Magic Lessons (Practical Magic) - Alice Hoffman Page 0,4

the sight. Mint on your windowsill will keep away flies and bad fortune. Lavender for luck.

Hannah Owens was unusual not only for her kindness and herbal knowledge, but for the stunning fact that she could both write and read, a rare skill, for a working woman in the country was expected to have no more formal learning than a plow horse and ninety percent were illiterate. Hannah had been an orphan herself, but she had been raised in the scullery of a royal house to do kitchen work, and there the tutor for the family’s sons had taken it upon himself to allow her into the library and teach her to read. As soon as Maria was old enough, Hannah taught her precious talents to the child on stormy nights when the weather was too awful for even the most lovesick women to come to the door. They sat in the light of a lantern and drank cups of Courage Tea, a blend of currants, spices, and thyme, made for protection and healing, a mixture that needed to steep for a long time. It was an elixir that made it clear one should never hide who one was. That was the first step toward courage. In this way, magic began. The crooked black letters looked like nothing more than circles and sticks, and then all at once, after weeks of attention, they became words that took on the shape of cows and clouds and rivers and seas, a miracle on the page, drawn with ink made of oak seeds, or plant sap, or animal blood, or the damp ash of charred bones. There were sympathetic inks that few knew of; a scribe could write with one and it would not be seen until a second ink was used, or when lime juice, milk, or vinegar were brushed onto the paper, and then, after heat was applied, the message would suddenly be visible.

This was true magic, the making and unmaking of the world with paper and ink.

* * *

It was said that if any of God’s creatures could think like a man, it would be a crow, for they have minds that never rest. Cadin was a great collector and brought back all manner of treasures discovered in the surrounding villages and towns, found at the great estates as well as the laborers’ hovels, spied from above by his bright vision of the world below. What belonged to others was fair game for him to steal, and rich or poor made no difference; they all had something worthwhile. He could flick in through a window and flit out again, or dive into a trash bin, or pick through a garden. Buttons, spools of thread, coins, children’s poppets, horse hairs, and once, on a bright blue day when he could see farther than any other beast or man, he brought back a hairpin, clearly stolen from a lady in a castle, a lovely, intricate object that had tiny rubies set into the silver. Maria, now nearly eight, was in the meadow when Cadin swooped down to drop this miraculous find at her feet. He had been somewhat wounded in his attempts at stealing the treasure he now offered, and there was a small scar on his head.

Maria wore a blue skirt and a woolen bodice with narrow sleeves, along with stockings Hannah knitted and a linen smock. The child was still as fearless as ever. What fell from the sky, she was happy to collect and examine.

“Oh, look, Hannah,” she cried. “My Cadin’s a robber.”

Hannah came around from the apothecary garden as Maria was studying the pin that had been cast into the tall grass. In the girl’s hands the silver turned black in an instant, as if brushed with dark paint, though the rubies shone more brightly because of her touch. Hannah clutched the leeks she had gathered to her chest, and felt an ache inside her bones. The wide-brimmed straw hat she wore to protect her from the sun fell from her head, and she didn’t bother to go after it. What she had long suspected had now been shown to be true. She’d felt it from the start, that first day under the junipers when she spied the baby in her basket, a rare sight that had spread cold pinpricks along her spine. As she’d unwrapped Maria from her blanket, she’d spied an unusual birthmark in the shape of a star, hidden in the crease of the girl’s inner