The Age of Witches

by Louisa Morgan

  “Then it’s only natural for you to be concerned with her well-being.”

  “We all are!” Annis assured him.

  “Are you quite sure Frances is in Blackwell’s?” Harriet asked Annis.

  “I suspected, when we found she had disappeared. Then Papa admitted it.” Annis’s eyes met Harriet’s in a glance full of meaning, and Harriet understood. Annis hadn’t had to guess where Frances had been taken.

  Grace came in with a tray. “Here we are,” she said. “I do hope, my lord, that you like our coffee. I believe it’s different from the sort you’re used to. There’s fresh cream, and some bread and butter, in case you haven’t had your breakfast yet. I brought some of my own almond cookies, too, what Miss Annis is so fond of. Please help yourself if you’re hungry. And you can…” She was still talking as she left the tray on the low table in front of the divan and bustled back to the kitchen.

  Despite the grimness of their visit, Annis and James shared an amused glance. Harriet was pleased to see a twinkle come into James’s eyes and a smile curve his lips. She much preferred a man with a sense of humor.

  “Annis,” she said, “I’ll do everything I can. For now, do have a cup of coffee, both of you, and a bite to eat. Grace is a great talker, but she’s also a wonderful baker.”

  The marquess said, “You’re fortunate in your housekeeper, I see, Miss Bishop.”

  “I don’t know what I would do without her.”

  When the coffee had been poured and the plates passed around, Harriet leaned back in the divan, her cup and saucer on her knee. The three of them made polite conversation, very little of which Harriet would later remember. Her mind was circling around the problem that loomed before her, distracting her from pleasantries and small talk. Annis, seeing this, cut the visit short, saying she and James were going to ride in the park if it didn’t rain.

  Before she left, however, she used the excuse of an embrace to whisper in Harriet’s ear. “Send for me when you’re ready. I want to help.”

  When they had gone, Harriet helped Grace carry the teacups and the tray back to the kitchen. Grace said, “Now, there’s a nice young man for Miss Annis, isn’t it? Is this the one, do you think? How lovely that would be, and she would be Lady Rosefield! Wouldn’t that be a thing, now? I was that surprised to see him with her this morning. I had no idea he was coming, did you? You didn’t mention it at all.”

  As usual, no response was needed to Grace’s chatter, and Harriet didn’t try to give one. She was laying plans. She had no appointments for the day, which was fortunate. Despite the threatening rain, she would have to go out for supplies. It wasn’t a good time of year to forage in the park, but with luck the strega would have what she needed.

  Perhaps the old Italian witch would have a word of advice. She needed that, too.

  Signora Carcano rummaged in her back room for many minutes. Harriet, restive and tense, roamed the shop, examining shelves of jars and vials, racks of scissors and knives, a counter spread with stones of various colors. She picked one up, a rough-edged stone she thought was black but that turned out to be so thick with dust it stained her glove gray. Beneath the dust the stone was a deep blue shot through with black veins. An amethyst, in its raw form. She blew it clean and took off her glove to cradle it in her palm.

  The strega spoke from the door to the back room. “You will buy that,” she announced. “It is right for you.”

  Harriet glanced back at her and nodded. “Yes, it is.”

  “Also, I found the uovo di serpente. The egg of the snake.” The old woman held up a small bag of what looked like burlap, with a bit of brown string holding the neck together.

  Harriet moved back to the counter as Signora Carcano set the bag down and pulled the string to open it. With careful fingers Harriet lifted out the old stone and set it in the nest of fraying burlap. It was small and oval, black and gray, pierced through by a single hole, an opening created over centuries by the force of water.

  “This is it,” Harriet said. “It’s perfect.”

  “Is very old,” the strega said. “Roman. I bring from Italy.”

  “We call it an adder stone,” Harriet said. “I’m grateful you had this. I’m in need of it, to help someone.”

  “The younger witch,” the strega said, and she tapped her nose with her finger. “The pretty one. Much buio she has. Darkness.”

  “Yes.” Harriet touched the stone with her finger. “My grandmother had one of these, though I don’t know what became of it. She used it to cast a glamour, just once.”

  “Glamour?” The signora put her head to one side, her gray eyebrows lifting.

  “I don’t know the Italian. In English, it means a deception. A trick of magic, to hide something—or in this case someone—in plain sight.”

  “Is very dangerous.”

  “Yes.”

  “Sì. This glamour—we would call it fascino. It is fragile. It can break, subito. You have a lamen, to protect you?”

  Harriet knew the word, though she hadn’t heard it in years. She didn’t usually show her amulet to people, but in this case it seemed the right thing to do. She tugged the chain out from beneath her shirtwaist and lifted the ametrine into the light.

  Signora Carcano held out her wrinkled hand, palm up. Harriet felt a twinge of reluctance, but it subsided as she unclasped the chain to lay the amulet in the old woman’s hand.

  “Ametrine,” the old witch murmured. “Amethyst and citrine together. Healing and clarity, very good. Someone gave you this with much love.”

  “My grandmother.”

  “Makes you powerful. Your nonna’s power joined with yours.” The strega handed back the amulet. “I wish you don’t do this.”

  “I must. She’s in trouble, and it’s partly my fault.”

  The old woman thought for a moment, pursing her wrinkled lips. “I advise?” she said.

  “Please.”

  “Before you create this—this glamour—call on your nonna to help you. To protect you. You have an apprentice?”

  “I do.”

  “She, too, must help you. I give you a citrine, to keep with the amethyst. You put them together, for balance.”

  “Do you have a moonstone in the shop?”

  The strega paused, a finger on her chin, then made her way to the cluttered counter where the stones lay in a tumble. She stirred the pile, plucked out one tiny, pearly gem, and brought it back. “Your apprentice?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Is good. All three stones together for your work. To gather the power.”

  “Thank you, signora.”

  “Prego.” Signora Carcano replaced the adder stone in its bag and wrapped the three crystals in a twist of paper. “You return the uovo di serpente, after.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Harriet paid her and tucked her purchases into her handbag. As she left the shop, she heard the strega muttering to herself. She glanced back and saw that Signora Carcano had brought her own lamen out into the dim light. It looked like it might be a large cross, silver perhaps, but gone black with age. She was murmuring a prayer, or an intention.

  Harriet hoped it was for success in the task that lay ahead of her.

  43

  Harriet

  How does it work?” Annis asked.

  Harriet blew an anxious breath. “I don’t know for certain that it will work,” she admitted. “I’ve never done this before. Grandmother Beryl only did it once, and she never wanted to do it a second time.”

  “Just tell me what to do.”

  Harriet’s nervousness eased in the presence of Annis’s trust and courage. She had told her about the strega’s warning. She understood the risk they were taking.

  “We’ll put the stones together, where the candle flame will shine on them.”

  Annis accepted Harriet’s ametrine from her hand and removed her own moonstone from around her neck. She set them on the worktable, where the amethyst and citrine and the little moonstone fro
m the strega waited. “Why do stones have such power?”

  “They’re the stuff of the earth,” Harriet said. “Try to imagine how old they are, how long they lay waiting to be found. They carry the energy of eons inside them.”

  Harriet had spent the previous evening preparing an incense. She had chopped several sprigs of thyme, for courage, and added shavings of sandalwood and ground cedar needles for protection. She explained the mixture to Annis. “The incense is to help us draw on our best selves, our strength and our boldness. Once we begin we must not look back, and we must act quickly, before the glamour fades.”

  “Will they really not be able to see her?”

  “If we are successful.” She took the little burlap bag from her pocket and slid out the adder stone.

  “Oh!” Annis said softly. “Is that it?”

  “It is. Signora Carcano says it’s Roman, very old. I believe we can trust her.”

  “May I touch it?”

  “Of course.” She handed the cool bit of stone to Annis, who took it in both hands, cupping it between them. She closed her eyes, and her lips parted in wonder.

  “It’s very old, Aunt Harriet. So many hands have touched it. They—they leave an imprint. I can almost see them.”

  Harriet accepted the adder stone back into her own hand. “I don’t feel it,” she said ruefully.

  “Perhaps I’m imagining it,” Annis hastened to say.

  “No, no, Annis. Trust yourself. Part of what we do is imagination, of course, but it’s also instinct. Ignoring your instinct, your intuition, will make it shrivel and die. It will atrophy, and that would be a terrible waste of your ability.”

  Harriet drew the blinds so she and Annis could focus on the candle flame and the answering light in the stones. She gave the adder stone back to Annis. “It speaks to you,” she said. “It’s better you hold it. And now we must concentrate. The words of the cantrip don’t matter nearly so much as the strength of our intention.”

  Annis folded her hands around the adder stone and held it just in front of her solar plexus. Harriet set a match to the candle wick and then to the incense in its burner. As the pungent smoke began to curl upward, they both closed their eyes.

  Harriet had not felt the resonance with the adder stone that Annis did, but as the herbarium filled with the scents of sandalwood and cedar and thyme, she felt something else, something just as powerful. She sensed Beryl’s presence first, and then others of her kind, the ones who had come before. She felt the touch of her ancestresses, no longer in the body but still present with her. Present with Annis, who represented this new age of witches. They were all bound together by blood, by love, by pain, by magic.

  The power of ageless warmth and infinite energy made her sway on her feet. She had to remind herself to breathe. When she spoke her cantrip, the words seemed to echo down the years as if she had spoken them before, as if she remembered them from long, long ago.

  Guide us both in heart and mind.

  Our missing sister help us find.

  Hide her face and hide her form

  So we can bring her safely home.

  She didn’t repeat it. It was complete upon the instant. Her bones sang with the knowledge, and her blood tingled with it, the electrical thrill of accomplished magic coursing through her body.

  She opened her eyes.

  And saw that she was floating several inches above the floor of the herbarium.

  How many times, she wondered, as she settled slowly, gently down, how many times have I done this, and never realized?

  She glanced to her left to see Annis still rapt, eyes closed, adder stone pressed close. Harriet had been slightly dismayed that Annis felt the vibrations of the adder stone and she did not, but this—this levitation—this was a testament to her power. It was vanity, but she was proud of it just the same.

  She whispered to Annis, “It’s done. We must go while the magic is strong.”

  Annis opened her eyes, nodded, and held up the adder stone. “Do we take it?”

  “We need it with us. Can you secrete it in your bodice? Are you wearing a corset?”

  “I never wear corsets if I can help it,” Annis said matter-of-factly. “Frances used to buy them for me, then never noticed if I didn’t put them on.” She opened the top button of her shirtwaist and slid the adder stone under the sprigged cotton. “It will be safe in my chemise.”

  Moments later, in coats and hats and boots, they were on their way. Annis had come in the Allington carriage, with Robbie at the reins. The carriage impressed the Dakota doorman, who gave the two ladies an elegant bow as they crossed the courtyard.

  As the carriage wound out of the courtyard and into the park, Harriet said, “I see your driver knows the quickest way to the East River. You’re sure he won’t mind our destination?”

  “No. I’ve told him we’re going to visit Frances, but that we have to do it in secrecy, so Papa won’t complain.” She gave a wry smile. “Robbie is accustomed to helping me keep secrets from Papa.”

  “I hope he can find the place. This won’t be much of a dock.” Her friend Tom, the shepherd, had found a boat and a boatman for her without asking any questions. “It won’t be much of a boat, either, Tom says. I hope you’re not subject to seasickness.”

  “Not in the least.”

  Both dock and boat lived up perfectly to Tom’s warning. The dock was of the floating sort, splintered gray wood loosely attached to two rickety, waterlogged pilings, with a single bollard at the end. The boat itself was a rowboat, without amenities of any kind, but it proved to be river-worthy. It was hardly a pleasant cruise, but it was a blessedly brief one. The boatman, pressed into service by the faithful Tom, tied the boat up at the commercial pier just north of the asylum and helped both ladies out, all without speaking a word.

  Harriet told him they would return as soon as possible, and he nodded acknowledgment.

  As they made their way toward the asylum, Harriet said, “I will remind you, Annis. Once we begin—both of us holding Frances between us—we mustn’t break the contact. If the glamour should fade, you and I would be trapped.”

  “I know.”

  “It could be hard for anyone to extricate us. Visitors are rare at Blackwell’s, and women who go there are assumed to be insane. No one questions it.”

  “I know that, too. I read Nellie Bly’s book.”

  “You’re not afraid?”

  “I am, a bit.”

  “Good. Because I am, too.”

  44

  Annis

  Annis hadn’t told Harriet that she had seen her float again

  after she pronounced her cantrip. She hadn’t meant to spy, but the adder stone had begun to tremble in her hands, and her body to tingle from head to foot, as if she had touched lightning. She felt the room tilt around her, spun by the power of the magic, and she feared she would lose her balance.

  Her eyelids had fluttered open just as Harriet lifted from the floor. Annis saw the tiles shining with candlelight beneath Harriet’s feet. Her shadow floated like the silhouette of a ghost.

  The moment Harriet began to settle to earth again, Annis squeezed her eyelids shut and gripped the adder stone harder, pressing it against her. Strands of her hair stirred against her forehead, and she shivered with wonder.

  Her aunt Harriet, she thought, must be the most powerful witch of the age.

  The day before, Annis and James had enjoyed a long ride through the park, and returned pink cheeked and tousled from being out in the cold sunshine all afternoon. The note from Aunt Harriet had been waiting when they came in from the stables. Annis read it with James standing at her shoulder.

  It helped that James had already met Harriet and knew her to be a sober and intelligent person. “I need to go with her,” Annis said. “It’s a terrible place, and she shouldn’t go alone.”

  “I shall accompany you,” he said gallantly.

  “Oh no, James. Thank you, but it’s best you don’t. She’s in a wing for female in
mates, and by all accounts the women are in shocking conditions. Frances would hate you to see her like that. We will be fine together, my great-aunt and I. I promise you.”

  He tried, but didn’t quite succeed, to hide the relief he felt at that. He protested again, but without much conviction. They were about to separate, to go and dress for dinner, when she remembered to warn him. “Don’t mention this to Papa, will you, James? He will scowl and tell me I should leave well enough alone.”

  “He may be right.”

  “He can’t change my mind,” she said. “I will simply ignore his objections. But he would spoil our dinner, and that would be a shame. Mrs. King is a wonderful cook.”

  “Very well,” he said, with an indulgent smile. “Let us not ruin Mrs. King’s dinner. And at dinner, I can thank him for the loan of his horse today.”

  “Oh, that’s hardly necessary. It was good for Chessie to get out of the stables for a change. Papa hardly ever rides anymore.”

  “All the same,” James said. “I want to be on the best terms with your father.”

  “Why?” Annis said, without thinking. A heartbeat later she felt the flame of embarrassment in her cheeks. “Oh. Oh, that.”

  He took her hand and pressed it between his. “Oh yes, Annis. That. And soon.”

  Bemused, she had mounted the staircase, trying not to imagine the conversation James and her father might have.

  On their way to meet the boatman, Annis told Harriet that Velma had been upset not to be included in their visit. “It wasn’t easy, talking her out of it,” she said.

  “I find that touching. It can’t be easy, caring for Frances all the time.”

  “I’m sure it’s not. Velma is not terribly bright, but she’s loyal, and she seems to have transferred her loyalty from me to Frances.”

  “Frances needs her more.”

  Annis smiled. “That’s what Velma said.”

  “Perhaps she’s brighter than you think.”

  “Maybe she is, at that.” Annis leaned toward the window to watch the city spin by. “Aunt Harriet, I should tell you, too—well, the thing is—it’s about James.”