Magic Lessons (Practical Magic #0.1)(91)

“Not rescuing her isn’t killing her. Listen to me, girl. You didn’t kill her.”

Faith had a habit of biting her lips when deep in thought. Her dark red hair was braided and she wore a dress that was the same color as her silvery eyes. She might be beautiful someday, but not yet. “I’ve already decided,” she told her friend. “I intend to pay you back for all you’ve done.” Finney eyed her, uneasy, as she brought out a small bottle. “It’s the Tenth Potion, the strongest there is. We’re told not to make it, but I broke the rules. It can make anyone fall in love with you, and you with them. It’s unbreakable.”

Finney gazed at her, concerned. “Does your mother know?”

“This is between you and me.”

The elixir was set before him. It looked like wine, but the scent was of something that had been burnt. Finney had put up a good fight, but now he relented; he took a sip and considered. He’d had worse.

“Trust me,” Faith said. Her hands were folded in front of her. She was a very serious girl. Love was not her business, but repaying Finney for all he’d done was.

“I trust you to bury me if I die,” Finney quipped. Then he grew silent as he thought of his deep loneliness and all he’d lost. He gulped down the elixir. “God help me,” he said.

Faith ignored him and recited the incantation.

“Let the one who drinks this wine be granted true love divine.”

Nothing happened. “Your experiment has failed,” Finney was quick to say.

“I have to decide on who the right woman will be and she must drink as well. Once she does there is no going back.”

“That’s not exactly comforting.” Finney patted Faith’s head as if she were a child, then got up to see to Arnold. “I only hope it doesn’t work on horses.”

Faith laughed and went into the house. She and Keeper set off for the butcher, where she would get a bundle of bones and meat scraps. She had a few women in mind for Finney. The fruit vendor’s daughter at the market, a neighbor who had recently lost her husband, a woman who sold books. She’d planned to take the Tenth with her, but in her hurry she left it on the garden table. Faith was happy to be with her beloved Keeper, forgetting that once magic has begun it cannot so easily be put away.



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The Tree of Heaven was blooming with the last of its red flowers when Maria set to work in the herb garden that day. She had been attempting to grow mampuritu, an herb from Cura?ao that was accustomed to warmer climates. It was a very stubborn herb. She had tried lighting a fire near it, to warm its roots, to no avail. Perhaps she should rid the garden of the herb, for it made her think of Samuel Dias, even when she didn’t wish to, and she was glad to be interrupted when Catherine Durant arrived at the gate, her little white dog following close behind. Catherine had been using Maria’s black soap, which so refreshed her that she looked ten years younger than her age. “Is this what happens to all of your customers?” she called to Maria, who was down on her knees, weeding between rows of parsley and sage. “Once we use your soap, we can’t live without it?”

Maria laughed and clapped the soil from her hands. She would always be grateful for the simple pie magic that had brought her daughter home. “For you,” she told Catherine, “the soap is always a gift.”

Catherine was thirsty from her walk from the Bowery, and when she saw the glass of wine on the table she sat on a metal chair and took a sip. Her dog jumped on her lap, barking, but Catherine ignored him, and, intrigued by the taste, she continued to drink. Her mouth began to tingle once she’d drained the elixir, as if she’d eaten nettles. She immediately knew there was an enchantment at work. Ordinarily she would have been indignant, but not on this day. What was meant to be would be, whether or not you approved. The truth was, she was curious to see what would happen next.

Finney walked out of the barn, smelling of horseflesh and sweat. He intended to tell Faith to stop the spell. There was no point going any further, not in his case. Love was an impossible, ridiculous goal for a person such as himself. What he’d had, he’d lost, and he thought it better to accept his life as it was. Finney would leave Manhattan and the false notion that he had found a home. He would go back on the road, perhaps to Connecticut, unknown territory devoid of memories. He was meant to be alone, and he’d become quite good at a solitary life; his horse was more than enough company. But there in the garden the peddler stopped as if struck. A force went through him, heart and brain, body and soul. The whole world seemed a wonder, the table and the chairs set out in the grass, the red flowers falling to the ground, the beautiful woman before him.

Catherine could read the man in the yard—a peddler, a widower, a man who was lost—but she viewed him through the power of the Tenth and therefore saw that he was a hero who put others first, who cared more for an old horse than most people cared for their neighbors and friends. She could see the young man he’d been, before his heartaches, when he liked to balance on stone walls and raced through fields on his father’s horses, when the women in his village claimed he was the handsomest man alive. Her little dog ran at Finney, barking protectively, but when the peddler reached down, the dog flopped over on his back, ready to be petted, as if Finney were a long-lost friend.



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