The First Midnight Spell Read Free

punished. But if you go now and live as any other mortal woman, this will be at an end.”
    Sobbing, Catherine Crews rose to her feet and walked out, never to return.
    For a few long moments, nobody spoke. Several of the women had tears in their eyes, including Pru. Widow Porter said they should sew for a while—“lest we fall behind”—but Elizabeth knew no witchcraft would be done tonight. Even the Widow Porter seemed downcast now that her edict had been given, now that Goodwife Crews was gone. This meant Elizabeth had time to consider her thoughts.
    She had always thought breaking one of the First Laws would violate magic itself—that the magic would sour, or twist itself into thorns. But this had not happened. Catherine Crews might be cast out of this coven forever, but she remained alive and well. Her spell had worked precisely as she had desired; her son had survived and would recover. Her husband’s memory had been altered well enough, and despite the Widow Porter’s warnings, might easily have been altered again.
    So far as Elizabeth could tell, Goodwife Crews had broken the First Laws without harming her magic at all. The only punishment was that handed down by the coven.
    Later that night, when she and Pru were walking back toward their homes, Elizabeth said as much and earned herself a shocked stare. “Elizabeth! We have to have rules, to protect ourselves and those around us.”
    â€œI don’t think the rule was fair,” Elizabeth said. “Do you?”
    Pru had to consider this for a while. “I—I think the rule is fair, generally, but that they might have shown more mercy here. But, then, it’s one of the First Laws. We can’t break the First Laws. If we start saying sometimes it’s all right to use magic in front of men, then do we start saying sometimes it’s all right to serve the One Beneath?”
    â€œThat’s not what I meant.”
    â€œI know. I know. But it’s difficult. Poor Goodwife Crews.” Pru’s eyes were red from crying. “At least we don’t have to cut off all contact with her. We can still be her friends. Let’s walk by tomorrow and see her, shall we?”
    â€œAunt Ruth says we’re laundering tomorrow.” That meant hours and hours of backbreaking labor, and no chances to go visiting. Pru nodded, accepting this, and they walked the rest of the way in silence.
    Always she had revered the First Laws, but she knew now that she had been thinking about them as something beyond mere human rules. They weren’t as powerful as she had once believed. Breaking the First Laws seemed to have no consequence at all—unless you were caught.
    If any of the First Laws could be broken, then so could the one about a witch never marrying the son of another witch.
    Nat Porter could be hers after all.
    Â 
    The next day, Elizabeth worked alongside her aunt and her cousins to do the laundry. This meant hauling bucket after bucket of water to the largest pot, then taking every piece of fabric in the house (clothes to sheets to rag-cloths) and scrubbing them with their bare hands. The lye seared fingers, turned them red and raw and made them burn, but there was no other way to get the things clean. As she worked, grateful for the midday sun that warmed her, Elizabeth tried to remember whether her mother had done things this way as well. She thought Mother had used the Craft to help things along . . . but she had died so long ago, only a year after their arrival in the New World, that Elizabeth’s memories were unclear.
    Aunt Ruth was a witch, too, like nearly half of the women in Fortune’s Sound. (The menfolk believed they had joined together to found this town based on their own common interests and convictions; the fact that so many of their wives were all in the same “quilting circle” seemed no more than a coincidence to them.) But Aunt Ruth was stingier with her magic.