Deborah Harkness - A Discovery of Witches

He was still holding it when the sun rose, long after Hamish had gone to sleep.

Still trying to shake the ice from my shoulders left by Matthew’s stare, I opened the door to my rooms. Inside, the answering machine greeted me with a flashing red “13.” There were nine additional voice-mail messages on my mobile. All of them were from Sarah and reflected an escalating concern about what her sixth sense told her was happening in Oxford.

Unable to face my all-too-prescient aunts, I turned down the volume on the answering machine, turned off the ringers on both phones, and climbed wearily into bed.

Next morning, when I passed through the porter’s lodge for a run, Fred waved a stack of message slips at me.

“I’ll pick them up later,” I called, and he flashed his thumb in acknowledgment.

My feet pounded on familiar dirt paths through the fields and marshes north of the city, the exercise helping to keep at bay both my guilt over not calling my aunts and the memory of Matthew’s cold face.

Back in college I collected the messages and threw them into the trash. Then I staved off the inevitable call home with cherished weekend rituals: boiling an egg, brewing tea, gathering laundry, piling up the drifts of papers that littered every surface. After I’d wasted most of the morning, there was nothing left to do but call New York. It was early there, but there was no chance that anyone was still in bed.

“What do you think you’re up to, Diana?” Sarah demanded in lieu of hello.

“Good morning, Sarah.” I sank into the armchair by the defunct fireplace and crossed my feet on a nearby bookshelf. This was going to take awhile.

“It is not a good morning,” Sarah said tartly. “We’ve been beside ourselves. What’s going on?”

Em picked up the extension.

“Hi, Em,” I said, recrossing my legs. This was going to take a long while.

“Is that vampire bothering you?” Em asked anxiously.

“Not exactly.”

“We know you’ve been spending time with vampires and daemons,” my aunt broke in impatiently. “Have you lost your mind, or is something seriously wrong?”

“I haven’t lost my mind, and nothing’s wrong.” The last bit was a lie, but I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best.

“Do you really think you’re going to fool us? You cannot lie to a fellow witch!” Sarah exclaimed. “Out with it, Diana.”

So much for that plan.

“Let her speak, Sarah,” Em said. “We trust Diana to make the right decisions, remember?”

The ensuing silence led me to believe that this had been a matter of some controversy.

Sarah drew in her breath, but Em cut her off. “Where were you last night?”

“Yoga.” There was no way of squirming out of this inquisition, but it was to my advantage to keep all responses brief and to the point.

“Yoga?” Sarah asked, incredulous. “Why are you doing yoga with those creatures? You know it’s dangerous to mix with daemons and vampires.”

“The class was led by a witch!” I became indignant, seeing Amira’s serene, lovely face before me.

“This yoga class, was it his idea?” Em asked.

“Yes. It was at Clairmont’s house.”

Sarah made a disgusted sound.

“Told you it was him,” Em muttered to my aunt. She directed her next words to me. “I see a vampire standing between you and . . . something. I’m not sure what, exactly.”

“And I keep telling you, Emily Mather, that’s nonsense. Vampires don’t protect witches.” Sarah’s voice was crisp with certainty.

“This one does,” I said.

“What?” Em asked and Sarah shouted.

“He has been for days.” I bit my lip, unsure how to tell the story, then plunged in. “Something happened at the library. I called up a manuscript, and it was bewitched.”

There was silence.

“A bewitched book.” Sarah’s voice was keen with interest. “Was it a grimoire?” She was an expert on grimoires, and her most cherished possession was the ancient volume of spells that had been passed down in the Bishop family.

“I don’t think so,” I said. “All that was visible were alchemical illustrations.”

“What else?” My aunt knew that the visible was only the beginning when it came to bewitched books.

“Someone’s put a spell on the manuscript’s text. There were faint lines of writing—layers upon layers of them—moving underneath the surface of the pages.”

In New York, Sarah put down her coffee mug with a sharp sound. “Was this before or after Matthew Clairmont appeared?”

“Before,” I whispered.

“You didn’t think this was worth mentioning when you told us you’d met a vampire?” Sarah did nothing to disguise her anger. “By the goddess, Diana, you can be so reckless. How was this book bewitched? And don’t tell me you don’t know.”

“It smelled funny. It felt . . . wrong. At first I couldn’t lift the book’s cover. I put my palm on it.” I turned my hand over on my lap, recalling the sense of instant recognition between me and the manuscript, half expecting to see the shimmer that Matthew had mentioned.

“And?” Sarah asked.

“It tingled against my hand, then sighed and . . . relaxed. I could feel it, through the leather and the wooden boards.”

“How did you manage to unravel this spell? Did you say any words? What were you thinking?” Sarah’s curiosity was now thoroughly roused.

“There was no witchcraft involved, Sarah. I needed to look at the book for my research, and I laid my palm flat on it, that’s all.” I took a deep breath. “Once it was open, I took some notes, closed it, and returned the manuscript.”

“You returned it?” There was a loud clatter as Sarah’s phone hit the floor. I winced and held the receiver away from my head, but her colorful language was still audible.

“Diana?” Em said faintly. “Are you there?”

“I’m here,” I said sharply.

“Diana Bishop, you know better.” Sarah’s voice was reproachful. “How could you send back a magical object you didn’t fully understand?”

My aunt had taught me how to recognize enchanted and bewitched objects—and what to do with them. You were to avoid touching or moving them until you knew how their magic worked. Spells could be delicate, and many had protective mechanisms built into them.

“What was I supposed to do, Sarah?” I could hear my defensiveness. “Refuse to leave the library until you could examine it? It was a Friday night. I wanted to go home.”

“What happened when you returned it?” Sarah said tightly.

“The air might have been a little funny,” I admitted. “And the library might have given the impression it shrank for just a moment.”

“You sent the manuscript back and the spell reactivated,” Sarah said. She swore again. “Few witches are adept enough to set up a spell that automatically resets when it’s broken. You’re not dealing with an amateur.”

“That’s the energy that drew them to Oxford,” I said, suddenly understanding. “It wasn’t my opening the manuscript. It was the resetting of the spell. The creatures aren’t just at yoga, Sarah. I’m surrounded by vampires and daemons in the Bodleian. Clairmont came to the library on Monday night, hoping to catch a glimpse of the manuscript after he heard two witches talking about it. By Tuesday the library was crawling with them.”

“Here we go again,” Sarah said with a sigh. “Before the month’s out, daemons will be showing up in Madison looking for you.”

“There must be witches you can rely on for help.” Em was making an effort to keep her voice level, but I could hear the concern in it.

“There are witches,” I said haltingly, “but they’re not helpful. A wizard in a brown tweed coat tried to force his way into my head. He would have succeeded, too, if not for Matthew.”