Deborah Harkness - A Discovery of Witches

When Matthew and Marcus returned, I was on my second plate of food. They both appeared grim, but Matthew shook his head at my curious look.

Apparently they hadn’t been talking about our plans to timewalk. Something else had put them into a sour mood. Matthew pulled up a stool, flapped open the paper, and concentrated on the news. I ate my eggs and toast, made more tea, and bided my time while Sarah washed and put away the dishes.

At last Matthew folded his paper and set it aside.

“I’d like to go to the woods. To where Juliette died,” I announced.

He got to his feet. “I’ll pull the Range Rover to the door.”

“This is madness, Matthew. It’s too soon.” Marcus turned to Sarah for support.

“Let them go,” Sarah said. “Diana should put on warmer clothes first, though. It’s chilly outside.”

Em appeared, a puzzled expression on her face. “Are we expecting visitors? The house thinks we are.”

“You’re joking!” I said. “The house hasn’t added a room since the last family reunion. Where is it?”

“Between the bathroom and the junk room.” Em pointed at the ceiling. I told you this wasn’t just about you and Matthew, she said silently to me as we trooped upstairs to view the transformation. My premonitions are seldom wrong.

The newly materialized room held an ancient brass bed with enormous polished balls capping each corner, tatty red gingham curtains that Em insisted were coming down immediately, a hooked rug in clashing shades of maroon and plum, and a battered washstand with a chipped pink bowl and pitcher. None of us recognized a single item.

“Where did it all come from?” Miriam asked in amazement.

“Who knows where the house keeps this stuff?” Sarah sat on the bed and bounced on it vigorously. It responded with a series of outraged squeaks.

“The house’s most legendary feats happened around my thirteenth birthday,” I remembered with a grin. “It came up with a record four bedrooms and a Victorian parlor set.”

“And twenty-four place settings of Blue Willow china,” Em recalled. “We’ve still got some of the teacups, although most of the bigger pieces disappeared again once the family left.”

After everybody had inspected the new room and the now considerably smaller storage room next door, I changed and made my halting way downstairs and into the Range Rover. When we drew close to the spot where Juliette had met her end, Matthew stopped. The heavy tires sank into the soft ground.

“Shall we walk the rest of the way?” he suggested. “We can take it slowly.”

He was different this morning. He wasn’t coddling me or telling me what to do.

“What’s changed?” I asked as we approached the ancient oak tree.

“I’ve seen you fight,” he said quietly. “On the battlefield the bravest men collapse in fear. They simply can’t fight, even to save themselves.”

“But I froze.” My hair tumbled forward to conceal my face.

Matthew stopped in his tracks, his fingers tightening on my arm to make me stop, too. “Of course you did. You were about to take a life. But you don’t fear death.”

“No.” I’d lived with death—sometimes longed for it—since I was seven.

He swung me around to face him. “After La Pierre, Satu left you broken and uncertain. All your life you’ve hidden from your fears. I wasn’t sure you would be able to fight if you had to. Now all I have to do is keep you from taking unnecessary risks.” His eyes drifted to my neck.

Matthew moved forward, towing me gently along. A smudge of blackened grass told me we’d arrived at the clearing. I stiffened, and he released my arm.

The marks left by the fire led to the dead patch where Juliette had fallen. The forest was eerily quiet, without birdcalls or other sounds of life. I gathered a bit of charred wood from the ground. It crumbled to soot in my fingers.

“I didn’t know Juliette, but at that moment I hated her enough to kill her.” Her brown-and-green eyes would always haunt me from shadows under the trees.

I traced the line left by the arc of conjured fire to where the maiden and the crone had agreed to help me save Matthew. I looked up into the oak tree and gasped.

“It began yesterday.” Matthew followed my gaze. “Sarah says you pulled the life out of it.”

Above me the branches of the tree were cracked and withered. Bare limbs forked and forked again into shapes reminiscent of a stag’s horns. Brown leaves swirled at my feet. Matthew had survived because I’d pushed its vitality through my veins and into his body. The oak’s rough bark had exuded such permanence, yet there was nothing now but hollowness.

“Power always exacts a price,” Matthew said.

“What have I done?” The death of a tree was not going to settle my debt to the goddess. For the first time, I was afraid of the deal I’d struck.

Matthew crossed the clearing and caught me up in his arms. We hugged each other, fierce with the knowledge of all we’d almost lost.

“You promised me you would be less reckless.” There was anger in his voice.

I was angry with him, too. “You were supposed to be indestructible.”

He rested his forehead against mine. “I should have told you about Juliette.”

“Yes, you should have. She almost took you from me.” My pulse throbbed behind the bandage on my neck. Matthew’s thumb settled against the spot where he’d bitten through flesh and muscle, his touch unexpectedly warm.

“It was far too close.” His fingers were wrapped in my hair, and his mouth was hard on mine. Then we stood, hearts pressed together, in the quiet.

“When I took Juliette’s life, it made her part of mine—forever.”

Matthew stroked my hair against my skull. “Death is its own powerful magic.”

Calm again, I said a silent word of thanks to the goddess, not only for Matthew’s life but for my own.

We walked toward the Range Rover, but halfway there I stumbled with fatigue. Matthew swung me onto his back and carried me the rest of the way.

Sarah was bent over her desk in the office when we arrived at the house. She flew outside and pulled open the car door with speed a vampire might envy.

“Damn it, Matthew,” she said, looking at my exhausted face.

Together they got me inside and back onto the family-room couch, where I rested my head in Matthew’s lap. I was lulled to sleep by the quiet sounds of activity all around, and the last thing I remembered clearly was the smell of vanilla and the sound of Em’s battered KitchenAid mixer.

Matthew woke me for lunch, which turned out to be vegetable soup. The look on his face suggested that I would shortly need sustenance. He was about to tell our families the plan.

“Ready, mon coeur?” Matthew asked. I nodded, scraping up the last of my meal. Marcus’s head swiveled in our direction. “We have something to share with you,” he announced.

The new household tradition was to proceed to the dining room whenever something important needed to be discussed. Once we were assembled, all eyes turned to Matthew.

“What have you decided?” Marcus asked without preamble.

Matthew took a deliberate breath and began. “We need to go where it won’t be easy for the Congregation to follow, where Diana will have time and teachers who can help her master her magic.”

Sarah laughed under her breath. “Where is this place, where there are powerful, patient witches who don’t mind having a vampire hanging around?”

“It’s not a particular place I have in mind,” Matthew said cryptically. “We’re going to hide Diana in time.”

Everyone started shouting at once. Matthew took my hand in his.

“Courage,” I murmured in French, repeating his advice when I met Ysabeau.