That very night she began to study The Book of the Raven. She told her mother she had a stomachache, forsaking a supper of spring chicken with cream sauce, locking herself in her small chamber. She didn’t stop reading until the first light of day. By then Faith was in a fever, her imagination on fire. She would no longer practice the tradition she’d been born into, she’d forsake the Nameless Art in favor of left-handed magic, black magic, the most ancient form of all such arts, begun before Babylonia had been built, before the flood washed away most of the world, a practice that originated with a secret text titled The Key to Hell. She’d thought of hell quite often while she was in Brooklyn, and how she might send Martha there. If only she had possessed The Book of the Raven then, she would have known what to do, even when restricted by iron.

Wax, pins, fire, hair, fingernails, blood, bone, Bella donna, skullcap, henbane.

This thing of darkness I acknowledge to be mine.

Faith was still a novice, but she practiced the black art faithfully, learning maledictions by heart, until she was skilled at her craft. Soon enough she was nearly thirteen, the odd age between childhood and womanhood when a person becomes more of what she is. A locked door was not enough privacy for her studies. She kept a blanket thrown over her to shroud the magic and contain it within a circle, then drew the pentacle of Solomon on her floor with invisible ink. It was easy enough to hide her practice. Maria Owens had the sight, but all mothers see their children as they wish to, and the truth of Faith’s studies escaped Maria’s sight. Faith had helped that to happen, casting a See What You Please spell so that Maria viewed Faith as a perfect child who set the table for supper, swept the floors, tended to the garden, and kissed her good night. Yes, her hair was a darker shade of red, her skin had a new pallor with the freckles disappearing, her eyes were indeed fevered. She had learned to be deceptive from her years with Martha, and now she did so again quite naturally.