Magic Lessons (Practical Magic) - Alice Hoffman Page 0,99

called Kings County, originally called Breuckelen by the first Dutch settlers, newcomers arrived to find a land of marshes dotted by snow-white clouds where the horizon reached out in bands of blue until at last it met with the sea. This low land had reminded the Dutch of home, and many had sunk to their knees and wept upon their arrival in this wild place where the sky was filled with ducks and geese, and fish jumped in the streams. Rough workingmen, both farmers and fishermen, established the original villages on land where the native Lenape people had once lived, before they were slaughtered and driven out, first by the Dutch, then by the British who replaced the original invaders. In a world that had begun with murder, there was always cruelty, despite the beauty of the shore and the sea.

There were five towns originated by the Dutch in the county, and the sixth, Gravesend, was populated by those who wished to disappear from their previous lives. It was built in 1645 on a parcel of land originally belonging to Lady Deborah Moody and her son, Sir Henry, both of whom had fled from the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony in search of religious freedom. Lady Moody had been fortunate enough to have the Crown grant her a small wedge of Kings County. She’d begun her life in England, close to royal life, and had happily ended her time on earth in Brooklyn, where she’d been free to do as she pleased and had been buried in the one cemetery, at the end of an Indian path. Her son had disappeared. Some people said he’d been buried beside his mother, others vowed he’d left for the unknown territories in the West, and that he preferred native people to Englishmen.

The original settlement had been destroyed by the war-ravaged native population, who had lost more than a thousand to the Dutch aggression and hundreds more to the British, though they did their best to fight back. In the end, they were defeated, and their population had all but vanished. When Faith was brought to Gravesend, it was the farthest outpost of what was called the Flat Country by detractors and admirers alike, populated by hardy souls who did not fear isolation. Martha Chase paid a pittance to the village elders for the use of an abandoned house overgrown by weeds and vines. She wished to be in a place that was on very few maps, and the farther she was from the crowds of Manhattan the better, for all the previous year there had been an epidemic of yellow fever which had killed ten percent of the population. Gravesend was cold in the dead of winter with ice coating the cattails and reeds, and it was equally hot in the blazing summer when the sun beat down. Their house was far enough from the village so that hundreds of gulls and terns wheeled across the sky all through the day and not another sound was heard. It was a worthwhile spot, for they could fish in the streams and have a garden, though the sandy soil was a trial. It was easy enough to hide away in this desolate location where there would be few questions asked concerning the girl with her hair dyed pitch-black from a tint of crushed inkberries and the boiled bark of a black walnut tree, a quiet, thoughtful child who didn’t resemble the pale nervous woman who insisted Faith call her Mother. When Faith repeatedly told her she already had a mother, Martha Chase calmly said that Maria hadn’t wanted her, and had given her to Martha, otherwise she would have been in a workhouse. Faith wept at night; when she looked at the inky sky she wished for a sign that her mother still loved her, in her dreams or in her waking life, which would let her know her mother was still thinking of her.

* * *

By the time they had arrived, Brooklyn was populated by two thousand souls, and although it was set just across the river from Manhattan, it was a world away. When they’d first left Massachusetts, Faith had been told there were evil people who were chasing after her and that they must escape or the devil would have them. Faith’s mother would approve of their move to New York, the girl was told; after all, she had given her only child to Martha for her protection and wasn’t that