Magic Lessons (Practical Magic #0.1)(89)

In May of that year one of those set to be arrested was a sixteen-year-old girl who had first seen a jail cell when she was a child who accompanied her grandmother, Lydia Colson, visiting Maria Owens after her arrest. When young Elizabeth Colson heard there was a warrant drawn out for her signed by the magistrates, she disappeared into the woods. Her grandmother packed a basket of food and told her to go to New York, where she could find a woman Lydia Colson had once helped who might assist them in return. One could hope that their kindness would be remembered, and perhaps repaid.

By the time Elizabeth arrived in Manhattan, she was exhausted and terrified. She’d stopped in Cambridge overnight, then made her way to Connecticut, where the witchcraft mania had spread to New Haven. Her cousins there had helped her leave in the middle of the night, but the hired carriage driver had beaten her and stolen what little she had. She made the rest of the way alone, all the while in fear of the large wildcats in the hills of Connecticut. At last she reached Manhattan, taking a ferry that disembarked near the Fly Market. She asked vendors if they might know a woman named Maria Owens. The fruit seller knew such a woman and the fishmonger did as well, although neither knew her address. The fishmonger’s daughter, however, called Elizabeth aside, for she had gone once for a love charm, and she knew exactly where Maria Owens could be found.



* * *



When Elizabeth rapped on the door, a suspicious red-haired girl appeared, her black dog at her side. Faith was an unwelcoming figure, glaring at the unexpected guest with narrowed gray eyes, for the sight allowed her to know where the girl had come from. “You’re from Salem,” Faith blurted.

“I’ve come to see Maria Owens.” Elizabeth lowered her voice. “I fled before the constables could arrest me.”

“For what crime?” Elizabeth certainly didn’t appear to be a criminal, but then neither had Martha. People could surprise you, each and every time. When Elizabeth hesitated, Faith assured her that she could be trusted. “I’m Maria’s daughter. We have no secrets.”

It was hardly true, but Elizabeth wished to believe Faith; they were not so far apart in age, and perhaps she imagined she had found a friend in whom she could confide. She glanced over her shoulder to the crowded street. There was a good deal of foot traffic and several carts and wagons, but no one paid the girls the least bit of attention. “Witchcraft.”

Faith held back a laugh. “You’re not a witch.”

“True enough. But the truth won’t save me from hanging.”

Faith took the other girl’s hand and looked into her palm. “I see that you’ll live.”

“Are you a fortune-teller?” Several of those arrested in Salem had practiced palmistry and other forms of parlor magic in which they promised to divine who future husbands and wives might be.

“Not at all,” Faith said, drawing the visitor inside. “I just know that if you’re here with us, you’ll be safe.”



* * *



They had a dinner of chicken pie closed into a coffin of crust that had been flavored with rosemary, and to celebrate their guest’s determination to make her way to New York, Maria fixed a delicacy called Hedgehog Pudding, consisting of bread and raisins, sweet cream and eggs and butter, which was then decorated with slivers of blanched almonds pointing upward like spikey spines. She was delighted to see Elizabeth so grown up and remembered what a dear child she’d been, but the evening took a turn when Maria heard the details of what was transpiring in Salem. She felt a deep sense of foreboding, and when she asked who was at the heart of the witch mania, she was not surprised when John Hathorne’s name was spoken. He was one of the magistrates hearing the cases of the accused, well known to be the most unforgiving among the judges, badgering the women who were called before him, forcing admissions from prisoners who hadn’t eaten or slept but had been beaten with sticks and leather straps, accepting spectral evidence of the worst sort, pure madness and gossip masquerading as truth.

Faith noticed that her mother shivered when she heard about this judge and his deeds.

“Do you know this man?” she asked.

“I don’t believe I ever truly did.”

But she certainly knew what he was guilty of: seduction, betrayal, lies, abandonment, pride.

Despite the Owens’ hospitality, Elizabeth had decided she would not be able to stay. Her Connecticut cousins had confided that when the constables came to arrest her and found her missing, they had taken her grandmother in her place. She realized she had erred in coming to New York.

“You can’t go back,” Maria told Elizabeth Colson. “It’s far too dangerous.”

Still, it was clear the girl wouldn’t desert her grandmother in the old woman’s time of need. Elizabeth had an honest heart and was young enough to believe that she was dealing with reasonable men who would release her grandmother when she gave herself up. She stayed a single night and left in the morning. Before they’d gone to bed, Faith had whispered she would leave something for Elizabeth that might be useful, in the rear of the garden. She’d kept her word. There between the neat rows of rosemary and cabbages was an amulet for Elizabeth to wear close to her heart. Inside the velvet pouch was powdered vervain, used in dark acts of magic, and a slip of black rope tied into knots to protect her three times. A note had been written upon black paper with red ink that disappeared as soon as it was read.