Magic Lessons (Practical Magic) - Alice Hoffman Page 0,159

collected in the garden, or perhaps they merely enjoyed the varieties of greens Maria grew—sorrel, dandelion, spinach, and chard. At the rear of the large yard there was a small orchard of fruit trees—plum, peach, pear, and several varieties of apple—all having been set into the earth in the dark of the moon. Maria left the acreage between the house and the lake as free and open land, there for all to enjoy, a gift that would bring a blessing to her family. The fence that circled the house was of an unusual construction, black metal with spikes, laid out in the form of a snake with its tail in its mouth, ensuring that the only way someone could reach the door was to walk through the front gate where the ivy grew wild. Maria nailed the skull of a horse she had found in the Hopwoods’ pasture to a post to send a message to unwanted visitors. That pasture was deserted now that the brothers had disappeared in the middle of the night, headed west, still unable to speak, dreaming every night that they were drowning in a dark, bottomless lake and waking each morning with mouths full of water.

Twenty blue stones from the old path to the shed had been used to fashion a pathway to the house. Every night women came for what they needed most, red pepper tea for an upset stomach, or butterfly weed for nerves, or a bar of black soap that could take years off their age, or a charm for love. Love was what Maria was best at, and she didn’t fight it anymore. Let the rumors be spoken, logical people knew that a woman in trouble would never be turned away from Maria Owens’ door. If she went anywhere in the middle of the night, wrapped in a dark cloak and carrying her bag of curatives and teas, it was to visit an ill child. All the same, there was always bound to be talk about a household of women, not that it stopped people from coming to the door late at night in search of assistance, particularly in matters of love. Other houses were dark, but the light on the Owens’ porch was always kept on. On some occasions baskets of cakes and pies were left at the door, or freshly made cheese, or hand-knitted sweaters, left there by those whose loved ones had been accused of witchcraft, then freed by the governor’s decree, for there were those who were convinced that Maria Owens had something to do with his decision, and for this they would always be grateful.

* * *

The Owens Library opened in May, the most beautiful month of the year, when it was possible for people in Massachusetts to forget winter, at least until it came again. Maria bought the empty jail after Samuel Dias made a donation that would cover all costs for its renovation. While the carpenters were at work, they discovered a blue journal hidden behind the bricks. Work stopped for the day. Even the most serious-minded of the men were afraid of that slim blue volume and not one would touch it. When, at the end of the day, Maria came to see what had been accomplished on the project, the carpenters were sitting in a semicircle waiting for her, their faces ashen. She thought perhaps they had found the remains of a body, for surely there were those who had never left their cells alive, and when she saw that it was her journal that had stopped the men from working and was the reason they stared at her, unsure of what to do next, she was reminded of the first lesson Hannah had taught her. Words had power.

Maria kept the journal in the library to remind those who passed through the doors of what had happened in this building. Before it was filled with dozens of volumes, there was a book that had been written here when women were not allowed to speak on their own behalf. In the evenings there were lessons for those who wished to learn how to read. At first only women attended, many of whom sneaked out and said they were going to a quilting party, but after a while their husbands came to peer through the door, farmers and fishermen who entered the room with their hats in their hands, shyly picking up a book, then fitting their tall, strong bodies into chairs meant for