Magic Lessons

by Alice Hoffman

  When Rebecca returned in the mornings after her nights out, there were brambles in her clothes and her hair was unbraided. She had marks on her throat and shoulders, as if she’d been bitten by some animal, and she was so overheated she had no need of a cloak. Even at Maria’s young age she knew there was only one reason for her mother to vanish and to spend all of the next day asleep, with the door to her room bolted shut. Night after night she disappeared, wearing her finest clothes, black crinolines, red dresses, and red boots. One dew-drenched morning when the sun had not yet risen, Rebecca returned to find Maria waiting for her in the Silver Pasture, which was littered with spoons and candlesticks and platters, all tossed out the door to bring her luck. Cadin had presented Maria with three strands of black hair, and when she held them in her hand she knew her mother’s secret.

  Rebecca stopped where she stood when she realized Maria was there to greet her in the foggy morning. She had been caught red-handed, as if she were the wayward girl and Maria the strict caretaker. Her boots were slick with mud and she had a fresh bite mark on her throat, as if someone had mistaken her delicate flesh for an apple. She raised her chin, defiant. She had been a willful girl, and that trait didn’t often disappear.

  “Do you want to ask me a question?” she asked her daughter.

  The girl was growing up, and quickly. It was already possible to see the woman she would soon be. Dark and far too curious for her own good. She came to judgments easily, and held a grudge, and was fiercely loyal. She’d had her first blood, therefore some might call her a woman already. Certainly, she had more skill than Rebecca would have imagined possible. Maria was a weather witch and could stop rain by standing in a downpour with her arms uplifted. She could melt the drifts of snow that she walked upon. Cures for fevers, love madness, insomnia, bad luck, all were within her reach. Neighbors from the nearby farms came to see her, out of her mother’s line of sight, waiting anxiously beside the empty barn where Maria dried herbs. Rebecca believed magic should never be shared or bought; for her it was a bloodline talent, meant for family members alone. But Maria had learned otherwise from Hannah. What gifts you had, you were meant to share. What you set out into the world came back to you threefold. If a child was ill, if an old woman was losing her sight, if a family knew suffering, she was willing to do what she could on their behalf. She charged nothing, but accepted whatever they gave. A silver spoon, a currant cake, a copper coin.

  * * *

  Now as her mother approached after being gone all night, Maria held up the strands of hair the crow had brought her earlier that morning. They were the exact same color as her own hair, black as midnight, but coarser. She knew exactly who they belonged to. The man who’d been responsible for her life. She could sense who he was. A man who lived in shadow, who did as he pleased, who could convince people he was one thing, when he was someone else entirely.

  “I thought I had no father,” Maria said.

  “No official father.”

  “But a father all the same. One you have come from right now.” When she gave Rebecca the dark strands of hair, her mother held them with a rare tenderness and stored them in a locket she wore around her throat.

  A farm boy came riding by, tentative and nervous as he neared the house where people in the village said there lived not one witch, but two. One might curse you, one might cure you, but two had the power to do as they pleased, and there’d be no defense against them. In this world, witches were best to be avoided at all costs. Still, the boy did as his master had instructed. His horse was old and nearly lame, but the boy rode him as quickly as he could. No messenger wanted to be caught and questioned by Rebecca Lockland.

  “That boy’s horse has a tail as black as your hair,” Rebecca said as she watched the worried rider. “Perhaps the old stallion is your father and you’re only half-human.”

  Maria had her hands on her hips. She did not like to be taken for a fool, even by her own mother. “If there’s one thing I know for certain, it’s that the non-human half was inherited from you.”

  Mother and daughter were more than ready to quarrel as they faced each other in the field. But they had begun to pay closer attention to the boy, who leapt from the horse to nail a piece of parchment to the door, then jumped back onto his old steed to race out of sight before Maria and Rebecca reached the house. Out of breath, Rebecca tore the paper from the door and handed it to Maria to read.

  “Your husband’s family claims this house and will come for it and all of your belongings tomorrow,” Maria told her mother. “They are legally entitled to everything, as your husband is ailing and in their care.”

  A single woman might own property, but a wife was entitled to nothing, and the proclamation came as no surprise. The Lockland house had been a prison, and Rebecca was glad to have good reason to leave it. She had another life to live elsewhere. They went to pack up all that mattered to them, which as it turned out, wasn’t much. Maria took a change of clothes and her Grimoire, along with pen and ink, the black mirror of divination, and the bell from Hannah’s door. Rebecca gathered some jewelry, along with a pistol that had been a favorite of her husband’s and the rest of the blackened silverware. If they stayed here, they would likely be sent to Bridewell Prison, where as paupers and women alone they would be set to work and kept confined, perhaps for the rest of their lives. The wisest move was to flee as far from Essex County as possible. It was always best to step into the future while it was still waiting for you. In fact, there was a man who was Rebecca’s past, present, and future. For him, Rebecca had planted a night garden that bloomed after dark. Angel’s trumpet, moonflower, night jasmine, evening primrose, all waited for the moon to rise.

  Both Maria and Rebecca wore skirts that were ankle-length, best to wear when riding, and neither bothered with petticoats that would only be dragged in the mud. Before they walked outside, Rebecca placed the second hairpin in Maria’s hair.

  “You might as well let him see you at your best.”

  “How do you know he’s coming here?”

  “We have made a decision to leave here. The Locklands will come for this place, and we can’t be here when they do. As for your father, he’s always been waiting for me.”

  * * *

  Maria took him to be her father the instant she saw him approach. His horse was black, as was his hair, and he wore a long overcoat and black velvet breeches that had once been elegant, but now were threadbare. It was clear that witches didn’t frighten him. He shouted out for Rebecca, a grin on his face, and in return she called him Robbie, such a sweet name in her mouth she sounded like a girl again, the one she’d been on the day she’d first met him, when he’d been a member in a company of players, often taking the part of the hero, and she had been rapt all the while she watched him, certain that he was the one for her.

  He’d turned to crime during the plague years, when theaters were shut down due to illness and Puritan beliefs. Many of Shakespeare’s plays hadn’t been revived until recently, and then, in altered form; still there were rogue companies of players, and some would still hire Robbie despite his history and his bad reputation in the theaters of London, where he had stolen from some of his contemporaries, charming them as he did so. As time went on, he became more of a thief than a player, and he couldn’t return to his true calling. All the same, he thought of himself not as a robber, really, but rather as a man portraying a robber, and in this role he had excelled. Horses were his specialty, and the hearts of women, and other men’s savings.

  When he noticed Maria, he gazed at her, curious, but asked no questions, merely nodded a greeting. She was such a solemn creature, with her black hair parted down the middle and her pretty, somber mouth in the shape of a black rose. He would not know how to describe her, so he merely shook his head. He was quite marvelous at speaking other people’s words, but otherwise could not express himself. Some men are tongue-tied in that way; they need a prompt that allows them to release their emotions, unless they are in bed with a wo
man they love, and then they reveal themselves in a thousand ways. Maria gazed at her parents as they embraced. She herself would want more. A man who talked, who could speak for hours and still be worth listening to, as he told stories of his own making. A man who listened to what you had to say.

  Most times this particular man, called Robbie for as long as he could remember, tried not to think about all that he’d done in order to survive in the world. Robbie had brought with him a horse for Maria to ride, recently appropriated from a local farmer, and he took Rebecca onto his own. At last he had the love of his life beside him, and for him this was enough. Thieves have hearts and souls, and his heart was pounding. Before they left, he took a flint, and with a spark he lit some hay wrapped around an arrow. He shot the lit arrow into the door of the house, then shot six others similarly made through the windows. He’d done this very same thing in a play once, one about the son of a king who yearned for vengeance, but then the flaming arrows had been aimed into a bucket of sand offstage. Now he clearly took pleasure in what was a very real act. When he smiled, his face changed; he was as handsome as a boy again, and Maria could see why her mother loved him so.

  “There’s my gift to you,” he told Rebecca as the flames went up.

  Even though the grand stone house would be standing when the lord’s family came to make their claim, everything inside would be burned to ash. That was vengeance, pure and simple, for all the years her husband had stolen from them.

  * * *

  They went through the estuary, riding south. At times the horses were chest-deep in water. It was a glorious golden day. Riding behind her parents, Maria could hear a spray of her mother’s laughter, a beautiful, musical sound. There seemed a sea change in Rebecca now that Robbie had come for her; she was not a witch, merely a woman in love. Clearly she allowed her raw emotions to lead her astray. Maria thought of all the things she should have asked during the time she’d spent with her mother. She’d gathered knowledge about enchantments and remedies, but no knowledge about their own history. How they had come to be the way they were. What trick of nature were they? Why did their blood burn black? Why should they avoid water at all costs if they could not sink? For some, witchery was a choice, but not for them. It was in their very nature, and they must do their best with it, but how did a woman survive when she would surely be judged again and again? Now it was too late to ask. The future was upon them, and Maria could see it would split in two, their fates diverging as they went their separate ways.

  Every once in a while the man who was Maria’s father would turn to gaze over his shoulder at her as if he continued to be surprised that she existed. There was clearly no room for her; the love between her mother and father was exclusive and couldn’t contain anyone else. Some love is like that; it only has room enough to fit two people, who can only see one another and include no one else. The love between them was the reason her mother could leave her in the snowy field, to hide Maria’s cap of black hair so that no one would suspect who the baby’s father might be. He’d never been apprehended as a robber, but he wouldn’t have escaped Thomas Lockland’s murderous rage had Lockland ever found out the truth and discovered his wife had a lover. As good an actor as he might be, Maria’s father would never have been mistaken for an innocent man.

  They rode for a very long time, and when at last they came to the sea, Maria was both terrified and thrilled. The water stretched out before them, a wild blue field of waves. The sound was deafening, the possibilities enormous. There was another unknown world beyond their own, and frankly Maria was done with England, and had been since the fire in Devotion Field. She was glad that Cadin was on her shoulder, her one true friend, for the world seemed very big and she felt young and small. They stopped at an inn to take some food. Robbie went inside while Rebecca waited hidden in a yew hedge, so she would not be recognized should her husband’s family come searching after they found the manor house burned from the inside out. Robbie brought out some meat and bread and cheese. Maria fed the crow, but took nothing for herself.

  “Do you wish to starve?” the man who was her father asked.

  He said it more out of interest than concern. His eyes were pitch-black, and he had a wide mouth and high cheekbones, as she did. He was so handsome that women in London often followed him down the street; some fainted at the sight of him, as if he were the hero in the theatricals they’d seen come to life. A smile played at his lips as he spoke to Maria, for her presence continued to puzzle and amuse him. She was a great beauty, and in his experience that would bring her both good fortune and grief. In many ways Robbie was a simple man, and he stood in judgment of no one. He knew what Rebecca was and did not fault her for it. A witch was a funny thing, particularly when you loved her. If not for Rebecca, he would not be in the strange circumstance of trying to rescue a black-haired girl who stared at him with cold eyes, when they should have already left the county. He wished he could write a drama that would tell the story of the night when he first saw Rebecca and came under her spell. She was already married, not that it mattered to either one of them, for their love for each other consumed everything in their way, that much was clear to Maria.

  “Tell me, girl,” he said to this strange daughter of his. “What is it you want in this world?”

  “I wish to have a life that I can claim for my own, without paying for the crimes of my mother and father,” Maria told him. “Where do I go to do that?” When she squinted, the present was transparent, and she could view a future where Cadin flew above her in a different world, a place where every plant was one she had never seen before, a land in which there were trees with thorns and trees bent over in the wind, trees with blood-red leaves and those with branches as white as snow.

  They were not far from a harbor, and gulls wheeled across the sky. The city of London was nearby, and smoke rose from the city’s chimneys in great black clouds. A city such as this was a wondrous and terrible thing where anything could happen. It was the place where one could find the end of her days or the beginning of her life. And yet Maria knew that this city was not the place where she would find her future.

  Rebecca had come to stand beside her man. “That’s why we’re here,” Rebecca told their daughter. “So that you will have a life of your own. It’s your future we’re thinking of. We’re sending you away.”

  “I can’t say I’m surprised,” Maria said with dark bitterness. What would they want with her when they were so involved with one another?

  Her parents exchanged a look. She was difficult indeed. Still, she was theirs, and they meant to see she was safely away from Thomas Lockland’s family, who might wish her ill. There was a far-off place called Curaçao, a Dutch Island where she might have a future that was very different from the solitary life in the fens that Hannah Owens had known. She could remain in a place where a woman alone had no rights to her own life or she could agree to her parents’ plan and travel half a world away where anything might be possible.

  “Fine,” Maria said, grabbing for a crust of bread. The truth was, she was starving. She’d met her father, and known her mother, and had been lucky enough to have been found by Hannah Owens. Now she was ready for a life of her own. “I’ll go where you send me, but the crow comes along.”

  * * *

  They went on to Southampton, and in a shop near the docks, Rebecca bought her daughter parting gifts: a heavy woolen cape and a pair of boots for her journey. Maria slipped off her ragged shoes made of worn leather lined with wool. She was delighted with her gifts. The cloak was soft and lovely, and the boots were a pure wonder, red leather, made in Spain. Every witch should own a pair, whether she worked in a field or walked through the halls of a manor house.

  Rebecca was happy that she had pleased her daughter with her purchases. “I know you better than you thought I might,” she said cheerfully. “We’re of the same blood and we favor the same things.”

  In her way, Rebecca loved her child dearly, but what you give up you can learn t
o live without, even if it causes you heartbreak at the start. Whether you are mortal or not, you go on, even if sorrow nags at you. Rebecca did not bequeath her Grimoire to her daughter, but then Maria had not expected her to do so, for it was still in use, and Maria had written down all of her mother’s knowledge in her own book. Instead, Rebecca gave her a leather bag which included several packets of useful herbs, beeswax candles, and a spool of blue silk thread, all for the creation of amulets and potions.

  “Never be without thread,” she told the girl. “What is broken can also be mended. Remember that in your dark days, as I have.” There was also a bag of oranges from Spain bought at a market and worth their high price. “This will keep you well and healthy on board a ship. Take my advice and stay away from men for as long as you can. Love is trouble, and trouble is love.”

  A fine bit of guidance from a woman who’d so thoughtlessly loved the wrong man not once but twice. Even here, along the docks, where life swirled all around them, she couldn’t take her gaze away from Robbie. Likely it was true that the flaws you saw in other women you didn’t notice in yourself. Love everlasting, love wished for desperately, love that walks in through the door, love that is a mistake, love that is yours alone.

  Robbie had fashioned a bargain with the captain of a ship from Amsterdam that, in his opinion, would favor everyone, including himself. Now that the deal had been struck, he was waiting with the horses, more than ready to go. He let out a low whistle and bowed, the most handsome man in three counties. Rebecca grinned and waved, as if her heart were in her hand. Anyone with even a bit of the sight could tell there would surely be trouble ahead.

  “Is this what love is?” Maria asked her mother, who was gazing at Robbie on the pier.

  “Oh, yes,” Rebecca said. “I’d die for it.”