Magic Lessons (Practical Magic) - Alice Hoffman Page 0,16

“Or perhaps you no longer remember who he was, as you failed to remember that your husband would punish whoever might help you. Your men came to kill the woman who raised me.” Maria met her mother’s gaze, unafraid. She blamed Rebecca for Hannah’s death, and it was in her nature to speak her mind. She could already tell, her mother might be more learned when it came to magic, but of the two, Maria was stronger.

“I did not mean for that to happen,” Rebecca vowed. “She was a good woman. That was why I left you with her. I never thought my husband would be able to follow my trail.” Rebecca’s red hair nearly reached to her waist. She was vain and she always had been, but her expression showed heartfelt remorse. “I laid out cayenne, pepper, and lavender to confuse his dogs. I thought he’d prefer his drink to me and that he’d be too filled with rum to find where I’d been. That was my mistake. I underestimated the power of the Tenth. I know I can’t undo what has been done, but even if I am at fault, I wish you would stay with me. If you ever have a child and lose her, a tragedy I wouldn’t wish on any living soul, then perhaps you will forgive me.”

Maria scrutinized the house, three stories of pale stone with a cobbled courtyard, the home of the Locklands for over two hundred years. She looked at her mother, who had given birth by herself in a snowy field despite her fine manor house, and who had initialed Maria’s blanket with blue silk thread spun halfway across the world by glowing worms that turned into moths with bright wings.

Perhaps it was meant to be. Maria would take a chamber on the second floor. The largest one, with a lock on the door so she could have her privacy, for magic was a private affair, even between mother and daughter, and magic was all she cared about now.

* * *

Although Rebecca could neither read nor write, when it came to matters of love, she was an expert. Her Grimoire was filled with runic marks, the ancient alphabet of alchemy. She used these symbols to denote which herbs to use and which to avoid, which spells were best to recite in the waning or waxing of the moon, to bring forth the power of the earth and sky, incantations which were dangerous in a novice’s hands. She taught Maria the eight lesser love charms, and the Ninth Potion, which was so potent one must wear gloves during its preparation. The Tenth Potion was the one she herself had used, and she did not recommend the use of that enchantment. If she knew Maria had copied it into her own Grimoire, at the very back of her book, she did not say; she only told her daughter to be vigilant. There were sinister aspects of magic, and what you brought into this world was your responsibility, to deal with forevermore.

Rebecca herself was drawn toward the dark, what some people called left-handed magic, and she certainly didn’t care about any man’s wrath, even after her years with her husband, who had known enough about her skills to set out a circle of salt around her and tie her to an iron chair before he beat her, for salt and iron deplete a witch’s talents. Of course he would want to change her once he knew what she was; that was the way their love first unraveled. Rebecca knew how to blind a man and how to make him see again, what herbs would help to bring on a pregnancy, as well as those that would end that condition. Rebecca was as acquainted with the many forms of magic as she was with the corners and walls of her own bedchamber. She was a seeker of revenge, fearless since her first day on earth. She, too, had grown up as a motherless child, and because of this Rebecca had learned to survive by her wits early on. Her own mother was a witch who had disappeared after her daughter’s birth. Rebecca was an outcast from the start, for her father did not wish to have her in his household. It was no mistake that Rebecca had left her daughter in Devotion Field rather than with a nurse, as she had experienced the terrors of such a childhood. For what was perceived as a bit