Page 29 of Magic Lessons

They were near the homestead of the farmer who’d shot at Maria when he believed she was a witch who could turn herself into a crow. It was here, in the field where Cadin had died, that Maria threw herself onto the ground. She began to utter a curse in Latin; it would not have any effect while she had iron cuffs on, and in fact each word burned her tongue, as if the curse had been reversed, but it was successful all the same. It took attention away from Martha. The constables panicked and gathered round, careful to keep their distance, poking at her with their rifles.

“Rise up now,” the one in charge said. Her nightgown was stained by mud. She glanced over her shoulder as she turned, to see Martha duck behind the farmer’s barn; she spied the shine of her daughter’s red hair. When she arose from the ground, she glared at the constables.

“You had best hope I am not practiced in black magic,” Maria told the men.

Later they would swear she’d had a smile on her face, and that she made the rain fall in torrents, and the toads came in masses through the mud so that the earth itself moved beneath their feet. They could see through the fabric of Maria Owens’ nightgown and soon enough they felt the devil close by, breathing on their necks, rattling their souls. When they saw her young, near-perfect body, it made them think of all they might do to her, and for that they blamed their prisoner. She was the cause of their evil thoughts, and if evil deeds followed, she was to blame as well.

By then there were tears in Maria’s eyes. She looked over her shoulder toward the empty field, and she saw there were indeed the sharp white bones of murdered birds in every furrow. This is the way it began; she knew that from the day Hannah told her that she must run. A woman alone who could read and write was suspect. Words were magic. Books were not to be trusted. What men could not understand, they wished to burn.

They gave her nothing of comfort in her jail cell, not a blanket or a cup of water. In the morning a woman came with porridge and a jug of water. She was a local woman named Lydia Colson, whose eight-year-old granddaughter accompanied her. Elizabeth Colson was a shy child who always kept her head down to conceal the fact that her face and neck were often covered with a bumpy scarlet rash that grew worse when she was nervous. Lydia had come to Maria on another occasion, desperate for a cure when her darling granddaughter had been stricken with a coughing disease that had caused her to hack up black phlegm, and Maria had given her an elixir of cherry bark and elderberry boiled into a syrup. In time the child had improved, and there had been no charge for the cure. Lydia had not forgotten Maria’s kindness. She’d been told not to speak to the accused, or to look her in the eye, but she had compassion for the prisoner and had brought her a loaf of bread hidden in her granddaughter’s shawl.

“Will you return the favor I once did for you?” Maria begged. “All I ask is that you make certain my daughter is well.”

When Lydia Colson agreed to do so, Maria took her hand. She asked her for one more favor, that she bring a book for her to write in, along with pen and ink. “You can hide it in little Elizabeth’s shawl.” Later in the week, Lydia returned. She hadn’t yet managed to see Faith, but she was able to smuggle in a blue paper journal. In return for this favor, Maria had Lydia bring her granddaughter back into the cell. Once the child and her grandmother were there together, Maria told Lydia to draw a circle of protection around them. Maria was bound by iron, so she had Lydia recite an incantation Hannah had taught Maria which called for good fortune and good health. When Lydia and her granddaughter left the jail that day, the blotchy rash that had always plagued the little girl had disappeared and her skin was clear and fresh. They were silent in the light of this miracle, and when anyone asked, little Elizabeth’s grandmother said the child had fallen asleep in the woods with her face resting on weeds that had a healing property.

Once she was alone in her jail cell, Maria began to write in her journal. She did so with her cuffs in place, biting at her skin. She kept the book hidden behind a loose brick. She wrote for the future, for her daughter and the granddaughters she might have one day.

Beware of love. Know that for our family, love is a curse.

He should have been my enemy, instead I thought I fell in love with him and I made the mistake of declaring my love. I was wrong to think that was love. I was too young to know any different.

The constable’s wife was brought in to cut off Maria’s black hair with a rusty tool she used to shear sheep. Hair was known to make women powerful, and in fact Maria moaned as if in pain while the constable’s wife cut her hair so short that her scalp shone through. Then she was paraded through town to the courthouse in the sharp sunlight. Maria was still in her muddy nightdress, wearing nothing underneath. Men and young boys came to stare, although when she stared back they quickly glanced away, mortified and shocked by their own dark thoughts. Maria remained in chains, and by now her wrists were bleeding, yet she’d managed to write all night, until there was no longer any ink.

The courthouse on Endicott Street was built of granite brought down from the cliffs of the White Mountains. Maria was chained to her seat to face three magistrates. John Hathorne was among them, and she hoped he would not act against her and that what they’d once had would fill his heart with compassion, but when he looked past her as if she didn’t exist, she knew she was alone here. Maria was asked her name and her date of birth, both of which she gave freely, and then she was asked the name of her husband, to which she replied, “None.” The letter the court had received was then read aloud, accusing her of all manner of evildoing, including turning herself into a crow who flew above the fields, and a succubus who stole the souls of men. In spite of herself, Maria laughed.

“Does this list of evil amuse you?” the oldest magistrate asked.

“I find it to be ridiculous.” She turned to John, who looked away. “Some among you know these are lies,” she dared to say.

“Do women not come to you for potions?”

“For herbs to cure illness, yes.”

“For magic, for vengeance, for spells, for the devil’s work.”

“No.” She was freezing, as if a block of ice had been set upon her. Even now John said nothing. “I’m a healer.”

“Did you not think of enchanting the sheriffs who came for you and consider killing them?” she was asked. But these were not questions, she understood that now, they were statements of facts in these men’s eyes. This is the way it must have begun for Hannah. With lies, with fear, with a man who refused to look at her.

“I did not, sir,” she managed to say.

“Speaking falsely is a sin, you understand,” she was told. One constable had sworn he had a bite mark on his shoulder. The other had been in a fever since he’d touched her.

“Treating someone falsely is a sin as well.” Maria glared at Hathorne. He must have felt her eyes upon him, for at last he returned her glance. It was as though they had never met.

“Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live,” the old magistrate said, quoting from Exodus. It was the same quote used on the title page of The Discovery of Witches, written by Matthew Hopkins, who had overseen the deaths of so many in the first Essex County in England.

A woman in disguise was called into the room; she’d been covered in a veil that reached to the floor to hide her identity. As a witness against Maria, she had pleaded to remain anonymous, fearing for her life. To turn against a witch was dangerous business and her pleas had been answered. When she was seated before the council, she was to respond by nodding, so that Maria would not know her by her voice and curse her. Without the iron cuffs Maria would have known her in an instant through use of the sight, but now this enemy of hers might have been any woman in town. The veiled witness nodded yes to enchantments, yes to a promise of murder, yes to curses, yes to sexual perversities, yes to speaking with the devil. Had she seen her fly? Yes, indeed, she had. Had she seen feathers fall away and flesh appear to cover the witch’s bones? Yes as well. Black plumes sprouting upon her skin? Yes, a thousand times yes.

“You are a liar,” Maria said before she could stop herself. “And you will pay for these lies.”

“Are you threatening witchery right here before us?” the chief magistrate asked.

“Where is her proof?” Maria wished to know.

“Her proof is the word of a God-fearing woman.”

Maria sat back in her chair. Hannah had told her how God-fearing people had nailed her cat to her front door while it was still alive. How they had given her moldy bread and no water in jail. How she’d been stripped and searched to see if she had a tail. Already the metal cuffs had drawn blood on Maria’s wrists, black blood that was burning through the wooden floor. Let no one see it, let no one know, Hannah had warned her, should her fate ever lead her to a prison cell. Do not speak or argue. Do not proclaim your innocence. They want you to be guilty, they want to mock your sins, they want to keep you in irons, and they would most certainly like to see you burn.