The First Midnight Spell (3 page)

After a few moments, Pru giggled. “Can you believe it?”

“No,” Elizabeth whispered.

“See, now there's something to take your mind off your sorrows. Think of all the magic you could perform now!”

Elizabeth was indeed thinking fast—though perhaps not the thoughts her friend had suggested.

Now an entire new set of spells had opened up to her. An entire new set of possibilities for her magic. Did that mean she might have another chance at Nat Porter?

No, she didn't intend to simply confound his mind, make him forget that there was such a girl as Rebecca Hornby or such a place as New Barton. That would be a childish trick. But there were other kinds of magic. She didn't want Nat to forget Rebecca; she wanted him to remember that girl and still cast her aside. Elizabeth wanted Nat to love her as hotly and desperately as she loved him.

“You look like you're cheering up already,” Pru teased.

“Oh, I am.” Elizabeth held the pearl up above her head so that it seemed to float in the sky like a second moon. To her it seemed to shine even more brightly, as bright as the sun.

2

Spring flowers plucked by a woman's hand.

Sunlight shining on a loved one's face.

A man overcome by a woman's loveliness.

 

Elizabeth closed her fist tightly around her new pearl charm and called up the ingredients for the spell.

Her hand closing around the green stems of jonquils such a pale yellow they were almost white, closing and pulling hard until the stems broke.

Nat last autumn, hauling in a bushel of apples, and the way the late-afternoon sun had painted him gold and made her realize she'd never truly seen him before.

Nat yesterday, thinking of Rebecca in New Barton, his eyes soft with the adoration that ought to have been Elizabeth's alone.

No shiver passed through her; no strange energies sparked deep within. But Elizabeth knew, even before she'd opened her eyes, that this time the spell had worked.

She opened her eyes. Her hands, folded in her lap, seemed . . . nicer, somehow. Her fingers a little longer, the shape more elegant. Although she could feel faint prickles of pain from yesterday's lye burns, the burns were no longer visible. The calluses from her chores had gone, too. These were a lady's hands.

Imagine what the spell would have done to her face!

Elizabeth rose, smiling. As she began walking through town, she saw how clever it had been for her to try stealing beauty from all the women around her, not just one. That way, the women were not so greatly altered that anybody else would be likely to notice; everyone simply looked a little more tired, a little less rosy, the way anyone would on a difficult day.

But those tiny slivers of beauty taken from everyone else—they added up.

Every single man she passed stopped to look at her. They weren't startled, as they might have been by a cruder spell of transformation. Instead their eyes lit up, and she could tell they were thinking,
How is it I've never noticed Elizabeth Cooper before? When did she become such a pretty girl?
From twelve-year-old Adam Kent to old Tom Gaskill, one and all, they paid her attention. That strange, solitary fellow Aunt Ruth's age—Daniel Pike—even stumbled over his own feet, so distracted was he by looking at her. Elizabeth wished violently for a mirror, but what did it matter what she thought of how she looked? Everyone else thought she was lovely, and surely that was the whole point.

Now all she had to do was find Nat.

He turned out to be down by the shore, working on one of the fishing boats. Nobody much else was around.
What luck,
Elizabeth thought, her heart beating wildly. “Nat! There you are.”

“Elizabeth,” he said, looking up from his task. He saw her, and then he
saw
her. Nothing had ever delighted her more than the sudden light within his gaze. “What brings you here?”

“I had a few moments free.” That wasn't entirely a lie. Elizabeth had promised her slice of pie tonight to her little cousins if they would do her share of the chores. “So I thought I'd take a walk on the beach. Won't you join me?”

“I—well, I ought to finish this—”

“You've got plenty of time to do that, haven't you?”

“I suppose,” Nat said, and he rose from his work to fall in by her side.

She'd done it! But at first, Elizabeth felt more astonishment than pleasure. Here she was, strolling along the rocky beach with Nat Porter at her side, and she couldn't think of a thing to say. Maybe she didn't need to say anything; maybe it was enough to look truly beautiful, and show that she liked his company. Most boys didn't seem interested in much more than that.

Yet the silence was too awkward to bear. Finally Elizabeth said, “I hadn't taken you for much of a fisherman.”

What a stupid thing to say! Now Nat would think she believed he was incompetent.

Instead Nat simply laughed. “I'm not. It's as if every time I look at the water, the fish look back and know to swim away. But I've a hand for woodworking.”

“Of course.” Elizabeth was relieved to be back on safer ground. “You carved that beautiful mantelpiece for your mother. I was just admiring it a few nights ago, at the quilting circle.”

Nat shrugged. “It made Ma happy. That's all I care about.”

From the distant corners of Elizabeth's memory came her mother's voice:
A good son makes a good father.
Until now, her daydreams of Nat Porter had gone no further than a stolen kiss, or an avowal of love. Marriage—yes, she'd dreamed of that, but in the abstract. It was a word, only a word, but one that meant Nat would become hers and never be taken away again.

Now that word came alive for her. To marry Nat would mean that they would share a house. A bed. They would belong to each other body and soul. They would have children, boys who would grow up fine and strong like Nat, and girls who could learn witchcraft and work alongside her. Together they would live in Fortune's Sound all of their days. All of it seemed so real to Elizabeth then that she could almost believe it had already happened. She wasn't imagining lying in Nat's arms, having his baby inside her; she was remembering it. How natural, how right, to remember it on the day it all began.

“Speaking of talents,” Nat said. “I thought I might ask you a favor.”

“Anything,” Elizabeth promised. “Anything at all.”

“You embroidered that cap for Prudence Godwin—”

“Yes, that's right.” It had been Elizabeth's birthday gift to her friend. Neither she nor Pru could afford to have lace or fine linen brought back from Newport or Providence; however, Elizabeth was good enough with needle and thread to make something pretty even out of plain cloth.

“If I bought you the fabric—” Nat began. Would he be asking for another gift for his mother? Or maybe he would say that he wanted Elizabeth to wear it herself, something as beautiful as she was? Then he finished: “Would you make a cap for a girl I know?”

He meant Rebecca Hornby. Elizabeth could not have spoken, could not have said yes or no. She only stared at him.

Nat didn't even seem to notice. Maybe the spell that had given her stolen beauty had also masked her real emotions, hidden the ugliness of anger and hate. He just kept on: “I suppose you know I've been courting over at New Barton. Everybody knows now, the way girls talk. Not that men don't talk, too—ah, listen to me, carrying on. The thing is, I'd love to give her a proper gift. Not just flowers. You know?”

Elizabeth nodded. She tried to imagine Nat walking through the fields, picking flowers for some other girl. She thought again of the memory she'd used to cast her spell—her hands closing around the jonquils' stalks, twisting them, snapping them in two.

“So would you consider it?” Nat said with a shy smile. “I'd pay you for your time, of course.”

Elizabeth managed to smile back. Because of the spell she'd cast, she knew her smile shone so brightly that he'd never, ever glimpse the anger inside it. “You don't have to pay me. It would be a pleasure. Why, I'll get to work on it right away.”

“That's more than kind of you.” Nat's expression was fond as he looked down on her. “You have a good heart, Elizabeth. A girl as kind as you, and as pretty—” His voice trailed off, and for a moment her hopes twitched again, unwilling to lie dead. He continued, “You know, Rebecca—she's got a brother. A good man. I might have him ride back with me sometime, to meet some people.”

Thanks to her spell, Nat now thought she was beautiful enough
for someone else
.

“Maybe you should,” Elizabeth said. In her heart she meant for Nat Porter to stop riding over to New Barton long before he'd ever get around to asking some other man to come and take a look at her, like she was a milk cow for sale.

Obviously it was going to take more than a pretty face to turn Nat's head. Fortunately, Elizabeth had much more to offer. She had her Craft, and it was to this that she turned now.

Her work began that night. She explained to Aunt Ruth that she needed some of the soft white cotton fabric, and why. Even though they had precious little left, and Elizabeth had thought they might save that for aprons for the children, Aunt Ruth readily agreed. “Nat Porter's a good fellow. And something like this . . . it will make that girl think kindly toward you, when she comes here as his bride. Another friend for you, perhaps.”

Elizabeth simply nodded, though she already knew there was no way on heaven and earth that Rebecca Hornby would ever be Nat's bride.

She sat up late with her needlework, in front of the dying embers of the fire. Aunt Ruth slept with the two smallest children, their bed in the far corner of the house; the other little ones slept on their pallets. Elizabeth's remained empty. It didn't matter if she went completely without sleep tonight, or the next night, too. What mattered was getting this done in secret, and getting it done well.

Elizabeth tied a bandage around her ankle—a bandage with her charms inside, so they were all in contact with her skin at every moment. Then she sewed, hour after hour, eyes tearing from eyestrain and the fire's smoke. Every time the needle pierced the cloth, she imagined puncturing Rebecca Hornby's skin. Every time she pulled the thread through, she imagined pulling the girl's hair from her head.

Crude revenges, those. The magic she worked was subtler.

Woven into the cap was a spell that would steal the beauty from its wearer. Nothing dramatic—it would work much like the reverse of the spell Elizabeth had cast on herself that morning. When Rebecca put it on, she would look dingier, older, and wearier. Stitched into the lining was a spell for spoiling the temper. Rebecca wouldn't be able to simper and fawn all over Nat once she'd worn this; instead she'd be cross, quick to anger. How many times would she have to snap at Nat before he began to realize there might be a better girl waiting for him back home?

What else?
Elizabeth thought feverishly as the night wore on.
What else can I put into this?
Building spells into inanimate objects was difficult, and most of the spells she knew how to cast were positive ones, like good fortune sewn into a bridal veil, or spells of amity and concord cooked into food.

The spells she'd cast here—they'd do what she wanted, but would that be enough? No matter how delicately Elizabeth sewed the cap, there was no chance that Rebecca would wear it all the time. Sooner or later, someone would say it didn't suit her, or Rebecca herself would realize she always seemed to be in an ill temper when she wore it. If it took more than a few bad visits to shake Nat's love for her, then this on its own wouldn't be enough.

Nat seemed like the sort who didn't fall in love lightly. For him, love would be powerful. Love would endure past the first few tempests—

—so she needed more.

Elizabeth considered. More positive spells swam in her memory, pretty and friendly and utterly useless. There were ways to ensure fine weather, at least for an afternoon. Ways to give a man strength through the stitching of his garments. Ways to—

She gasped as it came to her.

If strength could be given through a spell, then it could be taken away by its opposite, couldn't it?

Yes. Through a spell, Elizabeth could weaken Rebecca Hornby. Then she'd catch colds right and left, run fevers, not even be able to see Nat when he rode over to visit. Better yet, that spell wouldn't stop working when Rebecca removed her cap. Rebecca would be weaker forever.

But that's black magic.

Elizabeth stopped. Her fury had burned brightly, unabated throughout that whole afternoon and evening, but now she felt small and scared.

It was one thing to use magic to tip the scales in your favor. What else was witchcraft for? A witch could even cause damage to those who opposed her, within reason. However, what Elizabeth was contemplating doing to Rebecca Hornby went far beyond that. To wish someone weaker was to endanger them. That would be true anywhere, but here, in the small towns clinging to the coast of the Rhode Island Colony, where few physicians could be found . . . it could very easily prove to be a death sentence.

Elizabeth felt no fear at the thought of Rebecca Hornby's death. She knew the very thought should repulse her, disgust her, but it didn't. When she imagined it, she only saw the empty place in the world where Rebecca would have been—the place in Nat's heart that Elizabeth could then fill.

What scared her was the knowledge that black magic belonged to the One Beneath.

The stories about the One Beneath came down to children in whispers, the most secret of all the many secret truths of witchcraft. He presided over the realm of demons. He gloried in death, destruction, and ruin. Some said the One Beneath was only one of the many names of the devil; others said that he ruled a place even darker than hell. As he strengthened black magic, so did black magic strengthen him—to cast such a spell was to take the first step toward worshipping the One Beneath. It came dangerously close to breaking one of the First Laws.

Even a few days before, these thoughts would have been enough to sway Elizabeth from her course of action. Now, however, she had seen what happened to Goodwife Crews when she broke one of the First Laws: practically nothing.

Tentatively Elizabeth thought of the ingredients for a spell of strength. How best could she reverse them?

 

A hand twisted into helplessness by age.

Something killed by the first frost.

A person exhausted beyond the ability to endure.

 

The jade charm seemed warm against her skin—surely only an illusion, but one incredibly vivid to Elizabeth as she closed her eyes.

Her grandfather attempting to tell her good-bye before they sailed to America, his liver-spotted hand unable to hold hers, only able to manage a feeble pat as their final farewell.