Revisiting the world she created in 1995's Practical Magic, Alice Hoffman goes back four centuries, to the origin of the Owens bloodline. Found in a snowy English field as a baby, Maria is placed in the care of Hannah Owens, who teaches her the "Nameless Arts." When Maria is abandoned by the man who has declared his love for her, she follows him to Salem, Massachusetts. Here she invokes the curse that will haunt her family, and it is here that she learns the rules of magic and the lesson that she will carry with her for the rest of her life.