The Magic Circle

by Donna Jo Napoli

  THE MAGIC CIRCLE

  Voices hiss around my ears. “We have you. At last. . . . You will no longer summon devils. Instead we will summon you!” The laughter is like the screaming of wildcats. “You are no longer the Ugly Sorceress. You are the Ugly Witch.”

  The light is fading. I feel darkness about to overtake me. I want my ears to go deaf. I must not allow myself to hear the words I know will come. I have been pronounced a witch. There is an order to come—I must not hear it. I hold my palms tight over my ears.

  But the voices are too clever for me. They bypass my ears entirely. They speak inside my head. “Eat the child.”

  “Never,” I say.

  The laughter is deafening. “You have but one choice.”

  “I will never serve the forces of evil,” I scream.

  And suddenly footsteps are loud and multiple. The baron’s men rush at me from every direction. They come out from behind every tree.

  “She’s a witch!”

  “She works with devils!”

  “Burn her!”

  “The author’s extraordinary craftmanship and originality never flag. . . . A YA novel of genuine magic and suspense, this will captivate adults as well.”

  —Publishers Weekly, starred review

  “Mesmerizing.”

  —Kirkus Reviews, pointer review

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  Frankenstein Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

  Jane Eyre Charlotte Brontë

  The Light Beyond the Forest Rosemary Sutcliff

  Owl in Love Patrice Kindl

  The Perilous Gard Elizabeth Marie Pope

  The Road to Camlann Rosemary Sutcliff

  The Sherwood Ring Elizabeth Marie Pope

  The Spirit House William Sleator

  The Sword and the Circle Rosemary Sutcliff

  Wuthering Heights Emily Brontë

  the

  MAGIC CIRCLE

  DONNA JO NAPOLI

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Books USA Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Books Ltd, 27 Wrights Lane, London W8 5TZ, England

  Penguin Books Australia Ltd, Ringwood, Victoria, Australia

  Penguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2

  Penguin Books (N.Z.) Ltd, 182-190 Wairau Road, Auckland 10, New Zealand

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: Harmondsworth, Middlesex, England

  First published in the United States of America by Dutton Children’s Books,

  a division of Penguin Books USA Inc., 1993

  Published in Puffin Books, 1995

  Copyright © Donna Jo Napoli, 1993

  All rights reserved

  THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE DUTTON EDITION AS FOLLOWS:

  Napoli, Donna Jo.

  The magic circle / by Donna Jo Napoli.—1st ed. p. cm.

  Summary: After learning sorcery to become a healer, a good-hearted woman is turned into a witch by evil spirits, and she fights their power until her encounter with Hansel and Gretel years later.

  ISBN: 978-1-101-66565-7

  [1. Fairy tales. 2. Witches—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ8.N127Mag 1993 [Fic]—dc20 92-27008 CIP AC

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  Version_1

  For Lucia Monfried, who told me, “Just write it down.”

  With a sea of gratitude.

  CONTENTS

  1. THE JOURNEY BEGINS

  2. THE MAGIC CIRCLE

  3. HEALING

  4. BAAL

  5. FIRE

  6. CANDY

  7. COOKING

  8. JEWELS

  9. THE MAGIC CIRCLE

  I thank the following people for their comments on an earlier draft: Barry Furrow, Curt Kallas, Stephen Lehmann, Bob Schachner, Judy Schachner, Don Swearer, Nancy Swearer, Chuck Tilly, Louise Tilly, Eric van der Vlugt, and Gill van der Vlugt. All of them kept me from making errors of history, culture, and geography. Errors that remain are evidence of my own stubbornness.

  one

  THE JOURNEY BEGINS

  Summer comes over the hill like a hairy blanket. Asa rolls onto her side, and her light brown hair falls away from her pink cheek. Her coloring gives evidence of the north country of her grandmother, dead now many years. Her nose twitches, rabbitlike, as though she realizes, even in her sleep, that the warm weather is finally here. I run my fingertips across the fine fuzz of hair on her temple.

  “Ahhh,” says Asa. “Good morning, Mother.”

  The air around us is calm. I do not want to disturb it by rising. Instead, I reach over to the basket in the corner near our bed. “Look,” I say, holding up the treasure.

  Asa opens her mouth in awe. The amber ribbon matches the highlights in her hair. She plucks it from my hand eagerly. “Where did you get it?”

  “Tzipi gave it to me, for birthing her.”

  “You shouldn’t take a ribbon,” says Asa. “You should take something we need. You should take wool.” Her actions don’t match her words. She is brushing the silky ribbon against her cheek.

  Her words are grown-up for her age. I don’t marvel at that fact, and I don’t fight the inevitable. Poor children are always more grown-up in that way. But I am gladdened that she can hold the ribbon against her cheek and allow herself to want it. “It’s summer,” I say, “summer at last. I’ll take wool when it’s closer to autumn.” I smile. “For now, you have a ribbon for your hair.”

  Asa wraps the ribbon around her fingers. “It’s beautiful, Mother.”

  “No more beautiful than you.”

  I weave the ribbon into Asa’s hair, and she runs from the cabin to show the world.

  Before I have time to finish straightening our things, a neighbor bursts in upon me. It is Bala. “Ugly One,” she says to me, “have you no sense at all? You trade your midwifery skills for a ribbon?”

  “More than a ribbon,” I say. “For beauty.”

  “Tzipi is seducing you with her non-Christian ways,” says Bala.

  I laugh away her hatred of the outsider, grateful my mother taught me this use of mirth. “Beauty is not dangerous to those who truly love God. It is a joy, Bala. I must have it in my home.”

  “For Asa,” says Bala, finishing with the very words that were on the tip of my tongue.

  “She deserves emeralds,” I say, “rubies, even gold.” I smile at the thought. “Oh, decorative visions.” I wave my hands at the walls around our small room. I breathe deeply of the woody air. These walls are covered with wreaths made from tiny spruce cones with dried goose-berries and holly berries attached with balsam fir resin. A collection of colored feathers overflows a clay bowl on the floor. In a dish nearby are thin slices of mica. I pick one up now and hold it to the window. The sunbeam breaks into colors that dance on my arm.

  Bala sighs. “How did such an ugly one as you get such an eye for beauty?”

  That question is easily answered. I have only to think of my mother’s hair, always arranged this way or that to show the fine line of her jaw. She was too poor to have ribbons. But she had wildflowers in her hair. Purple heath
er and golden gorse. I could tell Bala this. But I don’t. It is not good to remind Bala that I have different blood in me. It has taken many years to find my place in this village. I fit now.

  Bala moves closer and whispers. “How did such an ugly one as you have such a beautiful daughter?”

  Now I remain silent because I have no answer. I have asked myself that question many times. My mind touches briefly on Asa’s father, the one my memory has named the Patient Scholar, the one who opened for me the world of letters. I see his face, square and plain, gray—not beautiful to anyone’s eyes but mine. I can almost touch it in my memory. I have not visited him since my belly first became round with Asa. For an instant I almost believe I can know that he lives still, that he thinks rarely and briefly of me, alone in his scholar’s world. Steeped in the perfection of his mind and soul, he is unaware of his offspring.

  “Tell me,” comes Bala’s insistent whisper, now raspy. “He glows in your eyes. Tell me about him.”

  I give the answer I always give: “It is best not to speak of the dead.” The words are no lie. They do not say he is dead to this world—only to me. That the villagers accept this answer and keep me in their fold is, likewise, no miracle. They need a midwife. It is only Bala who receives my answer without gratitude, without relief. She has not moved since I spoke. She is too close. I pronounce each word with resonance: “It is best to let the dead go.”

  Bala looks at me sharply all of a sudden. “Did you know that Otto of the West Forest is looking for a midwife? His wife has lost three babies already. He says he’ll pay anything for a midwife who can make this baby live.”

  Payment from a noble would not be a single bale of wool or a lone ribbon. I cannot begin to imagine what it would be. I cannot begin to imagine what I might want it to be. Confusion floods me. I am unaccustomed to this sort of speculation. I am disturbed by the tiny flicker of curiosity and want. I replace the mica in the dish and scrape a wart off my elbow, hoping Bala does not read the mixed emotions in my face. “Otto of the West Forest would not take an ugly midwife.”

  “He would if he knew your reputation,” says Bala. “You’ve saved the smallest newborns. You’ve nursed back to health the sickest mothers. Your hands are deft.” She takes my hands and turns them so the palms are open to her. “These hands read a pregnant belly and fly to the task. You have the gift of birthing.”

  I pull my hands back, surprised by the praise. Bala has never before shown such interest in me. “God is good to me,” I say.

  The neighbor Bala cocks her head. “I’ll tell this desperate noble of you. I’ll have him begging for you. But then you must give me part of what he pays you.”

  I nod.

  Bala rushes out, her greed cleaving the air.

  I put Bala and her needs and Otto of the West Forest and his needs out of my mind. The day is long and hot and lazy. Asa spends most of it in the stream, then the meadow, then the stream again.

  I feel almost without worry. The summer will be long. Food will be plentiful. I let myself slide inside my head, down and around, faster and faster, into God’s waiting hands. I am ready for those hands to close over me, to envelop me in the love that has no bounds. But today the hands sit open. Something is uneven, off balance. There is something I must learn. But I feel stupid today. I’ve been too lazy all day. I cannot learn what God wants me to learn.

  “Ugly One!”

  Bala’s scream jerks me back to the world where mortals walk. I stand up to meet her. Even standing as tall as I can, I am stooped over so much my nose reaches only to her shoulder.

  She looks at my twisted back for a second. “Oh,” says Bala, “they will have a shock when they see you. But Otto of the West Forest is waiting. You must hurry.”

  “Asa,” I call.

  Asa runs to me.

  We walk to the noble’s house, past the well-tended fields, toward the dark cool of the small woodland. It takes us most of an hour. Bala explains to Asa what lies ahead of us. Asa is eager. She has seen many peasant babies born. But this is the first time she will see a noble’s home from the inside. It is my first time, as well. I stay silent, trying to roll in God’s hands, trying to understand what it is I’m supposed to learn today. Is there something I must know to save the noble’s baby?

  And then Asa is sitting with Otto of the West Forest, with the noble himself, and, lo, she is even singing in her trill of a voice, though no one listens. Bala is pacing outside the door, and I am alone with the noble’s wife. Her eyes are sunk in her fat face. My heart goes out to her fear. She clutches at my cloak. On her hand is a ring of orange and yellow golds from Spain. Bala spoke of the Spanish gold in this house as we walked here, but her description did not prepare me for the splendor. The ring’s face is a large, raised oval with a figure eight in the middle. Around the eight are grape leaves with clusters of grapes. It is as near to perfect a ring as I can imagine.

  The wife’s grasp is so strong, I almost lose my balance. I rub her thighs hard. Already I know the presentation is wrong. But it is early enough; the baby is not yet in the birth canal. I pull a clean new leather strap from the folds of my cloak and hand it to the frantic woman. She knows to hold it in her teeth and scream and bite. I reach inside her with one hand, and with the other I work the outside of her belly. The child must be turned. I have a baby shoulder under my palm. I massage the small lump downward. I push and work and the wife screams.

  It is night as the baby gasps for air. A girl. I suck the mucus from her nose and place her naked and wet at her mother’s breast. The girl baby suckles, and I laugh. The new mother laughs and cries and laughs. We feel lucky to have shared a miracle. For this one moment we are as sisters, overflowing with love. Ephemeral bond. But she is tired. I back out of the room.

  Bala has been sent home. Asa is asleep in the barn. I go to her and lie beside her. Tomorrow, Otto of the West Forest has promised, tomorrow I may choose my payment. I fall asleep thinking of Spanish gold. Orange and yellow gold.

  The gold of morning sun on straw wakens me. Mosquitoes have already begun to plague the barn. I snap my hands in the air, keeping them from Asa’s face. Then we are called to the house.

  The noble has a pouch of money hanging from his wrist. He holds it out for me to feel its weight. “Money for a job well-done. Or, perhaps, something else?” He extends a closed fist. “I’ve heard of your love of beautiful things.” He opens his fist. An emerald glistens at me.

  I look at Asa. Her eyes are on the table in the room beyond. I follow her gaze. The table is laden with fruits and nuts in large porcelain bowls. I shake my head. “Asa, look at the emerald.”

  “Candy, Mother.” Asa walks to the table and the noble follows her. “There are mints and chocolates,” she says.

  Otto of the West Forest laughs. He places a square of chocolate in Asa’s mouth, almost as the local pastor would place the host in our waiting mouths. He hands her a circle of green mint. He looks at me. “Have you decided?”

  “The emerald,” I hear myself saying.

  When we get home, Bala is waiting on the dirt path. “An emerald?” she screams. “How am I to take a part of an emerald? You must trade it immediately for clothes and food.”

  I search the land, the trees, the skies with my eyes. “What can I set the emerald in for Asa to wear?”

  “You fool!” screams Bala. “If she wears an emerald, she’ll be robbed. Robbed. And maybe killed, too.”

  Bala is right. The emerald must be hidden. We must find a treasure hole. Bala talks on and on, but my mind is already peering into every hole I know, looking for the right one, when my eyes finally pass the door of our cabin. Above the door is the green circle of mint. Asa has climbed up onto the roof to place it there.

  Asa smiles at us from the roof. “Don’t you love it, Mother? We can know it is there. We can shut our eyes and pretend we live in a candy house. All candy. Everywhere.”

  “The birds will eat it,” screams Bala. It seems she can do nothing but scream th
is day.

  “I lacquered it,” says Asa. She slides off the roof and runs toward the stream. She is much smarter than the ordinary five-year-old. I can feel Bala’s anger following Asa’s back.

  “Birds won’t eat a lacquered mint,” I say to Bala, relishing Asa’s victory over the logic of Bala—the logic of these hard and ascetic people.

  “Shut up, Ugly One,” she says. “I did you a favor. You owe me now.”

  “Yes,” I say, stifling my smile. “The next birthing I do, the payment goes to you.”

  “No. Midwifery around here brings nothing more than sacks of flour or bales of wool. And none of the other nobles’ wives are heavy with child.” Bala sighs. Then she says slowly, “But the burgermeister’s first child is ill.”

  I am silent. There is nothing to say.

  “You can cure him.” Bala looks at me with bird eyes. “You.”

  “I am a simple midwife,” I say. “I am not a healer.”

  “You could be. You know the secrets of nature better than anyone. You bring down milk fever in new mothers. You banish the pus from newborns’ eyes.” Bala dances around me as she talks. “Why, you are a healer already. Everyone is astonished at what you know—at what you can do.”

  “Devils bring illness. Only those who can chase devils away can heal.”

  “You are a woman of God,” says Bala. “You can chase devils away.”

  I shake my head, not daring to allow the conversation to go any further. “Not me,” I say, but already the stirrings of new hope are alive within me. No one has ever asked me to step beyond the limits of the birthing bed.

  “How can a woman of God say such a thing?” Bala puts her face close to mine. “Every God-fearing soul battles with devils daily.”

  “There is a difference,” I say, my heart beating faster, “between fighting devils in the daily battle of souls and seeking out devils for a battle of choice.”

  Bala squats on the ground and looks hard at the dirt. She picks up a stick and draws a large circle. “But if you could chase devils away without endangering yourself, you would do it, wouldn’t you?”