Magic Lessons (Practical Magic #0.1)(97)
Maria had brought along a selection of dried and fresh herbs, including two it was clear the girl needed: dried blue violets as a tincture for mouth sores and linden root and yarrow for a racing heart, for the child’s heart was pounding so hard she kept her hands on her chest, frightened her heart would fly out from her body. Fortunately, Maria kept Tawa-tawa at hand, and grew it in pots on her windowsill, ready if Samuel Dias should return with a recurrence of the disease, though it seemed unlikely he would ever come back, for she hadn’t received a single letter from him since his departure.
The Dekker girl’s illness was far worse than Samuel’s. She had begun to bleed internally, and when she cried her tears were red. There were purple bruises blooming along her arms and legs; she could barely stand to be touched without crying out. She could not open her eyes when asked to do so, for she was too weak. Maria decided she would stay beside her patient until there was some improvement. On her way via a small corridor to the kitchen that was attached to the house, she passed a room that was filled with books. She went inside and stood at the desk. The minister had been working on a letter, open on his desk.
Too much is attributed to the devil and the witch or sorcery.
The minister was well acquainted with the Mathers, a family that had been instrumental in the witch trials, whose beliefs Dekker had come to believe were ridiculous opinions for godly, rational men. Maria thought over the minister’s writings as she soaked clean rags in cold water and vinegar to bring down the girl’s fever and then asked the cook to begin a fish bone broth. She boiled water to make Tawa-tawa tea for her patient and Courage Tea for herself. There was a reason fate had led her here, and she wished to be strong enough not to back down from what would come next. She was fighting darkness, which arose when it was least expected, in this case in the heart of a young girl, her own daughter.
Though the minister’s wife did not believe in magic, she said nothing when Maria poured a line of salt along the window ledge and hung the brass bell above the door, or when she dressed the child in a clean blue nightdress. Maria rubbed rosemary-infused oil over Anneke’s aching bones before spooning Tawa-tawa tea between her parched lips. The poor child had been speaking to herself in a fever; she wished to be put out of her misery and no longer had the will to live. Hannah sat on a chair beside the bed, quietly weeping until Maria whispered they must show the girl they had faith in her recovery. She then went to tend to the child.
“We will rid you of misery and you will live until you’re a very old woman with white hair,” Maria assured Anneke. But you will never be a child again, she thought, not after such pain. You will be a person of compassion, who will be unable to walk past another’s suffering without doing your best to aid them. She crooned Hannah Owens’ song, the one that had comforted her when she was a babe, and that she had then sung to Faith on board the Queen Esther and in the woods of Essex County. Anneke begged for her to sing it again and again, and Maria was happy to comply, for the song always reminded her of home.
The water is wide, I cannot get o’er it
And neither have I wings to fly
Give me a boat that shall carry two
And I shall row, my Love and I.
When Cockle Shells turn Silver bells
And mussels grow on every tree,
When frost and snow shall warm us all,
Then shall my love prove true to me.
The minister heard the tune and came to stand in the doorway of the bedchamber, dismayed by the old folk song as he stood watching the stranger care for his daughter. It was a song sung by the cunning folk, people he held in low esteem. He watched as Maria washed the child’s matted hair in a bowl with warm water and black soap that had a distinctive sweet scent. Rose and rosemary, sage and lavender. Maria had a beautiful, clear voice, and Anneke, who had tossed and turned in the throes of pain, at last lay quietly, taken up by the song. Her improvement was so quick it appeared that magic was at work, had there been such a thing, for the minister didn’t believe in enchantments, only in the ignorance of those who had faith in sorcery. Maria did not leave Anneke’s side, remaining by her bed, where she hemmed the girl’s nightdresses with blue thread.
The minister drew his wife into the hallway. “We don’t know a thing about this woman you’ve brought here. Who’s to say she won’t poison our daughter with her potions?”
Hannah Dekker went to her knees and begged her husband to allow Maria Owens to continue to treat Anneke. When he saw how distraught his wife was, the minister had no choice but to agree. Still, when he returned to the room later that night he found that Maria was burning a white candle onto which she had carved the name of the disease, the name of the child, and the date. He was ill at ease, and insisted on tasting the tea Maria was feeding the child; once he had, the bitterness of the drink worried him. “Will this not make her more ill?” he asked.
“I know breakbone fever and you either will trust me to do my best, or I can assure you, your girl will not live.”
The minister sat beside Maria and watched the candle flicker. He had one child, and Maria knew what that was like. You carried your heart in your hand.
“You can have me thrown in jail if I fail you,” she told him. “You can have me hanged.”
The minister exhaled a soft, brittle laugh. “I prefer not to do so. I prefer that my daughter lives.”
“Then we’re in agreement. That is what I prefer as well.”