She saw Valéry occasionally, but at a distance. She smiled at him, but made no effort to speak privately. The hospital beds were full. The work seemed to grow heavier each day. Veronica promised she would speak to the queen about more help when she returned to London, but while she was at Sweetbriar, she threw herself into the effort alongside everyone else.
On the night before her final day, she dreamed of Valéry again, the same dream of parting, of embraces and tears, with the same pain upon waking. Early in the morning, hoping to shake it off, she set out for the park with Oona. They had just reached the protection of the trees when she saw Valéry step out of the hall and onto the terrace.
Veronica stumbled to a halt. Valéry was wearing the exact uniform she had dreamed of.
He lifted his head and caught sight of her beneath the branches of an ancient yew tree. He gazed at her for a long, still moment, then started toward her. His cane was gone. The uniform was crisp and clean. Her heart thumped as she stood where she was. She wasn’t capable, she thought, of moving.
When he reached her, Valéry seized her hand. “I dreamed of you,” he said.
Without thinking, she breathed, “And I of you.” There was a weakness in her belly. Her lips parted as she gazed at him. “You found a uniform,” she said in French. It felt more intimate, somehow daring, though she suspected her accent was atrocious.
“Oui,” he said. “It belonged to someone else, but he has no further need of it.”
She knew what that meant, and she saw, now that he was close, that there were carefully mended tears in the jacket. “Be careful, Valéry. Promise me.”
“I’ll try.”
They had forgotten, somehow, to unclasp their hands. Veronica looked down at their entwined fingers. She knew they were standing too close for propriety, but she couldn’t bring herself to move away. The warmth of his body met her own warmth, and the beat of his heart synchronized with hers.
She didn’t stop to think. In fact, she didn’t think at all. She tipped up her chin.
He pressed his mouth to hers, lightly at first, as if unsure of his welcome, then more and more firmly, pulling her to him until the two of them were wrapped in each other’s arms, lost in the yearning power of a long, sweet, impossible kiss.
Even as they drew apart, remembering who they were and where, their lips clung until the last possible instant.
“Valéry,” she began, but stopped. What could she say? She wanted to throw herself back into his arms. The war, her engagement, a dozen obstacles loomed, but it was very, very hard to think of them at that moment.
“Véronique, je suis désolé—”
“Don’t!” she whispered through an aching throat. “Don’t be sorry. I’m not! I could never be sorry.”
“It’s not fair to your fiancé.” Misery dragged at Valéry’s eyes and mouth. “He’s off fighting, and I’m here with you.”
“But you’re going to fight, too.”
“I must.” He caught up her hand again, and pressed her fingers to his lips, to his cheek. “Je t’aime, Véronique,” he said, very low. “Toujours, je t’aime.”
“Moi aussi,” she murmured. She might have said more, but voices sounded, approaching from the drive. Abruptly she pulled away her hand, turned, and hurried away into the park, Oona trotting behind.
Veronica’s pleasure in her sojourn at home dissipated that morning. The day labored on, and though she tried to make the most of it—a last visit to Mouse, a private chat with Jago, luncheon and tea with her father—there was a persistent ache beneath her breastbone. “All right, you?” Jago asked, and she had to pretend that all was as it had been.
Was this love? If it was, she wasn’t sure she liked it.
The day dragged to an end at last. She didn’t see Valéry again, which was probably for the best. After dinner she hugged her father, made arrangements with Jago to be taken to the station in the morning, and climbed the stairs to her bedroom.
Once she had changed into a nightgown, she turned off her light and pulled back the blackout curtains before she climbed into bed. There she lay awake, listening to the distant thuds of the bombs dropping on London, watching antiaircraft fire glitter in the night sky. Her body would not let her rest.
She hungered to touch someone, to be touched. She wanted Valéry. Amid the death and destruction and fear, the deprivation and worry, there was something warm, something hopeful. It seemed bitterly unfair to let it slip away.
She tried to think of Phillip, but it did no good. It was Valéry’s face that haunted her, Valéry’s deep voice, even the grim determination in his eyes. He was here, in the house, on the floor just above her. She would in all likelihood never see him again. The waste of this moment was more than she could bear.
In the dark she rose and pulled the Fortnum & Mason hamper from her wardrobe. She didn’t bother with a candle, or salted water, or herbs. She unwrapped the crystal, set it directly on the floor, and knelt over it.
Oona watched from her basket, her eyes glowing in the darkness, as Veronica passed her hands over the stone. The others had helped her in the past, her forebears, wielding their power on her behalf. This time she would have to manage alone. If the power of her need was not enough, then it was never meant to be.
The words came to her in a rush. She didn’t know their source. She didn’t pause to think about them, or edit them in any way. She spoke them with her hands on the crystal, her gaze focused on its smoky depths.
Mother Goddess, hear my plea:
Bring my one true love to me.
Caution and fear forgotten be
Heart to heart in ecstasy.
The stone began to glow, lighting the dark room. Sparks flittered through it, randomly at first, then spinning closer and closer together until they gathered into a pulsing center, bright within bright. Veronica gazed into it, her heart fluttering. When his faint knock sounded on her door, the light dimmed and disappeared as if it had been waiting for the signal.
Veronica covered the crystal and rose from her knees. She thrust the stone back into her wardrobe, then, still in her nightgown, she hurried to open the door.
7
When Veronica returned to London, the queen was waiting at the palace. She met Veronica in her private parlor. Veronica thought she looked preoccupied, but Elizabeth gave her a gentle smile. “Good, Lady Veronica. You’re back. You brought the stone?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Veronica had her valise with her, and the stone buried beneath two sweaters and a chemise.
The queen said, “Excellent. Let us take it straight down. It will be safe there. No one has a key to that room except myself.”
They settled the crystal in the very center of the altar, hidden beneath its silk coverings. Elizabeth locked the door as they left, and rattled the handle to make certain. “They’re coming tonight,” she said. “Go and have a rest. Eat something. I’ll come for you when I can.”
Something had changed in the queen. Veronica suspected it, but was certain when Elizabeth came for her at midnight. There was tension in every line of her small body, and she walked quickly, as if in a hurry to begin their work.
The coven met in the basement hallway, and Elizabeth unlocked the door to their room without saying a word. When they were inside, and the dim light was burning, she said, “Veronica has brought her scrying stone.”
“Oh, how lovely,” Rose said vaguely.
Olive said nothing, but strode to the altar and whipped off the silk wrappings of the crystal. She grunted, a sound that might have indicated approval. In her gravelly baritone she demanded, “Whose was it?”
“I don’t know,” Veronica said. “I believe it’s very old.”
“It’s magnificent.” Olive gestured to the stone, asking permission. Veronica nodded, and Olive said, “Thank you,” before she spread her leathery fingers above the crystal. She closed her eyes and whispered a phrase of command.
The air in the dank basement room began to crackle with energy, stirri
ng the hairs on Veronica’s arms. Elizabeth and Rose gasped and moved closer to the altar, eager to be part of the magic. The light in the stone grew swiftly, a steady glow that brightened the room, illuminated Rose’s wrinkled cheeks, glowed on Elizabeth’s round ones. Veronica pressed her fingers to her lips in wonder.
Olive opened her eyes, and her deep voice rumbled in the small room.
“Show us the Orchiére witches.”
Veronica barely breathed as she watched her own stone respond to the other witch’s power. Before, the faces had tumbled pell-mell through coruscating lights. Now they came and went in measured fashion. Each appeared out of the glistening mist, paused long enough for Veronica to make out its features, to know she would recognize it when she saw it again, then faded to make way for the next. Veronica’s heart quivered as she watched the parade of faces, of dark hair and eyes, smooth cheeks and wrinkled ones, all of them her ancestresses, mothers and grandmothers and great-grandmothers, a line that stretched beyond memory. At length the procession ended with a face she knew.
“Mama,” Veronica breathed.
“Is that Morwen?” Olive said.
“Yes.”
“Hmm. Good.” Olive lifted her hands from the stone, and the light glimmered and died.
“How did you know my mother’s name?”
“Didn’t know for sure. There were stories, but we feared your line was at an end.”
“Oh.” Veronica sighed. “Oh, Olive. You must teach me how to do that.”
“What I’m here for,” the older witch growled. “That, and a war to win.”
Veronica thought they had worked hard before, but now their labors intensified to a level she couldn’t have imagined. She marveled at how disciplined the older women were, how staunch their efforts. The coven met almost every night, holding their rites around the makeshift altar in the basement room, and drawing upon every tradition the four witches understood. They invoked the Goddess. They called upon their ancestresses. They implored the forgotten gods of the British Isles, Andraste and Mabon and Britannia herself, names Veronica barely recognized. Each of the women composed spells derived from her personal grimoire, and recited them as they swayed amid fragrant smoke and flickering candlelight. Oona lurked in a corner, her dark eyes glistening in the gloom, her ears following the women’s voices.
Olive taught Veronica that her ancestresses were connected to the stone, that they had developed its resonance over the centuries, creating a portal to their descendants, the women of their line who would practice the craft after them. She showed Veronica how to concentrate, and trained her to listen with her mind’s ear. She explained that the craft was both a tool and a practice, a religion of sorts, though without the dogma attached to most organized faiths. She taught her how to wield her power to influence fate, and to accept failure when it came.
Olive also brought books to warn her of the peril of exposure. They were awful books, badly written and with hideous illustrations, all meant to point out the evils of witchcraft. They were full of stories of women, and sometimes men, being burned on the slightest pretext. Most of the victims, Olive said, were probably not witches at all. Many were herbalists, whose simple remedies frightened the ignorant. “They’re afraid of us, Veronica. Never forget that. They’re afraid, and that makes them dangerous.”
“Why should they be afraid?” Veronica asked.
“Think about what the craft can do. Women like us heal illnesses doctors can’t, and though I don’t recommend it, we can cause illnesses, too. We can hide ourselves when we don’t want to be seen. We can change the weather, or change a man’s mind. We live our lives the way we want. We don’t need men to take care of us, which many men, and some women, too, think is unnatural. They find it terrifying.” She looked up from her task of brushing ash from the altar. An enigmatic smile eased the lines of her long face as she added, with satisfaction, “As they should.”
They studied the war reports in the daytime, and made their petitions at night in response. At first Veronica was not sure they were having any effect, but she began to understand, over time, that what they did in that cold basement room had real power. The challenge was in knowing what to ask for.
They knew the German bombers were coming, a wave of airplanes escorted by fighters. “Bring down the leader,” Olive demanded. The candlelight accented the lines of her face, making her look like one of the elderly gods they called upon.
Olive never bothered with rhymes. Her only rule was to pronounce what she wanted three times three times. No one could argue with her method. Her power was made clear when the first of the enemy bombers caught a round of antiaircraft fire and crashed into the sea before it could reach its target.
A giant bomb fell on Bristol, but didn’t detonate. Such bombs were particularly dangerous because they could explode at any time. Rose discovered the Germans had named the thing Satan, painting the word on its gray fuselage. She composed a spell of avoidance, and the witches spent most of one night working it to prevent the bomb from blowing up. They succeeded. It never did explode, and the bomb with the name of Satan became a public symbol of German failure and English determination. For the witches it was a sign of hope.
They invoked protection for cities, for naval vessels, for airplanes. They begged inspiration for the code breakers, and summoned good weather for the convoys. They were unlikely warriors engaged in a secret battle, and they fought with every weapon and talent they had. Occasionally a neighborhood was destroyed despite their efforts to divert the bombs. Too often a battle was lost no matter how hard they worked to disrupt the enemy’s plans. Such failures were heartbreaking, but they persevered. Like those on the battle lines, they could not give up.
It all left Veronica very little time to think of herself, to miss her home, her father, Jago, and Mouse. Most importantly, she had little time to yearn for Valéry.
She had relived their night together a hundred times. For days afterward she’d felt a new magic in her body, an ancient power she had never been aware of. It had lain dormant, she thought, now roused from its slumber by Valéry’s kisses, by the sweetness of his breath against her cheek, his mouth on her breast, his hands beneath her thighs, hard, demanding, thrilling.
She couldn’t hold back her tears at their last embrace. It was exactly as she had dreamed it. As she watched him walk away from her, off to whatever fate awaited him, she felt as if something had been ripped out of her chest, a fragment of her heart that could never be replaced.
At the last moment, as their lips and arms and, finally, their hands had released each other, Valéry had pressed something small and cool into her palm. She curled her fingers around it, and he kissed her closed fist before he strode away down the corridor. He didn’t glance back.
She had closed her door and rested her forehead against the cold wood for long minutes before she opened her hand to see what he had given her. It was the ring, the slim gold band with the small greenish stone he had worn on the little finger of his right hand. She pressed it to her heart for a moment, then straightened, set her jaw, and went to pack for London.
From London she set herself to write more often to Phillip. As she did in her letters to her father, she composed cheerful notes to Phillip about happy times with the queen and her staff, of the princesses devoting themselves to the war effort, of the courage and optimism of the Londoners.
The truth was quite different. The people of London, though certainly courageous, were not so much optimistic as resigned. Princess Elizabeth seemed to enjoy her work as a mechanic, but Princess Margaret chafed at the restrictions of wartime, begging to go shopping, to go riding, to go to parties. Queen Elizabeth, though she smiled and waved, and made brave little speeches whenever she went out, was soberly realistic when she was out of public view.
Veronica barely noticed the calendar other than to note dates associated with military actions. Rising late on a cold, drizzly morning in March, she thought her fatigue must be the result of so many nights
spent with the coven. Certainly the queen was looking weary, and her own eyes looked hollow when she glanced in the mirror. She felt a little queasy, as well, and she wondered if she had somehow contracted flu. She ran a warm bath, hoping it would restore her.
As she lay in the tub she looked down at herself, and a chill gripped her despite the warmth of the water. She sat upright, staring at her altered silhouette. She couldn’t have gained weight. No one could, living in London on rations. They were meticulous, even in the palace, about rations. Her arms had grown so thin she never wore sleeveless dresses. Her ankles looked as fragile as a foal’s. But there was no denying what she saw as she gazed, horrified, at her body. Her stomach curved outward, delicately, but definitely, a graceful and damning convexity beneath her ribs.
She began to shiver. It couldn’t be true. It couldn’t be happening. She pressed her wet hands to her face, covering her eyes, as if by not seeing the evidence she could change the reality.
She knew, even behind the shelter of her palms, that the terrible fact was not so easily wished away. Countless girls had no doubt felt just as she was feeling, terrified, trapped, aghast at what had happened and what it meant. They, like her, had had to face the truth.
She dropped her hands to look at herself again. Desperation shook her. It was unfair! She had spent all her energy on her work with the coven, on learning what she needed to know, on fighting her hidden war. Her preoccupation had made her oblivious.
She felt suddenly both hot and cold, as if she really did have flu. Her hands began to tremble, and she climbed out of the bath with exaggerated care, fearing her knees might buckle.
A Secret History of Witches Page 37