Magic Lessons (Practical Magic) - Alice Hoffman Page 0,51

time of year the harbor was filled with ships. A customer returning from London mentioned he was on his way home to Essex County.

“How many people can there be in one county?” Mrs. Henry said to Maria. “Perhaps he’ll know your man.”

Maria brought the gentleman a bowl of her apple pandowdy, apples baked in a crust, a delicious end to his dinner, and when he thanked her, she asked if perhaps he might have heard of a man named John Hathorne. Indeed, there was a well-known magistrate in Salem by that name, a man of wealth. “It’s a strict village with Puritans setting down their rules not just for themselves, but for everyone.”

Maria had no fear of rules, and she thanked the customer for his help.

“Now I’ll lose my cook,” Mrs. Henry said sorrowfully when she saw the expression on Maria’s face, for one didn’t need the ability to see into the future to comprehend what would happen next.

That night, Maria had difficulty sleeping. When at last she fell asleep, she dreamed of a ship at sea. In her dream she held her Grimoire in her hands, open to a page on which a map had been spun out of stars. It was a map she couldn’t read, and she was as lost and alone as she had been in the field of snow when Cadin found her and sat on the rim of her basket, refusing to leave her. And then she was no longer alone. Hannah sat across from her in her dream, as real as she’d been on the last day they had spent together. Their boat drifted in a vast and endless sea, but there was great comfort in being in Hannah’s presence, even in a dream.

Fate is what you make of it. You can make the best of it, or you can let it make the best of you.

The fish swimming beneath their boat were huge, dark shadows, but Maria paid them no mind. Stars fell from the sky. Clouds appeared, gray and swollen, promising storms. The world was cold, but there was a flame burning inside her. Hannah leaned forward to whisper.

Life is not what you think it is. Remember that. Remember me.

* * *

When Maria woke, she had already decided she must leave for Essex County without delay. Her future was waiting for her and it would be best for her to discover what was in store. She had most likely stayed too long in Boston. She wondered why she had been unable to find John Hathorne on her own, for she had sighted countless lost men for so many women. There was a problem that thwarted her, that much was evident. She set to work baking a love cake, using the recipe Hannah had taught her. It was a skillet cake, made over the fire, and as it baked, it turned from white to red. She set it out to cool, but an hour later returned to find that the cake had been devoured by ants. It was a dark sign, but one she ignored as she threw away what was left of the cake.

Believe what the world shows you, and make no excuses. See what is right before you. Instead, Maria told herself that it was impossible to control all living things and all occurrences. Not even magic could do that.

* * *

There was farmland ringing Salem, with fields of grass and black-eyed Susans, and farther in the distance, a deep forest of ancient woodland. Spring was madness in New England, all the world come to life at once. Pine, oak, chestnut, plum tree, elm, walnut, ash, witch hazel, and wild cherry all grew here. There were mallows and white hellebore in great profusion in the marshes, used as a curative for wounds and aches, and clusters of loosestrife with vivid purple flowers. In the shadows, there was nightshade, black henbane, wormwood, and bloodwort.

The North River flowed inland and there were marshes and tide pools dotting the land. Salem itself was bustling, and was always so, no matter the hour. This seafaring community had been settled in 1626 at the site of a native village, and was the second oldest settlement in Massachusetts, named after the Hebrew word for peace, shalom. It was here the first Puritan church had been built by those who’d fled England in search of freedom, but once the refugees arrived in a land they claimed as their own, they became as intolerant as their persecutors had