Magic Lessons: A Prequel to Practical Magic

a master at the Nameless Art.

smell it brewing. It smelled like blood and fire. “I’ll be gone soon enough,” the lady Rebecca assured them as they walked back to the cottage. Her silk petticoat rustled, and she was lovely to look at. She’d brought death with her, as the enchanted often do, yet she was so captivating that Maria found herself charmed by her all over again.

she stood in the brilliant light she sometimes found herself yearning for the dark green of the forest where ferns turned black in the frost.

When presented with the book, on Midsummer Night in the year she turned ten, Maria cried hot tears, the first time she could recall doing so, for although witches are said to be unable to cry, rare occasions cause them to do so. Maria was swept up by raw emotion and gratitude, and from that day forward she cried when she was flooded by her response

Abracadabra, I create as I speak, taken from the even earlier Aramaic chant, Avra kadavra, It will be created in my words.

She knew how to walk in the shadows so she wouldn’t shine in the darkness. No one looked at her twice.

This was true magic, the making and unmaking of the world with paper and ink.

Who she truly was, she kept secret, a stone she had swallowed, those talents and traits she had inherited from the nameless women who had come before her.

Adrie