Magic Lessons (Practical Magic #0.1)(88)
Cures for Common Illnesses
Linden root and yarrow for racing hearts.
Oatmeal and almond meal for cleaning one’s face.
Rosemary oil for the hair, or a tonic of lemon and rosemary.
Lavender for sleeplessness.
Ginger root for diarrhea.
Cabbage leaf poultices for wheezing.
Darker ingredients were in demand as well: squid ink, thought to make tangible whatever was written in script, the hollow bones of birds for divination, mushrooms for erotic adventures or for revenge, seeds and oils to end a pregnancy, a knotted rope to burn and the ashes then eaten to bring forth a child. And there was love, always love, which was in the highest demand. Some unscrupulous vendors sold merchandise that was nothing more than wilted weeds, or a smudge of ashes said to be made of a dove’s heart but were nothing more than pipe leavings swept into tins, or perhaps rosemary oil flecked red with paint pigment or madder root, all of it dubbed with false Latin names. These unprincipled merchants played at magic, cheating clients in exchange for false cures that either wouldn’t work or, in some cases, might cause real harm if ingested. The names of those who were true to the Nameless Art and could be trusted were passed from friend to friend and sister to sister, as valued as silver.
Women came to the door of the house on Maiden Lane, as they had in both Essex Counties. They came at dusk, making certain they would not be recognized by neighbors or friends. Some had recently traveled across the sea in search of missing husbands, of which there were many, men who had left their wives behind in Ireland or England so they might disappear into new lives in Manhattan, often claiming not only new names after they’d vanished, but new wives as well. Try as Maria might to avoid love, it arrived at her doorstep, time and time again, and, despite her resolve to stay as far away as possible from the madness of raw emotion, she gave her clients what they wanted most in the world.
How to Bring a Lover Home
Cook honey with nightshade, add a curl of his hair and let it rest on the windowsill. If your beloved is nearby he will appear, but if he has disappeared into the wilderness a bird will take his place. Tie a scrap of paper with your name written upon it to the bird’s leg and let it fly out your window. If your beloved is alive, the bird will find him and he will return, though it may take months or years.
Nail a wishbone over your front door.
Stick two silver pins into a red candle. When the flames burn down to the pins, your lover will arrive.
Are you sure you want him? Maria would always say about the man in question before she began an enchantment, for it was possible for a woman who had been unburdened by a husband to begin a new life in New York, one that she alone commanded. Oh I’m sure, most would say, not minding Maria’s disapproval. These women had put effort into their desires, arriving in the dead of night, leaving the rented rooms of their boardinghouses or the cots set up in the parlor of a relative’s flat, all to regain what they’d lost. But every now and then there were those who reconsidered, leaving without any help from Maria. And then there were those who found the men they’d searched for only to return for a different sort of remedy. He’s changed, these women said, he’s not the one, it’s all a mistake, save me, help me, give me back my own life.
Love was complicated; Faith had understood that even before she took to sitting on the stairs to watch these women come and go. She shook her head in wonder at what fools humans could be. Let them throw their lives away and weep over lovers who would only cause them pain and agony. Let Maria Owens trade in the thing that had caused her grief. Faith had studied love, but it wasn’t her business, and it never would be. She had something else in mind.
She had been in Manhattan for close to two years, and had grown up faster than most. By now she was tall, with a newfound grace, and a cool, distant gaze. She hadn’t left the practice of acting like an obedient girl, but she was anything but mild mannered. Faith climbed out the window on Maiden Lane, just as she had done in Brooklyn. Habits died hard, and she had the habit of doing as she pleased, even if that meant there were those who must be deceived.
She set up her practice near the grove of linden trees beside the Minetta Stream, where indigent men lived in canvas tents and the poor were buried without stones to mark that they had ever walked on this earth. This was where her craft had led her, to a hollow where the ferns were as tall as she and the earth was muddy and damp and vengeance came easily. Faith felt it inside her, spreading out from the red splotch in the center of her left hand that she had never been able to wash away. She was called to dark places, such as this. The birds did not sing here and the frogs did not call, although there were hundreds of peepers on the banks of the stream. If a woman wanted something other than what she could find in Maria Owen’s kitchen, she came here. If she had been mistreated and damaged and betrayed, if she wanted revenge, she came up the path, no matter how perilous it might be to walk alone in the dark woods.
Come to me and I will never judge you. I am just a girl and you can tell me anything, who hurt you, who you wish to defy, who should pay for their acts against you.
* * *
The hysteria in Salem began in the winter of 1692, stretching into the spring. Bridget Bishop was the first woman to be arrested, and the first to be hanged, on June 10. By September, twenty people had been executed. When the news about what was occurring reached New York, there was shock, especially among the Dutch community, who did not agree that the devil walked among men, or that it was proper to make use of spectral evidence based exclusively on dreams and visions, with no practical proof. The original Dutch settlers were serious-minded people who believed what they saw with their own eyes, but such was not the case in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.