Magic Lessons

by Alice Hoffman

  Finney took a step back when he realized that she wished him to saw through the iron bracelets she wore, fitted tightly to her wrists. He didn’t have great confidence in the steadiness of his own hands. He often drank to forget, and had tremors, along with a lack of faith in himself. And he was a gentle man, who hated to cause anyone pain. He shook his head and put down the saw. “I might hurt you.”

  “I couldn’t be any more hurt than I already am,” Faith replied. “I lost everything. You’re just helping me find it again. When we get to where we’re going, you’ll be rewarded. You’ll have more than you’ve ever dreamed of.”

  “So you say.” Finney laughed. “I assume you have hidden riches?”

  “I assure you,” Faith said, sounding insulted. “My mother will see that you’re repaid.”

  When she stared at him so pitifully, he had no choice in the matter. Faith sat perfectly still, and if the handsaw nicked her now and again, she didn’t wail or complain, not even when there was a line of blood, which was black and sticky and burned through the floor of the wagon. She had grown up drinking Courage Tea, and the effects of that brew had lasted. When the bracelets came off, blue marks circled her wrists, and where the skin had been pinched for so long there were deep indentations in her flesh. She would have these marks all her life, and they would serve to remind her of what some people were willing to do for what they told themselves was love.

  Faith could feel her power increasing immediately. A breath, a sigh, and she was herself again. She glanced at the sky and knew it would rain if she wished it to. She gazed at Jack Finney and with the sight was able to see through him to the young man he’d been when he lost his wife and child; she saw the grief he carried with him in a tight web that sat beside his heart. When they stopped to rest, she spied the souls of the murdered Lenape, the original people who had lived in the marshes, for their spirits had gathered in the blue dusk and their weeping sounded like the cry of the seabirds. Faith was overcome with emotion, and if she’d been another girl she might have wept, but instead she walked out to where Finney couldn’t spy her and she danced as the moon rose. She was herself again, it was true, but she had also been changed. Inside there was a line of bitterness that reached directly to her heart, so strong it brought her to the brink of tears. This is who she was: the girl who had climbed through the window to save her own life.

  * * *

  They stayed at a farmhouse on Rabbit Island, called Konijon Island by the Dutch and Coney Island by the English, referring to the ancient name for these creatures that was used in the King James Bible. It was here, near the seaside, where a Cornishwoman named Maude Cardy lived on her own. Although she and Jack Finney had forgotten how they were related, they had cousins who were cousins, and she always had a room for him should the need arise. Maude loved Brooklyn and how wild and lonely it was, for she was wild and lonely as well. She’d come across the ocean because of a man, but that affair had been short-lived, and many other men had been in her life; forty years had passed since she’d thought of that fellow, except once in a while when the tide was high or the moon was full she remembered to be grateful to him.

  “Who’s this?” Maude asked when she saw the strange dark-haired girl. Maude was suspicious no matter the circumstances, and wise to be so, for she lived all alone in this odd blue land where it was possible to see for miles and where robbers and ruined men had settled among the good people of Brooklyn.

  “I’m his niece,” Faith was quick to say. Her gray eyes gave nothing away, but for every lie she told a white spot appeared on her fingernails.

  Maude pursed her mouth and studied the girl. She wasn’t sure what she was looking at.

  “That’s who she is,” Finney agreed, wondering how he’d ever gotten so involved when he’d spent all his years on this side of the Atlantic having nothing to do with other people.

  “Is she now?” Maude had lost a few husbands and children herself and had a dozen nieces in Cornwall. She knew a bit about the world. There was something else at work here. “She doesn’t look a thing like you.”

  “She’s lucky, then,” Finney replied. “The good Lord didn’t make a mistake there.”

  That night Faith slept outside, so that she could see the stars. She thought of men and women who spent years in prison, unable to see the heavens. That did something to you; it drained you inside. In the morning, there were white and red roses growing in the place where Faith had slept; they had bloomed from the withered plants Maude had brought with her from England that had never grown well in the sandy soil. Maude had wondered about Faith from the start; now she was certain this was no ordinary girl. To be sure she was protected from any witchery, Maude carried a piece of rose quartz she had collected from the beach in Cornwall, a stone that is known to cure most ills. One look at the stone Maude Cardy had tucked in her sleeve, and Faith knew she’d been found out. It was best to make friends out of enemies.

  “I’d like to repay you for letting me stay,” Faith said to the old woman.

  “Would you?” Maude said. “Can you make me young again?”

  Faith gave her the last bar of the black soap she had made in the cemetery. It wasn’t quite her mother’s recipe, but it could take a few years off anyone’s age.

  “Well, I won’t be twenty again using that,” Maude said.

  Faith couldn’t debate that fact. “Then ask me for another favor.”

  And so the two went out in the dark of morning so that Faith could help the old woman chase the rabbits out of her garden. It was a thankless task; for every ten Maude had chased away, twenty more appeared. Because of these creatures, most of the farms here had failed.

  “I can get rid of them, if that’s what you wish,” Faith said. “But once they’re gone, they won’t come back.”

  “Do so.” Maude had her hands on her hips. “I won’t miss them.”

  Maude noticed that where the girl’s inky hair was parted there was a pale red line of color showing through. Red-haired people were said to have talents others did not. Perhaps this girl had a knack for making things disappear. The rabbits were multiplying as they stood there, and Maude was interested to see what this girl was capable of.

  Faith put down salt around the garden as she spoke words Hannah had taught Maria, to keep unwelcome pests out of a garden. It was a Latin spell, and it sounded otherworldly spoken here in the flatlands. Coming from Cornwall, Maude knew something about the Nameless Art. She most certainly could spot a witch. As soon as the spell was cast, the rabbits moved on to Maude’s neighbor’s place, a good ten miles away. There were so many that the sandy ground shook as they ran east. Impressed, Maude invited Faith into her parlor, her best room, one Jack Finney had never set foot in, for there was a precious Turkish carpet there that was far too good for the peddler to stomp upon with his muddy boots. To Faith’s surprise, a black mirror was set upon a small wooden table.

  “One favor deserves another,” Maude Cardy said. “Perhaps you’d like to look into the future.”

  Maude came from a long line of what people called the cunning folk, not among those born to be a witch, but practiced in healing, descended from a tradition of women who could see what others could not. She’d sat at her grandmother’s knee and heard about how to bring a baby along when it refused to be born and how to save a man in the throes of a fever.

  Faith sat in a hard-backed wooden chair and gazed into the mirror that had belonged to Maude’s grandmother in the time when not many could afford mirrors. It was an old piece, in use for more than fifty years, and though the glass was silvered and the black paint thick and peeling, its power was strong. Many women had seen what was to come when looking into it, for it was pure and asked for nothing in return.

  Faith placed her elbows on the table, and looked down. Immediately she felt as if she were being pulled underwater. There was the lake with no bottom, and the serpent she’d fed crusts of bread, and the blue-green sea they had crossed while aboard the Queen Esther. There was t
he marsh where Martha Chase lay dying, her eyes fluttering open to see how bright the world was before she left it behind. In that black mirror, Faith saw the time she’d been away pass quickly, like pages turned in a book, five years that had vanished in the blink of an eye. For all this time, Keeper had searched New York for her. He was full-grown now, not a leggy, skinny, half-starved creature, but her familiar, her heart and soul, in pain over his loss. When he howled at night, those who heard him shivered in their beds, well aware that there was never a dog that made such mournful cries. Faith could hear him now, across the water, her other, her familiar, who had chosen her.

  She dove in deeper as she stared into the glass, so deep that all that she saw was underwater, both the present and the past. Floating there, between worlds, she could spy her mother in the silk mourning dress she had worn ever since she’d lost Faith, a black veil shielding her face. She saw Maria walking through the muddy streets, crying even though it is said witches cannot cry. They can, but doing so changes them, and leaves them unprotected, for that’s what real love can do.

  Faith was drowning in the black mirror, going deeper and deeper. She held her breath; she peered through the murk of the muddy currents. She had come to the river of hell, a dark, bottomless canal that was filled with bodies of those who could not swim. Faith might have never surfaced, she might have been trapped there inside her mind, drowning in that cold brackish place, if Maude Cardy hadn’t grasped her arm and firmly pulled her away from the table.

  “That’s enough, girl,” Maude said. “Let’s get you back here.”

  Faith gasped, and when she did she spat out river water.

  Maude went off to retrieve her smelling salts so she might revive the child. She returned to find that Faith was dripping wet, a pool of black water around her feet. Whatever she was, whoever she was, Maude knew she was powerful. The girl’s face shone and her hair was damp. Faith’s heart was pounding because of the flash of vision she’d seen. “Where did you go off to?” Maude asked the child.

  “It’s on the other side of the river that crosses hell,” Faith replied. She had no idea where that was, only that her mother was there waiting. She’d been waiting all along. Faith didn’t need any more answers. Her mouth was set and she felt fearless, as if she had consumed a pot of Courage Tea. She felt like a bird that was about to fly away from this cloudy blue countryside. “That’s where I must go,” she told Maude.

  “I know the place,” Maude informed her, pleased she could figure out the puzzle of the girl’s vision. The East River was divided by Hell Gate, a natural rock sill where there were swift currents and jutting ledges that had caused many ships to sink and many men to drown. Still, it was the way to cross over to the docks that were teeming with sailors. “You’ll be wanting to go to Manhattan,” Maude Cardy told Faith. “And if anything’s a vision, it’s that city. Remember, once you’re there, keep your purse closed and your eyes open and every wonder will be there to see.”

  II.

  Keeper escaped from the yard one fine August day. One minute he was there, and the next he was gone. Maria went to search for him, at last spying the tracks of his huge paw prints in the muddy lane. He was heading east, to the riverside, a dangerous place populated by the sort of men it was best to avoid, sailors and criminals alike. Both Britain and France hired pirates to bolster their military, lawless men who dressed however they pleased, happy to offend those who believed men shouldn’t dress in Persian silk and calico, and happier still to fight for whoever paid the highest price and to thoroughly enjoy their time in New York. The city’s most famous pirate, William Kidd, was so devoted to Manhattan he’d had his men hoist the stones to build Trinity Church and would, in only a few years, pay for much of the first Anglican parish. But that didn’t mean many of the others did as they pleased, and that the lawmen in New York had little hope of controlling such men once they went riot.

  Maria followed along to Dock Street, the location of the first printing shop, then to Wall Street, the only paved road in the city, where a wharf had been built near Broad Street. The first coffeehouse in the city had opened nearby and there was a crowd milling around outside. Despite the strong aroma of coffee, it was still possible to smell apples, even here by the riverside, as if the scent of the pie Maria had baked that morning had reached this far and made people’s mouths water.

  Maria finally spied the wolf on a pier, not far from the ferry building. He was staring across the East River, alert, his hair standing on end. In his gaze was a ferryboat, so packed with passengers it appeared to tilt as it made its way past the currents of Hell Gate. The sky was bright blue and it pained one’s eyes to stare into the shimmering distance; Maria shielded her eyes with one hand. She could spy the fading moon, still a white slip in the sky. A ferryman was perched at the edge of the dock, ready for the incoming boat, there to tie up the ropes when it docked; he kicked the beast at the edge of the pier, and shouted for the creature to get away, but Keeper stayed where he was, his lips pulled back so he could show his teeth to his abuser, making it clear that he could not and would not be moved.

  Seagulls wheeled in the clear sky, their quick yellow beaks ready to snatch any fish they might spy in the flat water below. Maria dashed toward the ferry as it docked, elbowing past an unruly throng of people waiting for the boat to be unloaded so they could then have their turn to board and be taken across the water. She pushed back her veil, so she might see what was before her more clearly. And then she felt it; the heartbeat she had once carried. Her daughter, born in a circle cast for protection on the luckiest day of the month of March. The time had come. It was happening right now. Maria felt weightless, as though she were rising, as the first of the arriving passengers pushed and shoved to make their way onto the dock, alongside carriages pulled forward by teams of horses, some calm, others in a panicked state, desperate to get to solid land. There were wagons piled high with vegetables grown in the sandy flatlands, barrels of potatoes and cabbages, and men carrying bags of live chickens and ducks, and women who had never before left Queens or Kings county and now blinked in the mad whirl of Manhattan. The crowd disembarked, all headed in the same direction in a crush of flesh and blood, some ready for the chaos that awaited them, others cringing at the sight of the mass of humanity before them. None of it mattered to Maria. They might as well have all vanished. She saw not a single one.

  The wolf bolted on board before the boat was completely unloaded, leaping onto the seat of a wagon before anyone dared try to stop him.

  “Keep it moving or I’ll charge you double,” the ferryman called to the petrified wagon driver who now found a wolf beside him.

  It was Jack Finney who sat motionless, a block of sheer terror in his chest, even though his young passenger laughed when the beast leapt up. She threw her arms around the wolf, insisting the huge, devilish creature in the wagon was a dog and nothing to worry over.

  “He’s mine,” she assured Jack Finney. “And I am his.”

  Though it seemed madness to Finney, this girl could convince him of nearly anything, so the peddler clucked his tongue to urge his horse on, even though poor, gentle Arnold was shaking from the nearness of a predator.

  From where Maria stood on the dock all she could see was the nervous Cornishman driving a wagon drawn by an old horse with one eye, and Keeper beside a girl who scrambled in order to stand on the seat of the wagon. Maria narrowed her eyes. This tall, angular girl had raven-black hair falling to her shoulders. She was pale and lanky and wearing a dress that fit like a sackcloth and fell nearly to her ankles. She was all arms and elbows and freckles, unfamiliar in every way, and yet she was calling out “Mother,” waving her arms as joy spread across her face. There was her darling girl, her vanished daughter, who now, five years after she had disappeared, stood on the carriage seat, a fearless eleven-year old who had gleefully journeyed through Hell Gate on an ordinary day when miracles happened.

  * * *

  In the time they’d been apart, Faith�
��s gray eyes had paled to silver; her red hair had been dyed with ink, although a few blood-red hairs shone through. Her narrow, expressive face was marked by a sharp intelligence that included both wit and suspicion. It was possible to see the woman she would become, and yet something of the child she’d been when she’d been taken still showed in certain aspects of her features: her wide grin, for instance, and the brand of mischief in her eyes, the black mark of her bloodline on her left hand, which Martha Chase had tried her best to scrub away with the use of a stiff wire brush and lye soap, rubbing until Faith yowled with pain. Try as she might, none of Martha’s efforts had made the slightest difference. When you are so marked, you are marked for life.

  Faith climbed down from the wagon and raced to her mother, and Maria hugged her close. Her child smelled of salt, for she was still a girl of the flatlands, sunburned and wild. Yet in her mother’s arms she was a child again. Maria might have never let go of her if she hadn’t caught sight of Jack Finney climbing down from the wagon. She didn’t take the time to look inside him, for the instant she spied him she imagined he’d had a part in abducting Faith. Maria ran toward him in a fury. Before he could step away, she held up a paring knife she always carried, so close to his throat he felt the blade.

  “What you’ve done, you’ll pay for,” she told him.

  “You have it wrong,” Finney assured the outraged woman. He’d broken into a sweat, which made him appear to be a guilty man all the more. “I’m the hero,” he said in a voice that wavered as he spoke.

  “Don’t bother to lie.” The blade had already nicked Finney’s throat so that a bead of blood oozed through his flesh. If he was a liar, he was a good one, for there were no white spots on his fingernails and no blisters on his tongue and she saw no evil within him. Still, he had her girl, didn’t he?

  Faith ran to her mother. “He is the hero.” She spoke with the authority of someone twice her age. When a child is forced to save herself, she is a child no longer, and Faith had no issue speaking her mind, even to her mother. “He should be rewarded. Without him I’d still be in Brooklyn.”