Time's Convert

by Deborah Harkness

  “The children are too young to understand what magic is,” I said. “When I saw my mother cast a spell, it was terrifying.”

  “And that’s why you haven’t been working your own magic as much.” Matthew drew in a deep breath, understanding at last. “You’re trying to protect Rebecca and Philip.”

  As a matter of fact, I had been doing magic—just not where or when anyone else could witness it. I did it alone, under the dark of the moon, away from curious, impressionable eyes, when Matthew thought I was working.

  “You haven’t been yourself, Diana,” Matthew continued. “We all feel it.”

  “I don’t want Becca and Philip to end up in a situation they can’t control.” Nightmare visions of all the trouble it might cause washed through me—the fires they might start, the chaos that could be unleashed, the possibility that they would lose their way in time and I wouldn’t be able to find them. My anxieties about the children, which had been on a low simmer, boiled over.

  “The children need to know you as a witch as well as a mother,” Matthew said, his tone gentling. “It’s part of who you are. It’s part of who they are, too.”

  “I know,” I said. “I just didn’t expect Philip or Becca to show an inclination for magic so soon.”

  “So what made Philip try to fix Marcus’s memories?” Matthew asked.

  “Marcus told me where he was born. And when,” I replied. “Ever since he went after Phoebe, he’s been surrounded by a thick cloud of remembrance. Time is caught up in it, and it’s stretching the world out of shape. It’s impossible not to notice, if you’re a weaver.”

  “I’m no weaver, nor am I a physicist, but it doesn’t seem possible that one person’s individual recollections could have such a serious effect on the space-time continuum,” Matthew said, sounding positively professorial.

  “Really?” I marched up to him, grabbed a particularly iridescent strand of green memory that had been hanging off him for days, and gave it a good yank. “What do you think now?”

  Matthew’s eyes widened as I pulled the thread tighter.

  “I have no idea what happened, or when, but this has been flapping around you for days. And it’s beginning to bug me.” I released the strand. “So don’t you dare throw physics in my face. Science isn’t the answer to everything.”

  Matthew’s mouth twitched.

  “I know, I know. Go ahead. Laugh. Don’t think the irony is lost on me.” I sat down and sighed. “What was bothering you, by the way?”

  “I was wondering whatever happened to a horse I lost at the Battle of Bosworth,” Matthew said pensively.

  “A horse? That’s it?” I threw my hands up in utter exasperation. Given how bright the strand was, I’d been expecting a guilty secret or a former lover. “Well, don’t let Philip catch you worrying about it, or you’ll find yourself in 1485 extricating yourself from a thornbush.”

  “It was a very fine horse,” Matthew said by way of explanation, sitting on the arm of my chair. “And I wasn’t laughing at you, mon coeur. I was just amused at how far we’ve come since the days when I believed I hated witches, and you thought you hated magic.”

  “Life was simpler then,” I said, though at the time it had seemed quite complicated.

  “And far less interesting, too.” Matthew kissed me. “Perhaps you shouldn’t stir up Marcus’s emotions any further until after he and Phoebe are back together. Not all vampires want to revisit their past lives.”

  “Maybe not consciously, but there’s clearly something troubling him,” I replied, “something unresolved.” Whatever was bothering Marcus might have happened long ago, but it still had him tied in knots.

  “A vampire’s memories aren’t arranged in a rational timeline,” Matthew explained. “They’re a jumbled mess—a magpie assortment of happy and sad, bright and dark. You might not be able to isolate the cause of Marcus’s unhappiness, never mind make sense of it.”

  “I’m a historian, Matthew,” I said. “I make sense out of the past every day.”

  “And Philip?” Matthew asked, one eyebrow raised.

  “I’ll call Sarah,” I said. “She and Agatha are in Provence. I’m sure she’ll have some advice on how to raise witches.”

  * * *

  —

  WE HAD SUPPER UP ON the roof deck so that we could enjoy the fine weather. I had demolished Marthe’s roasted chicken served with vegetables picked fresh from the garden—tender lettuce, peppery radishes, and the sweetest carrots imaginable—while Matthew opened a second bottle of wine to see him and Marcus through the rest of the evening. We withdrew from the old dining table to the chairs arranged around a cauldron full of logs. Once the fire was lit, the wood sent sparks and light shooting into the sky. Les Revenants became a beacon in the darkness, visible for miles.

  I sat back in my chair with a sigh of contentment while Matthew and Marcus discussed their shared work on creature genetics in a slow, relaxed fashion that was very unlike what occurred between competitive, modern academics. Vampires had all the time in the world to mull over their findings. They had little cause to rush to conclusions, and the honest exchange that resulted was inspiring.

  As the light faded, however, it was evident that Marcus was feeling Phoebe’s absence with renewed sharpness. The red threads that tied Marcus to the world turned rosy and shimmered with copper notes whenever he thought about his mate. I was usually able to screen out momentary slubs in the fabric of time, but these were impossible to ignore. Marcus was worried about what might be happening in Paris. In an effort to distract him, I suggested he tell me about his own transformation from warmblood to vampire.

  “It’s up to you, Marcus,” I said. “But if you think it would help to talk about your past, I’d love to listen.”

  “I wouldn’t know where to begin,” Marcus said.

  “Hamish always says you should start at the end,” Matthew observed, sipping his wine.

  “Or you could start with your origins,” I said, stating the obvious alternative.

  “Like Dickens?” Marcus made a soft sound of amusement. “Chapter one, ‘I am born’?”

  The usual biographical template of birth, childhood, marriage, and death might be too narrow and conventional for a vampire, I had to admit.

  “Chapter two, I died. Chapter three, I was reborn.” Marcus shook his head. “I’m afraid it’s not so simple a tale, Diana. Strange, minor things stand out so clearly to me, and I can barely recall the dates of major events.”

  “Matthew warned me that vampire memories might be tricky,” I said. “Why don’t we start with something easy, like your name?” He went by Marcus Whitmore now, but there was no telling what it had been originally.

  Marcus’s darkening expression told me that my simple question didn’t have an easy answer.

  “Vampires don’t normally share that information. Names are important, mon coeur,” Matthew reminded me.

  For historians as well as vampires—which is why I’d asked. With a name, it would be possible for me to trace Marcus’s past in archives and libraries.

  Marcus took a steadying breath, and the black threads surrounding him bristled with agitation. I exchanged a worried look with Matthew.

  I did warn you, said Matthew’s expression.

  “Marcus MacNeil.” Marcus blurted out the name.

  Marcus MacNeil of Hadley, born August 1757. A name, a date, a place—these were the building blocks of most historical research. Even if Marcus were to stop there, I could probably find out more about him.

  “My mother was Catherine Chauncey of Boston, and my father . . .” Marcus’s throat closed, shutting off the words. He cleared it and started again. “My father was Obadiah MacNeil from the nearby town of Pelham.”

  “Did you have any brothers or sisters?” I asked.

  “One sister. Her name was Patience.” Marcus’s face had
turned ashen. Matthew poured him some more wine.

  “Older or younger?” I wanted to get as much out of Marcus as possible in case tonight was the only chance I had to gather information from him.

  “Younger.”

  “Where did you live in Hadley?” I steered the conversation away from his family, which was clearly a painful subject.

  “A house on the western road out of town.”

  “What do you remember about the house?”

  “Not much.” Marcus looked surprised that I was interested in such a thing. “The door was red. There was a lilac bush outside, and the scent came through the open windows in May. The more my mother neglected it, the more it bloomed. And there was a black clock on the mantel. In the parlor. It came down to her through the Chauncey family, and she wouldn’t let anyone touch it.”

  As Marcus recalled small details of his past, his memory—which had grown rusty and sepia toned from disuse—began to operate more freely.

  “There were geese everywhere in Hadley,” Marcus continued. “They were vicious, and roamed all over town frightening the children. And I remember there was a brass rooster atop the meetinghouse steeple. Zeb put it up there. God, I haven’t thought about that rooster in ages.”

  “Zeb?” I asked, less interested in the town’s weather vane.

  “Zeb Pruitt. My friend. My hero, really,” Marcus said slowly.

  Time chimed in warning, the sound echoing in my ears.

  “What’s your earliest memory of him?” I prompted Marcus.

  “He taught me how to march like a soldier,” Marcus whispered. “In the barn. I was five or six. My father caught him. He didn’t let me spend much time with Zeb after that.”

  A red door.

  A lilac bush.

  A wayward flock of geese.

  A rooster on the meetinghouse steeple.

  A friend who played make-believe soldier with him.

  These charming fragments were part of the larger mosaic of Marcus’s life, but they weren’t enough to form a coherent picture of his past, or reveal some larger historical truth.

  I opened my mouth to ask another question. Matthew shook his head, warning me not to interfere in the story but to let Marcus take it in whatever direction he needed to go.

  “My father was a soldier. He was in the militia, and fought at Ft. William Henry. He didn’t see me for months after I was born,” Marcus said, his voice dropping. “I always wondered whether things would have been different if only he had come home sooner from the war, or never gone at all.”

  Marcus shivered and I felt a flicker of unease.

  “War changed him. It changes everybody, of course. But my father believed in God and country first, and rules and discipline second.” Marcus cocked his head to the side as if he were considering a proposition. “I suppose that’s one of the reasons why I don’t have much faith in rules. They don’t always keep you safe, like my father believed.”

  “Your father sounds like he was a man of his time,” I noted. Rules and regulations were a fixture of early American life.

  “If you mean he sounds like a patriarch, you’d be right,” Marcus agreed. “Full of bristle and brimstone, with the Lord and the king on his side no matter what daft position he adopted. Obadiah MacNeil ruled over our house and everybody in it. It was his kingdom.”

  Marcus’s blue eyes shattered under the weight of his recollections.

  “We had this bootjack,” Marcus continued. “It was made out of iron and shaped like a devil. You put your heel between the horns, stepped on the devil’s heart, and pulled your leg free of the boot. And when my father picked up that bootjack, even the cat knew it was time to disappear.”

  Words of one Syllable

  THE NEW ENGLAND PRIMER, 1762

  Age

  all

  ape

  are

  Babe

  beef

  best

  bold

  Cat

  cake

  crown

  cup

  Deaf

  dead

  dry

  dull

  Eat

  ear

  eggs

  eyes

  Face

  feet

  fish

  fowl

  Gate

  good

  grass

  great

  Hand

  hat

  head

  heart

  Ice

  ink

  isle

  job

  Kick

  kind

  kneel

  know

  Lamb

  lame

  land

  long

  Made

  mole

  moon

  mouth

  Name

  night

  noise

  noon

  Oak

  once

  one

  ounce

  Pain

  pair

  pence

  pound

  Quart

  queen

  quick

  quilt

  Rain

  raise

  rose

  run

  Saint

  sage

  salt

  said

  Take

  talk

  time

  throat

  Vaine

  vice

  vile

  view

  Way

  wait

  waste

  would

  6

  Time

  MARCH 1762

  The black clock on the polished mantel struck noon, marking the passage of the hours. It stood out against the whitewashed walls of the parlor, the only ornament in the room. The family Bible and the almanac his father used to note down important events and the changing weather were propped up next to it.

  Its piercing chime was one of the familiar sounds of home: his mother’s soft voice, the geese that honked in the road, his baby sister’s babble.

  The clock whirred into silence, waiting for its next opportunity to perform.

  “When is Pa coming back?” Marcus asked, looking up from his primer. His father hadn’t been there to preside over breakfast. He must be very hungry, thought
Marcus, after missing his meal of porridge, eggs, bacon, bread, and jam. Marcus’s stomach grumbled in sympathy, and he wondered whether they would have to wait for Pa to return before eating their midday meal.

  “When he’s finished.” His mother’s tone was unusually sharp, her face set in lines of worry under a starched linen cap. “Come, read me the next word.”

  “N-ame.” Marcus slowly sounded out the letters. “My name is Marcus MacNeil.”

  “Yes, it is,” his mother replied. “And the next word?”

  “Ni-jit.” Marcus frowned. That wasn’t a word he’d heard before. “Ni-got?”

  “Do you remember what I told you about silent letters?” His mother lifted Patience from the wide-planked floor and went to the window, her brown skirts swishing. As she walked, sand came up through the cracks between the boards.

  Marcus did remember—dimly.

  “Night.” Marcus looked up. “That’s when Father left. It was raining. And dark.”

  “Can you find the word ‘rain’ in your book?” His mother peered out from among the spaces in the shutters. She dusted them every day, sliding a goose feather through each narrow opening. Marcus’s mother was particular about such things and allowed no one else to take care of the front room—not even old Ellie Pruitt, who came one morning a week to help with the other chores.

  “Oak. Pain. Quart. Rain. I found it, Mama!” Marcus shouted with excitement.

  “Good boy. One day you will be a scholar at Harvard, like the other men in the Chauncey family.” His mother was inordinately proud of her cousins, uncles, and brothers, all of whom had gone to school for years and years. To Marcus, the prospect sounded drearier than the weather.

  “No. I’m going to be a soldier, like Pa.” Marcus kicked at the legs of his chair, a sign of his commitment to this course of action. It made such a satisfying sound that he did it again.