Deborah Harkness - A Discovery of Witches

Em’s fear was palpable. “Diana? What is it?”

Without answering, I tucked the rest of the letter next to my thigh and picked up the brown envelope the house had been hiding for my mother. Pulling at the tissue paper, I wriggled a flat, rectangular object into the open. It was heavier than it should be, and it tingled with power.

I recognized that power and had felt it before.

Matthew heard my blood begin to sing. He came to stand behind me, his hands resting lightly on my shoulders.

I unfolded the wrappings. On top, blocking Mathew’s view and separated by still more tissue from what lay beneath, was a piece of ordinary white paper, the edges brown with age. There were three lines written on it in spidery script.

“‘It begins with absence and desire,’” I whispered around the tightness in my throat. “‘It begins with blood and fear.’”

“‘It begins with a discovery of witches,’” Matthew finished, looking over my shoulder.

After I’d delivered the note to Matthew’s waiting fingers, he held it to his nose for a moment before passing it silently to Sarah. I lifted the top sheet of tissue paper.

Sitting in my lap was one of the missing pages from Ashmole 782.

“Christ,” he breathed. “Is that what I think it is? How did your mother get it?”

“She explains in the letter,” I said numbly, staring down at the brightly colored image.

Matthew bent and picked up the dropped sheet of stationery. “‘My darling Diana,’” he read aloud. “‘Today you are seven—a magical age for a witch, when your powers should begin to stir and take shape. But your powers have been stirring since you were born. You have always been different.’”

My knees shifted under the image’s uncanny weight.

“‘That you are reading this means that your father and I succeeded. We were able to convince the Congregation that it was your father—and not you—whose power they sought. You mustn’t blame yourself. It was the only decision we could possibly make. We trust that you are old enough now to understand.’” Matthew gave my shoulder a gentle squeeze before continuing.

“‘You’re old enough now, too, to take up the hunt that we began when you were born—the hunt for information about you and your magic. We received the enclosed note and drawing when you were three. It came to us in an envelope with an Israeli stamp. The department secretary told us there was no return address or signature—just the note and the picture.

“‘We’ve spent much of the past four years trying to make sense of it. We couldn’t ask too many questions. But we think the picture shows a wedding. ’”

“It is a wedding—the chemical marriage of mercury and sulfur. It’s a crucial step in making the philosopher’s stone.” My voice sounded harsh after Matthew’s rich tones.

It was one of the most beautiful depictions of the chemical wedding I’d ever seen. A golden-haired woman in a pristine white gown held a white rose in one hand. It was an offering to her pale, dark-haired husband, a message that she was pure and worthy of him. He wore black-and-red robes and clasped her other hand. He, too, held a rose—but his was as red as fresh-spilled blood, a token of love and death. Behind the couple, chemicals and metals were personified as wedding guests, milling around in a landscape of trees and rocky hills. A whole menagerie of animals gathered to witness the ceremony: ravens, eagles, toads, green lions, peacocks, pelicans. A unicorn and a wolf stood side by side in the center background, behind the bride and groom. The whole scene was gathered within the outspread wings of a phoenix, its feathers flaming at the edges and its head curved down to watch the scene unfold.

“What does it mean?” Em asked.

“That someone has been waiting for Matthew and me to find each other for a long time.”

“How could that picture possibly be about you and Matthew?” Sarah craned her neck to inspect it more closely.

“The queen is wearing Matthew’s crest.” A gleaming silver-and-gold circlet held back the bride’s hair. In its midst, resting against her forehead, was a jewel in the shape of a crescent moon with a star rising above it.

Matthew reached past the picture and took up the rest of my mother’s letter. “Do you mind if I continue?” he asked gently.

I shook my head, the page from the manuscript still resting on my knees. Em and Sarah, wary of its power, were exercising proper caution in the presence of an unfamiliar bewitched object and remained where they were.

“‘We think the woman in white is meant to be you, Diana. We are less certain about the identity of the dark man. I’ve seen him in your dreams, but he’s hard to place. He walks through your future, but he’s in the past as well. He’s always in shadows, never in the light. And though he’s dangerous, the shadowed man doesn’t pose a threat to you. Is he with you now? I hope so. I wish I could have known him. There is so much I would have liked to tell him about you.’” Matthew’s voice stumbled over the last words.

“‘We hope the two of you will be able to discover the source of this picture. Your father thinks it’s from an old book. Sometimes we see text moving on the back of the page, but then the words disappear again for weeks, even months, at a time. ’”

Sarah sprang out of her chair. “Give me the picture.”

“It’s from the book I told you about. The one in Oxford.” I handed it to her reluctantly.

“It feels so heavy,” she said, walking toward the window with a frown. She turned the picture over and angled the page this way and that. “But I don’t see any words. Of course, it’s no wonder. If this page was removed from the book it belongs to, then the magic is badly damaged.”

“Is that why the words I saw were moving so fast?”

Sarah nodded. “Probably. They were searching for this page and couldn’t find it.”

“Pages.” This was a detail I hadn’t told Matthew.

“What do you mean, ‘pages’?” Matthew came around the chair, flicking little shards of ice over my features.

“This isn’t the only page that’s missing from Ashmole 782.”

“How many were removed?”

“Three,” I whispered. “Three pages were missing from the front of the manuscript. I could see the stubs. It didn’t seem important at the time.”

“Three,” Matthew repeated. His voice was flat, and it sounded as though he were about to break something apart with his bare hands.

“What does it matter whether there are three pages missing or three hundred?” Sarah was still trying to detect the hidden words. “The magic is still broken.”

“Because there are three types of otherworldly creatures.” Matthew touched my face to let me know he wasn’t angry at me.

“And if we have one of the pages . . .” I started.

“Then who has the others?” Em finished.

“Damn it all to hell, why didn’t Rebecca tell us about this?” Sarah, too, sounded like she wanted to destroy something. Emily took the picture from her hands and laid it carefully on an antique tea table.

Matthew continued reading. “‘Your father says that you will have to travel far to unlock its secrets. I won’t say more, for fear this note will fall into the wrong hands. But you will figure it out, I know. ’”

He handed the sheet to me and went on to the next. “‘The house wouldn’t have shared this letter if you weren’t ready. That means you also know that your father and I spellbound you. Sarah will be furious, but it was the only way to protect you from the Congregation before the shadowed man was with you. He will help you with your magic. Sarah will say it’s not his business because he’s not a Bishop. Ignore her.’”