Belinda's Rules (The Power of Magic)

Moira Whitnettle was born into a pond full of lily pads with chirping crickets and frogs near a den of howling wolves. Her hair covered her scalp like fronds of black seaweed. By the time she could walk, she could speak to wolves better than with humans. When a tree ached, she could tell what it was saying, and when a snake slithered past, she could hear its thoughts, hunting for a fat toad.

When she saw her mother tied to rocks and tossed into the same pond she was born in by the townsfolk of Redhawk, she promised herself that night to keep her gifts a secret. She found herself alone at the age of twelve on the outskirts of town, with only Cado, her wolf. She strode through the cobblestone streets, something stirring within her, like a wind whipping about her chest. But she found nothing in town, lost among carts, bustling adults, and fresh food hawkers. She stared at the dirty people holding their cupped hands out, begging for alms. She decided she would never beg for anything. She knew life was not fair. Why had life given her gifts if she wasn't meant to use them? Why had her mother spent years helping others, only to drown by their hands? Was that not the unfairest of all?

She returned to her mother's home, charred where a sphere of love and light used to be, and it brought tears to her eyes. Moira went to the garden, trampled by unkind feet. She found the fourth tomato plant to the west and dug her hand into the earth. She tugged at roots and threw clods of dirt aside until she found it: the black leather book her mother had buried there years ago.

"Never use the words in this book, Mein Schatz," her mother told Moira, "I have made a grave mistake."

Moira grew up oblivious to the unusual occurrences that befell them when her mother did powerful spells: the home her mother conjured flooded at the slightest rain and was infested with termites even in the harshest winter, and the men who loved her became burdens to her. As the words of the book fell off her mother’s tongue, sparks danced on her lips marking her desires’ manifestation into the physical world, black blood dripping from her ears. It was the beginning of payment for the life she desired to end: the Redhawk guard’s, the one who banged on their door, red-faced and spitting threats. Moira watched her mother hiss beneath her breath those ancient words as he turned on his heel and stormed off.

A week later, he fell from his horse and broke his neck during his patrol and her mother physically recoiled at the news. She hurriedly buried the black book behind the house, vowing to keep its power stayed, for man does not know the sorrow caused by death until it is too late. Had she known the fate she had woven for her own daughter, she would have burned that book and sewed her lips shut with a silver thread and hot needle. She spent the rest of her life atoning by helping others with the magic she had learned from her own grandmother, but the spool of Karma was already unwound.

Naive Moira Whitnettle unearthed the book. Though encased in damp soil, it was as though it dried and repelled the chunks which clung to the covering. She leafed through the curiously crisp pages, feeling a rush in her chest, like petals unfurling, determined to chart the waters of one’s own destiny instead of leaving it to fate. She went to Cado, napping beneath the boughs of an old tree. "Come, Cado. We will never need to beg anyone for anything," her voice carrying a lilt of confidence that only the inexperience of youth could muster.

The small black book had spells of all kinds, and she turned to the page where wealth met love. She gathered white lilies clutched by two fingers in moonlight, the sweat off a red frog’s back, a feather plucked from a sleeping heron, and a clean mole skull scavenged by the inhabitants of the forest, crushed into a powder. She wrested the ingredients into a salve with fresh spring water and coated her face with it. That night, she murmured foreign words from the black book that made her tongue feel numb and tickled her throat. When she awoke, the world was different. She no longer feared the days to come, but felt a buzzing her stomach, like a swarm of bees seeking to suckle sweet nectar from her.

When she walked the gray streets of town once more, many turned to smile at her. They had never seen such a beautiful girl, hair shining like a sheet of silken crow feathers and eyes shimmering like dewdrops. Harry, an aristocrat boy a few years older, spit out his scone upon seeing her. Never did the girls in the courtyard sparkle like the one approaching him now.

They wed only two months later. Cado became the family pet, though his true canine nature was kept secret. Moira loved the life of luxury, and quickly grew used to fresh sheep's milk in the morning, baths coated in rose and dandelion petals, and wore the finest silks. She no longer needed the secrets in the black book. She had servants to sweep the floors, fluff her pillows, and bake her fresh raspberries pies. This sweet life seemed as though it could have gone on forever, but every beginning comes with an ending.

She stopped bleeding on the third day of the waning moon, and her belly bulged. She felt a heart beating faster than her own and knew it to be a girl. She was gloriously happy, but Harry's family despised their relationship from the beginning. They would inexplicably taste metal in their mouth or their vision would grow cloudy when they stared at the girl too long. Something was amiss with her, and she dared to enter their lives without a single coin for a dowry.

One day, Harry was overcome by fever, and died in his sleep. Without a moment's thought, his family cast Belinda out, crying with the baby still growing inside her, blaming her for their loss. She whistled for Cado, who ran to her, and she clutched the small black book wearily to her chest. She had forgotten it for nearly three years, but bereft and with child, she needed a shelter to keep the fruit of her love safe. A wind lashed at her knuckles as the book dropped to the earth, its pages spread open to a simple spell to find a home when you're lost. She spoke the words weakly and after a few hours of walking, leaning on Cado for support, she relaxed into a warm bed, in a small house on a knoll outside of town which had been untended for months.

Soon, Belinda Whitnettle was born, and Moira knew her daughter had the same gifts when the squawking cardinal could not be shooed from the house, and the fat black rat that slept on the rug beneath her crib each night could not be baited with cheese.

Moira taught her daughter magic that was not painful: how to find a key you have lost or how to make a soup with only a carrot taste like a thick rabbit stew with crushed pepper. She hid the book beneath the floorboards by the chimney, and like her own mother, wanted to undo the magic that brought ruin to her life. But once again, the thread of fate had been snipped; it could not be reversed.

Moira Whitnettle saw her death before it happened. She worried for her little Belinda that she'd lead the same misguided life. Knowing her end was near, she pulled out her book for one last spell – to save her daughter from a life worse than death itself.

The morning Moira was burned at the stake, a teenage Belinda woke up having lost her sight, blinded by her mother’s last spell. Belinda smelled smoke singeing her nose, but her mother kept from screaming to spare her that haunting noise. Without sight, Moira could protect her daughter from ruinous magic, though she would lead a harder life without the use of her eyes. Belinda stood there, helpless, as her mother died, hearing cheers from voices she recognized, from people her mother helped only weeks before in the middle of the night: an elixir for fever, herbs to help the cows make more milk or a spell to staunch a bleeding heart.

Belinda had lost her sight, but still had her gifts, her bird, and her rat. She could no longer see the world the way others saw it, but she saw something else. She saw the love her mother had for her that stretched out like a silver web to the stars. She saw the fear in her grandmother, the day the guard knocked on her door, and how handsome her grandmother found him. She saw the way the guard longed for her grandmother, but how he was too proud, and afraid of what she might think, and instead acted in anger. How he wept that night for treating her so poorly, when all he wanted to do was kiss her.

She saw her own mother wandering in town the day after her grandmother was drowned. She saw a man and woman, adorned in pearls and fine silks, whispering how they lost their own daughter, and how Moira resembled her. They knew who she was, but they did not care, for they knew each child deserved love. Their hearts longed to help the lost child and give her a life of abundance that their own daughter never had. But when they turned back to find her, she was gone. They searched everywhere, even the charred remains of the old witch's house, but the girl was gone. Belinda saw her own life now, from above.

She fled home, sitting in silence. A worn book slid into her lap, brought to her from the mouth of her rat, but she tossed the book aside, grabbing a dry quill, scribbling down her own rules for life on the table. Alone and blind, she did not care for what was in front of her now, for she saw the truth, and wrote it:

When a fever strikes, use crushed lavender and milk thistle. When your tummy aches, rub it with honey and ferns. When you're seeking love, and a guard shows up on your doorstep, do not curse him -- but kiss him. When you want riches to be found, trust you will be found by riches. And when your own mother blinds you, know that the thread of fate is better than the one you could sew yourself. And should you light upon a little black book, toss it aside, for you will have your desires, anyway.

When she finished, she heard a loud knocking. "Redhawk guard," a voice announced. She went to open the door, sensing a man towering above her. "Miss, I must inform you of an urgent matter. The king is reclaiming this home." "What, why?" she asked. "It is believed this home is not built upon any ordinary hill, but a gold mine. The king is giving you 20,000 gold pieces for the inconvenience." Her unseeing eyes widened, and her voice trembled in excitement. She moved her head as if looking up at him. "W--wait, you, did you say you are a Redhawk guard?" She asked. "I am," he replied stoutly.

With that, Belinda did what she had learned to -- she went onto her toes and kissed him.