although she felt it. It wouldn’t help. “You must come back the day after tomorrow, about this same time. I will have something for you then.”
“You can’t—you can’t make it up now?” Dora Schuyler said tearfully. “I don’t care what it costs, but it’s so hard to get away…”
“I’m sorry,” Harriet said. “What you need can’t be rushed, I’m afraid. Do you know how long…” She let the question trail off and saw that Mrs. Schuyler understood.
The young woman’s cheeks burned even hotter as she answered in an undertone, “About six weeks, I believe. Perhaps eight.”
“You’re in time, then, Mrs. Schuyler. Do your best not to worry.”
Grace, hovering in the background, stepped forward to escort their visitor to the door. Harriet watched Mrs. Schuyler walk away, her shoulders hunched beneath her stylish jacket, her steps small and quick, the movements of an anxious rabbit.
Harriet sighed and went to make a cup of tea and find one of Grace’s scones to fortify herself for the tedious task ahead. She had the ingredients on hand, because it was a tincture much in demand. Emmenagogues, herbs to stir the womb to clear itself. The making of the tincture itself did not require so much time or effort, but the cantrip to make certain it was effective did. She would be working late into the evening.
Harriet took the greatest care in measuring for her tincture. The wild carrot seeds and juniper berries were not likely to threaten Dora Schuyler’s health, but pennyroyal and tansy could be deadly. Their amounts had to be precisely calculated. Harriet took pains with every step of the process and washed her hands thoroughly once the work was done.
When she had prepared everything and poured a precise amount of alcohol over the whole, she set the vial on the counter. The alcohol—she preferred to use port wine, which helped to mask the taste—would extract the essential, functioning elements of the herbs. For most herbalists, that would be the end of it. If she were an ordinary practitioner, she would cork the little vial, let it rest for two days, and it would be ready.
Harriet was no ordinary herbalist.
She arranged her ritual objects with the same precision she used in measuring powerful ingredients. A thick new candle in a brass holder rested behind the suspended amulet so that its flickering light would glitter on the stone’s inner threads of purple. The vial of tincture she set at the center of the tableau, and she scattered a handful of sage around it to purify the atmosphere. She set a long match to the wick of the candle, nodding as the wick caught and flamed high, then settled to a steady glow. She turned off the electric lights, casting the room into shadows that shifted before the flame of the candle.
Harriet had only her grandmother’s oral history to know how her ancestress, Bridget Bishop, had wielded her abilities. There were two separate and dramatically different traditions, derived from Bridget’s two very different daughters, conceived of two very different husbands. The older daughter had been Mary Wesselby. The younger had been Christian Oliver.
Grandmother Beryl acknowledged the weaknesses of an oral tradition, but she was certain of one thing: she and Harriet were descended from Mary’s line and had kept the Bishop name. Their practice, passed down over the two centuries since Bridget’s execution, was one of beneficial herbs and healing cantrips, an art adapted and expanded according to the practitioner.
Christian’s line was a different matter. Whether Christian herself had done it, Beryl could not be sure, but her descendants had added philters and manikins to their repertoire, both meant to manipulate minds and spirits, to persuade people to do what they did not intend to do. Beryl had warned against their use. Harriet wished she had listened.
Grandmother had also spoken, rarely, of the knowing. She herself had not possessed the ability. She was already dead when Harriet discovered she had inherited it and learned that it was sometimes a terrible thing.
With everything in order, Harriet recited the cantrip for today’s purpose.
Root and stem, leaf and flower,
I command your deepest power.
Nature’s strength unfettered be
To set one of her daughters free.
She stood in the dim room, a solitary, experienced practitioner. She bent her head as she waited for the sign that meant she had succeeded. The ametrine, its veins of purple vivid under the candlelight, grew cloudy, as if filled with mist. Harriet waited, five minutes, then twenty, then thirty, focusing her mind and her spirit