The First Midnight Spell (2 page)

It ought to be harder to take the materials away,
Elizabeth thought.
It ought to be near impossible
. She wondered whether it might be possible to carve the jade and malachite into rings—people looked down on women who ornamented themselves with jewelry, but what would that matter if it meant her charms would be harder to steal?

That was only a stray thought. Elizabeth found it difficult to concentrate for long on anything besides Catherine Crews's pale face.

Widow Porter put out her hand. Shaking like an old woman, Goodwife Crews held out the small bag that Elizabeth knew contained all of her charms. Instantly the Widow Porter took it; the materials would not be returned.

“You are cast out,” Widow Porter said. “You are no longer of this coven. You are no longer of the Craft. If you are seen by one of us to be practicing witchery, you will be punished. But if you go now and live as any other mortal woman, this will be at an end.”

Sobbing, Catherine Crews rose to her feet and walked out, never to return.

For a few long moments, nobody spoke. Several of the women had tears in their eyes, including Pru. Widow Porter said they should sew for a while—“lest we fall behind”—but Elizabeth knew no witchcraft would be done tonight. Even the Widow Porter seemed downcast now that her edict had been given, now that Goodwife Crews was gone. This meant Elizabeth had time to consider her thoughts.

She had always thought breaking one of the First Laws would violate magic itself—that the magic would sour, or twist itself into thorns. But this had not happened. Catherine Crews might be cast out of this coven forever, but she remained alive and well. Her spell had worked precisely as she had desired; her son had survived and would recover. Her husband's memory had been altered well enough, and despite the Widow Porter's warnings, might easily have been altered again.

So far as Elizabeth could tell, Goodwife Crews had broken the First Laws without harming her magic at all. The only punishment was that handed down by the coven.

Later that night, when she and Pru were walking back toward their homes, Elizabeth said as much and earned herself a shocked stare. “Elizabeth! We have to have rules, to protect ourselves and those around us.”

“I don't think the rule was fair,” Elizabeth said. “Do you?”

Pru had to consider this for a while. “I—I think the rule is fair, generally, but that they might have shown more mercy here. But, then, it's one of the First Laws. We can't break the First Laws. If we start saying sometimes it's all right to use magic in front of men, then do we start saying sometimes it's all right to serve the One Beneath?”

“That's not what I meant.”

“I know. I know. But it's difficult. Poor Goodwife Crews.” Pru's eyes were red from crying. “At least we don't have to cut off all contact with her. We can still be her friends. Let's walk by tomorrow and see her, shall we?”

“Aunt Ruth says we're laundering tomorrow.” That meant hours and hours of backbreaking labor, and no chances to go visiting. Pru nodded, accepting this, and they walked the rest of the way in silence.

Always she had revered the First Laws, but she knew now that she had been thinking about them as something beyond mere human rules. They weren't as powerful as she had once believed. Breaking the First Laws seemed to have no consequence at all—unless you were caught.

If any of the First Laws could be broken, then so could the one about a witch never marrying the son of another witch.

Nat Porter could be hers after all.

 

The next day, Elizabeth worked alongside her aunt and her cousins to do the laundry. This meant hauling bucket after bucket of water to the largest pot, then taking every piece of fabric in the house (clothes to sheets to rag-cloths) and scrubbing them with their bare hands. The lye seared fingers, turned them red and raw and made them burn, but there was no other way to get the things clean. As she worked, grateful for the midday sun that warmed her, Elizabeth tried to remember whether her mother had done things this way as well. She thought Mother had used the Craft to help things along . . . but she had died so long ago, only a year after their arrival in the New World, that Elizabeth's memories were unclear.

Aunt Ruth was a witch, too, like nearly half of the women in Fortune's Sound. (The menfolk believed they had joined together to found this town based on their own common interests and convictions; the fact that so many of their wives were all in the same “quilting circle” seemed no more than a coincidence to them.) But Aunt Ruth was stingier with her magic. She seemed to think spells should only be used when there was no other way. Elizabeth, sweating as she labored over the washing, didn't agree.

By noon they were ready to hang up the first batch of laundry. Her younger cousins weren't tall enough to help much, so Elizabeth shooed them off and got to work. The wet sheets were heavy, and she struggled to get each one over the clothesline without letting a corner trail along the ground, get muddy, and ruin it all.

“Need help with that?”

Startled, she glanced over to see that Nat Porter stood nearby.

How long had he be standing there, watching her work? Elizabeth wasn't sure whether to be horrified or thrilled. Her face was no doubt flushed from the effort, and her hair had frizzed out from the edges of her cap . . . but he was here, now, and she had to make the best of it. “Would you mind? I'd greatly appreciate it.”

“I don't mind. It's hard when you've only got young ones for help.” Nat got to work right beside her. He was growing into a tall man, easily able to reach and fold, and the extra pair of hands made the work light. At first Elizabeth was surprised that a man should be not only willing to help with the washing but obviously also familiar with the task. Then she remembered that he was the Widow Porter's only child. No doubt he'd had to pitch in with every chore.

Elizabeth had always found herself tongue-tied around Nat, but had told herself that was for the best. If it was impossible for her to marry Nat, then it would do her no good to get to know him better.

But now she knew the First Laws weren't as powerful as she'd assumed. The impossible now seemed tantalizingly plausible, and very, very near.

So she said, “Good of you to offer.”

“I don't mind.” How she loved his simple, easy manner. “Truth be told, I always liked helping Ma with the washing, when I was little.”

“You
liked
this?” Elizabeth had to laugh.

“Not the lye soap. But I liked working with Ma, because she'd be silly with me, and we'd get to laughing. Once the sheets were hung up, I would pretend they were ghosts and spirits, run around making scary noises. You know. Children's nonsense. That's what all the best memories are made out of.”

Elizabeth wanted to tell a story about her own childhood, something to match his. But in truth she had never been very silly, not even as a little girl. So she tried another tack. “Laundry's not my least favorite chore. I'd do that any day before milking the cow! But at least the little ones are capable enough to handle her now.”

“I imagine the cow likes it even less,” Nat said with a smile. His face seemed to catch all the spring sunlight and make it warm as summer.

Keep talking, keep talking!
Yet she found it hard to think of what to say. “My favorite—my favorite chore is sewing. I like to sew.”

“My mother has some of your needlework. You've a good hand for it,” Nat replied. It was a commonplace nicety, and yet every word sang in her heart like poetry.

“What about you?” she said. “What do you most enjoy doing?”

“Heading over to New Barton, to trade.” Nat's face took on a softer expression, thoughtful and almost dreamy. Perhaps New Barton was a more interesting place; certainly it was larger than Fortune's Sound. Elizabeth had never left Fortune's Sound since her ship had first arrived from England so many years before. Those weeks spent in the cramped space belowdecks, seasick and wave-tossed and despairing ever of seeing land—to her, that seemed like traveling enough for one lifetime.

She found herself envying New Barton for whatever pleasure it gave Nat. Elizabeth wanted him to be that happy here. With her.

 

That evening, after supper, Aunt Ruth gave permission for Elizabeth to walk over to Pru's home. Her family was amiable, and would not mind unexpected company. Elizabeth longed to pour out the story of how she had finally spoken with Nat for a while alone.

Laughter rang from the Godwins' cottage as Elizabeth walked up; she had to pound on the door to be heard over it. Apparently the littlest children had tied some feathers to the end of a stick, and the entire family was taking turns teasing the cat with it so that she would leap in the air, twisting like a mad thing, in the delight of hunting nothing. Though Pru was, as usual, laughing more than all the rest, she quickly excused herself to sit outside in the moonlight with Elizabeth.

No sooner had Elizabeth begun her story than Pru's face fell. At first Elizabeth paid this no attention; she knew that Pru still considered the First Laws unbreakable, and thought Elizabeth should pay attention to some other boy. Yet as she went on, Pru looked more and more stricken—and when Elizabeth said the words
New Barton
, she actually clasped her hands together.

Irritated, Elizabeth said, “Oh, stop trying not to make a face. You want to fuss, so, go ahead.”

“I don't want to fuss at you. Really I don't. It's just—” Pru had to swallow hard. “Elizabeth, you know why Nathaniel Porter likes going to New Barton, don't you?”

“He gets to trade. I suppose he likes seeing new places, too, though I don't understand why. And he's so good with horses. Surely he likes to ride.”

“That may all be true, but that's not why Nat's been smiling so much lately.”

Suspicion dawned within Elizabeth, shedding harsh light on the dreams she'd hidden in shadow. “What do you mean?”

Pru's eyes could no longer meet Elizabeth's gaze. “The preacher over there—Reverend Hornby—he has a daughter a year or two older than us. Her name is Rebecca. Nat's been courting her.”

It couldn't be true. It just couldn't. “How do you know that?”

“I was talking with John a few days ago,” she said. Pru's face lit up at the mention of the boy she favored, and for a moment Elizabeth could have slapped her for feeling happy while Elizabeth's own dreams were falling apart. “He knows. Nat and the other boys talk about it amongst themselves. Word has it he plans to ask for her hand soon, bring her back here to be married.”

“If that's so, then why didn't you tell me?”

“I never could find the words. Besides—Elizabeth, you couldn't marry Nat no matter what. You know that; you've always known it! So I always told myself you weren't letting yourself get carried away. It's only been these past couple of days that I've realized just how much you care for Nat.”

Elizabeth tried to imagine it—his walking away from her, time after time, to ride to New Barton and pay court to some other girl. It felt too sickening to be real.

Pru put her arm around Elizabeth's shoulders; Elizabeth was too stunned to shrug it away. “Oh, Elizabeth, I'm sorry. I know it must hurt, wanting someone you can't be with. But you've got to put it behind you. Have yourself a good cry, then think about other things. Like that new spell you wanted to try, or—or some other fellow in town. Roger Brooke's getting rather handsome, don't you think?”

Pru must assume I'm as stupid as her cat,
Elizabeth thought.
She believes that she can twitch a new set of feathers, and I'll go leaping at that instead.
To think that Pru claimed to love Jonathan Hale! She didn't know the first thing about love, if she thought it could be set aside so easily.

Elizabeth would have said as much, too, had they both not heard footsteps coming up the hill. They straightened to see a shadow taking shape in the night. It was the Widow Porter.

Had she heard them? Elizabeth was seized by a momentary panic—but no. Widow Porter's hearing was not the best, and they had not been speaking loudly. She was coming to see them for some other purpose.

“There you are, girls,” she said. “Elizabeth, I went looking for you at your home, but I would have come here after. I hoped to speak with you both.”

This could only be about the Craft. Pru said, “Should I get my mother?”

“No, this is for you two.” Widow Porter took something from her pocket; Elizabeth recognized it as Goodwife Crews's abandoned bag of charms. “These need new homes, don't you think?”

Pru looked stricken. Apparently she still felt pity for Goodwife Crews. Yet she held out her hands obediently. “Quartz,” Widow Porter said. “I know you have some already, but this one is larger and more pure. It should give your work more accuracy.”

“Thank you, ma'am.” Pru bobbed her head. The quartz glinted in the moonlight, a pale and misty pink.

Before Elizabeth could be jealous, though, Widow Porter turned to her. “This is the last of the charms I'm giving away. The last and the finest. It should be with you.”

Into Elizabeth's waiting palm, Widow Porter dropped a pearl.

It was perfect: smooth, round, seeming to glow from within, like a miniature moon. Pru gasped, and Elizabeth couldn't even speak. Pearls were rare, and very hard to come by. Usually only the wealthiest witches in the biggest cities could expect to have one, which meant they alone could cast the more difficult magic spells that required a pearl.

“Why—” Elizabeth's voice broke. “Why did you give this to me?”

“Because you have an exceptional gift,” Widow Porter said simply. “Yes, despite your youth. I believe your potential is vast, Elizabeth. Take this. Use it well. Find out how much more you can do.” With that she turned and walked away.