Deborah Harkness - A Discovery of Witches

“It’s time to close your eyes.” Amira picked up a tiny remote control, and the soft strains of a meditative chant came out of the walls and ceiling. It sounded medieval, and one of the vampires sighed happily.

My eyes wandered, distracted by the ornate plasterwork of what must once have been the house’s great hall.

“Close your eyes,” Amira suggested again gently. “It can be hard to let go of our worries, our preoccupations, our egos. That’s why we’re here tonight.”

The words were familiar—I’d heard variations on this theme before, in other yoga classes—but they took on new meaning in this room.

“We’re here tonight to learn to manage our energy. We spend our time striving and straining to be something that we’re not. Let those desires go. Honor who you are.”

Amira took us through some gentle stretches and got us onto our knees to warm up our spines before we pushed back into downward dog. We held the posture for a few breaths before walking our hands to our feet and standing up.

“Root your feet into the earth,” she instructed, “and take mountain pose.”

I concentrated on my feet and felt an unexpected jolt from the floor. My eyes widened.

We followed Amira as she began her vinyasas. We swung our arms up toward the ceiling before diving down to place our hands next to our feet. We rose halfway, spines parallel to the floor, before folding over and shooting our legs back into a pushup position. Dozens of daemons, vampires, and witches dipped and swooped their bodies into graceful, upward curves. We continued to fold and lift, sweeping our arms overhead once more before touching palms lightly together. Then Amira freed us to move at our own pace. She pushed a button on the stereo’s remote, and a slow, melodic cover of Elton John’s “Rocket Man” filled the room.

The music was oddly appropriate, and I repeated the familiar movements in time to it, breathing into my tight muscles and letting the flow of the class push all thoughts from my head. After we’d started the series of poses for a third time, the energy in the room shifted.

Three witches were floating about a foot off the wooden floorboards.

“Stay grounded,” Amira said in a neutral voice.

Two quietly returned to the floor. The third had to swan-dive to get back down, and even then his hands reached the floor before his feet.

Both the daemons and the vampires were having trouble with the pacing. Some of the daemons were moving so slowly that I wondered if they were stuck. The vampires were having the opposite problem, their powerful muscles coiling and then springing with sudden intensity.

“Gently,” Amira murmured. “There’s no need to push, no need to strain.”

Gradually the room’s energy settled again. Amira moved us through a series of standing poses. Here the vampires were clearly at their best, able to sustain them for minutes without effort. Soon I was no longer concerned with who was in the room with me or whether I could keep up with the class. There was only the moment and the movement.

By the time we took to the floor for back bends and inversions, everyone in the room was dripping wet—except for the vampires, who didn’t even look dewy. Some performed death-defying arm balances and handstands, but I wasn’t among them. Clairmont was, however. At one point he looked to be attached to the ground by nothing more than his ear, his entire body in perfect alignment above him.

The hardest part of any practice for me was the final corpse pose—savasana. I found it nearly impossible to lie flat on my back without moving. The fact that everyone else seemed to find it relaxing only added to my anxiety. I lay as quietly as possible, eyes closed, trying not to twitch. A swoosh of feet moved between me and the vampire.

“Diana,” Amira whispered, “this pose is not for you. Roll over onto your side.”

My eyes popped open. I stared into the witch’s wide black eyes, mortified that she had somehow uncovered my secret.

“Curl into a ball.” Mystified, I did what she said. My body instantly relaxed. She patted me lightly on the shoulder. “Keep your eyes open, too.”

I had turned toward Clairmont. Amira lowered the lights, but the glow of his luminous skin allowed me to see his features clearly.

In profile he looked like a medieval knight lying atop a tomb in Westminster Abbey: long legs, long torso, long arms, and a remarkably strong face. There was something ancient about his looks, even though he appeared to be only a few years older than I was. I mentally traced the line of his forehead with an imaginary finger, from where it started at his uneven hairline up slightly over his prominent brow bone with its thick, black brows. My imaginary finger crested the tip of his nose and the bowing of his lips.

I counted as he breathed. At two hundred his chest lifted. He didn’t exhale for a long, long time afterward.

Finally Amira told the class it was time to rejoin the world outside. Matthew turned toward me and opened his eyes. His face softened, and my own did the same. There was movement all around us, but the socially correct had no pull on me. I stayed where I was, staring into a vampire’s eyes. Matthew waited, utterly still, watching me watch him. When I sat up, the room spun at the sudden movement of blood through my body.

At last the room stopped its dizzying revolutions. Amira closed the practice with chant and rang some tiny silver bells that were attached to her fingers. Class was over.

There were gentle murmurs throughout the room as vampire greeted vampire and witch greeted witch. The daemons were more ebullient, arranging for midnight meetings at clubs around Oxford, asking where the best jazz could be found. They were following the energy, I realized with a smile, thinking back to Agatha’s description of what tugged at a daemon’s soul. Two investment bankers from London—both vampires—were talking about a spate of unsolved London murders. I thought of Westminster and felt a flicker of unease. Matthew scowled at them, and they began arranging lunch tomorrow instead.

Everyone had to file by us as they left. The witches nodded at us curiously. Even the daemons made eye contact, grinning and exchanging meaningful glances. The vampires studiously avoided me, but every one of them said hello to Clairmont.

Finally only Amira, Matthew, and I remained. She gathered up her mat and padded toward us. “Good practice, Diana,” she said.

“Thank you, Amira. This was a class I’ll never forget.”

“You’re welcome anytime. With or without Matthew,” she added, tapping him lightly on the shoulder. “You should have warned her.”

“I was afraid Diana wouldn’t come. And I thought she’d like it, if she gave it a chance.” He looked at me shyly.

“Turn out the lights, will you, when you leave?” Amira called over her shoulder, already halfway out of the room.

My eyes traveled around the perfect jewel of a great hall. “This was certainly a surprise,” I said drily, not yet ready to let him off the hook.

He came up behind me, swift and soundless. “A pleasant one, I hope. You did like the class?”

I nodded slowly and turned to reply. He was disconcertingly close, and the difference in our heights meant that I had to lift my eyes so as not to be staring straight into his sternum. “I did.”

Matthew’s face split into his heart-stopping smile. “I’m glad.” It was difficult to pull free from the undertow of his eyes. To break their spell, I bent down and began rolling up my mat. Matthew turned off the lights and grabbed his own gear. We slid our shoes on in the gallery, where the fire had burned down to embers.

He picked up his keys. “Can I interest you in some tea before we head back to Oxford?”