A Discovery of Witches

by Deborah Harkness

  Sarah had insisted on limiting the variables to accommodate the extra effort required. “Start out wherever you want to end up,” she advised. “That way all you have to worry about is thinking yourself back to a particular time. The place will take care of itself.”

  I took him up to the bedroom at twilight without telling him what was in store. The figure of Diana and the golden earring from Bridget Bishop’s poppet were sitting on the chest of drawers in front of a photograph of my parents.

  “Much as I’d like to spend a few hours with you in here—alone—dinner is almost ready,” he protested, though there was a calculating gleam in his eyes.

  “There’s plenty of time. Sarah said I’m ready to take you timewalking. We’re going back to our first night in the house.”

  Matthew thought for a moment, and his eyes brightened further. “Was that the night the stars came out—inside?”

  I kissed him in answer.

  “Oh.” He looked shyly pleased. “What should I do?”

  “Nothing.” This would be the hardest thing about timewalking for him. “What are you always telling me? Close your eyes, relax, and let me do the rest.” I grinned wickedly.

  He laced his fingers through mine. “Witch.”

  “You won’t even know it’s happening,” I assured him. “It’s fast. Just pick up your foot and put it down again when I tell you. And don’t let go.”

  “Not a chance,” Matthew said, tightening his grip.

  I thought about that night, our first alone after my encounter with Satu. I remembered his touch against my back, fierce and gentle at the same time. I felt the connection, immediate and tenacious, to that shared moment in our past.

  “Now,” I whispered. Our feet rose together.

  But timewalking with Matthew was different. Having him along slowed us down, and for the first time I was aware of what was happening.

  The past, present, and future shimmered around us in a spiderweb of light and color. Each strand in the web moved slowly, almost imperceptibly, sometimes touching another filament before moving gently away again as if caught by a breeze. Each time strands touched—and millions of strands were touching all the time—there was the soft echo of an original, inaudible sound.

  Momentarily distracted by the seemingly limitless possibilities before us, we found it easy to lose sight of the twisted red-and-white strand of time we were following. I brought my concentration back to it, knowing it would take us back to our first night in Madison.

  I put my foot down and felt rough floorboards against my bare skin.

  “You told me it would be fast,” he said hoarsely. “That didn’t feel fast to me.”

  “No, it was different,” I agreed. “Did you see the lights?”

  Matthew shook his head. “There was nothing but blackness. I was falling, slowly, with only your hand keeping me from hitting bottom.” He raised it to his mouth and kissed it.

  There was a lingering smell of chili in the quiet house, and it was night outside. “Can you tell who’s here?”

  His nostrils flared, and he closed his eyes. Then he smiled and sighed with happiness. “Just Sarah and Em, and you and me. None of the children.”

  I giggled, drawing him closer.

  “If this house gets any more crowded, it’s going to burst.” Matthew buried his face in my neck, then drew back. “You still have your bandage. It means that when we go back in time, we don’t stop being who we are in the present or forget what happened to us here.” His cold hands crept under the hem of my turtleneck. “Given your rediscovered talents as a timewalker, how accurate are you at gauging the passing of time?”

  Though we happily lingered in the past, we were back in the present before Emily finished making the salad.

  “Timewalking agrees with you, Matthew,” Sarah said, scrutinizing his relaxed face. She rewarded him with a glass of red wine.

  “Thank you, Sarah. I was in good hands.” He raised his glass to me in salute.

  “Glad to hear it,” Sarah said drily, sounding like my ghostly grandmother. She threw some sliced radishes into the biggest salad bowl I’d ever seen.

  “Where did that come from?” I peered into the bowl to hide my reddened lips.

  “The house,” Em said, beating the salad dressing with a whisk. “It enjoys having so many mouths to feed.”

  Next morning the house let us know it was anticipating yet another addition.

  Sarah, Matthew, and I were discussing whether my next timewalk should be to Oxford or to Sept-Tours when Em appeared with a load of laundry in her arms. “Somebody is coming.”

  Matthew put down his paper and stood. “Good. I was expecting a delivery today.”

  “It’s not a delivery, and they’re not here yet. But the house is ready for them.” She disappeared into the laundry room.

  “Another room? Where did the house put this one?” Sarah shouted after her.

  “Next to Marcus.” Em’s reply echoed from the depths of the washing machine.

  We took bets on who it would be. The guesses ranged from Agatha Wilson to Emily’s friends from Cherry Valley who liked to show up unannounced for the coven’s Halloween party.

  Late in the morning, there was an authoritative knock on the door. It opened to a small, dark man with intelligent eyes. He was instantly recognizable from pictures taken at celebrity parties in London and television news conferences. Any remaining doubts about his identity were erased by the familiar nudges against my cheekbones.

  Our mystery houseguest was Matthew’s friend Hamish Osborne.

  “You must be Diana,” he said without pleasure or preamble, his Scottish accent lending length to the vowels. Hamish was dressed for business, in a pin-striped charcoal suit that had been tailored to fit him exactly, a pale pink shirt with heavy silver cuff links, and a fuchsia tie embroidered with tiny black flies.

  “I am. Hello, Hamish. Was Matthew expecting you?” I stepped aside to let him in.

  “Probably not,” Hamish said crisply, remaining on the stoop. “Where is he?”

  “Hamish.” Matthew was moving so quickly I felt the breeze behind me before hearing him approach. He extended his hand. “This is a surprise.”

  Hamish stared at the outstretched hand, then turned his eyes to its owner. “Surprise? Let’s discuss surprises. When I joined your . . . ‘family firm,’ you swore to me this would never arrive.” He brandished an envelope, its black seal broken but still clinging to the flaps.

  “I did.” Matthew dropped his hand and looked at Hamish warily.

  “So much for your promises, then. I’m given to understand from this letter, and from my conversation with your mother, that there’s some kind of trouble.” Hamish’s eyes flickered to me, then back to Matthew.

  “Yes.” Matthew’s lips tightened. “But you’re the ninth knight. You don’t have to become involved.”

  “You made a daemon the ninth knight?” Miriam had come through the dining room with Nathaniel.

  “Who’s he?” Nathaniel shook a handful of Scrabble tiles in his cupped hand while surveying the new arrival.

  “Hamish Osborne. And who might you be?” Hamish asked, as if addressing an impertinent employee. The last thing we needed was more testosterone in the house.

  “Oh, I’m nobody,” Nathaniel said airily, leaning against the dining-room door. He watched Marcus as he passed by.

  “Hamish, why are you here?” Marcus looked confused, then saw the letter. “Oh.”

  My ancestors were congregating in the keeping room, and the house was stirring on its foundations. “Could we continue this inside? It’s the house, you see. It’s a little uneasy, given you’re a daemon—and angry.”

  “Come, Hamish.” Matthew tried to draw him out of the doorway. “Marcus and Sarah haven’t demolished the whiskey supply yet. We’ll get you a drink and sit you by the fire.”

  Hamish remained where he was and kept talking.

  “While visiting with your mother, who was far more willing to
answer my questions than you would have been, I learned that you wanted a few things from home. It seemed a shame for Alain to make such a long trip, when I was already going to come and ask you what the hell you were up to.” He lifted a bulky leather briefcase with soft sides and a formidable lock, and a smaller, hard-sided case.

  “Thank you, Hamish.” The words were cordial enough, but Matthew was clearly displeased at having his arrangements altered.

  “Speaking of explanations, it’s a damn good thing the French don’t care about the exportation of English national treasures. Have you any idea of the paperwork that would have been required to get this out of England? If they’d let me remove it at all, which I doubt.”

  Matthew took the briefcases from Hamish’s fingers, gripped him by the elbow, and pulled his friend inside. “Later,” he said hastily. “Marcus, take Hamish and introduce him to Diana’s family while I put these away.”

  “Oh, it’s you,” said Sophie with delight, coming out of the dining room. The bulge of her belly showed plainly underneath a stretched University of North Carolina sweatshirt. “You’re like Nathaniel, not scatterbrained like me. Your face is on one of my pots, too.” She beamed at Hamish, who looked both charmed and startled.

  “Are there more?” he asked me, with a cock of his head that made him resemble a tiny, bright-eyed bird.

  “Many more,” Sophie replied happily. “You won’t see them, though.”

  “Come and meet my aunts,” I said hastily.

  “The witches?” It was impossible to know what Hamish was thinking. His sharp eyes missed nothing, and his face was nearly as impassive as Matthew’s.

  “Yes, the witches.”

  Matthew disappeared upstairs while Marcus and I introduced Hamish to Em. He seemed less annoyed with her than he was with Matthew and me, and she immediately started fussing over him. Sarah met us at the stillroom door, wondering what the commotion was about.

  “We’re a proper conventicle now, Sarah,” Sophie observed as she reached for the pyramid of freshly baked cookies on the kitchen island. “All nine—three witches, three daemons, and three vampires—present and accounted for.”

  “Looks like it,” Sarah agreed, sizing up Hamish. She watched her partner buzzing around the kitchen like a bewildered bee. “Em, I don’t think our new guest needs tea or coffee. Is the whiskey in the dining room?”

  “Diana and I call it the ‘war room,’” Sophie confided, grabbing Hamish familiarly by the forearm, “though it seems unlikely we could fight a war without the humans finding out. It’s the only place big enough to hold us now. Some of the ghosts manage to squeeze in, too.”

  “Ghosts?” Hamish reached up and loosened his tie.

  “The dining room.” Sarah gripped Hamish’s other elbow. “Everybody in the dining room.”

  Matthew was already there. The aroma of hot wax filled the air. When all of us had grabbed our chosen drink and found a seat, he took charge.

  “Hamish has questions,” Matthew said. “Nathaniel and Sophie, too. And I suppose this is my tale to tell—mine and Diana’s.”

  With that, Matthew took a deep breath and plunged in. He included everything—Ashmole 782, the Knights of Lazarus, the break-ins at Oxford, Satu and what happened at La Pierre, even Baldwin’s fury. There were poppets and earrings and face jugs as well. Hamish looked at Matthew sharply when he discussed timewalking and the three objects I would need to travel back to a particular time and place.

  “Matthew Clairmont,” Hamish hissed, leaning across the table. “Is that what I brought from Sept-Tours? Does Diana know?”

  “No,” Matthew confessed, looking slightly uncomfortable. “She’ll know on Halloween.”

  “Well, she’d have to know on Halloween, wouldn’t she?” Hamish let out an exasperated sigh.

  Though the exchange between Hamish and Matthew was heated, there were only two moments when the tension threatened to escalate into outright civil war. Both of them, not surprisingly, involved Matthew and Nathaniel.

  The first was when Matthew explained to Sophie what this war would be like—the unexpected attacks, the long-simmering feuds between vampires and witches that would come to a boil, the brutal deaths that were bound to occur as creature fought creature using magic, witchcraft, brute strength, speed, and preternatural cunning.

  “That’s not how wars are fought anymore.” Nathaniel’s deep voice cut through the resulting chatter.

  Matthew’s eyebrow floated up, and his face took on an impatient expression. “No?”

  “Wars are fought on computers. This isn’t the thirteenth century. Hand-to-hand combat isn’t required.” He gestured at his laptop on the sideboard. “With computers you can take down your enemy without ever firing a shot or shedding a drop of blood.”

  “This may not be the thirteenth century, Nathaniel, but some of the combatants will have lived through those times, and they have a sentimental attachment to destroying people the old-fashioned way. Leave this to me and Marcus.” Matthew thought this was the end of the matter.

  Nathaniel shook his head and stared fixedly at the table.

  “Do you have something else to say?” Matthew asked, an ominous purring starting in the back of his throat.

  “You’ve made it perfectly clear you’ll do what you want in any case.” Nathaniel lifted his frank brown eyes in challenge, then shrugged. “Suit yourself. But you’re making a mistake if you think your enemies won’t use more modern methods to destroy you. There are humans to consider, after all. They’ll notice if vampires and witches start fighting one another in the streets.”

  The second battle between Matthew and Nathaniel had to do not with war but with blood. It began innocently enough, with Matthew talking about Nathaniel’s relationship to Agatha Wilson and about Sophie’s witch parents.

  “It’s imperative that their DNA be analyzed. The baby’s, too, once it’s born.”

  Marcus and Miriam nodded, unsurprised. The rest of us were somewhat startled.

  “Nathaniel and Sophie bring into question your theory that daemonic traits result from unpredictable mutations rather than heredity,” I said, thinking aloud.

  “We have so little data.” Matthew eyed Hamish and Nathaniel with the dispassionate gaze of a scientist examining two fresh specimens. “Our current findings might be misleading.”

  “Sophie’s case also raises the issue of whether daemons are more closely related to witches than we’d thought.” Miriam directed her black eyes at the daemon’s belly. “I’ve never heard of a witch giving birth to a daemon, never mind a daemon giving birth to a witch.”

  “You think I’m going to hand over Sophie’s blood—and my child’s blood—to a bunch of vampires?” Nathaniel looked perilously close to losing control.

  “Diana isn’t the only creature in this room the Congregation will want to study, Nathaniel.” Matthew’s words did nothing to soothe the daemon. “Your mother appreciated the danger your family was facing, or she wouldn’t have sent you here. One day you might discover your wife and child gone. If you do, it’s highly unlikely you’ll ever see them again.”

  “That’s enough,” Sarah said sharply. “There’s no need to threaten him.”

  “Keep your hands off my family,” Nathaniel said, breathing heavily.

  “I’m not a danger to them,” Matthew said. “The danger comes from the Congregation, from the possibility of open hostility between the three species, and above all from pretending this isn’t happening.”

  “They’ll come for us, Nathaniel. I’ve seen it.” Sophie’s voice was purposeful, and her face had the same sudden sharpness that Agatha Wilson’s had back in Oxford.

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” Nathaniel said.

  “I started to tell Agatha, but she stopped me and ordered me not to say another word. She was so frightened. Then she gave me Diana’s name and the address for the Bishop house.” Sophie’s face took on its characteristic fuzzy look. “I’m glad Matthew’s mother is still alive. She’ll li
ke my pots. I’ll put her face on one of them. And you can have my DNA whenever you want it, Matthew—the baby’s, too.”

  Sophie’s announcement effectively put an end to Nathaniel’s objections. When Matthew had entertained all the questions he was willing to answer, he picked up an envelope that had been sitting unnoticed at his elbow. It was sealed with black wax.

  “That leaves one piece of unfinished business.” He stood and held out the letter. “Hamish, this is for you.”

  “Oh, no you don’t.” Hamish crossed his arms over his chest. “Give it to Marcus.”

  “You may be the ninth knight, but you’re also the seneschal of the Knights of Lazarus, and my second in command. There’s a protocol we must follow,” Matthew said, tight-lipped.

  “Matthew would know,” Marcus muttered. “He’s the only grand master in the history of the order who’s ever resigned.”

  “And now I’ll be the only grand master to have resigned twice,” Matthew said, still holding out the envelope.

  “To hell with protocol,” Hamish snapped, banging his fist on the table. “Everybody out of this room except Matthew, Marcus, and Nathaniel. Please,” he added as an afterthought.

  “Why do we have to leave?” Sarah asked suspiciously.

  Hamish studied my aunt for a moment. “You’d better stay, too.”

  The five of them were closeted in the dining room for the rest of the day. Once an exhausted Hamish came out and requested sandwiches. The cookies, he explained, were long gone.

  “Is it me, or do you also feel that the men sent us out of the room so they could smoke cigars and talk politics?” I asked, trying to distract myself from the meeting in the dining room by flipping through a jarring mix of old movies and afternoon television. Em and Sophie were both knitting, and Miriam was doing a puzzle she’d found in a book promising Demonically Difficult Sudoku. She chuckled now and then and made a mark in the margins.

  “What are you doing, Miriam?” Sophie asked.

  “Keeping score,” Miriam said, making another mark on the page.

  “What are they talking about? And who’s winning?” I asked, envious of her ability to hear the conversation.