Page 54 of Magic Lessons

Dekker picked up the letter, but after only a moment, he turned to her, confused. “This is addressed to Governor Phips. Why are you handing it to me?”

“We share the same beliefs. Neither of us wishes for innocent women to hang.”

He gave her a look, then turned back to the letter. Once he’d begun reading in earnest, he could not stop. Maria sat in a velvet chair that had been fashioned in Amsterdam, its feet and arms made of polished wooden claws streaked with a patina of gold leaf. She watched the minister’s increasing concern as he read on. Two hundred people had been arrested, and already nineteen people had been hanged on Gallows Hill and one man had been crushed to death by stones. Maria had heard that Elizabeth Colson and her grandmother were both in jail awaiting their sentences. Essex County had become a truly dangerous place for women and girls.

“I could not have done any better,” Dekker said when he’d finished reading Maria’s letter. “I’m impressed by your logic and your prose. It’s convincing beyond all measure. But what shall I do with this missive?”

“Ask Dr. van der Berg to sign it and present it as his own to the governor of Massachusetts.” When Dekker stared at her, mystified by this request, Maria went on to explain. “He’s your dearest friend, and he believes as we do. I can tell he’s a good man who wishes to do right.” Dekker shook his head, displeased, convinced that to have a man sign a letter he hadn’t composed was trickery, especially if that letter was written by a woman. But Maria was not about to give up. “He would have no trouble signing a letter his scribe had written at his bequest. Anyway, it doesn’t matter if you think it’s a wrongdoing. We are beyond that. Your wife said you must grant my wish, whatever it might be. If you won’t help me with the doctor, then I’ll have your daughter.”

“Pardon me?”

Maria stood, as if to leave the room, and the minister followed her into the hall. If he’d been another, less genteel man he might have grabbed her arm.

“You can’t be serious,” Dekker said.

“Anything I want,” Maria reminded him. “Your wife will not deny me. I gave the girl her life and that life now belongs to me. Send her to my house.”

“She’s our daughter,” the minister said, shocked by the turn in the conversation. “I could have you arrested.” He looked into Maria Owens’ gray eyes and saw that she was not alarmed by his response. “My words are not just a threat,” he said.

“You could do many things. But I hope you will choose to speak to Dr. van der Berg. And I wish to go with him when he travels to Boston. I don’t think he’ll mind my presence.”

Maria went home and packed up everything that mattered to her. Jack Finney would take care of the house, for she might be away for a long time; she might never return. She tossed her clothes into a small satchel so that she could use her trunk for herbs and plant cuttings and bulbs, all wrapped in brown paper. What was most precious was her Grimoire, which she would carry in her purse. She went into Faith’s room, to collect some of her daughter’s clothing, then, overcome by emotion, she sat on the bed. In her hands was the poppet Samuel Dias had made on board the Queen Esther when he thought he would die, even though Maria had vowed that he wouldn’t. Do you believe me? she had asked him once. Should I? he had responded.

She took the poppet downstairs, and as she tucked it into the satchel, the fabric tore. It was sailcloth, strong, but hastily sewn, a crude toy that Samuel Dias had told her she must never lose. She’d kept it for thirteen years. She had been a girl of sixteen then, and was now a woman of nearly thirty. When the poppet split open in her hands, she began to cry, an act she should not be capable of, but again and again, Samuel Dias caused her to weep. Perhaps she had inherited this trait from her father, who could cry on command when he was a player in a tragedy. Maria’s tears were hot; they burned through the sailcloth as the poppet split in two. Inside there was a small blue pouch, embroidered with the letters SD. When she emptied the contents she held seven small diamonds in her hand.

This is what she had seen in the black mirror when she was only a girl, the man she was fated to love, one who never stopped talking, who wasn’t afraid to love a witch, who searched for a tree with white flowers that was so ancient it had grown on earth before there were bees, the man whose ring she wore, whose bed she had slept in, who, she had foolishly not understood, had always been the one.

The house on Maiden Lane was shuttered, the doors locked, the garden put to bed. Maria wore a pale blue dress and her red boots, her dark hair wound up, clasped with the two silver clips that had belonged to her mother, which had blackened even more with age. It was not acceptable for a woman to be a scribe, so they would say she was the doctor’s serving woman when they arrived at the governor’s home. Dr. van der Berg was impressed by the document Maria Owens had written and he had signed his name with a flourish. He thought Maria to be quite extraordinary, in both her literacy and her strategy. Everything about her appealed to him.

“I’ve asked if you can stay at the governor’s house when we reach Massachusetts,” he informed her.

“There’s no need. I’ll be going on to Salem.” When he gave her a look, she added, “I lived there once.”

“You were fortunate to leave it.” He studied her. “But you’ll still go?”

“There are things I need to accomplish there.” She’d come to enjoy his company, and said a bit more. “Save a life, win a life.”

“Whose?” he wanted to know.

“For you? Every woman who will not be hanged. Each of their souls will be saved by you, and all that is righteous will come back to you.”

“And you? What’s in it for you?”

“I have a daughter in Salem.”

“I see.” Joost van der Berg looked out at the hilly green landscape. They would spend one night at an inn in Connecticut, but he was beginning to see there was no hope for him. Maria wore a gold ring, and when he’d asked if she was a married woman, she told him only that it was indeed a wedding ring, a very old one, fashioned in Spain. “You’re such a logical woman, I’m surprised,” he said to her. When Maria gave him a look, he laughed and said, “You clearly believe in love.” Van der Berg was a reasonable man who felt sentiments and passions could be tamed and cured, as diseases were, and that raw emotions were nothing more than a nuisance. He had always believed that madness could easily be born from an excess of feeling. That was what happened in Salem. People’s emotions had gotten the best of them, and jealousy, hatred, and fear had turned into self-righteous vengeance.

“Love is many things to many people,” Maria said.

“It either is or it isn’t,” the doctor responded. Maria smiled. She enjoyed arguing with this man, a great believer in the rational mind. A fly was buzzing around and now the doctor reached to catch it in his hand. “This creature exists. We can hear it. Touch it. See it with our own eyes. Can we do the same with love?” He was, in his own way, arguing that she should spend the night with him, that such an engagement was the logical conclusion of minds that were so in tune. He was not afraid of a woman who was his equal, both in his bed and in his life. “Would you say it was fate that brought us together, or simply that it was the practical outcome of our interests? It’s sensible that such a connection leads to desire.”

When he offered to take her for his own, his hand held out to her, Maria politely declined. That afternoon, she served the doctor a cup of Fall Out of Love Tea, made of ginger, honey, and vinegar. It was one recipe that worked every time. Once they’d reached Boston, it was over and done between them. They were partners in dismantling the witch mania, nothing more. They shook hands and Maria thanked the doctor for all he had done, both for her and for the accused women of Essex County. He had changed the world, and her world had changed as well.

Never deny who you are, Hannah Owens had told her, no matter the price.

She had a heart, and there was nothing she could do about it. That was why she had left a letter on the table at Maiden Lane in case Samuel returned. She certainly couldn’t give her heart to this good, serious man, a logical doctor who didn’t even believe in love. What was meant to be had already begun. The future had already been written in a tree, a kiss, a vow, a rope that would fray, a man who did not believe that love could ever be a curse.

III.