets kept her from using her full talents. She had to trust in what her clients told her, for she was unable to read the lines on their right or left hands, the first of which, she remembered, revealed the future you are given, the other which allowed you to view the future you made for yourself.
By now, Faith Owens had grown into a gawky, tall girl, and the iron cuffs dug into her flesh. She wondered if without them she might be able to fly far from here and find her mother. She knew the map of the sky and could chart the world, north and south. She’d once known a man called Goat who could divine the stars and had pointed them out to her. Faith considered running away, but she didn’t know the name of the place they had come from so that she might return, only that there had been a bottomless lake nearby, and a water serpent who ate bread from her hands, and a wild black dog she’d found in the woods who never left her side.
Most of those who came in search of Faith were illiterate, and the fact that she could not only read and write, but could recite passages in Latin and Greek that she’d taught herself, amazed the women of Gravesend. As it turned out Faith had a prodigious memory and could recall the charms of Agrippa and Solomon that had been written down in Maria’s Grimoire. It was clear that sorcery was second nature to her. In New York magic was not outlawed and magic books were sold on the streets, hidden inside black covers, available at a high price for those willing to pay. It was possible to find copies of The Greater Keys of King Solomon, the conjurations and curses and spells written out by hand, explaining the knowledge and wisdom of that ancient king. The Mystical Alphabet, The Mystical Seal of Solomon, The Pentacles of Solomon, along with The Lesser Key, a Grimoire written by Cornelius Agrippa, a most secret explanation of the mysteries of mankind and nature—all could be found, if one knew where to look. Finney had managed to get his hands on a few of these books, but the prices he quoted to Faith were too dear. She had to depend on her memory and the notes she jotted down in bits and pieces in her black notebook.