The First Midnight Spell

by Claudia Gray

  Aunt Ruth was a witch, too, like nearly half of the women in Fortune’s Sound. (The menfolk believed they had joined together to found this town based on their own common interests and convictions; the fact that so many of their wives were all in the same “quilting circle” seemed no more than a coincidence to them.) But Aunt Ruth was stingier with her magic. She seemed to think spells should only be used when there was no other way. Elizabeth, sweating as she labored over the washing, didn’t agree.

  By noon they were ready to hang up the first batch of laundry. Her younger cousins weren’t tall enough to help much, so Elizabeth shooed them off and got to work. The wet sheets were heavy, and she struggled to get each one over the clothesline without letting a corner trail along the ground, get muddy, and ruin it all.

  “Need help with that?”

  Startled, she glanced over to see that Nat Porter stood nearby.

  How long had he be standing there, watching her work? Elizabeth wasn’t sure whether to be horrified or thrilled. Her face was no doubt flushed from the effort, and her hair had frizzed out from the edges of her cap . . . but he was here, now, and she had to make the best of it. “Would you mind? I’d greatly appreciate it.”

  “I don’t mind. It’s hard when you’ve only got young ones for help.” Nat got to work right beside her. He was growing into a tall man, easily able to reach and fold, and the extra pair of hands made the work light. At first Elizabeth was surprised that a man should be not only willing to help with the washing but obviously also familiar with the task. Then she remembered that he was the Widow Porter’s only child. No doubt he’d had to pitch in with every chore.

  Elizabeth had always found herself tongue-tied around Nat, but had told herself that was for the best. If it was impossible for her to marry Nat, then it would do her no good to get to know him better.

  But now she knew the First Laws weren’t as powerful as she’d assumed. The impossible now seemed tantalizingly plausible, and very, very near.

  So she said, “Good of you to offer.”

  “I don’t mind.” How she loved his simple, easy manner. “Truth be told, I always liked helping Ma with the washing, when I was little.”

  “You liked this?” Elizabeth had to laugh.

  “Not the lye soap. But I liked working with Ma, because she’d be silly with me, and we’d get to laughing. Once the sheets were hung up, I would pretend they were ghosts and spirits, run around making scary noises. You know. Children’s nonsense. That’s what all the best memories are made out of.”

  Elizabeth wanted to tell a story about her own childhood, something to match his. But in truth she had never been very silly, not even as a little girl. So she tried another tack. “Laundry’s not my least favorite chore. I’d do that any day before milking the cow! But at least the little ones are capable enough to handle her now.”

  “I imagine the cow likes it even less,” Nat said with a smile. His face seemed to catch all the spring sunlight and make it warm as summer.

  Keep talking, keep talking! Yet she found it hard to think of what to say. “My favorite—my favorite chore is sewing. I like to sew.”

  “My mother has some of your needlework. You’ve a good hand for it,” Nat replied. It was a commonplace nicety, and yet every word sang in her heart like poetry.

  “What about you?” she said. “What do you most enjoy doing?”

  “Heading over to New Barton, to trade.” Nat’s face took on a softer expression, thoughtful and almost dreamy. Perhaps New Barton was a more interesting place; certainly it was larger than Fortune’s Sound. Elizabeth had never left Fortune’s Sound since her ship had first arrived from England so many years before. Those weeks spent in the cramped space belowdecks, seasick and wave-tossed and despairing ever of seeing land—to her, that seemed like traveling enough for one lifetime.

  She found herself envying New Barton for whatever pleasure it gave Nat. Elizabeth wanted him to be that happy here. With her.

  That evening, after supper, Aunt Ruth gave permission for Elizabeth to walk over to Pru’s home. Her family was amiable, and would not mind unexpected company. Elizabeth longed to pour out the story of how she had finally spoken with Nat for a while alone.

  Laughter rang from the Godwins’ cottage as Elizabeth walked up; she had to pound on the door to be heard over it. Apparently the littlest children had tied some feathers to the end of a stick, and the entire family was taking turns teasing the cat with it so that she would leap in the air, twisting like a mad thing, in the delight of hunting nothing. Though Pru was, as usual, laughing more than all the rest, she quickly excused herself to sit outside in the moonlight with Elizabeth.

  No sooner had Elizabeth begun her story than Pru’s face fell. At first Elizabeth paid this no attention; she knew that Pru still considered the First Laws unbreakable, and thought Elizabeth should pay attention to some other boy. Yet as she went on, Pru looked more and more stricken—and when Elizabeth said the words New Barton, she actually clasped her hands together.

  Irritated, Elizabeth said, “Oh, stop trying not to make a face. You want to fuss, so, go ahead.”

  “I don’t want to fuss at you. Really I don’t. It’s just—” Pru had to swallow hard. “Elizabeth, you know why Nathaniel Porter likes going to New Barton, don’t you?”

  “He gets to trade. I suppose he likes seeing new places, too, though I don’t understand why. And he’s so good with horses. Surely he likes to ride.”

  “That may all be true, but that’s not why Nat’s been smiling so much lately.”

  Suspicion dawned within Elizabeth, shedding harsh light on the dreams she’d hidden in shadow. “What do you mean?”

  Pru’s eyes could no longer meet Elizabeth’s gaze. “The preacher over there—Reverend Hornby—he has a daughter a year or two older than us. Her name is Rebecca. Nat’s been courting her.”

  It couldn’t be true. It just couldn’t. “How do you know that?”

  “I was talking with John a few days ago,” she said. Pru’s face lit up at the mention of the boy she favored, and for a moment Elizabeth could have slapped her for feeling happy while Elizabeth’s own dreams were falling apart. “He knows. Nat and the other boys talk about it amongst themselves. Word has it he plans to ask for her hand soon, bring her back here to be married.”

  “If that’s so, then why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I never could find the words. Besides—Elizabeth, you couldn’t marry Nat no matter what. You know that; you’ve always known it! So I always told myself you weren’t letting yourself get carried away. It’s only been these past couple of days that I’ve realized just how much you care for Nat.”

  Elizabeth tried to imagine it—his walking away from her, time after time, to ride to New Barton and pay court to some other girl. It felt too sickening to be real.

  Pru put her arm around Elizabeth’s shoulders; Elizabeth was too stunned to shrug it away. “Oh, Elizabeth, I’m sorry. I know it must hurt, wanting someone you can’t be with. But you’ve got to put it behind you. Have yourself a good cry, then think about other things. Like that new spell you wanted to try, or—or some other fellow in town. Roger Brooke’s getting rather handsome, don’t you think?”

  Pru must assume I’m as stupid as her cat, Elizabeth thought. She believes that she can twitch a new set of feathers, and I’ll go leaping at that instead. To think that Pru claimed to love Jonathan Hale! She didn’t know the first thing about love, if she thought it could be set aside so easily.

  Elizabeth would have said as much, too, had they both not heard footsteps coming up the hill. They straightened to see a shadow taking shape in the night. It was the Widow Porter.

  Had she heard them? Elizabeth was seized by a momentary panic—but no. Widow Porter’s hearing was not the best, and they had not been speaking loudly. She was coming to see them for some other purpose.

  “There you are, girls,” she said. “Elizabeth, I went looking for you at your home, but I would have come here a
fter. I hoped to speak with you both.”

  This could only be about the Craft. Pru said, “Should I get my mother?”

  “No, this is for you two.” Widow Porter took something from her pocket; Elizabeth recognized it as Goodwife Crews’s abandoned bag of charms. “These need new homes, don’t you think?”

  Pru looked stricken. Apparently she still felt pity for Goodwife Crews. Yet she held out her hands obediently. “Quartz,” Widow Porter said. “I know you have some already, but this one is larger and more pure. It should give your work more accuracy.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.” Pru bobbed her head. The quartz glinted in the moonlight, a pale and misty pink.

  Before Elizabeth could be jealous, though, Widow Porter turned to her. “This is the last of the charms I’m giving away. The last and the finest. It should be with you.”

  Into Elizabeth’s waiting palm, Widow Porter dropped a pearl.

  It was perfect: smooth, round, seeming to glow from within, like a miniature moon. Pru gasped, and Elizabeth couldn’t even speak. Pearls were rare, and very hard to come by. Usually only the wealthiest witches in the biggest cities could expect to have one, which meant they alone could cast the more difficult magic spells that required a pearl.

  “Why—” Elizabeth’s voice broke. “Why did you give this to me?”

  “Because you have an exceptional gift,” Widow Porter said simply. “Yes, despite your youth. I believe your potential is vast, Elizabeth. Take this. Use it well. Find out how much more you can do.” With that she turned and walked away.

  After a few moments, Pru giggled. “Can you believe it?”

  “No,” Elizabeth whispered.

  “See, now there’s something to take your mind off your sorrows. Think of all the magic you could perform now!”

  Elizabeth was indeed thinking fast—though perhaps not the thoughts her friend had suggested.

  Now an entire new set of spells had opened up to her. An entire new set of possibilities for her magic. Did that mean she might have another chance at Nat Porter?

  No, she didn’t intend to simply confound his mind, make him forget that there was such a girl as Rebecca Hornby or such a place as New Barton. That would be a childish trick. But there were other kinds of magic. She didn’t want Nat to forget Rebecca; she wanted him to remember that girl and still cast her aside. Elizabeth wanted Nat to love her as hotly and desperately as she loved him.

  “You look like you’re cheering up already,” Pru teased.

  “Oh, I am.” Elizabeth held the pearl up above her head so that it seemed to float in the sky like a second moon. To her it seemed to shine even more brightly, as bright as the sun.

  2

  Spring flowers plucked by a woman’s hand.

  Sunlight shining on a loved one’s face.

  A man overcome by a woman’s loveliness.

  Elizabeth closed her fist tightly around her new pearl charm and called up the ingredients for the spell.

  Her hand closing around the green stems of jonquils such a pale yellow they were almost white, closing and pulling hard until the stems broke.

  Nat last autumn, hauling in a bushel of apples, and the way the late-afternoon sun had painted him gold and made her realize she’d never truly seen him before.

  Nat yesterday, thinking of Rebecca in New Barton, his eyes soft with the adoration that ought to have been Elizabeth’s alone.

  No shiver passed through her; no strange energies sparked deep within. But Elizabeth knew, even before she’d opened her eyes, that this time the spell had worked.

  She opened her eyes. Her hands, folded in her lap, seemed . . . nicer, somehow. Her fingers a little longer, the shape more elegant. Although she could feel faint prickles of pain from yesterday’s lye burns, the burns were no longer visible. The calluses from her chores had gone, too. These were a lady’s hands.

  Imagine what the spell would have done to her face!

  Elizabeth rose, smiling. As she began walking through town, she saw how clever it had been for her to try stealing beauty from all the women around her, not just one. That way, the women were not so greatly altered that anybody else would be likely to notice; everyone simply looked a little more tired, a little less rosy, the way anyone would on a difficult day.

  But those tiny slivers of beauty taken from everyone else—they added up.

  Every single man she passed stopped to look at her. They weren’t startled, as they might have been by a cruder spell of transformation. Instead their eyes lit up, and she could tell they were thinking, How is it I’ve never noticed Elizabeth Cooper before? When did she become such a pretty girl? From twelve-year-old Adam Kent to old Tom Gaskill, one and all, they paid her attention. That strange, solitary fellow Aunt Ruth’s age—Daniel Pike—even stumbled over his own feet, so distracted was he by looking at her. Elizabeth wished violently for a mirror, but what did it matter what she thought of how she looked? Everyone else thought she was lovely, and surely that was the whole point.

  Now all she had to do was find Nat.

  He turned out to be down by the shore, working on one of the fishing boats. Nobody much else was around. What luck, Elizabeth thought, her heart beating wildly. “Nat! There you are.”

  “Elizabeth,” he said, looking up from his task. He saw her, and then he saw her. Nothing had ever delighted her more than the sudden light within his gaze. “What brings you here?”

  “I had a few moments free.” That wasn’t entirely a lie. Elizabeth had promised her slice of pie tonight to her little cousins if they would do her share of the chores. “So I thought I’d take a walk on the beach. Won’t you join me?”

  “I—well, I ought to finish this—”

  “You’ve got plenty of time to do that, haven’t you?”

  “I suppose,” Nat said, and he rose from his work to fall in by her side.

  She’d done it! But at first, Elizabeth felt more astonishment than pleasure. Here she was, strolling along the rocky beach with Nat Porter at her side, and she couldn’t think of a thing to say. Maybe she didn’t need to say anything; maybe it was enough to look truly beautiful, and show that she liked his company. Most boys didn’t seem interested in much more than that.

  Yet the silence was too awkward to bear. Finally Elizabeth said, “I hadn’t taken you for much of a fisherman.”

  What a stupid thing to say! Now Nat would think she believed he was incompetent.

  Instead Nat simply laughed. “I’m not. It’s as if every time I look at the water, the fish look back and know to swim away. But I’ve a hand for woodworking.”

  “Of course.” Elizabeth was relieved to be back on safer ground. “You carved that beautiful mantelpiece for your mother. I was just admiring it a few nights ago, at the quilting circle.”

  Nat shrugged. “It made Ma happy. That’s all I care about.”

  From the distant corners of Elizabeth’s memory came her mother’s voice: A good son makes a good father. Until now, her daydreams of Nat Porter had gone no further than a stolen kiss, or an avowal of love. Marriage—yes, she’d dreamed of that, but in the abstract. It was a word, only a word, but one that meant Nat would become hers and never be taken away again.

  Now that word came alive for her. To marry Nat would mean that they would share a house. A bed. They would belong to each other body and soul. They would have children, boys who would grow up fine and strong like Nat, and girls who could learn witchcraft and work alongside her. Together they would live in Fortune’s Sound all of their days. All of it seemed so real to Elizabeth then that she could almost believe it had already happened. She wasn’t imagining lying in Nat’s arms, having his baby inside her; she was remembering it. How natural, how right, to remember it on the day it all began.

  “Speaking of talents,” Nat said. “I thought I might ask you a favor.”

  “Anything,” Elizabeth promised. “Anything at all.”

  “You embroidered that cap for Prudence Godwin—”

  “Yes, tha
t’s right.” It had been Elizabeth’s birthday gift to her friend. Neither she nor Pru could afford to have lace or fine linen brought back from Newport or Providence; however, Elizabeth was good enough with needle and thread to make something pretty even out of plain cloth.

  “If I bought you the fabric—” Nat began. Would he be asking for another gift for his mother? Or maybe he would say that he wanted Elizabeth to wear it herself, something as beautiful as she was? Then he finished: “Would you make a cap for a girl I know?”

  He meant Rebecca Hornby. Elizabeth could not have spoken, could not have said yes or no. She only stared at him.

  Nat didn’t even seem to notice. Maybe the spell that had given her stolen beauty had also masked her real emotions, hidden the ugliness of anger and hate. He just kept on: “I suppose you know I’ve been courting over at New Barton. Everybody knows now, the way girls talk. Not that men don’t talk, too—ah, listen to me, carrying on. The thing is, I’d love to give her a proper gift. Not just flowers. You know?”

  Elizabeth nodded. She tried to imagine Nat walking through the fields, picking flowers for some other girl. She thought again of the memory she’d used to cast her spell—her hands closing around the jonquils’ stalks, twisting them, snapping them in two.

  “So would you consider it?” Nat said with a shy smile. “I’d pay you for your time, of course.”

  Elizabeth managed to smile back. Because of the spell she’d cast, she knew her smile shone so brightly that he’d never, ever glimpse the anger inside it. “You don’t have to pay me. It would be a pleasure. Why, I’ll get to work on it right away.”