Deborah Harkness - Shadow of Night

“It’s about time,” my father said, reaching for his jacket. He still wore it like a modern man, taking it off the minute he was indoors and rolling up his shirtsleeves. “I didn’t think any of my hints were getting through to you. I can’t wait to meet an expereinced weaver. And are you finally going to show me what’s in the box?”

“If you were curious about it, why didn’t you ask?”

“You’d covered it so carefully with that wispy thing of yours that I figured you didn’t want anybody to mention it,” he said as we descended the stairs.

When we arrived in the parish of St. James Garlickhythe, Goody Alsop’s fetch opened the door.

“Come in, come in,” the witch said, beckoning us toward her seat by the fire. Her eyes were bright and snapping with excitement. “We’ve been waiting for you.”

The whole coven was there, sitting on the edge of their seats.

“Goody Alsop, this is my father, Stephen Proctor.”

“The weaver.” Goody Alsop beamed with satisfaction. “You’re a watery one, like your daughter.” My father hung back as he always did, watching everybody and saying as little as possible while I made the introductions. All the women smiled and nodded, though Catherine had to repeat everything to Elizabeth Jackson because my father’s accent was so strange.

“But we are being rude. Would you care to share your creature’s name?” Goody Alsop peered at my father’s shoulders, where the faint outlines of a heron could be seen. I’d never noticed it before.

“You can see Bennu?” my father said, surprised.

“Of course. He perches, open-winged, across your shoulders. My familiar spirit does not have wings, even though I am strongly tied to the air. She was easier to tame for that reason, I suspect. When I was a girl, a weaver came to London with a harpy for a familiar. Ella was her name, and she was very difficult to train.”

Goody Alsop’s fetch wafted around my father, crooning softly to the bird as it became more visible.

“Perhaps your Bennu can coax Diana’s firedrake to give up her name. It would make it much easier for your daughter to timewalk, I think. We don’t want any trace of her familiar left here, dragging Diana back to London.”

“Wow.” My father was struggling to take it all in—the strange accent, Goody Alsop’s fetch, the fact that his secrets were on display.

“Who?” Elizabeth Jackson asked politely, assuming she’d misunderstood.

My father drew back and studied Elizabeth carefully. “Have we met?”

“No. It is the water in my veins that you recognize. We are happy to have you among us, Master Proctor. London has not had three weavers within her walls in some time. The city is abuzz.”

Goody Alsop motioned to the chair beside her. “Do sit.”

My father took the place of honor. “Nobody at home knows about this weaving business.”

“Not even Mom?” I was aghast. “Dad, you’ve got to tell her.”

“Oh, she knows. But I didn’t have to tell her. I showed her.” My father’s fingers curled and released in an instinctive gesture of command.

The world lit up in shades of blue, gray, lavender, and green as he plucked at all the hidden watery threads in the room: the willow branches in a jug by the window, the silver candlestick that Goody Alsop used for her spells, the fish that was waiting to be roasted for supper. Everyone and everything in the room was cast into those same watery hues. Bennu took flight, his silver-tipped wings stirring the air into waves. Goody Alsop’s fetch was blown this way and that in the currents, her shape shifting into a long-stemmed lily, then returning to human form and sprouting wings. It was as if the two familiars were playing. At the prospect of recreation, my firedrake flicked her tail and beat her wings against my ribs.

“Not now,” I told her tightly, gripping at my bodice. The last thing we needed was a cavorting firedrake. My control over the past might have slipped, but I knew better than to let go of a dragon in Elizabethan London.

“Let her out, Diana,” my father urged. “Ben will take care of her.”

But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. My father called to Bennu, who faded into his shoulders. The watery magic around me faded, too.

“Why are you so afraid?” my father asked quietly.

“I’m afraid because of this!” I waved my cords in the air. “And this!” I hit my ribs, jostling my firedrake. She belched in response. My hand slid down to where our child was growing. “And this. It’s too much. I don’t need to use showy elemental magic the way you just did. I’m happy as I am.”

“You can weave spells, command a firedrake, and bend the rules that govern life and death. You’re as volatile as creation itself, Diana. These are powers any self-respecting witch would kill for.”

I looked at him in horror. He’d brought the one thing I couldn’t face into the room: Witches had already killed for these powers. They’d killed my father, and my mother, too.

“Putting your magic into neat little boxes and keeping it separate from your craft isn’t going to keep Mom and me from our fates,” my father continued sadly.

“That’s not what I’m trying to do.”

“Really?” His eyebrows lifted. “You want to try that again, Diana?”

“Sarah says elemental magic and the craft are separate. She says—”

“Forget what Sarah says!” My father took me by the shoulders. “You aren’t Sarah. You aren’t like any other witch who has ever lived. And you don’t have to choose between spells and the power that’s right at your fingertips. We’re weavers, right?”

I nodded.

“Then think of elemental magic as the warp—the strong fibers that make up the world—and spells as the weft. They’re both part of a single tapestry. It’s all one big system, honey. And you can master it, if you set aside your fear.”

I could see the possibilities shimmering around me in webs of color and shadow, yet the fear remained.

“Wait. I have a connection to fire, like Mom does. We don’t know how the water and fire will react. I haven’t had those lessons yet.” Because of Prague , I thought. Because we got distracted by the hunt for Ashmole 782 and forgot to focus on the future and getting back to it .

“So you’re a switch-hitter—a witchy secret weapon.” He laughed. He laughed .

“This is serious, Dad.”

“It doesn’t have to be.” My father let that sink in, then crooked his finger, catching a single gray-green thread on the end of it.

“What are you doing?” I asked suspiciously.

“Watch,” he said in a whisper like waves against the shore. He drew his finger toward him and pursed his lips as if he were holding an invisible bubble wand. When he blew out, a ball of water formed. He flicked his fingers in the direction of the water bucket near the hearth, and the ball turned to ice, floated over, and dropped into it with a splash. “Bull’s-eye.”

Elizabeth giggled, releasing a stream of water bubbles that popped in the air, each one sending out a tiny shower of water.

“You don’t like the unknown, Diana, but sometimes you’ve got to embrace it. You were terrified when I put you on a tricycle the first time. And you threw your blocks at the wall when you couldn’t get them all to fit back in their box. We made it through those crises. I’m sure we can handle this.” My father held his hand out.

“But it’s so . . .”

“Messy? So is life. Stop trying to be perfect. Try being real for a change.” My father’s arm swept through the air, revealing all the threads that were normally hidden from view. “The whole world is in this room. Take your time and get to know it.”

I studied the patterns, saw the clumps of color around the witches that indicated their particular strengths and weaknesses. Threads of fire and water surrounded me in a mess of conflicting shades. My panic returned.