Magic Lessons

by Alice Hoffman

  1679

  III.

  No one knows where time goes, all the same it disappears. Maria had turned fifteen in this strange land that still seemed like a dream. Every color was vivid, and when she stood in the brilliant light she sometimes found herself yearning for the dark green of the forest where ferns turned black in the frost. She didn’t wish to be a servant, she wouldn’t wish it on anyone, still she continued to do the work expected of her, seeing to the list Mrs. Jansen gave her each morning. She had become an excellent cook, and had learned to leave and enter a room without making a sound, walking barefoot on the tiles so as not to disturb the members of the Jansen family. Maria combed the Jansen daughters’ hair, washed in rum to keep it strong, and stitched their wedding dresses. She learned that eggs would keep well in limewater, that quicksilver beaten into egg whites could poison bedbugs, that lamp wicks would not smell bad if the cotton wick yarn was rinsed with vinegar, then dried in the fresh air. She was taught to shake carpets rather than sweep them and to wash silk dresses in green tea to restore their shine. During the day, she kept her eyes lowered and kept her mind on the tasks at hand. At night, however, she did as she pleased after Mr. and Mrs. Jansen went to sleep on the sheets she and Juni had washed with a harsh soap composed of lye and ashes, before they were hung out to dry in the garden, to ensure that the fabric would smell sweet, scented by fresh air and the clouds of fragrance rising from flowerbeds.

  Who she truly was, she kept secret, a stone she had swallowed, those talents and traits she had inherited from the nameless women who had come before her. Maria never revealed how she knew to take in the laundry just before rain began to fall, or how she managed to chase the rats from the garden with a bit of white powder, or why she left garlic, salt, and rosemary outside their chamber door, to protect those inside from ill will. Certainly, she never explained why she refused to venture into the ocean when on their free Sunday afternoons she and Juni went to the shore. The day might be glorious, the sea might beckon, but she knew what would happen to someone such as herself in the water. She would float no matter what, and in doing so, she would reveal her true nature. This was why Hannah had kept herself hidden in the woods, and why Rebecca showed her talents to no one. It was a dangerous world for women, and more dangerous for a woman whose very bloodline would have her do not as she was ordered, but as she pleased.

  * * *

  On hot nights Maria and Juni escaped through the window so they might prowl the island. They were young and the heat made for restless sleepers. They were alive and wanted more than the room they lived in and the interests of people other than themselves. They’d grown close, for now it was only the two of them. The Manchester sisters, Katy and Susannah, had worked off their debt, and had then been free to marry the first men who came along, wretched suitors Maria warned them to deny. She looked into the sisters’ tea leaves and into their palms and told them to wait, there would be other men to choose from, or perhaps it might be better to set off on their own lives. The sisters hadn’t listened, and they’d married two silent, gloomy brothers. Their lives had changed very little since they had worked for the Jansens, only now it wasn’t a grand house they cared for, but wooden shacks near the harbor, one wedged next to the other on stilts above the blue sea that rotted the floorboards and left a silver sheen of salt over every dish and chair. When the trade winds came up, the sisters had to nail their furniture to the floor and tie themselves to the decks of their houses with jute rope. Their husbands were off fishing most of the time, and for that they were grateful, for they treated the sisters badly; sex was for the husband’s pleasure and women were not to speak back to men. Maria visited the sisters and brought them crisp red apples, an unusual fruit in this climate, for which she’d paid dearly. She told the sisters to prick the fruit with a needle as they said their husbands’ names, then bake the apples into pies which, once devoured by the men, would bring about kindness and a bit of consideration from the sour, ill-tempered sailors they’d wed. After that the sisters embroidered a blue shawl for Maria, and every bird on the island was sewn into the fabric, for both sisters owed her a huge debt of gratitude, and later both would name their first daughters Maria so that they said that name a hundred times a day with love and devotion.

  * * *

  On nights when Maria and Juni climbed out the window to poke around and look down lanes and sandy paths, they felt more fortunate than the Jansens’ daughters, who wore heavy silk dresses and undergarments constructed with bones, and tight shoes that left blisters on their feet, and were rarely allowed to go out on their own, even now that they were married and living in their husbands’ homes. Juni was called upon by young men and boys who were dazzled by her beauty, but no one noticed Maria. She’d learned a lesson from Hannah and Rebecca, and to protect herself from love she wore a black petticoat under her dress, the hem stitched with blue thread, the fabric washed with cloves and blackthorn. She knew how to walk in the shadows so she wouldn’t shine in the darkness. No one looked at her twice.

  * * *

  Often Maria and Juni borrowed the donkey kept in the stable with the family’s horses. They called the sulky creature Slechte Jongen, “Bad Boy,” for he would balk and refuse to carry them home, forcing them to pull him along with a rope to ensure they’d be back in time to start the family’s breakfast. They were almost children again when they urged the donkey to keep moving, holding their stomachs, keeping their hands over their mouths so their laughter wouldn’t rise into the air. But their world was not one meant for children, only for obedience and work. It was an island where some people had everything and others had nothing, and you could judge who was who from the shoes that they wore, the color of their skin, and whether or not their eyes were kept downcast while walking on the winding streets.

  On some nights the girls visited the caves north of the city where escaped slaves had hidden, often until they were nothing but bones. Between 1662 and 1669, twenty-four thousand slaves had been shipped through Curaçao by the Dutch West India Company and the Royal African Company in Jamaica. These caves had been sacred places for the original people of the island, the Arawaks, all gone now, murdered or killed off by disease or shipped to work on plantations on other islands. The original people had left behind drawings that were more than a thousand years old. It was here, where marvelous renderings of the life they had known or imagined had been etched into the rock, that Maria often lit a white candle in memory of Hannah Owens. She was grateful for the years when she had been hidden away from the rest of the world in Devotion Field, and for the gift Hannah had given her when she taught her to read and write.

  The plantations on the island were worked by slaves who would not be granted their freedom for another hundred years. For them, reading was considered a criminal offense. Reading was power, just as Hannah had said, and those who gave books to slaves were arrested. It was a time of evil, when people were owned and women were treated no better than they had been across the sea. Still, there was magic here. Brua, a name derived from bruja, Spanish for witch, had been brought from the shores of Africa, used for healing by practitioners who were said to help those possessed by spirits with the use of amulets and spells, and were called upon by those who searched for revenge or begged for mercy or needed to find what was lost. Maria had stumbled upon the remains of such a meeting. A circle drawn in the sand, amulets of beads and shells and feathers set out within the sacred space. When she mentioned her find to Juni, she was told that Juni’s great-aunt, Adrie, practiced brua.

  “Take me to a meeting,” Maria said.

  “Never,” Juni told her.

  Juni’s great-aunt had warned her to mind her business when it came to magic, advising that a woman always paid dearly for her interest in such matters. Still, Maria was persistent. When she’d stood inside the circle she’d felt a surge of power.

  “I won’t ask for anything else,” she promised Juni. “We can just watch. I’ll do all the housework for a week. I will never d
ivulge your secrets.”

  Juni’s secrets consisted only of kissing a few young men and occasionally avoiding their mistress by hiding in a tall bureau; still a friend was a friend. Eventually Juni gave in and brought Maria to the meeting. On the night of the ritual, they held hands and watched from behind the tallest mango trees. The singing was beautiful, as if the angels had gathered in the clearing, with high, clear voices that echoed through the gleaming blue evening. The clients came one by one, many distraught and in tears—grieving parents, women in love, men who needed to escape from a bad situation. When the hour grew late, the group dispersed. Maria and Juni were bleary-eyed, yet they had made a pact, and they now crept into the circle of sand that had been cast, so that they might examine the amulets that had been left behind, for both the living and the dead. Seashells, stones, packets of seeds, small white bones. They were so intent on the discovery of these magical objects they didn’t notice they weren’t alone. Juni’s great-aunt, Adrie, came from beyond the hedges. Adrie had the sight, and one of these two young ladies was about to find herself in trouble. Juni’s great-aunt signaled for them to come forward. She was very old, known to be a curioso, a healer, famous for her teas. She was well aware that in this world it was best not to trust anyone who wasn’t a blood relation. It was one thing for her great-niece to be here, quite another for a stranger to spy on them.

  “Why did you bring her here?” she asked Juni, her eyes on Maria. She saw a young indentured girl who owned nothing of her own. But there was something more to her. Adrie saw the mark inside the girl’s elbow.

  “She’s my friend, Auntie,” Juni explained. “We were only watching.”

  The old woman shook her head and clucked her tongue, sure of herself. “She’s a witch. Stay away from her.”

  Juni laughed, equally sure of herself. “Would she clean the Jansens’ house if she were a witch? Would she see to their laundry and draw their baths? No witch would do that.”

  “Of course she would. Didn’t I do the same?” Adrie turned to Maria and looked directly into the girl’s silver eyes. “Don’t come back here.”

  “I honor what you do,” Maria said.

  “Do you?”

  “Yes, I admire your skills, and I’m good at keeping secrets.”

  “I’d better not see you here again,” Adrie said, which held a very different meaning than her first response. It wasn’t an outright no, merely a warning not to be caught. “And don’t let me hear you talking about this to anyone.”

  They had gotten their permission. The girls watched the meetings from a distance after that, just close enough to hear the incantations. Adrie ignored them, until one night, after the gathering had ended, she signaled in their direction. The girls came forward, nervous. “Just the other one,” she told Juni. When Maria approached, Adrie patted the ground. “Why do you come here?”

  “Because you know so much,” Maria said.

  If Adrie was flattered, her stern expression didn’t change. “You’re not a blood relation. Why should I give my knowledge to you?”

  “I’ll use it,” Maria told her. “I’m not afraid of it. The woman who raised me was like you. I learned from her, and I wish nothing more than to learn from you.”

  After that Juni went out with her suitors at night, and Maria spent her time with Adrie. She added her lessons to the Grimoire. There were lists of plants, those that could break a fever, those that could set a man’s imagination on fire, or could ease a woman’s childbirth. There were recipes for revenge and for love, for health and well-being and to fend off curses.

  Curaçao Cures

  Soursop tea made from a glossy green tree with yellow-green flowers, cures insomnia, infections, and keeps away lice.

  Mampuritu, a slender weed for tea to cure for nausea and cramps.

  Kleistubom, a creeping weed with an extract helpful to ease prickly heat.

  Lamoengras for fever.

  Caraway cures the bites of poisonous scorpions and centipedes.

  Wandu helps with an easy delivery of a baby, also good for the blood and improves memory and strength.

  Tawa-tawa, a tea made from the hairy plant found in the grassland, a cure for Dengue, called Breakbone Fever, that stops bleeding inside the body.

  “You may be a witch, but remember you’re a woman as well,” Adrie told her. By gazing into a pan of still water, she’d already seen several mistakes Maria was destined to make. The wrong man, the wrong trust, the wrong vow, the wrong curse. It was so much easier to see another person’s future than it was to understand your own. Even when you kept your eyes wide open, the world would surprise you.

  * * *

  Maria tucked a packet of lavender inside her dress to protect herself from evil, but in all this time she had not once thought to protect herself from love. Maria knew it happened to other women, but she never expected it to happen to her. She had renounced it and had made a vow to always do so. She recalled how many lives her mother had ruined because of love; she remembered that Hannah’s beloved had turned her over to the authorities. But fate could be beyond a woman’s control, even a woman who had the sight. She paid no attention to the dark bits of the future flickering in every mirror she passed, pulsing like fireflies in reverse, black sparks of regret. Her dream had always been the same since she had come to Curaçao: to be a free woman, one who could do as she pleased, bowing to no master. In only a few months that time would come to pass. She would no longer sweep another woman’s floor or brush her hair, or bring beer and warm milk to a man who called her meisje, Dutch for girl, because her name didn’t matter to him so he never bothered to remember what it was.

  When the first of January finally arrived, she would start a bonfire on the shore to mark the end of her contract. She would let it burn all night long.

  * * *

  Everything might have been different if she hadn’t walked into the dining room at nine in the morning, a room she entered every day to polish the silver, which she did wearing heavy cotton gloves, and sweep away the red dust that filtered inside even when the wooden shutters were closed. Had she come an hour later, had she chosen to first set to work on preparations for dinner, had she done the washing and not waited for the afternoon sun, fate would have shifted. As it turned out, she was prompt. The day was blistering, and she had on her blue skirt and blue bodice, for blue was the color servants wore, since the dye was so cheap. Still the dress showed off her lovely shape and was short enough to show her long legs. She threw a passing glance at herself in the mirror above the sideboard. Oddly, she saw a glimpse of her mother’s reflection instead of her own. It was a startling sight that stopped her cold. True, she resembled Rebecca, with the same cool gray eyes and delicate features, though she was already taller and far more skilled at enchantments. But even a witch can possess a woman’s flaws, and a woman’s desires. Maria thought she knew what was to come, but she was wrong. Anyone can fall in love, despite vows to the contrary. Any woman can make a mistake, especially when she is young, and sees the wrong man through a haze so that he appears to be something he’s not.

  Maria wore her long hair piled atop her head, held with the hairpins no one would suspect to be silver, for they appeared to be black, and were thought to be worthless. In her position it was best to have nothing, and all that she had she made certain to keep concealed, including the fact that she was now fluent in Dutch and Spanish and Portuguese. She was barefoot; her red boots were made for snow and foul weather, not heat and fair skies, and called attention to her differences. All of the housemaids went barefoot, priding themselves on how tough the soles of their feet were. It was an island of people who could survive an arid land, like the iguanas in the desert that could go weeks without water. This was not a place for the faint-hearted, and the beauty of the island belied its trials. The winds could raise a man into the air and toss him back down half a mile from where he’d originally stood. Rain rarely fell, and when it did it was collected in barrels, and even then it carried the tast
e and sheen of salt.

  On the day she met the man who changed her fate, Maria had come from the sun-drenched courtyard, her skin still warm from the glints of sunlight sifting through the leaves. She always hated to leave that lovely spot, with its painted tiles and a fountain that was the home of three golden fish that hid beneath a lily pad whenever Cadin was near. She was dizzy, her head filled with sun, when she came inside to find a man gazing out the window at the sea, as if it were the enemy that divided him from everything he was accustomed to, pine and birch trees, fields of sheep, a house with black shutters closed against winter storms, a red fire that burned all night long. Even before she saw his face, Maria sensed he was the man she had seen in the black mirror. In the mirror he had been walking away, and so she had never spied his face, but he was tall and he wore a black coat, and he had been at sea, staring out at the waves, much as this man now did.

  Caught off guard, she stopped where she was and began to recite an incantation that would prevent her from suffering the fate of her mother and so many of the women who came to her at night, when the Jansens were asleep. Women searched her out when they saw that a candle was burning in her room, when the nightjars flew from tree to tree, when the thorns on the hedge were said to be so sharp they would reach out to you as you walked along the path and wound you in places so deep you would never recover, piercing your throat, your sex, your heart. Most women in Willemstad knew that Maria Owens attended to love that had been lost, love that was broken, love that was meant to begin but hadn’t, love that had become a fever despite every remedy.