Mary took her hand in her own. “I am sorry I have not been able to see you more and hear of your progress. You must tell me everything at once. What have you been learning? What has captured your imagination?”
Lucy had wanted to tell Mary of her encounter with Ludd, of the revelations about Jonas Morrison and the Rosicrucians, but Mary wanted to hear of nothing but studies, and Lucy was content that there would be plenty of time to speak of those other matters later. So Lucy began to speak of what she had been reading, and before she knew it, her studies were all she could think of. She went on for the better part of half an hour about what she had read, what had intrigued her, and what she could not understand.
“I knew you would do nothing but amaze me,” Mary said when Lucy had finished her breathless recitation. “You learn and understand like no one I have ever heard of.”
“That cannot be so,” said Lucy. “Everything is so hard to understand.”
Mary shook her head. “Come, tell me how the effigy we found upon Lord Byron could affect him. What principle was at work? Was it magic truly?”
“I hope I express this right, but the things I have done, I have seen—they are real. I don’t doubt that. But they are not magic, in the sense that people mean when they use the word, are they? Magic implies some sort of exception from the rules that govern the world, something outside nature, but if these things were magic in that sense, these spells could not be written down. There could be no knowing if a spell would work from one time to the next. But these things you teach me to do—they are governed by laws. A spell cast in the same way, under the same conditions, with the same level of concentration—it will work the same every time. If that is so, is not magic simply another kind of natural philosophy, though a more obscure one?”
“Yes,” said Mary. Simple and direct. “You have grasped the most powerful secret of all, and one that eludes so many who seek to master these skills. Now tell me, what rules governed the curse upon Byron?”
“I believe it is the natural sympathetic link between all things. If I understand Agrippa, then everything in the universe is a miniature representation of the whole, and that by affecting certain things mimetically, you can cause those effects to reflect back upon what you desire. There is a phrase I have seen frequently in many of the books: As above, so below.”
“You speak of Agrippa’s law of resonance,” said Mary. “It states that all things which are similar are also connected, and so they are drawn to each other’s power. You affect the universe by affecting the miniatures of the universe to be found within everything.”
Lucy smiled. “Agrippa writes that you can intensify the natural attraction between things by augmenting charms with items that come from, or belong to, the target and by using items in nature that best conduct what sort of energy you wish to apply. Different objects in the world contain different kinds of energy, and so the charm I used upon Mr. Olson called for a lemon, for its natural bitterness. The charm I used upon my uncle to persuade him not to cast me out of his house required sugar, for its ability to conduct sweetness—in taste and disposition. It is why so many spells call for parts of frogs or toads or newts. These are creatures that change form over the course of their lives, and so they possess a natural transformative quality.”
“You explain it all with perfect clarity.”
“I wish it could be explained to me in perfect clarity.”
Mary laughed. “Those who write of such things wrap their knowledge in obscurity to keep the uninitiated from understanding and attempting.”
“It is so much to understand, and to accept. And there is so much we have not even discussed. Many of the writers have lengthy sections upon the summoning of spirits and demons. Am I to learn to do such things?”
“No,” said Mary. “While you are my student, you will not try anything of the sort, and if you are wise you never will. Commanding such creatures is not safe, and you have challenges enough before you.”
Mary rose and retreated to her library, from which she returned with a slender folio. It was bound in faded calf’s leather, slightly scuffed, and held closed with a tattered red ribbon. Mary’s dexterous fingers untied the ribbon as she spoke. “I meant to wait many weeks, perhaps many months, before showing this to you, but danger is coming quickly, and we must act to stop it. You know of the machine breakers? You have heard of their General Ludd?”
“Of course.” Lucy’s pulse raced. They were moving toward something of moment. “I believe… I believe I saw Ludd last night. He spoke to me. And it was not the first time. I saw him outside Mr. Olson’s mill, though I did not know it was he at the time. And I have seen other things, creatures of shadow, even in my uncle’s house. I am so confused and frightened, Mary.”
Mary paced the room, playing her fingers along the slender volume’s ribbon. “I am not surprised he has come to you. I told you there is something coming. A great change for good or ill, but a change that cannot be prevented, only shaped. The machine breakers are a part of this.”
“Of the ill?”
“Of the good,” said Mary. “Do you understand what these machines represent? Already we hear tales from all over the country of how coal smoke blackens the skies and soils the waters. There are those like your Mr. Olson who would take men and women who once labored of their own hands to produce their own goods in their own homes and remove them to mills where they labor for endless hours for little money in the most monotonous and tedious and unimaginative of work. They blacken nature and turn men into machines.”
“But there are only a few such places.”
“There will be more, more than we can imagine. Anything that can be made will be made by machine. Already some of these machines are powered by steam and coal, and someday they will all be. When that happens, there will be no more artisans and craftsmen, only mill workers ground down by their machine labor until they are sick or dead, and replaced by others equally nameless and faceless—one man or woman or child no better or worse than another. It is an end to our English way of life, an end to nature as we know it, and if nature is blighted, then so is magic as we know it.”
“Things in the world can shape the world,” Lucy said, thinking aloud. “Agrippa’s law of resonance. You mean that changing the landscape changes the nature of the world itself?”
“That is exactly what I mean. You have seen what transpires in Mr. Olson’s mill. Imagine that multiplied by a thousand, or a thousand thousand. Imagine forests destroyed for fuel to feed the mills, rivers blackened with their wastes. Generation after generation of children who know nothing of childhood, but only long hours of labor. Imagine men who are virtual slaves to mill owners, who dictate conditions and wages. I have seen these things, Lucy. The world is not merely going to change, it is going to be remade.”
“But why must I stand against it?” asked Lucy.
“I don’t know,” Mary said. “I cannot say why Ludd seeks you out, or why you can see the creatures of shadow that are invisible to nearly everyone else.”
“Can you see them?” asked Lucy.
“If I look for them,” Mary answered sadly. “They are part of the world, just as we are.”
“And Ludd? Is he part of the world too?”
“He is something else, I think. But he is drawn to you, just as the shadow creatures are. You have become some sort of magnet, Lucy, drawing things in. I do not know why, but I do know that you cannot ignore your centrality.”
Lucy said nothing for a long time. The idea that she had some power, some responsibility, to stand against mysterious forces and great changes seemed absurd, and yet her friend believed this.