Dime Store Magic
Page 75

As a last resort, I flipped through one of these grimoires. I paused at one spell I'd learned, an incantation for producing a small, flickering light, like a candle. The Coven-sanctioned light-ball spell was far more useful. I'd learned this one only because it involved fire, and I was always trying to overcome my fear of flames.
When I glanced at the spell, something in it snagged in my brain, made me pause. Under the title "Minor Illumination Spell" the writer had added "elemental, fire, class 3." I'd seen that notation before just a few minutes ago, in fact. I yanked one of the two secret grimoires from my bag and flipped to the dog-eared page for the fireball spell. There it was, under the title: elemental, fire, class 3.
Oh, God, could that be it? My hands trembled as I flipped to another spell I'd mastered in that grimoire, a wind-summoning spell. Beneath the title: elemental, wind, class 1.1 racked my brain for the names of the two dozen spells I'd learned in the forbidden manuals. What was that one Yes, that was it! A spell for extinguishing fire. A silly little spell that summoned a mere puff of wind, barely enough to blow out a candle. I'd tried it a few times, got it to work, then moved on. Grabbing another grimoire from the shelf, I flipped through until I found it. "Minor Wind-Summoning Spell: elemental, wind, class 1."
These were the secondary grimoires. I knew now why I'd mastered four tertiary spells, because I'd learned the secondary spells from these books. Eve had been unable to cast any tertiary spells because she'd probably taken one look in the secondary spell books and decided they were too useless to risk stealing.
The doorbell rang. Margaret jumped like a spooked cat.
"It's Savannah," I said.
I scooped all four grimoires from the shelf, shoved them into my bag with the other two and headed for the stairs.
"You can't take those," Margaret called after me.
I bounded down the stairs and opened the back door.
"Lucas says we have to go," Savannah said. "It's getting late."
"I'm done. Just let me grab my shoes." I remembered our other purpose and turned to Margaret. "Could I borrow your car? Just for tonight. Please?'
"I don't think-"
"I'll be careful. I'll fill it up, wash it, whatever. Please, Margaret."
"Savannah?" She noticed her niece for the first time and turned to me. "Did you leave her outside alone? What are you thinking, Paige?"
"I didn't leave her alone. Now, I really need to borrow your car."
"Who-" She stopped, peering outside, her eyes picking out Cortez's form in the yard. She slammed the door. "That's-you-you left my niece with a sorcerer?"
"Oddly enough, I'm having trouble finding baby-sitters."
"Lucas is fine, Aunt Margaret," Savannah said. "Can we borrowyour car? I need the stuff for my first menses-"
"Savannah just got her period," I cut in. "I'm out of supplies for menstrual tea, and she's having very bad cramps."
Savannah pulled a face of sheer agony. Margaret looked at her and blinked.
"Oh, yes. I see." Her voice softened. "This is your first time, isn't it, dear?"
Savannah nodded, lifting wounded-puppy eyes to her great-aunt. "It really hurts."
"Yes, well I suppose, if you need to use my car"
"Please," I said.
Margaret retrieved the keys and handed them to me. "Be careful in parking lots. I had someone dent the door just last week."
I thanked Margaret and prodded Savannah toward the door before Margaret could change her mind.
Next stop: Salem, Massachusetts, world-renowned epicenter of the American witch-hunt craze.
One can argue about the causes of the witch craze that visited Salem in 1692. Theories abound. I even read something recently that attributed the madness to some kind of blight on the rye crops, a mold or something that drives people crazy. What we do know, without question, is that life wasn't a whole lotta fun for teenage girls in Puritan America. In the harsh New England winters, it was even worse. At least the boys could go out hunting and trapping. Girls were confined to their homes and household tasks, forbidden by Puritan law to dance, sing, play cards, or engage in basically any form of entertainment.
As we drove into Salem, I imagined Savannah plunked into that world. Regimented, repressed, and restricted. Bored as hell. Is it any wonder they'd be eager for diversion? Maybe a little mischief? In the winter of 1692 the girls of Salem found exactly that, in the form of an old woman, a slave named Tituba.
Tituba belonged to Reverend Samuel Parris and was nursemaid to his daughter, Betty, whom, by all accounts, she doted on. To amuse herself during those long winter months, Tituba showed Betty and her friends some magic tricks, probably mere sleight-of-hand learned in Barbados. As the winter passed, word of this new entertainment swept through the community of teenage girls and, one by one, they found reasons to visit the parsonage.
In January, Betty, the youngest of the group, fell ill, her Puritan conscience perhaps made uneasy by all this talk of magic and sorcery. Soon other girls caught the "fever." Reverend Parris and others insisted that the girls name their tormentors. Betty named Tituba, and at the end of February the old slave was arrested on a charge of witchcraft.
And so it started. The girls soon grew addicted to the attention. No longer relegated to house and hearth, they became celebrities. The only way to prolong their fifteen minutes of fame was to up the ante, to act wilder, more possessed. To name more witches. So they did. Soon any woman that the girls might have had reason to dislike fell victim.