The World of All Souls

by Deborah Harkness

  Soon Diana is being followed. Though most humans don’t know it, they share the world with three other types of creatures: witches, who have supernatural powers; vampires, preternaturally powerful, who drink blood in order to survive; and daemons, who can be brilliantly creative but also prone to madness. Chief among the creatures seeking her out is Matthew Clairmont, a professor of biochemistry at Oxford—and a vampire. Matthew has been looking for Ashmole 782 since Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species was published in 1859. Matthew had heard about another book that supposedly explained the origin of daemons, witches, and vampires. When he searched Ashmole’s library collection in 1859, however, the book was missing.

  The general wisdom is that humans, vampires, witches, and daemons are separate species, but Matthew believes they may share a common ancestor. In his laboratory Matthew and his vampire assistants Miriam Shephard and Marcus Whitmore study mitochondrial DNA to trace creature origins. Matthew is afraid that nonhuman creatures are becoming extinct: Modern witches have fewer children, daemons exhibit less genius and more madness, and vampires have trouble creating new vampires. (Vampires create vampires by draining the blood of humans and substituting their own. A recent series of murders involving bloodless corpses suggests that the process is failing.) Against Matthew’s objections, Diana provides a blood sample to be analyzed to aid their work.

  Matthew and Diana soon begin falling in love. They decide that Diana will call the manuscript again, but when she tries, the library tells her that it has been missing for 150 years. Diana has no idea how to retrieve it. She has never been adept at the basics of witchcraft and has little knowledge of her powers.

  Other creatures want Ashmole 782 as well. The witch Peter Knox believes that Ashmole 782 contains information on the first spells ever constructed, the secret of immortality, and how vampires can be destroyed forever. He thinks it belongs exclusively to the witches. The daemon Agatha Wilson explains that daemons want it because it might reveal where they came from and why they exist.

  The bickering over who “owns” Ashmole 782 highlights the prejudices that underlie creature relationships. Fellow witch Gillian Chamberlain warns Diana of the dangers of disloyalty, revealing that Diana’s parents were killed by their own kind for keeping secrets. These prejudices echo the opinions of Diana’s aunt, Sarah Bishop. Sarah and her partner, Emily Mather, raised Diana after her parents’ death.

  Matthew gradually shares some of his secrets with Diana, including the fact that he is fifteen hundred years old. To his daemon friend Hamish Osborne, he confesses that during his long life he has killed two women he loved through lack of control. Matthew is afraid he might harm Diana as well.

  Diana instinctively trusts Matthew Clairmont, however. When a photo of her slaughtered parents is planted in her rooms at Oxford—a warning that the witches will stop at nothing to get ahold of Ashmole 782—Diana and Matthew travel to the Auvergne in France to hide out at his family’s ancient castle, Sept-Tours. Its only current residents are his mother, Ysabeau, and her housekeeper, Marthe, both vampires. Unfortunately, Ysabeau despises witches because her vampire husband, Philippe, was killed by witches in collaboration with the Nazis during World War II, and the atmosphere is tense.

  At Sept-Tours, Diana and Matthew grow closer. With Matthew’s help she realizes she has been using magic almost daily without realizing it. And the results of Diana’s DNA profile show that she has more potential for magic than Matthew’s lab has ever seen in one witch, including control over all the four elements and abilities for mind reading, flight, and talking with the dead.

  Suddenly Domenico Michele, an old vampire adversary of Matthew’s, comes to Sept-Tours. As a result Diana learns about the covenant, an agreement forged among vampires, witches, and daemons during the Crusades. The covenant forbids nonhuman creatures to associate with creatures of other types. The purpose is ostensibly to protect them from human discovery. Any creature that breaks the covenant is subject to punishment by the Congregation, a council of nine creatures (three vampires, three witches, three daemons).

  After Domenico’s visit, Matthew declares that he and Diana must end their relationship. He is frightened of what other witches and vampires might do to her, and of his own violent tendencies. Diana declares that she loves him and refuses to leave. Then Matthew is notified that there has been an attempt to break into his research lab, and he returns to Oxford.

  Diana’s frustration at Matthew’s departure sets off a bout of weeping that turns to witchwater; her tears fill the tower and threaten to dissolve her. Ysabeau pulls her back to the world by singing in a beautiful, unearthly voice. Afterward Ysabeau tells Diana the story of Matthew’s human death—that he was found dying at the bottom of a tower, a suspected suicide, shortly after the death of his wife and child. Ysabeau made him a vampire to save him from the fear of being in hell for eternity, separated from his human family.

  In Matthew’s absence, Ysabeau takes Diana hunting to put her off having a vampire as a husband. Diana wins Ysabeau’s grudging admiration by watching her hunt animals for blood without flinching.

  While working alone in Matthew’s study, Diana discovers that he belongs to a secret group called the Knights of Lazarus, which succeeded the Knights Templar in 1313. The Knights of Lazarus have bankrolled an astonishing array of historical events, from paying off Elizabeth I’s debts to purchasing most of the factories in Manchester in the nineteenth century. Matthew wields more power than she had ever dreamed possible.

  Matthew returns to Sept-Tours and tells Diana he loves her. After they kiss, Matthew declares, “We are one, from this moment forward.” Diana doesn’t fully understand it at the time, but this is the beginning of a vampire’s formal mating process: The female selects her mate, and once he has agreed, they are mated. Ysabeau accepts Diana as her daughter.

  Matthew reveals that Diana’s rooms at Oxford were broken into as well, probably by witches looking for her hair and fingernails to use in spells. The hair and fingernails might reveal traces of DNA, too. He now believes that the Congregation would be threatening Diana even if she and Matthew weren’t breaking the covenant—that the Congregation’s real interest lies in using Diana to acquire Ashmole 782.

  Matthew finally joins Diana in her bed, though they don’t completely consummate the relationship. The next morning a Finnish witch named Satu Järvinen flies into the garden and kidnaps Diana. She carries Diana to the castle of La Pierre, where Domenico and Gerbert d’Aurillac, a vampire and former pope, are waiting. Satu sends them away and tortures Diana for hours, using an opening spell on her, to force her to reveal information about Ashmole 782. But Diana remembers her mother’s long-ago injunctions to keep secrets, and she remains silent.

  Ysabeau sends for Matthew’s vampire brother Baldwin, who is an excellent tracker and strategist. Shortly afterward, Baldwin and Matthew are headed to La Pierre in a helicopter. Satu has thrown Diana into a deep dungeon called an oubliette while she flies off to ask other witches for help in forcing out Diana’s secrets. In the oubliette a dazed Diana sees the ghosts of her parents, and her mother repeats a story she used to tell the seven-year-old Diana about being bound by ribbons. The ribbons symbolize being spellbound, or stripped of her magical power. Spellbinding is usually performed only on witches who have used magic to do something terrible, but Diana’s parents spellbound her for her own protection, to hide her power from other creatures. Diana’s mother encourages her to throw off the ribbons and use her powers to escape. Diana manages to do so, lifting herself up from the bottom of the pit and steering toward Matthew and her freedom.

  Matthew, Diana, and Baldwin return to Sept-Tours, and Matthew tends to Diana’s wounds. It’s imperative that she learn to use her magic to protect herself, so the next day Baldwin accompanies Matthew and Diana to New York to seek help from her aunts in the town of Madison. There Diana realizes that the marks Satu made on her back form the seal of the Knights of Lazarus
—a star hung above a crescent moon. Not only has Satu branded Diana as Matthew’s property—she has made it clear that the witches know that the de Clermont family are the heads of the Knights of Lazarus.

  On Diana and Matthew’s third day in Madison, the Bishop house, which has a mind of its own, slams the keeping-room doors to capture their attention and summon them all to a meeting. An envelope shoots out of the keeping-room paneling. It contains one of the missing pages from Ashmole 782, a note from Diana’s mother, and a piece of paper saying, “It begins with absence and desire. It begins with blood and fear. It begins with a discovery of witches.” Rebecca Bishop’s note explains that the page from Ashmole 782, along with the other piece of paper, arrived when Diana was three years old.

  Diana now realizes that a penciled inscription she saw on the Ashmole 782 manuscript was written by her father. Sarah explains that Stephen Proctor was a timewalker, and they theorize that he traveled back to 1859 to bewitch Ashmole 782 so that only Diana could open it. Sarah reveals that Diana herself timewalked as a toddler.

  The page from Ashmole 782 depicts the chemical wedding, conjunctio. This is a crucial step in making the philosopher’s stone, the alchemical key to riches and eternal life. The golden-haired queen in the illustration seems to represent Diana, and the king is pale and dark-haired like Matthew. Miriam Shephard, who has arrived from England with Marcus Whitmore, points out that the next step in the alchemical process is conceptio. Miriam believes that Ashmole 782 is about creature reproduction and that vampires and witches, as well as other mixed partners, might be able to have children together.

  Miriam and Marcus have more information about Diana’s DNA: She is a chimera, a person with cells that possess two or more different genetic profiles. Since one of the genetic profiles is male, the likeliest explanation is vanishing twin syndrome: Her twin brother was miscarried in the womb, and Diana absorbed his genetic material. Marcus points out that because Diana has already absorbed foreign DNA into her body and is a universal blood recipient (AB-positive), she is less apt to reject a fetus that is half vampire. This represents a threat to the foundation of the covenant.

  Sarah and Matthew both try without success to help Diana learn to use her powers. One day when Matthew is stalking Diana in the woods to try to force her to use magic to defend herself, they encounter the vampire Juliette Durand, a former lover of Matthew’s. Gerbert had created her centuries ago to steal Matthew’s secrets; this time he has sent her to kill Matthew and take Diana to face the Congregation. Diana’s magical instincts take over and she kills Juliette with bolts of witchfire, but only after Juliette has mortally wounded Matthew. Diana begs the goddess to help her save Matthew’s life, promising anything in return. The goddess accepts, and Diana allows Matthew to drink her blood, saving his life.

  Clearly Diana and Matthew need a safer place to hide. Timewalking to the past is the answer, since the Congregation can’t follow them there and the past holds more powerful witches to serve as tutors to Diana. Timewalking to the past requires three objects from the exact time and place the witch is traveling to, however. As the group is discussing this challenge, Agatha Wilson’s son, Nathaniel, and his wife, Sophie Norman, both daemons, arrive. Sophie is pregnant with a witch, and Agatha has urged her to see Diana. Agatha knows that her grandchild will be in danger once the Congregation realizes she is an exception to their beliefs about creature reproduction.

  Sophie presents Diana with a silver chess piece that Sophie’s family has been passing down for generations, along with a message: “When the time comes, give it to the one who has need of it.” Matthew recognizes it as a piece he had lost in a wager on All Souls’ Night many centuries before. Shortly afterward the house ejects a witch’s poppet from the paneling, containing an earring that belonged to Ysabeau. Matthew confirms that this earring was in the same place as the chess piece on the night of the wager. This convinces him of the location and time to which they must timewalk, though he shares the information with no one.

  Matthew asks Hamish Osborne to bring the third object: a holograph manuscript of Christopher Marlowe’s play Doctor Faustus. Hamish also brings paperwork regarding the Knights of Lazarus. Anticipating war with the Congregation, Matthew appoints his son Marcus Whitmore grand master in his place and gives his blessing for Nathaniel Wilson to become a knight.

  As Halloween night approaches, Nathaniel, Sophie, Marcus, Miriam, Sarah, and Emily leave the house in Madison. They will reconvene at Sept-Tours with Ysabeau and Marthe. Sophie refers to the group as a conventicle, a gathering of dissenters.

  Alone in the house, Matthew and Diana gather their three objects. At last Matthew reveals their destination: his house in Oxfordshire on October 31, 1590. Diana imagines the sights and smells of 1590, and they begin their journey. Shortly afterward Sarah and Emily return one last time to the empty house, where Matthew has left Sarah a clue as to where and when he and Diana have gone: a small book and a note. The note reads, “Don’t worry. We made it.” The book is George Chapman’s The Shadow of Night, dated 1594.

  Shadow of Night

  Matthew de Clermont and Diana Bishop arrive at Matthew’s house in Woodstock, England, on October 31, 1590. Diana is introduced to Matthew’s friends: playwright and daemon Christopher Marlowe, human poet George Chapman, daemon astronomer Thomas Harriot, human adventurer Sir Walter Raleigh, and human Henry Percy, 9th Earl of Northumberland. These are the members of what will one day be known as the School of Night. Matthew has a different name here: Matthew Roydon.

  Matthew’s friends already know that he is a vampire. He tells them that Diana is a witch and that they’ve traveled from the future because their relationship has put them in danger from the Congregation. Most are happy to help, but Marlowe is recalcitrant because he is jealous of Diana’s relationship with Matthew.

  Diana wants to learn to pass as an Elizabethan gentlewoman, and she practices Elizabethan penmanship in her journal. Matthew is keen to fetch a witch immediately to help Diana understand her powers, though the outbreak of witch-hunts has made witches wary of strangers. The meeting with a local witch ends badly; Matthew antagonizes Widow Beaton, and she leaves convinced that Diana is in league with the devil.

  Two new vampires arrive: Matthew’s nephew Gallowglass and his companion, Davy Hancock. The two men were alarmed when Matthew failed to meet them on November 1 as planned. With witch-hunts going on in Berwick, Scotland, Gallowglass and Hancock feared that Matthew had gone there on royal business and come to harm. The 1590 Matthew, Diana learns, is not only a spy for Queen Elizabeth I but also a member of the Congregation.

  Philippe, Matthew’s vampire stepfather, knows of Matthew’s disappearance and has demanded that he come to the family home in France. In the twenty-first century, Philippe is dead, and Matthew is agonized at the thought of seeing him again. Matthew must comply, however, or Philippe will endanger his own life by coming to England. Before they leave, Diana sets her journal on a shelf in the library.

  In November 2009 archivist Rima Jaen at the Gonçalves archives in Seville, Spain, comes across Diana’s journal in a forgotten box in the archive attics. The page that bears Diana’s name has been ripped out, but Rima feels that the book is important. Her boss, however, discourages her idea to share images of the journal with colleagues in the United Kingdom.

  Matthew and Diana travel to Sept-Tours and tell Matthew’s imposing father their story of finding Ashmole 782, falling in love, and traveling back to 1590. Philippe wants to know why Matthew couldn’t ask him for help in the future, and Matthew admits that in their future Philippe is dead. Philippe disapproves of Matthew and Diana’s relationship, which he knows will cause war. He also knows their union is not irrevocable because it has not been physically consummated. Nevertheless, Philippe shelters Matthew and Diana on the condition that they stay in separate rooms.

  Matthew wants to leave immediately, but Diana insists on remaining. One day Philippe sugge
sts that Diana follow Matthew on his daily visits to the village church so she can “come to know him better.” There Matthew confesses his guilt over committing suicide. Worse, he admits that he is the one who killed Philippe. Torture by the Nazis drove Philippe to madness, and he begged his family to end his pain. Philippe’s death was an act of mercy, but Matthew is still racked with guilt.

  Philippe deduces that Matthew feels guilty for killing him in the future but believes that Matthew must have done it during a fit of blood rage, a blood-borne illness that can cause a vampire to kill without reason. He challenges Matthew to a fight to drive him into a blood rage and lower his defenses. Once Matthew has returned to his senses, Philippe forgives him for what he will do. Knowing that Matthew is currently in no shape to defend himself and Diana against the Congregation, Philippe adopts Diana as his blood-sworn daughter.

  The next day a powerful witch named André Champier arrives in response to Philippe’s earlier request for a witch to tutor Diana. To learn Diana’s secrets, Champier announces he will extract her memories “by the root,” leaving her mind blank. When Philippe fails to intervene, Diana reaches for Philippe’s knife and thrusts it into Champier’s heart, killing him.

  Philippe reveals that he has been testing Diana and Matthew since they first arrived. Diana has accepted Matthew’s flaws and his blood rage and murdered a fellow witch to avoid revealing any de Clermont family secrets. Philippe is satisfied and announces that they are ready to marry.

  Matthew and Diana are married at the village church, and that night they physically consummate their relationship. In the following days, Diana grows closer to both Matthew and Philippe. Philippe confides to her his and Ysabeau’s game of hiding notes for each other inside books, and he tucks one of these notes into a copy of the Aurora Consurgens.