The Age of Witches

by Louisa Morgan

  “I’ll walk back to the village. Here, put on your pearls. Don’t take them off.” She lifted the choker and passed it to Annis. She carefully wrapped the electuaries in her handkerchief, folding in the corners to protect them. “You need to take one of these, Annis, but wait until you’re in your room, alone, in case you have a reaction. Focus on the intent as you do—concentrate on undoing the maleficia.”

  “I will,” Annis said gravely. She accepted the handkerchief and tucked it into a pocket.

  “You’ll have to find a way to get the marquess to swallow one.”

  “That could be hard.”

  “Don’t take chances, like dropping it in his wineglass. He might leave it there.”

  “I’ll look for an opportunity.”

  “Don’t wait too long. The electuaries will last only a few hours before they lose their effectiveness. Less, if Frances is quick. You need the remedy before she tries again.”

  “All right.” Annis tightened her shawl and glanced out through the folly’s pillars. “It’s getting light. I need to hurry.”

  “Yes. Go. Good luck.”

  Annis started for the steps, but she paused, looking back. Her face was tired, but her eyes were still bright. “When will I see you, Aunt Harriet? I have a hundred—no, a thousand—questions to ask you.”

  “I’ll be nearby. I’ll be watching.”

  20

  Frances

  When Annis emerged from the folly, Frances jumped back to take cover behind the ancient rhododendron. Harriet followed Annis, a basket on her arm. The two made their way up over the lawn to the servants’ entrance, where Annis went inside. Alone, Harriet strode away in the direction of the village. Frances stepped into the open to watch her cousin’s lean figure disappear behind the stable block.

  She was going to have to go inside, too, lest the servants catch her on the stairs or in the corridor. She waited until she guessed Annis had reached her room before she hurried up to the servants’ door, cursing Harriet’s interfering ways at every step.

  She ran up the stairs as quickly as she dared and let herself into her own bedroom. She locked the door from the inside. For extra security, she pulled a straight chair to the door and wedged it under the handle. She would tell Antoinette she was ill or something, perhaps say she hadn’t slept well and was going to stay in bed. Now, before Annis swallowed Harriet’s electuary, and before she managed to slip the other one to the marquess, Frances had work to do.

  She slid the little valise out of its hiding place and opened it. The manikins were intact, though the smears of her potion had gone dark on the wax. The candle was the problem. It was burned more than halfway down, its energy depleted. She cast about her bedroom, wondering where the maids might keep a supply of fresh candles.

  There was a candle on her bedside table and one on the dressing table, but both were little more than stubs. She wasted precious minutes searching in cupboards and bureaus and cabinets. The room was enormous, and it seemed every corner held a curio cabinet or an étagère, every one of them crammed with china and glass ornaments. Where would there be candles?

  She was on the point of giving up, though that would mean the further delay of having to ask for a candle—and explain why she needed a fresh one—when she spied a wide drawer under the wardrobe. She opened it and found a full supply of dust cloths, tins of wax, and a fresh box of candles. Hands shaking now with her need to hurry, she pried open the box and took out a new taper.

  In haste she shoved the things on the dressing table to the floor. A vial of perfume she hadn’t noticed fell and spilled its fragrant contents onto the rug, but she ignored it. She stabbed her finger much too deeply in her haste, and her blood spattered the openwork cloth that covered the surface. It was probably ruined, but she couldn’t worry about that now.

  She added her fresh blood to the vial with the other ingredients and clipped a nail as well. She lit the candle and heated her potion as before, watching it until it thickened. When it was ready, she anointed the manikins, using every bit of the potion. She held them, one in each hand, and drew a deep breath to focus her mind. In a low voice, wary of being heard, she chanted:

  The power of witch’s blood and claws

  Bends your will unto my cause

  Root and leaf in candle fire

  Invest you with impure desire.

  She closed her eyes and squeezed the manikins tighter.

  For each other you will yearn,

  Your body will ache and your blood will burn.

  Have each other you will, and must,

  Nothing less will slake your lust.

  The simulacra warmed in her hands and began to quiver. She let them tremble in her hands for several minutes, savoring their struggle for vitality, before she opened her eyes to watch them twitch and shake. The pain returned to her belly, the ache of life striving to be. It intensified until she began to tremble as strongly as the manikins.

  She had done this. Her magic had brought these bits of wax and cloth and ink to the brink of real life. The maleficia was singing in her blood now, echoing through her bones, and the feeling of power was better than any drug.

  This time, her magic would work. This time, she would have what she needed. It might startle or even frighten James and Annis, but they were young. They would get over it. They would become accustomed to their changed feelings and, in time, to each other. They had things in common, after all. They just needed encouragement.

  And Harriet—imperious, high-and-mighty Harriet—would understand that she, Frances, was the strongest of the Bishop witches.

  When Antoinette knocked on her door, Frances exhaled, long and slowly. She laid the manikins on the stained openwork cloth, and their quivering ceased the moment she released them. On dragging feet, exhausted now, she went to the door and spoke through it.

  “Antoinette, I didn’t sleep well. I’m going back to bed.”

  “You do not want your coffee?”

  “I don’t want anything. Just silence. This house is so noisy.”

  “Oui, madame. When shall I call for you?”

  “I will come down for luncheon. Come an hour before that to do my hair.”

  “Oui, madame.”

  Frances put her tools and the manikins in the valise and hid it once again. She moved the chair she had propped beneath the latch and unlocked the door, leaving the key in the lock. She stripped off her skirt and shirtwaist, draped them over a chair, and fell into bed wearing just her chemise and stockings.

  For a few moments she gazed up at the painted ceiling, a tired but satisfied smile curving her lips. She had done what she must. She was a mistress of the maleficia, and it would not fail her.

  She turned on her side and slept without moving or dreaming until Antoinette came to wake her.

  21

  Annis

  Annis took off her clothes, put on her nightdress again, and lay down, but sleep eluded her. She couldn’t keep her eyes closed, no matter how she tried to squeeze the lids together. Her brain buzzed with fantastic tales, a flood of information that was all but impossible to absorb. She kept seeing Harriet, such an imposing figure, her gray eyes shining like silver in the candlelight. Her deep voice had made Annis’s very bones vibrate as she spoke her cantrip.

  Cantrip! One of the many singular things spinning through Annis’s mind, keeping sleep away. Herbs. Blood. Cantrips. Magic. Witches.

  She wouldn’t have believed any of it had she not felt so odd, so out of control, these past days. She had known something was amiss with her, something inexplicable. It made her skin crawl with shame to think that James must have had similar unwelcome feelings.

  She hugged herself beneath the coverlet, chilled by fatigue, head swimming with strangeness. Witches. Frances was a witch. Harriet was a witch. She herself—if Harriet was right, if her knowing was accurate—was a witch.

  It was beyond implausible, beyond any fantasy she had ever entertained. She half expected to startle awake and discover
she had imagined all of it in a feverish dream. A nightmare? No, not a nightmare. If it was all true, if she really was—was that—she would have power. Real power. Power over her life, over her father, over Frances. Power to live her life the way she wanted to live it.

  She suddenly remembered the electuary. She was supposed to take it the moment she was alone in her room. The swirl of new ideas in her brain had distracted her.

  She jumped out of bed and found the folded handkerchief in the pocket of her skirt. She opened it carefully. The two little balls of remedy lay side by side, unappetizing chunks of green and yellow. She was supposed to concentrate, to invite the concoction to do its work.

  She took one of the balls and put it in her mouth. She meant to swallow it straightaway, but she hesitated, caressing it with her tongue, pressing it against her palate. It tasted of honey and of the herbs, which had a piney sort of flavor. She closed her eyes, thinking of clearing her body of the maleficia, of having her own sensations and thoughts and desires restored to her. She concentrated on breaking the hold Frances had exerted on her, envisioning herself shrugging off her stepmother’s hand on her shoulder.

  The tidbit of remedy dissolved swiftly in her mouth. She swallowed, but there was little left to go down. She opened her eyes and gazed at herself in the dressing-table mirror. It was still dim in the room, the early sunlight just beginning to filter through the drapes. She couldn’t detect any difference in her appearance, nor in her feelings. The moonstone lay quiescent in the hollow of her throat.

  She yawned, suddenly unable to keep her eyes open a moment longer. She went back to the bed, folded herself into the sheets, and was asleep before her head settled into the pillow. She was still lost in a hot, heavy slumber when Velma came in with the coffee tray.

  Annis woke to the sensation of a war being waged inside her body. It seemed to be centered in her belly, but it radiated outward, to her head, to her fingers, to her toes. Every piece of her seemed to be at odds with every other piece, as if each of her organs were following a different rhythm. She couldn’t draw a decent breath, and her heart fluttered unevenly beneath her breastbone. Her mouth still tasted of honey and pine. Her skin itched, and she shoved the blanket away from her.

  Velma, setting the tray beside the bed, gave her a worried look. “Miss Annis? You don’t got the influenza, do you?”

  “What—uh—I don’t think so.” Annis struggled to sit upright, and as Velma plumped a pillow behind her back, she realized her nightdress was soaked with perspiration. “It’s much too warm in this room, don’t you think? And so close. I wonder if anyone bothered to air it before we arrived?”

  “I dunno. I could try to open that window, I guess,” Velma said, though she gave the drape-covered window a doubtful glance.

  “Could you try? Please.”

  The drapes gave every sign of not having been drawn back in a long time. Dust puffed from their folds as Velma dragged at them, pulling first one and then the other all the way to the side. The glass looked old, as if the window had been installed decades before. Annis worried for a moment that if Velma opened it, it would crack.

  Velma labored over the heavy iron window catch and finally, with a grunt, succeeded in releasing it. She pushed the window open, and though its hinges creaked alarmingly in protest, fresh summer air flooded into the bedroom.

  “Thank you, Velma,” Annis breathed. “Much better.”

  Velma came back to pour her coffee and hold it out to her. “You’re looking real peaked, miss,” she said, frowning. “You want I should call someone?”

  “No, you don’t need to do that. Run me a bath, will you? A cool bath. I’m burning up.”

  Velma, her plain face creased with anxiety, went off to fill the big claw-foot tub. Annis took a sip of black coffee and held it in her mouth for a moment. The coffee washed away the lingering taste of the electuary, but she still felt as if her stomach were doing battle with her heart. Her skin prickled as sweat dried on it, and though she breathed the fresh air as deeply as she could, she felt as if nothing was working as it should. She drank more coffee, afraid to try to stand. If she stumbled, or was faint, Velma would call for help, and then what would she say?

  It wasn’t like having influenza. She didn’t ache, exactly, and though she had been so hot under the blanket, she didn’t think she was feverish. She was just—she didn’t know. It reminded her a bit of having fallen from Bits’s back once when he took a jump. Her head had spun with black stars, and for long moments she couldn’t catch her breath. There had been no one to pick her up then. She had been as helpless as a baby, and Bits had dropped his head to nose her again and again while she tried to recover her wits.

  Velma returned, silent now with worry. She put her hand under Annis’s arm and lifted her from the bed. Annis tried to walk steadily toward the bath, but she didn’t shrug off Velma’s hand. It was comfortingly steady. “I’ll be all right,” she said. “I just need to rest in the bath for a bit.”

  Fearful tears gathered in Velma’s eyes as she helped her into the tub. To distract her Annis said, “You can lay out my clothes. Choose whichever dress you like. That will be good.”

  Velma sniffled as she went back to the bedroom. Annis lay back in the cool water and closed her eyes. As her skin cooled and her breathing steadied, she tried to examine what was happening in her body, to track the battle to its source.

  It was in her belly, of course. That was where she had first felt the effects of the maleficia, those unaccustomed sensations in her middle. Now Harriet’s electuary was braced against the maleficia. They were warriors, the icons of two powers facing each other across a battle line, about to charge—and Annis was between them.

  It helped to picture it that way. She sank deeper in the water, letting it rise about her shoulders and up her neck until it reached her chin. She made her arms relax, and her legs, flexing her toes and her fingers. She pictured the remedy coursing through her blood, clearing it of the maleficia’s poison. She imagined the warrior of the electuary as her champion, her protector, her hero. She saw the soldier of the maleficia, Frances’s creation, driven to its knees.

  Her breathing eased, and she stopped controlling it. Her heart settled into a normal rhythm. Her skin was soothed by the cool water and, she hoped, by the defeat of the maleficia. She supposed she would discover soon enough who had won this war.

  She climbed out of the bathtub and was pleased to find her legs steady and her head clear. She dried herself and went into the bedroom to let Velma dress her hair, lace her into her corset—but not too tightly—and button her into a dimity shirtwaist and gored skirt.

  Velma held up the Eton jacket that matched the skirt, but Annis shook her head. “I won’t bother with the jacket.”

  Velma looked alarmed. “Mrs. Frances says—” she began.

  “Never mind,” Annis said. “It’s too hot for a jacket this morning. If we go out walking, I’ll come and fetch it, I promise.”

  She felt almost herself again, and really, it had taken her longer to recover from her tumble from Bits. With her hair pinned up and Harriet’s handkerchief in her hand, she went down the staircase to the breakfast room.

  James was already there. He leaped to his feet when he saw her and pulled out the chair next to his. His hand brushed her back. When he leaned over her to adjust a fork into the proper position, she felt the warmth of his body on her cheek, but she experienced no reaction to his nearness, or to his touch through the fabric of her shirtwaist. Her belly felt normal. Her mouth didn’t dry, nor her heartbeat speed. She was in control.

  She nestled the handkerchief safely in her lap as the breakfast began with a clink of silver on china. The sun was brilliant through the window, which in this room appeared to be much newer glass, without the ripples and faults of the one in her bedroom. The crystal on the table winked with sunlight, and Mrs. Derbyshire’s snowy hair glowed silver. The light was cruel to Mrs. Hyde-Smith, accentuating the wrinkles on her heavily powdered face, and
Mr. Hyde-Smith blinked, owl-like, against the brightness. Lady Whitmore wisely kept her back to the sun, as did her husband. There was only one empty place at the table. Frances had not come down.

  Three servants were arranging a series of chafing dishes on a sideboard, lighting small, flat candles beneath them to keep the food warm. The guests took turns leaving their seats to help themselves to various meats and grilled tomatoes.

  James said, “Do let me get you something, Miss Allington. Do you prefer ham or bacon? Coddled eggs? I can order a boiled egg for you if you would prefer it.” He looked down on her, a smile on his lean face, his autumn eyes sparkling as if she was just the person he most wanted to see in the world.

  His Lordship was in desperate need of Harriet’s remedy. Annis had a bad feeling it would come too late.

  Since he was so eager, she asked for bacon and eggs and a slice of toast. When he came back, he brought a bowl of porridge for himself, liberally dotted with chunks of stewed fruit. It looked as if it might be apple and raspberries.

  Annis said, “Oh my. That looks delicious.”

  He gave her a boyish grin, which made him seem much less stiff. “Favorite of my childhood,” he said. “Would you like some? Our Dorset porridge is famous.”

  “Yes, please,” she said.

  He set down his bowl and crossed to the sideboard. Swiftly, after a glance told her the other guests were busy with their meals, she plucked the electuary from the handkerchief and added it to the bits of compote on James’s porridge. By the time he came back to the table, she was innocently cutting a rasher of bacon into bite-size pieces.

  She watched him from beneath her lowered eyelashes. He ate with good appetite, starting with the porridge. She tried not to hold her breath as he spooned up a mouthful, then another, and a third. By that time the bits of stewed fruit were gone, and with them the remedy.

  To distract him, lest he notice that one of his bits of compote tasted different—tasted more like a compote of pine needles than one of apples and raspberries—she said brightly, “Shall we ride again today, my lord?”