The First Midnight Spell (9 page)

Voice shaking, Pru continued, “Word came from New Barton the other day. Rebecca Hornby's dead. A fever, they said, but rumor has it she died of grief after hearing what became of Nat. Two people dead because of you. Why couldn't you just have let him go?”

“We have no more to say to each other,” Elizabeth said, and she turned to go.

Behind her, Pru shouted at her back, “I thought I knew you! I always thought—that we were friends, we'd be friends forever.”

“I need no friend like you!” Elizabeth said, walking faster.

“You haven't got one. You've got an enemy. Never forget, Elizabeth, one person knows who and what you are. I'll stand against you as long as I live!”

Her final words were masked by the wind rushing by. It was cold. Autumn was coming.

 

One day not long afterward, Aunt Ruth took Elizabeth aside before dinner. “The young ones can look after that kettle well enough on their own,” she said as she ushered Elizabeth toward the door. “This will only take a few minutes.”

They walked out into the dusk, cool air cutting through Elizabeth's dress. She hugged herself against the chill. “What is it, Aunt Ruth?”

“Well, child.” Aunt Ruth's face took on that awkward look she only had when she was trying to talk about what had happened with Nat, without actually saying his name. Elizabeth prepared herself to bear it, whatever it was. “You must realize—you're of an age to be married.”

A shadow of her old longing for Nat fell over Elizabeth's heart. By now she'd banished her need for him to the furthest reaches of her mind—and yet it could still find her in moments like this. “I don't suppose anyone will want me now.”

Men were foolish like that. Even though they all believed Nat had forced himself on her, that she was the victim of a crime, Elizabeth was no longer considered a desirable wife. Every man intended to marry a virgin; everyone knew she was a virgin no longer.

“A woman cannot remain unmarried,” Aunt Ruth said. “Then she has no one to support her. No one to care for her. No children.”

Elizabeth shrugged. “Then I'll be one of the old crones who lives at the edge of town, near the wood. I can live by my wits and my spells.”

Her aunt's expression hardened. “That's who the men come after, whenever they suspect witchery. It's the old women they burn first.”

She thought she could handle any men who tried, especially now that she was well on her way to carving most of her materials into rings.

Before Elizabeth could say so, however, Aunt Ruth continued, “Besides—you know we haven't much. We've no dowry for you, and—and you need some other source of support. It would all be so different if your dear parents had lived.”

In other words, her family couldn't afford to keep her. Elizabeth's cheeks stung, as if she'd been slapped.

Aunt Ruth smiled. “But there's a man who's willing to take you without a dowry.”

“What?” Elizabeth hadn't even considered the idea that her marriage might be arranged in her absence. “Who?”

“Daniel Pike.”

Him?
Daniel Pike was Aunt Ruth's age. He was sullen and silent and suspicious. The morning of Nat's death, she had seen the meanness in his eyes. When she tried to imagine lying with him in bed, being as close to him as she had been to Nat, Elizabeth's disgust was so sharp she thought she might be sick. “Oh, Aunt Ruth, no. Please, no.”

“There's nothing for it,” Aunt Ruth said. By now she felt surer of herself, Elizabeth could see; her voice had become firm. “He is a respectable man and can provide for you. We think you should be married next month.”

Before the winter? Elizabeth longed to flee, thought wildly of stealing a horse, taking her charms, setting out into the night in any direction . . .

But where else could she go? In another town, she would only be even more friendless than she was here in Fortune's Sound. As an outcast, Elizabeth would forever live on the edge of starvation—or, if she improved her situation through magic, as the likely first suspect anytime anything went wrong.

I must marry,
she realized as her heart sank. If she could not marry Nat Porter, then what did it matter who became her husband? Daniel Pike would be just another burden she had to bear.

Yet the thought of kissing him, of his hard, thin mouth against hers instead of the warm touch of Nat's lips . . .

“Do you give your consent?” Aunt Ruth said, her tone making it clear that there was only one answer Elizabeth could give.

So she gave it. “Yes.”

That night, Elizabeth sat up after the others went to bed. Aunt Ruth would be even more tolerant of her moods and whims now, and Elizabeth intended to take advantage of the chance for a little privacy.

There were reasons not to break the First Laws. And yet—it was possible to break them and to go on. Elizabeth's own life proved that.

That meant witchcraft contained even more power than she had ever dreamed.

If she was to live a life without love, a life burdened by a husband for whom she could feel nothing but contempt . . . Elizabeth intended to live a life with a great deal of power.

And she still remembered that strange feeling, the one that had said,
I've been waiting for you.

She dipped her fingers into the ash in front of the banked fire; it was still warm, and slightly oily against her skin. Fingertips grayed, Elizabeth slowly traced a shape on the bricks—the symbol that called the One Beneath.

I've been waiting for you,
she thought.
All my life.

 

 

The First Laws:

You must not reveal the Craft to anyone who would betray it.

You must never speak of witchcraft to any man.

You must never attempt to divine your own fate.

You must never bear a child to the son of another witch.

You must never command the will of another.

You must never suffer a demon to walk among mortals.

You must never cast a curse.

You must never be sworn to the One Beneath and do his bidding.

About the Author

CLAUDIA GRAY
is the pseudonym of New Orleans–based writer Amy Vincent, the author of the
New York Times
bestselling Evernight series. She has worked as a lawyer, a journalist, a disc jockey, and an extremely poor waitress. Her grandparents' copy of
Mysteries of the Unexplained
is probably the genesis of her fascination with most things mysterious and/or inexplicable. Visit her online at www.claudiagray.com.

 

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Copyright

Text copyright © 2013 by Amy Vincent

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins Publishers.

 

EPub Edition © 2013

ISBN 978-0-06-229759-4

EPUB Edition SEPTEMBER 2013 ISBN 9780062297594

 

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FIRST EDITION