Magic Lessons (Practical Magic) - Alice Hoffman Page 0,6

in England, in the court and in castles, but magic books were forbidden for the poor and for women. There were searches for magical manuscripts belonging to women, which were often found hidden under beds, or, to avoid discovery once doubt had been cast upon the writer, floating in rivers or thrown onto burning pyres so that their magic would not fall into the wrong hands. Spells and magical symbols were written upon parchment, then tucked into the folds of clothing or into the food of the intended objects of desire. But it was a woman’s personal book that was most important; here she would record the correct recipes for all manner of enchantments. How to conjure, how to heal, including those illnesses that had no name, how to use natural magic to bind another to you or send him away, and how to use literary magic, the writing of charms and amulets and incantations, for there was no magic as coveted or as effective as that which used words.

* * *

Whereas Hannah’s Grimoire had vellum pages and a wooden cover, the book she fashioned for Maria was a true prize, a magical object in and of itself. It was made of real paper, dearly bought from a printer in the village. The cover was black and bumpy and cool to the touch, unmistakably supernatural in nature, made of a most unusual material. Cadin had led her to the shallows of a nearby pond where she found a large toad floating on the calm surface, already cold and lifeless when Hannah knelt to hold it in her hands. For those who were uneducated, toads were full of evil magic, and witches were said to transform themselves into toads if need be. This toad’s fate would be to guard a treasure trove of cures and remedies.

As Hannah walked home in the fading dark, the toad’s skin sparked with light. This made it clear that a Grimoire formed from this creature would have its own power, and would give strength to the written enchantments it bore. Any spell would be twice as potent. Hannah prepared the leather that very night, secretly, and with great skill, salting the skin before stretching it on a wooden rack. Overnight the toad-leather grew twice as large as it had been, taking on the form of a square, which signified the mystical shape of the heart, combining the human and the divine, and representing the four elements: fire, earth, air, and water. It was an omen of power and heartbreak and love.

* * *

When presented with the book, on Midsummer Night in the year she turned ten, Maria cried hot tears, the first time she could recall doing so, for although witches are said to be unable to cry, rare occasions cause them to do so. Maria was swept up by raw emotion and gratitude, and from that day forward she cried when she was flooded by her responses, burning her own skin with her dark, salty tears. Never in her life had anything truly belonged to her and her alone. She marked this day forever after as the day of her birth, for it was, indeed, the formation of the woman she would become. Her fate was tied to this book as if her future had been written with indelible ink. On the first page were the rules of magic, ones Hannah declared they were obliged to follow.

Do as you will, but harm no one.

What you give will be returned to you threefold.

From then on, each day was a lesson, with more and more to study, for it seemed there might not be time for all that Maria must learn. Hannah had begun to hear the clatter of the deathwatch beetle inside the house, the dreaded creature whose sound echoed in times of plague and famine and illness, predicting the end of a life. One could never be sure whose life was in peril, but on this occasion Hannah knew. After finding a small neat hole in the wall beside her bed, set there from the creature’s burrowing, Hannah held up a burning twig to smoke out the beetle with yellow sulfurous fumes, but it did no good. If anything, the clicking grew louder, deafening at times, for there was no way to prevent a death that has already been cast, as every man and woman who walks the earth is bound to know when their own time comes.

Perhaps the girl had foreseen Hannah’s death before