The Age of Witches

by Louisa Morgan

“The proprietress carries a very good cream for the complexion,” Frances said. “You should buy some while we’re there. Hurry now, Velma, Antoinette. This is an unpleasant neighborhood, and I want to get to O’Neill’s before luncheon.”

  The neighborhood seemed fine to Annis, but as they left the carriage, she saw Robbie glare at passersby as if daring them to come too close. The four women walked eastward, Frances with a hand under Annis’s arm, the two maids close behind. They turned right, and Frances led them up Elizabeth Street to their destination.

  The herb shop was tiny and dark, little more than a closet. It was wedged between a cobbler on one side, with boots and shoes littering the grimy front window, and a chandler on the other. The chandler’s storefront was nicer, its polished window piled with candles of different sizes and an array of pretty holders. As Frances and Antoinette disappeared through the narrow door into the herbalist’s, Velma paused in front of the chandler’s display, gazing openmouthed at the shop’s wares.

  Annis, seeing, turned back. “Is there something there you like, Velma?” she asked. Velma shrugged, but Annis saw that her eyes were fixed on a cut-glass candleholder in the shape of a swan. “Is that it? Do you like that?”

  “I like swans,” Velma said. Her eyes, usually so dull, brightened with interest.

  Annis was startled to sense, as if it were her own, Velma’s longing for the little object. Velma wanted to touch it, to hold it. An odd little ache sprang up under Annis’s rib cage, and she pressed an uneasy hand over it. Why should she share this feeling of desire? She had no wish to possess the candleholder, pretty though it was. It was Velma who had admired it, and Velma—

  She made herself drop her hand to dig in her purse for a bit of money. “Go in and buy it,” she whispered, pressing the money into Velma’s fingers. Velma’s eyes widened in disbelief. “I mean it! Quick now, before my stepmother sees you. Then join us in the herbalist’s. Hurry!” She gave her a tiny push to encourage her.

  A look of delight transformed Velma’s plain face, and gooseflesh rose on Annis’s arms. As Velma went into the chandler’s, the money clutched in her hand, the ache in Annis’s chest eased. She followed Frances into the herbalist’s shop, telling herself she was imagining things. She couldn’t have sensed Velma’s feelings. She was not herself, truly. No doubt it was the stress of her argument with her father, and her worry over leaving Bits, that caused her to have such strange notions.

  Inside the shop the scents of lavender and peppermint and eucalyptus wafted from shelves crowded with jars and bottles and baskets. The room was so narrow Annis could have touched both side walls with her outstretched hands. At the far end, a tiny, bent woman was wrapping a jar of something under Frances’s watchful eye.

  Frances glanced back as she approached. “Oh, Annis, there you are! What is it you want from Mrs. Carcano? I’ve forgotten. I’m buying you a jar of face cream, though. It has cowslip in it. It will help with those freckles.”

  Annis worked her way toward the counter, pulling her skirts aside so as not to upset the baskets piled on the floor. The proprietress peered at her from beneath an upswept mass of gray hair. Her eyes were black as coal, their lids sagging with age. “Freckles?” she said, with the rolled r of an Italian accent. “No, no, signorina, your freckles are perfect. No need, no need,” and she immediately unwrapped the jar and placed it on a shelf beneath the counter.

  Annis grinned. She had never understood why freckles were considered a fault, and hers were so pale they were almost invisible in any case. Clearly the old Italian lady thought the same, because she gave her a nearly toothless smile and a cheerful wink. “Signorina, you need something. Not for face, face is good. Skin is good, teeth is good. What, then?”

  “My horse,” Annis said. “A poultice. I’m told—that is, I think I need powdered ginger.”

  “Ah, sì, sì, sì,” the woman said. “Ginger. Good for swelling. You know herbs, signorina?”

  “A little.”

  “Un po’, un po’. Is good.” She turned and brought down a quart jar filled with oddly shaped roots. “Here is gingerroot. Is dried. You can grind?”

  “Yes. Mrs. King—our cook—has a nut grinder.”

  “Good, is good. Clean first, though.”

  “I will.”

  “Va bene, I sell you two ounces, for poultice.” Velma came in, the creak of the door announcing her presence. Mrs. Carcano looked up and gazed at the maid for a moment, her eyes narrowed. Annis and Frances and Antoinette all turned to see what she was looking at, then turned back, puzzled.

  “You are going on a sea voyage?” Mrs. Carcano asked of Velma.

  Velma froze.

  Annis spoke for her. “We are. We’re going to England on the Majestic. How did you—”

  “Never mind, Annis,” Frances said, with an edge to her voice.

  “Six ounces,” Mrs. Carcano announced. “I sell you six ounces ginger. Is very good for upset stomach. Sea voyage, you take ginger to make tea.”

  Annis’s lips parted to ask how she had known Velma had troubles with seasickness, but Frances forestalled her, saying hurriedly, “Fine, fine, Mrs. Carcano. Six ounces, if you say so. Now we must hurry. How much do I owe you?”

  The transaction was quickly concluded. Annis accepted the little parcel from the herbalist, and they were on their way out the door and down the street.

  “Frances,” Annis said. “How did that woman—Mrs. Carcano—

  how did she know Velma gets seasick? How could she know?”

  Frances avoided her eyes. “No idea. Perhaps it’s something about Velma’s complexion. We should have bought the face cream for her instead, I suppose. I didn’t think of it.”

  “I’ll go back,” Annis said, slowing her steps, ready to turn back. She liked the idea of going back to the old woman’s shop, of looking into those black eyes again. She would ask her how she had known about Velma.

  “No, Annis,” Frances snapped. She seized Annis’s arm, her small hand surprisingly strong, and propelled her at a quick pace back toward Mulberry Street. “Come now, we have things to accomplish, and the morning is far gone already.”

  Annis frowned in confusion as she climbed back into the carriage. Velma sat beside her on the seat, hiding her package under her coat. Frances said to Robbie, “O’Neill’s, please. Quick as you can.”

  Robbie clucked to Andy, and they were off. Though it was pointless, Annis couldn’t help craning her neck, hoping for a glimpse of the herb shop as Andy pulled them away.

  She couldn’t see the shop, but she caught sight of a tall figure that looked familiar. She was better dressed this time, in a day dress and a white straw hat. Her hair was neatly tucked up, and she wore a short, slightly out-of-fashion cape. Surely, though her clothes were so different, that was the lady she had encountered in the park?

  The woman paused, gazing toward the Allington carriage as if she knew who was in its plush seats.

  Annis twisted to see her better, squinting through the bright sunshine. The lady’s drooping hat brim hid her face, but not many women were so tall and lean…

  Frances interrupted her thoughts, and she was forced to turn back. “Look there, Annis,” Frances said, pointing with her gloved hand to a construction site in the early stages. “That will be the Siegel-Cooper emporium. It’s going to be the biggest store in the world, and they’re going to sell Allington Iron Stoves, which will make your father happy.”

  Annis, having no interest in stores, slumped back in her seat, frustrated and perplexed. Such an odd coincidence that she should see the tall woman on the street that way.

  There had been something unusual about their visit to Mrs. Carcano, too, something even more perplexing. The Italian woman had refused to sell Frances the face cream, as if the sale didn’t matter nearly so much as her opinion of Annis’s appearance. She had tripled the amount of ginger in Annis’s order on her own whim, as if she dictated her customers’ purchases rather than the other way around. Strangest of all, Frances
had objected to neither of these things.

  That wasn’t like Frances. She tended to be as imperious as the queen whenever she had the chance, reminding everyone that she was a woman of consequence.

  Annis peeked up at her stepmother from beneath the brim of her hat. Frances’s face was as composed as if she hadn’t a care in the world. As if everything in her life was going just as she planned it. As if she was in complete control.

  For a wild moment Annis envied her, which made the whole morning stranger than ever.

  8

  Frances

  After Annis blurted out their plans for anyone to hear, and then Harriet standing on the sidewalk staring after them, Frances worried that Harriet would guess what she meant to do. Harriet was uncanny in that way.

  She had learned that about Harriet when she was sixteen and Harriet a still-striking thirty-one. The two of them shared nothing beyond their Bishop heritage. Their familial relationship was so distant they couldn’t measure it. They knew they were cousins, but at what remove no one seemed to recall.

  Frances’s mother had just died, and Harriet and her grandmother Beryl had come to visit. Cousin Beryl, as Frances had been taught to call her, was a tall, straight-backed woman with a shock of silver hair. Frances hadn’t seen her in some time, and she was startled to see what age did to the Bishop face. Beryl’s Bishop chin had grown more prominent than ever, and her long nose had begun to droop. Only the gray eyes remained sharp, with a diamond brightness Frances envied. Harriet had the same eyes.

  Frances’s own eyes were an ordinary brown, but fortunately she had been spared the Bishop chin and nose. That was something, at least, to be grateful for.

  “Well, Frances,” Beryl had said, the moment she sat down. “We must think what to do with you.”

  “Do with me?” Frances asked. “What do you mean?”

  “Now you’re alone, we must decide how you’re to go forward. We’re sorry for your loss, naturally, but I’m afraid the Bishop women who deny their ability have a lamentable tendency to die young.”

  Harriet added, “Ignoring it is poison. It never ends well.”

  Frances looked from one face to the other, confounded by the conversation. “Ability?” she said faintly. “Cousin Beryl—Cousin Harriet—what are you talking about?”

  “Grandmother,” Harriet said. “You need to begin at the beginning. Frances doesn’t know anything.”

  Beryl said, “I fear you’re right.”

  “I can’t think why Cousin Sarah didn’t teach her,” Harriet said.

  “She was terrified,” Beryl said, the two of them speaking together as if Frances weren’t sitting right between them. “Because of her mother. Sarah’s mother was always angry, cursing people, causing trouble. Using the maleficia drove her mad, I believe.”

  Frances had never met her grandmother and had no idea what they were talking about.

  Harriet turned to her. “Frances, did you know your mother was a Bishop?”

  “She wasn’t. She was a Tyler.”

  “That was her married name,” Beryl said.

  “She said she was Sarah Margaret Tyler.”

  “Margaret was her middle name. You never knew her maiden name?” Harriet asked.

  “No, she… no. She never told me.”

  Beryl’s lips pursed with disdain. “Sarah was terrified of her Bishop heritage being exposed. I recall how thrilled she was to change her name when she married. She thought that would keep her safe.”

  Frances gazed at them in mystified silence. They were sitting in the tiny Brooklyn apartment Frances had shared with her mother ever since her father disappeared. It smelled of stew being cooked downstairs and laundry being boiled and starched next door. Its two small windows gave onto a narrow alley where rats and stray dogs scavenged for scraps. The windows were too small for the sun to penetrate, and mold and mildew grew in every corner.

  It was a dismal place on a sad and dirty little street. Accordingly the rent was meager, but they had struggled to pay it just the same.

  Their poverty didn’t seem to be what Cousin Beryl was talking about, though. Ability?

  Harriet said, “A cup of tea would be nice, Frances. I brought some, in case you didn’t have any. This might be a long conversation.”

  Harriet didn’t look craggy like her grandmother, but in her grief she had gotten too thin. Her cheeks had lost their youthful plumpness, and her bosom had shrunk to almost nothing. Even her lips were narrower than Frances remembered. Of course, she was thirty-one now, a spinster, still sorrowing over the death of her fiancé. Frances privately thought that five years of grieving was excessive, but she kept her opinion to herself. Alexander had been killed just at the end of the war. Such a pity! He had been a handsome man, and quite well off. Frances couldn’t recall which battle he had been wounded in, but the name of it didn’t matter. He was dead.

  Listlessly Frances rose and crossed the kitchen to the range. She pushed bits of coal into a pile and lit them, then pumped the kettle full. As she did these things, Cousin Beryl began to talk. By the time the kettle whistled, Frances’s entire life had changed.

  “Seven generations ago,” Beryl began, “our ancestress Bridget Bishop was tried as a witch, judged guilty, and hanged for the crime.”

  “A witch!” Frances exclaimed, with a little laugh.

  Cousin Beryl put up her hand for silence. “It is no laughing matter, Frances. It is, in fact, a life-or-death matter. Now listen.” She folded her hands on the table. “Bridget had two daughters, Mary and Christian. Both inherited some part of Bridget’s ability.”

  Frances couldn’t help interrupting. “What is this ability you keep talking about? I don’t know what you’re—”

  Harriet said, “Frances, Grandmother Beryl is trying to tell you. Be patient.”

  Frances scowled at being spoken to as if she were a child.

  Cousin Beryl took no notice. “Bridget did have a certain talent. She was just a hedge witch, an herbalist, a maker of potions and charms and tokens. She was good at simple cures, using her ability to make liniments and salves and tinctures.

  “She was also, unfortunately, adept with manikins, and her daughter Christian chose that practice. Mary was a stronger practitioner, but it was Christian who did real damage. A manikin, before you ask, is a replica of a human being. Some witches call it a poppet.”

  “Witches! You’ve said that twice now. You don’t mean, really—magic?”

  “Yes, but I think of it as power, the power of intention. In conjunction with knowledge and study and discipline, it can effect wonderful things.”

  “What damage did Christian do?”

  “She cursed people, they say, brought on illnesses, caused accidents, ruined romances. You and your mother are descended from Christian’s line. Harriet and I are from Mary’s line.”

  “What difference does it make what line I’m from? Would it mean I have the ability?”

  Beryl said without inflection, “You do have it, Frances.”

  The kettle had begun to whistle, but Frances didn’t reach for it. She stood frozen, staring openmouthed at Beryl. “How do you know? Mother never said anything!”

  “Sarah watched her own mother go mad, probably from misusing her ability. Your grandmother was shut up in an asylum, a horrible place where she died in only a few months. Sarah spent her life trying to deny her legacy out of fear, and she didn’t want to see it in her daughter.”

  “There are good reasons for that,” Harriet put in. “Her line—your line—has suffered for their dark practices. They have been ostracized, put away, even murdered.”

  Frances turned to Harriet. “Do you have the ability?”

  “I do. I use it sometimes in my work, if I need it to strengthen my remedies.” She rose and went to lift the screaming kettle from the stove and pour the boiling water into the teapot.

  Frances asked Beryl, “So why do you think I have it? You hardly know me!”

  Beryl nodded. “That’s true, F
rances, and I’m sorry. I dislike speaking ill of the dead, but that is your mother’s fault. Sarah didn’t care for me. For us.”

  “Why not?”

  “As we’ve said, she was afraid. She didn’t want to be associated with us, even after your father abandoned her.”

  “She said,” Harriet interjected, “that she didn’t want us putting ideas in your head.”

  “But now you are putting ideas in my head!” Frances said, her voice strained by confusion and uneasiness. She wasn’t sure she believed what these two were telling her. She hadn’t yet puzzled out a reason for them to lie, but they must want something from her. People always wanted something. Men were the worst, but women could be more dangerous. More subtle, harder to read.

  Harriet said, “We’ve talked this over.” She had found a tray in the cupboard, and she set it beside the stove. As she arranged cups and spoons she said, “We decided, though we are sorry for it, to go against your mother’s wishes. We are all that’s left of your family, and we felt we needed to speak to you for your own sake.”

  Frances shook her head. “I don’t understand.”

  “It’s a shock, I know,” Harriet said. “You must understand that it’s not safe to have the ability and not develop it. Terrible things can happen. Have happened.” She carried the tray to the table and set about pouring tea into cups.

  Beryl said, “Come and sit down now, Frances. We’ll explain it all to you.”

  It was a long explanation, and it took an entire pot of tea and the little sack of pastries Beryl and Harriet had brought to get through it. When it was over, Frances’s head brimmed with family history, rules for practice, places to find what she would need, and warnings about the dark practices of her ancestresses, Christian’s descendants.

  “You must come and live with us, I think,” Beryl said, as if Frances had no say in the matter. “I will teach you, as I taught Harriet. In my tradition, of course.” She sniffed. “It would be just as well if Christian’s line died out, in my view.”

  Frances considered. On the one hand, she would not be surprised if it turned out that all of this was merely the fantasy of a batty old widow and the delusions of a bereaved spinster. It might even have been concocted solely for the purpose of deceiving her, although she couldn’t see the motivation.