Deborah Harkness - A Discovery of Witches

Nathaniel’s eyes nudged gently against my face. He was in his early twenties and had familiar fair hair and chocolate-colored eyes, as well as his mother’s wide mouth and fine features. Where Agatha had been compact and trim, however, he was nearly as tall as Matthew, with the broad shoulders and narrow hips of a swimmer. An enormous backpack was slung over one shoulder.

“Are you Diana Bishop?” he asked.

A woman’s face peeped out from Nathaniel’s side. It was sweet and round, with intelligent brown eyes and a dimpled chin. She was in her early twenties as well, and the gentle, insidious pressure of her glance indicated she, too, was a daemon.

As she studied me, a long, brown braid tumbled over her shoulder. “That’s her,” the young woman said, her soft accent betraying that she was born in the South. “She looks just as she did in my dreams.”

“It’s all right, Matthew,” I said. These two daemons posed no more danger to me than did Marthe or Ysabeau.

“So you’re the vampire,” Nathaniel said, giving Matthew an appraising look. “My mother warned me about you.”

“You should listen to her,” Matthew suggested, his voice dangerously soft.

Nathaniel seemed unimpressed. “She told me you wouldn’t welcome the son of a Congregation member. But I’m not here on their behalf. I’m here because of Sophie.” He drew his wife under his arm in a protective gesture, and she shivered and crept closer. Neither was dressed for autumn in New York. Nathaniel was wearing an old barn jacket, and Sophie had on nothing warmer than a turtleneck and a hand-knit cardigan that brushed her knees.

“Are they both daemons?” Matthew asked me.

“Yes,” I replied, though something made me hesitate.

“Are you a vampire as well?” Nathaniel asked Marcus.

Marcus gave him a wolfish grin. “Guilty.”

Sophie was still nudging me with her characteristic daemonic glance, but there was the faintest tingle on my skin. Her hand crept possessively around her belly.

“You’re pregnant!” I cried.

Marcus was so surprised that he loosened his grip on me. Matthew caught me as I went by. The house, agitated by the appearance of two visitors and Matthew’s sudden lunge, made its displeasure clear by banging the keeping room’s doors tightly closed.

“What you feel—it’s me,” Sophie said, moving an inch closer to her husband. “My people were witches, but I came out wrong.”

Sarah came into the hall, saw the visitors, and threw up her hands. “Here we go again. I told you daemons would be showing up in Madison before long. Still, the house usually knows our business better than we do. Now that you’re here, you might as well come inside, out of the cold.”

The house groaned as if it were heartily sick of us when the daemons entered.

“Don’t worry,” I said, trying to reassure them. “The house told us you were coming, no matter what it sounds like.”

“My granny’s house was just the same.” Sophie smiled. “She lived in the old Norman place in Seven Devils. That’s where I’m from. It’s officially part of North Carolina, but my dad said that nobody bothered to tell the folks in town. We’re kind of a nation unto ourselves.”

The keeping-room doors opened wide, revealing my grandmother and three or four more Bishops, all of whom were watching the proceedings with interest. The boy with the berry basket waved. Sophie shyly waved back.

“Granny had ghosts, too,” she said calmly.

The ghosts, combined with two unfriendly vampires and an overly expressive house, were too much for Nathaniel.

“We aren’t staying longer than we have to, Sophie. You came to give something to Diana. Let’s get it over with and be on our way,” Nathaniel said. Miriam chose that minute to step out of the shadows by the dining room, her arms crossed over her chest. Nathaniel took a step backward.

“First vampires. Now daemons. What next?” Sarah muttered. She turned to Sophie. “So you’re about five months along?”

“The baby quickened last week,” Sophie replied, both hands resting on her belly. “That’s when Agatha told us where we could find Diana. She didn’t know about my family. I’ve been having dreams about you for months. And I don’t know what Agatha saw that made her so scared.”

“What dreams?” Matthew said, his voice quick.

“Let’s have Sophie sit down before we subject her to an inquisition.” Sarah quietly took charge. “Em, can you bring us some of those cookies? Milk, too?”

Em headed toward the kitchen, where we could hear the distant clatter of glasses.

“They could be my dreams, or they could be hers.” Sophie gazed at her belly as Sarah led her and Nathaniel deeper into the house. She looked back over her shoulder at Matthew. “She’s a witch, you see. That’s probably what worried Nathaniel’s mom.”

All eyes dropped to the bump under Sophie’s blue sweater.

“The dining room,” Sarah said in a tone that brooked no nonsense. “Everybody in the dining room.”

Matthew held me back. “There’s something too convenient about their showing up right now. No mention of timewalking in front of them.”

“They’re harmless.” Every instinct confirmed it.

“Nobody’s harmless, and that certainly goes for Agatha Wilson’s son.” Tabitha, who was sitting next to Matthew, mewled in agreement.

“Are you two joining us, or do I have to drag you into this room?” Sarah called.

“We’re on our way,” Matthew said smoothly.

Sarah was at the head of the table. She pointed at the empty chairs to her right. “Sit.”

We were facing Sophie and Nathaniel, who sat with an empty seat between them and Marcus. Matthew’s son split his attention between his father and the daemons. I sat between Matthew and Miriam, both of whom never took their eyes from Nathaniel. When Em entered, she had a tray laden with wine, milk, bowls of berries and nuts, and an enormous plate of cookies.

“God, cookies make me wish like hell I was still warmblooded,” Marcus said reverently, picking up one of the golden disks studded with chocolate and holding it to his nose. “They smell so good, but they taste terrible.”

“Have these instead,” Em said, sliding him a bowl of walnuts. “They’re covered in vanilla and sugar. They’re not cookies, but they’re close.” She passed him a bottle of wine and a corkscrew, too. “Open that and pour some for your father.”

“Thanks, Em,” Marcus said around a mouthful of sticky walnuts, already pulling the cork free from the bottle. “You’re the best.”

Sarah watched intently as Sophie drank thirstily from the glass of milk and ate a cookie. When the daemon reached for her second, my aunt turned to Nathaniel. “Now, where’s your car?” Given all that had happened, it was an odd opening question.

“We came on foot.” Nathaniel hadn’t touched anything Em put in front of him.

“From where?” Marcus asked incredulously, handing Matthew a glass of wine. He’d seen enough of the surrounding countryside to know that there was nothing within walking distance.

“We rode with a friend from Durham to Washington,” Sophie explained. “Then we caught a train from D.C. to New York. I didn’t like the city much.”

“We caught the train to Albany, then went on to Syracuse. The bus took us to Cazenovia.” Nathaniel put a warning hand on Sophie’s arm.

“He doesn’t want me to tell you that we caught a ride from a stranger,” Sophie confided with a smile. “The lady knew where the house was. Her kids love coming here on Halloween because you’re real witches.” Sophie took another sip of milk. “Not that we needed the directions. There’s a lot of energy in this house. We couldn’t have missed it.”