Magic Lessons Page 6

  In fact, she would. When Robbie was caught by the sheriff for crimes he had committed, she would be hanged alongside him, not for witchery, of which she would have likely been found guilty, but as an accomplice to horse theft, a crime with which her man was well acquainted. When there was gossip about Rebecca—she had herbs with her, and wore talismans on her wrists and at her throat—the jailers clasped iron shoes on her feet, and as witches are helpless in the grip of that metal, she could not work her magic, she could only weep tears that scalded the ground beneath them. Robbie would give a speech that many in the crowd, especially the women, would remember for years to come. He’d speak of a love that would never end, about the world they shared and the heaven they would share as well. He would quote from The Tempest, a revival of which he’d had the honor to be a part of, though his words to Rebecca were so heartfelt, everyone thought they were his own.

  Hear my soul speak:

  The very instant that I saw you, did

  My heart fly to your service.

  The crowd would listen appreciatively, for they were fine words, indeed, and many of the women would applaud, but they would hang him all the same. Rebecca could see bits and pieces of the event to come when she looked into a pool of water in the gutter. Still, that awful occurrence would not be for months, and the time they had together was precious, and part of a bargain Rebecca was willing to make. “Love is not always under our control,” she told her daughter.

  “It will never be that for me.” Maria was already wearing the red boots, and although she adored the gift, she would avoid her mother’s path at all costs. She vowed she would never let love rule her life.

  Mother and daughter said their good-byes on the dock, embracing one another, their true feelings surfacing. Despite all the time they had been apart, they had similar hearts, surprisingly easy to break, but they were strong when it mattered and it mattered now, for they both understood that they would not meet again.

  * * *

  The world was so much larger than Maria would have ever imagined, and all that lived in the sea seemed enormous as well: the creatures that swam alongside the ship spouting foul-smelling water, and slithering dark things that clung to the hull, fish whose mouths were filled with teeth, scaly sea snakes and blue crabs pulled up in nets overflowing with dark purple seaweed. At night the stars tore through the black sky, and when it rained the world itself seemed upside down, with water above and below. Strong men cried and called for their mothers during the worst of these storms, and fish leapt onto the deck to escape the roiling waves, but Cadin clattered into Maria’s ear that they merely needed to stay alive, nothing more. Take a breath, hold tight, and soon enough the sky would reappear, blue as glass, and the men would return to work, not remembering how they wept for their mothers’ arms. These same sailors did not soon forget that Maria could announce a storm before it appeared on the horizon, any more than they would forgo her remedies, for she was soon enough known to be a healer, and many of the men had learned to come to her when they were ill. She might have been in danger from their rough ways, for even at her young age she was a woman in most of their eyes, but no one dared to harm her or search her out in a dark corner. She knew more than most women twice her age; they could see it in her eyes, their own fates reflecting back to them.

  Maria knew to use spirits of turpentine to prevent lockjaw, salt and molasses for a salve used on deep cuts that might otherwise poison a man’s blood, black or green tea steeped with boiling milk and nutmeg for dysentery. If a man among them had hurt Maria, he would only be damaging his own chances at completing the long journey whole and well. She was valued, and although none would admit it aloud, all the crew felt fortunate to have her aboard.

  For Sea Travel

  Hyssop tea will rid a man of worms.

  Basil will preserve fish.

  Borage can heal abscesses.

  Ginger and vinegar for sores.

  Mint for toothache.

  If the cat on board sleeps in a coil, the weather will be bad.

  If the sun rises red, there will be rain.

  Do not take salt from another person’s hand at the table, or you will both have bad luck. If salt spills, throw a pinch over your left shoulder.

  Blue thread sewn onto every piece of clothing, for protection.

  Hannah had taught Maria how to keep weevils out of the biscuits, and for this the cook and all the passengers were extremely thankful. Rats could be done away with by the use of monkshood, caraway was good for spider bites, peony root guarded against storms, nightmares, and lunacy, for there were those who were made mad by the endless rush of the sea. Because of those she had cured, Maria was thought to be a saint by some, although there were others who were certain she was a witch, for sailors were a superstitious lot, and their traditions included attempts at seafaring magic. A silver coin was always placed beneath the mast, a page of paper was never to be torn in two on board, a brand was used to mark wooden masts to drive out evil spirits and keep the vessel safe in storms. Cadin, who might have been deemed unlucky, or perhaps seen as a harbinger of death and destruction, was welcomed when Maria insisted he was a black albatross. Although none of the sailors had ever heard of such a creature before, they all knew there were marvelous, new things to be found in the world every day, and since an albatross brings luck to sailors, no one dared to challenge Maria.

  The captain, a Dutchman named Dries Hessel, who always wore a knee-length coat treated with tar and animal grease for waterproofing, did little that did not bring a profit. That was why he’d allowed the girl on board. He’d arranged to sell her for sixty shillings once they reached Curaçao, a good bargain, considering he’d paid Maria’s father only forty for her. A player in the theater survived as he must, and the captain of a ship assumed it was also his right to do the same, even when the object he sold was a person. Maria would be an indentured servant for a period of five years, and whoever bought her would own her outright during this time, then be legally responsible for freeing her on the appointed date that ended her servitude. That the girl had used her blue thread to sew up a wound Hessel suffered when a windstorm drove a splinter of the mast through his flesh had done nothing to change his mind regarding her fate. Nothing was free in this world, not a breath, not a life, not a journey.

  Many on board were Portuguese refugees who had paid whatever price necessary for their passage, as they pursued an escape from persecution for their faith. Jews were not allowed in Spain or Portugal, or in England or France, and so they had set off for the New World, practicing their religion in secret until the time came when they at last found a place that offered a safe haven. Those who crossed the ocean wished to have the freedom to be true to themselves. For now, they were simply called the Portugals. They had brought dried codfish with them, and cheese made with thistle powder to set it rather than jelly from the hooves of animals, the rind covered by paprika to prevent rot. Maria learned their language, for she had an ear for such things, and made certain to help those women brought low by seasickness, with a spoonful of ginger paste and a slice of orange, carefully doled out to the ailing women and their children, for even the smallest taste of fresh fruit was a tonic. She listened to their stories, and observed them when they lit a candle on Friday at sunset, for candles were dangerous at sea, just as religion was dangerous on land.

  At night Maria wrapped herself in her cloak and watched the stars appear in the sky, one by one at first, then whirls of constellations pricking through the darkness in a brilliant ceiling of light. How immense and beautiful the world was, especially to a girl who had never even been to town while growing up, never seen a shop or a market or a church filled with people as the bells rang on Sundays. She wished that Hannah could stand beside her on the deck of the ship and feel the future as she did, as a place where a woman might command her own fate. She was grateful that she had been found in that field of snow, and raised by a woman who was truly kind, just as she was grateful that her mother had give
n her the gift of sight. What was before her was still a mystery, even when she looked into the black mirror, for she had changed her fate when she came to cross the sea, although some aspects of the future remained the same: the daughter she would have, the man who brought her diamonds, the snow in the branches of the trees. When she saw bits and pieces of the time to come, she knew she would find the sort of freedom her mother and Hannah hadn’t known. There had always been women who commanded the same talents as Maria, and most had taken refuge from the world so they would not be tested by drowning. If a witch floated she was proclaiming her pact with Satan. If she drowned she was innocent, for all the good it would do her to be dragged, lifeless and bound, from the depths of a river or pond, often wearing iron shoes nailed to the soles of her feet. Maria’s predecessors would have thought her mad to be so far out at sea, with nothing but the waves around her, but she was convinced she had nothing to fear from water, only from men who saw evil where there was none.

  On windy days, when it seemed the ship might take to the sky and the sailors tied themselves to the deck with ropes so they wouldn’t rise up into the whirling air, Maria kept Cadin safe inside her cloak and fed him bits of cracker. A ship was a terrible place to be as the weeks went by, with less food and water and all manner of pestilence, lice and rats, lightning and storms. There were times when those on board thought the end was near. Men who had never prayed before did so, many in a language none of the sailors could decipher. Women blessed their children and held them tightly so they might walk into the nets of death side by side. But Maria could see enough of the future to know they would reach their destination. She looked in her black mirror and saw that the sun would be stronger than any of the passengers would have thought possible and the streets would be made of red dirt and the trees would flower in every season.

  “Hush,” she told the Portugals’ children when they cried. “We’ve almost reached the other side of the world.”

  * * *

  When they arrived, it was exactly as she had seen it would be, a land of oddities and miracles. The passengers looked out and blinked in wonder at where their journey had taken them. The cactus towered thirty feet tall, thorny acacia bushes bloomed with vivid lemon-colored flowers, and the divi-divi trees were bent over in the wind so they might look up to heaven. The children said these trees were little men wearing overcoats. There were yellow and orange birds in the sky, troupials and bananaquits, along with kingbirds and flamingos and hummingbirds no larger than bees that passed by a person’s ear and left that individual’s head ringing with a soft buzzing sound. There were birds that only flew at night, nighthawks and nightjars, black shadows in the dark and the dusk that drank dew from leaves as big as saucers. People of all sorts could be found here due to the Spanish slave trade and the settlement of Sephardic Jews. Many had on modest traditional clothing, long skirts called sayas worn over pants and shirts with combinations of two or three patterns.

  A young woman named Juni, only a year or so older than Maria herself, was waiting on the dock, sent to hurry her along. Juni clapped her hands and called out a welcome in Dutch, in disbelief when she realized that Maria knew little of that language. “You had better learn to speak as we do,” Juni advised, in English now. “Or maybe you have the right idea; this way you don’t have to listen to what Mr. Jansen says.”

  The captain handed Maria her papers, which stated that she belonged to the Jansen family of Willemstad. She was to work for them until the age of sixteen, at which time Maria would be a free woman. She now understood that her father had sold her into servitude; he would likely say it had been for her own protection, and perhaps he meant no harm. She was a girl on her own after all, with nothing to her name.

  “Are you free?” Maria asked Juni as they walked side by side on the dock crowded with fish vendors and sailors, some of whom had no allegiance to any country and sailed only for themselves, pirates and traders of the roughest sort.

  “I’m the same as you. Not a slave and not free. That’s another way of saying we’re nothing.”

  Juni’s skin was a warm brown and her black hair was as long as Maria’s. Her African mother had been bound to the Jansens’ household as a slave, and her great-aunt had been granted her freedom only after working for the family for thirty years. Juni herself was a servant, and had been so all her life, since the time she was born, with no papers that affixed a time to her servitude. To Maria, that sounded like slavery.

  “You have no papers?” Maria asked. “No date for your freedom?”

  Juni was extremely beautiful, and men of all sorts stared at her as they walked along. “Mr. Jansen holds on to them for me. I’ll be free when I marry.”

  But in fact, each time a suitor came around, Mr. Jansen found fault with him and sent him on his way. It didn’t matter if a man was African or Jewish or Dutch. None would do.

  “Niet goed genoeg,” he would say every time. Not good enough.

  “I plan to never marry,” Maria announced. She had seen a daughter in her future, but no husband. Only the man with the diamonds, who, as they walked along the wooden dock, under clouds of parrots, seemed an impossible fate.

  “That’s what you say now,” Juni responded. “Just you wait. If you’re married you won’t be a servant.”

  “I’m not certain I can be that now,” Maria said, a scowl on her face.

  “We do as they tell us until they go to bed, then we do as we please.”

  Maria had never had a friend and had never seen a need for one, but now in this faraway place she was grateful that Juni had a kind heart and had taken her under her wing.

  “Do what I do, say what I say, and you will be fine,” Juni assured her.

  It was easy to see how enchantments might be brought about here. The sky wasn’t blue in the early evenings, but instead there was a palette of color that ran from rose to deep violet to cobalt to ink. There were sixty-eight varieties of butterflies on the island, including large orange-and-black monarchs and tigerwings that only flew in the shade. The air was moving and alive, and when the wind came up suddenly it was a soft, dark breeze filled with salt and the tang of seaweed. Trapped in his carrying case, Cadin called to be set free. “Not right now,” Maria told him. “You’ll be out soon enough.”

  “Mrs. Jansen wouldn’t like a bird here. She’ll say it’s filthy and will ruin her house,” Juni warned, not that Maria cared.

  “Mrs. Jansen doesn’t need to know.”

  Juni smiled at her then. The new girl seemed more interesting than most, and she thought she would be pleased to see how the household was provoked by someone who didn’t seem concerned with their rules.

  As soon as Maria was rid of her grimy clothes that she had worn day in and day out, and had washed with strong soap and water so hot it stung, she began her new life. She was only a girl and exhausted from her journey, but she would do as she must in order to survive. There were two other servants sharing their chamber, sisters from Manchester, England, who had only another year to work off their debt.

  “We’ll be gone in the blink of an eye,” the sisters boasted simultaneously, for they had the habit of saying the same thing at the same time. They thought they were better than Juni because her mother had been a slave, and better than Maria, who was so young and inexperienced.

  Maria waited for the other girls to go to supper, then she hid her Grimoire beneath the floorboards before going off to explore. She knew well enough to keep her bloodline a secret, for her talents could bring her luck or misery. It was a curious place she found herself in, the opposite of all she had known. Where there had been darkness, there was now light. Where there had been a solitary life, there was now a bustling household. Much of the living space was outside, and as she crossed the courtyard she marveled at how in this arid, subtropical land there could be a garden that was so lush. She walked along a path that was bordered by mangoes and Jamaican apple trees and brilliant flowering aloe vera speckled with yellow blooms. It was here she set Ca
din free. She had crafted an amulet to wear around her throat with a single black feather, so she knew he would always be called back to her, no matter how far he might go. The bird studied her from the branch of a guava tree, then rose into the dusky air of this new world of theirs. By now it was evening. The moon itself seemed different here, glowing with pale silver light. In the salt flats there were miraculous birds, flamingoes, white and scarlet ibis, green herons, great blue herons, and the black-crowned night heron that cried in the dark as if it were a woman pleading for her life. But of all of these, it was the robber crow that was most beautiful to Maria, for he had more compassion than any man she had ever met, and far more loyalty.

  * * *

  At supper, Maria was served funchi, a soft cornmeal dish, along with a small bowl of stoba, a spicy stew flavored with papaya, leftover from the Jansen family’s dinner. It was a large household, the Jansens and their three daughters, all nearly grown and looking for husbands. Juni and the sisters explained there was more than enough work for them all; they were pleased that Maria had come to stay. As for Maria, she was polite and cheerful, for Hannah had always said there was no need to ever let anyone know what you were thinking. Why be punished for your thoughts or beliefs? Maria believed no one should have her life signed over to another, but she kept quiet, knowing that, in the end, she would do as she pleased. To amuse the other girls she told fortunes by examining the lines on their hands. She had informed them that for women the right hand was the fate they were born with, but the marks on the left hand told the story of what they had experienced, the choices that had changed their original fates. The heart line was always most interesting; it was the mark that showed who was selfish, who would be content, and whose heart would be easily broken. She told them all they would fall in love and marry, which was true enough, leaving out the details they wouldn’t wish to hear: who would fall in love too easily and who would find sorrow and who would make a choice she would later regret. The Manchester girls were pleased with Maria’s special talent and called her their little sister. Little sisters would do well to be cunning, and it was wise for Maria to get along with everyone, at least for as long as it suited her, and it would have to suit her until she was free. She had one last precious orange left from those her mother had given her, and this she shared with the other housemaids before they fell into their white metal beds, the girls so happy to have her among them that no one complained when she left the window open on warm evenings to make certain that Cadin could always come home.