Magic Lessons (Practical Magic #0.1)

by Alice Hoffman

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.