Magic Lessons (Practical Magic #0.1)

by Alice Hoffman

The beauty of that meadow reminded Hannah of the reasons to live in the world, and the reasons to mistrust those who saw wickedness in others, but never in themselves. The natural world was at the heart of her craft; what grew in the woods could harm or heal, and it was her obligation to know the difference. It was part of old Norse tradition, Seidhr, that had been brought to England in the ancient times. This was green magic, visionary in nature, blending the soul of the individual with the soul of the earth.

“Remember one thing,” Hannah told Maria. “Always love someone who will love you back.”

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

“Just because you lose something doesn’t mean you don’t want to see how it’s turned out,” Hannah told the girl. “And has she?” Maria asked. “She’s seen how right you turned out, hasn’t she?” That was when Maria knew. The stranger was her mother.

When Rebecca’s husband arrived, the deathwatch beetle came out of the wall and sat on the threshold of the cottage. Its appearance came as no surprise to Hannah, who had known all along that her time was near.

want can be a hundred times stronger than need, and a thousand times stronger than common sense.

There were other spells, not medicinal treatments, but spiritual, ancient enchantments that began with the Hebrew word Abracadabra, I create as I speak, taken from the even earlier Aramaic chant, Avra kadavra, It will be created in my words.

This is the way it happens. You walk into a room with blue walls. You kiss a man in the garden. You feel your heart and bones and blood. You wait for him like a bird in a cage.

Love Potion #9 9 oz. red wine 9 basil leaves 9 rose petals 9 cloves 9 apple seeds 9 anise seeds 9 drops of vinegar Combine all ingredients on the 9th hour of the 9th day of the month. The effect is strongest when performed on the 9th month of the year. Stir nine times. Let the one who drinks this wine grant me true love divine.

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 been. They insisted upon purity that did not deviate from their beliefs, ensuring that all would live within the Scriptures as they saw them, rejecting the ways of sin practiced in England. The soul was said to be divided into two halves, the immortal half, which was male, and the mortal half, which was female, set in place by Eve’s original sin. It was women who were more likely to carry sin, to keep it in their hearts, to veer from the path of the righteous. The settlers believed with utter certainty that the world to come was predestined; some were condemned to hell in an unbroken fate that could not be altered, while others would receive God’s grace no matter what their earthly deeds might be. The only mercy that could be shown was divine. It was not for men to forgive; they were merely to enforce the rules of God, and make certain they were obeyed. Deviation from the rules meant severe punishment—lashings, whippings, the stocks, prison, being sent into the wilderness.

Maria was standing beneath the tree when she spied a woman and a young boy on the other side of the fence, there in the warm spring sun. Ruth Gardner Hathorne and her boy, three-year-old John, were seeing to the garden.

She’d discovered the reason he could never stay with her, why he kept her on the outskirts of the city, why he had begun to avoid her. All along he’d had a wife.

As they held hands through the bars, Dias spied a black beetle burrowing through the wood of the jail. It made a horrid clacking sound. It was said there was no way to stop this beetle’s ticking off the hours of a person’s life, but Samuel Dias had never heard of a deathwatch beetle. He went over and stomped on it with his boot, crushing it completely.

“To any man who ever loves an Owens, let this curse befall you, let your fate lead to disaster, let you be broken in body and soul, and may it be that you never recover.”

Maria leapt from the platform, the rope around her throat. The rain stopped as suddenly as it had begun, and there was silence as the trees dropped their leaves. The crowd drew a breath, expecting to view the horrible contortions of a hanged person who dangled in the air, but instead the line of rope broke. It snapped in two, and Maria landed with her feet in the mud, the rope still around her neck, as alive as anyone, as alive as she’d ever been.

Those who ridiculed the Nameless Art began to doubt that courts and laws could control magic. There was no need for them to know that Samuel Dias had replaced the constables’ original rope early that morning with one he’d used at sea, an old length rotted through by salt and exposure to the weather. He’d used it to tie up the magnolia tree, and when the rope split, he grew convinced that the tree had saved Maria. When spring came to Essex County, years later, the magnolia would bloom on the same day every year, a miracle and a joy to all who saw the white flowers blossom, the glory of the world.

What belonged to you once, will always belong to you. Be grateful if you have walked through the world with another’s heart in your hand.

We do things when we’re young that we regret. I believed that love was my enemy, but I was wrong.

It was the spell of the beast, when an individual shows what resides within him, and it is only dark magic if there is darkness within.

She hit Samuel’s chest one last time, ready to take up a knife so that she might cut her arm to mix her blood with his, the beginning of this dreaded spell, but before she could, Samuel opened his eyes.

He had been dead until Maria forced his heart into beating. He’d returned from the dark water, from the darkness of the endless depth where he had seen his father sitting in a garden chair, waving him away. Don’t be a fool, Abraham Dias called to his son. She’s waiting for you, you stupid man.

Maria lay beside him in the grass, her arms around him. You cannot curse a man who has already died and come back. He has rid himself of one life and begun another, a life in which love is everything. He had been dead but now ...

A ship there is and she sails the sea, She’s loaded deep as deep can be, But not so deep as the love I’m in I know not if I sink or swim. The water is wide, I cannot get o’er it And neither have I wings to fly Give me a ...

John Hathorne made certain to avoid the Owens women, but Maria and Ruth occasionally saw each other on the street, and when they did they embraced as if they were sisters. Ruth had begun to teach reading classes, and every time she went through her garden gate and kept walking until she reached the library, it occurred to her that she hadn’t told her husband where she was going or asked for his permission, and she was grateful for the life she led.

There are none who can fight as fiercely as a mother and a daughter, and none who can forgive more completely.

She had been wrong about love. She had thought it was meant for fools alone, only to discover it was a fool who walked away from love, no matter the cost or the penalty. They waited for the curse, to see if it could find him, but after a while Maria was satisfied that the curse was convinced Samuel Dias had remained in the lake that had no end. He wasn’t the same person he’d been before he died, and a man could not be cursed twice. On dark nights, when she feared for the women in her family who were yet to be born, she found consolation in the knowledge that an Owens woman was made not only to seek remedies, but to fight curses.

Fate can bring what you least expect, and it brought them a daughter they called Hannah Reina Dias Owens, named after Hannah Owens and Samuel’s mother.

These are the lessons to be learned. Drink chamomile tea to calm the spirit. Feed a cold and starve a fever. Read as many books as you can. Always choose courage. Never watch another woman burn. Know that love is the only answer.