Practical Magic - Alice Hoffman [58]
If Maria Owens chose to speak to you, she looked you straight in the eye, even if you were her elder or better. She was known to do as she pleased, without stopping to deliberate what the consequences might be. Men who shouldn’t have fell in love with her and were convinced that she came to them in the middle of the night, igniting their carnal appetites. Women found themselves drawn to her and wanted to confess their own secrets in the shadows of her porch, where the wisteria had begun to grow and was already winding itself around the black-painted railings.
Maria Owens paid attention to no one but herself and her daughter and a man over in Newburyport who none of her neighbors even knew existed, although he was well known and quite well respected in his own town. Three times every month, Maria bundled up her sleeping baby, then she put on her long wool coat and walked across the fields, past the orchards and the ponds filled with geese. Drawn by desire, she traveled quickly, no matter what the weather might be. On some nights, people thought they saw her, her coat billowing out behind her, running so fast it seemed she was no longer touching the ground. There might be ice and snow, there might be white flowers on every apple tree; it was impossible to tell when Maria might walk through the fields. Some people never even knew she was passing right by their houses; they would simply hear something out beyond where they lived, out where the raspberries grew, where the horses were sleeping, and a wash of desire would filter over their own skins, the women in their nightgowns, the men exhausted from the hard work and boredom of their lives. Whenever they did see Maria in daylight, on the road or in a shop, they looked at her carefully, and they didn’t trust what was before them—the pretty face, the cool gray eyes, the black coat, the scent of some flower no one in their town could name.
And then one day, a farmer winged a crow in his cornfield, a creature that had been stealing from him shamelessly for months. When Maria Owens appeared the very next morning with her arm in a sling and her right hand wound up in a white bandage, people felt certain they knew the reason why. They were polite enough when she came into their stores, to buy coffee or molasses or tea, but as soon as her back was turned they made the sign of the fox, raising pinky and forefinger in the air, since this motion was known to unravel a spell. They watched the night sky for anything strange; they hung horseshoes over their doors, hammered in with three strong nails, and some people kept bunches of mistletoe in their kitchens and parlors, to protect their loved ones from evil.
Every Owens woman since Maria has inherited those clear gray eyes and the knowledge that there is no real defense against evil. Maria was no crow interested in harassing farmers and their fields. It was love that had wounded her. The man who was the father of her child, whom Maria had followed to Massachusetts in the first place, had decided he’d had enough. His ardor had cooled, at least for Maria, and he’d sent her a large sum of money to keep her quiet and out of the way. Maria refused to believe he would treat her this way; still he had failed to meet her three times, and she just couldn’t wait any longer. She went to his house in Newburyport, something he’d absolutely forbidden, and she’d bruised her own arm and broken a bone in her right hand