A Discovery of Witches

by Deborah Harkness

  Carrying my snack back into the sitting room, I kicked off my shoes and turned on the small stereo. The pure tones of Mozart filled the air. When I sat on one of the maroon upholstered sofas, it was with the intention to rest for a few moments, then take a bath and go over my notes from the day.

  At half past three in the morning, I woke with a pounding heart, a stiff neck, and the strong taste of cloves in my mouth.

  I got a fresh glass of water and closed the kitchen window. It was chilly, and I shivered at the touch of the damp air.

  After a glance at my watch and some quick calculations, I decided to call home. It was only ten-thirty there, and Sarah and Em were as nocturnal as bats. Slipping around the rooms, I turned off all the lights except the one in my bedroom and picked up my mobile. I was out of my grimy clothes in a matter of minutes—how do you get so filthy in a library?—and into a pair of old yoga pants and a black sweater with a stretched-out neck. They were more comfortable than any pajamas.

  The bed felt welcoming and firm underneath me, comforting me enough that I almost convinced myself a phone call home was unnecessary. But the water had not been able to remove the vestiges of cloves from my tongue, and I dialed the number.

  “We’ve been waiting for your call,” were the first words I heard.

  Witches.

  I sighed. “Sarah, I’m fine.”

  “All signs to the contrary.” As usual, my mother’s younger sister was not going to pull any punches. “Tabitha has been skittish all evening, Em got a very clear picture of you lost in the woods at night, and I haven’t been able to eat anything since breakfast.”

  The real problem was that damn cat. Tabitha was Sarah’s baby and picked up any tension within the family with uncanny precision. “I’m fine. I had an unexpected encounter in the library tonight, that’s all.”

  A click told me that Em had picked up the extension. “Why aren’t you celebrating Mabon?” she asked.

  Emily Mather had been a fixture in my life for as long as I could remember. She and Rebecca Bishop had met as high-school students working in the summer at Plimoth Plantation, where they dug holes and pushed wheel-barrows for the archaeologists. They became best friends, then devoted pen pals when Emily went to Vassar and my mother to Harvard. Later the two reconnected in Cambridge when Em became a children’s librarian. After my parents’ death, Em’s long weekends in Madison soon led to a new job in the local elementary school. She and Sarah became inseparable partners, even though Em had maintained her own apartment in town and the two of them had made a big deal of never being seen heading into a bedroom together while I was growing up. This didn’t fool me, the neighbors, or anyone else living in town. Everybody treated them like the couple they were, regardless of where they slept. When I moved out of the Bishop house, Em moved in and had been there ever since. Like my mother and my aunt, Em came from a long line of witches.

  “I was invited to the coven’s party but worked instead.”

  “Did the witch from Bryn Mawr ask you to go?” Em was interested in the classicist, mostly (it had turned out over a fair amount of wine one summer night) because she’d once dated Gillian’s mother. “It was the sixties,” was all Em would say.

  “Yes.” I sounded harassed. The two of them were convinced I was going to see the light and begin taking my magic seriously now that I was safely tenured. Nothing cast any doubt on this wishful prognostication, and they were always thrilled when I had any contact with a witch. “But I spent the evening with Elias Ashmole instead.”

  “Who’s he?” Em asked Sarah.

  “You know, that dead guy who collected alchemy books,” was Sarah’s muffled reply.

  “Still here, you two,” I called into the phone.

  “So who rattled your cage?” Sarah asked.

  Given that both were witches, there was no point in trying to hide anything. “I met a vampire in the library. One I’ve never seen before, named Matthew Clairmont.”

  There was silence on Em’s end as she flipped through her mental card file of notable creatures. Sarah was quiet for a moment, too, deciding whether or not to explode.

  “I hope he’s easier to get rid of than the daemons you have a habit of attracting,” she said sharply.

  “Daemons haven’t bothered me since I stopped acting.”

  “No, there was that daemon who followed you into the Beinecke Library when you first started working at Yale, too,” Em corrected me. “He was just wandering down the street and came looking for you.”

  “He was mentally unstable,” I protested. Like using witchcraft on the washing machine, the fact that I’d somehow caught the attention of a single, curious daemon shouldn’t count against me.

  “You draw creatures like flowers draw bees, Diana. But daemons aren’t half as dangerous as vampires. Stay away from him,” Sarah said tightly.

  “I have no reason to seek him out.” My hands traveled to my neck again. “We have nothing in common.”

  “That’s not the point,” Sarah said, voice rising. “Witches, vampires, and daemons aren’t supposed to mix. You know that. Humans are more likely to notice us when we do. No daemon or vampire is worth the risk.” The only creatures in the world that Sarah took seriously were other witches. Humans struck her as unfortunate little beings blind to the world around them. Daemons were perpetual teenagers who couldn’t be trusted. Vampires were well below cats and at least one step below mutts within her hierarchy of creatures.

  “You’ve told me the rules before, Sarah.”

  “Not everyone obeys the rules, honey,” Em observed. “What did he want?”

  “He said he was interested in my work. But he’s a scientist, so that’s hard to believe.” My fingers fiddled with the duvet cover on the bed. “He invited me to dinner.”

  “To dinner?” Sarah was incredulous.

  Em just laughed. “There’s not much on a restaurant menu that would appeal to a vampire.”

  “I’m sure I won’t see him again. He’s running three labs from the look of his business card, and he holds two faculty positions.”

  “Typical,” Sarah muttered. “That’s what happens when you have too much time on your hands. And stop picking at that quilt—you’ll put a hole in it.” She’d switched on her witch’s radar full blast and was now seeing as well as hearing me.

  “It’s not as if he’s stealing money from old ladies and squandering other people’s fortunes on the stock market,” I countered. The fact that vampires were reputed to be fabulously wealthy was a sore spot with Sarah. “He’s a biochemist and a physician of some sort, interested in the brain.”

  “I’m sure that’s fascinating, Diana, but what did he want?” Sarah matched my irritation with impatience—the one-two punch mastered by all Bishop women.

  “Not dinner,” Em said with certainty.

  Sarah snorted. “He wanted something. Vampires and witches don’t go on dates. Unless he was planning to dine on you, of course. They love nothing more than the taste of a witch’s blood.”

  “Maybe he was just curious. Or maybe he does like your work.” Em said it with such doubt that I had to laugh.

  “We wouldn’t be having this conversation at all if you’d just take some elementary precautions,” Sarah said tartly. “A protection spell, some use of your abilities as a seer, and—”

  “I’m not using magic or witchcraft to figure out why a vampire asked me to dinner,” I said firmly. “Not negotiable, Sarah.”

  “Then don’t call us looking for answers when you don’t want to hear them,” Sarah said, her notoriously short temper flaring. She hung up before I could think of a response.

  “Sarah does worry about you, you know,” Em said apologetically. “And she doesn’t understand why you won’t use your gifts, not even to protect yourself.”

  Because the gifts had strings attached, as I’d explained before. I tried again.

  “It’s a slippery slope, Em. I protect myself from a vampire in the library today, and tomorrow I
protect myself from a hard question at a lecture. Soon I’ll be picking research topics based on knowing how they’ll turn out and applying for grants that I’m sure to win. It’s important to me that I’ve made my reputation on my own. If I start using magic, nothing would belong entirely to me. I don’t want to be the next Bishop witch.” I opened my mouth to tell Em about Ashmole 782, but something made me close it again.

  “I know, I know, honey.” Em’s voice was soothing. “I do understand. But Sarah can’t help worrying about your safety. You’re all the family she has now.”

  My fingers slid through my hair and came to rest at my temples. Conversations like this always led back to my mother and father. I hesitated, reluctant to mention my one lingering concern.

  “What is it?” Em asked, her sixth sense picking up on my discomfort.

  “He knew my name. I’ve never seen him before, but he knew who I was.”

  Em considered the possibilities. “Your picture’s on the inside of your latest book cover, isn’t it?”

  My breath, which I hadn’t been aware I was holding, came out with a soft whoosh. “Yes. That must be it. I’m just being silly. Can you give Sarah a kiss from me?”

  “You bet. And, Diana? Be careful. English vampires may not be as well behaved around witches as the American ones are.”

  I smiled, thinking of Matthew Clairmont’s formal bow. “I will. But don’t worry. I probably won’t see him again.”

  Em was quiet.

  “Em?” I prompted.

  “Time will tell.”

  Em wasn’t as good at seeing the future as my mother was reputed to have been, but something was niggling at her. Convincing a witch to share a vague premonition was almost impossible. She wasn’t going to tell me what worried her about Matthew Clairmont. Not yet.

  Chapter 3

  The vampire sat in the shadows on the curved expanse of the bridge that spanned New College Lane and connected two parts of Hertford College, his back resting against the worn stone of one of the college’s newer buildings and his feet propped up on the bridge’s roof.

  The witch appeared, moving surprisingly surely across the uneven stones of the sidewalk outside the Bodleian. She passed underneath him, her pace quickening. Her nervousness made her look younger than she was and accentuated her vulnerability.

  So that’s the formidable historian, he thought wryly, mentally going over her vita. Even after looking at her picture, Matthew expected Bishop to be older, given her professional accomplishments.

  Diana Bishop’s back was straight and her shoulders square, in spite of her apparent agitation. Perhaps she would not be as easy to intimidate as he had hoped. Her behavior in the library had suggested as much. She’d met his eyes without a trace of the fear that Matthew had grown to rely upon from those who weren’t vampires—and many of those who were.

  When Bishop rounded the corner, Matthew crept along the rooflines until he reached the New College wall. He slipped silently down into its boundaries. The vampire knew the college’s layout and had anticipated where her rooms would be. He was already tucked into a doorway opposite her staircase when she began her climb.

  Matthew’s eyes followed her around the apartment as she moved from room to room, turning on the lights. She pushed the kitchen window open, left it ajar, disappeared.

  That will save me from me breaking the window or picking her lock, he thought.

  Matthew darted across the open space and scaled her building, his feet and hands finding sure holds in the old mortar with the help of a copper downspout and some robust vines. From his new vantage point, he could detect the witch’s distinctive scent and a rustle of turning pages. He craned his neck to peer into the window.

  Bishop was reading. In repose her face looked different, he reflected. It was as if her skin fit the underlying bones properly. Her head bobbed slowly, and she slid against the cushions with a soft sigh of exhaustion. Soon the sound of regular breathing told Matthew she was asleep.

  He swung out from the wall and kicked his feet up and through the witch’s kitchen window. It had been a very long time since the vampire had climbed into a woman’s rooms. Even then the occasions were rare and usually linked to moments when he was in the grip of infatuation. This time there was a far different reason. Nonetheless, if someone caught him, he’d have a hell of a time explaining what it was.

  Matthew had to know if Ashmole 782 was still in Bishop’s possession. He hadn’t been able to search her desk at the library, but a quick glance had suggested that it wasn’t among the manuscripts she’d been consulting today. Still, there was no chance that a witch—a Bishop—would have let the volume slip through her fingers. With inaudible steps he traveled through the small set of rooms. The manuscript wasn’t in the witch’s bathroom or her bedroom. He crept quietly past the couch where she lay sleeping.

  The witch’s eyelids were twitching as if she were watching a movie only she could see. One of her hands was drawn into a fist, and every now and then her legs danced. Bishop’s face was serene, however, unperturbed by whatever the rest of her body thought it was doing.

  Something wasn’t right. He’d sensed it from the first moment he saw Bishop in the library. Matthew crossed his arms and studied her, but he still couldn’t figure out what it was. This witch didn’t give off the usual scents—henbane, sulfur, and sage. She’s hiding something, the vampire thought, something more than the lost manuscript.

  Matthew turned away, seeking out the table she was using as a desk. It was easy to spot, littered with books and papers. That was the likeliest place for her to have put the smuggled volume. As he took a step toward it, he smelled electricity and froze.

  Light was seeping from Diana Bishop’s body—all around the edges, escaping from her pores. The light was a blue so pale it was almost white, and at first it formed a cloudlike shroud that clung to her for a few seconds. For a moment she seemed to shimmer. Matthew shook his head in disbelief. It was impossible. It had been centuries since he’d seen such a luminous outpouring from a witch.

  But other, more urgent matters beckoned, and Matthew resumed the hunt for the manuscript, hurriedly searching through the items on her desk. He ran his fingers through his hair in frustration. The witch’s scent was everywhere, distracting him. Matthew’s eyes returned to the couch. Bishop was stirring and shifting again, her knees creeping toward her chest. Once more, luminosity pulsed to the surface, shimmered for a moment, retreated.

  Matthew frowned, puzzled at the discrepancy between what he’d overheard last night and what he was witnessing with his own eyes. Two witches had been gossiping about Ashmole 782 and the witch who’d called it. One had suggested that the American historian didn’t use her magical power. But Matthew had seen it in the Bodleian—and now watched it wash through her with evident intensity. He suspected she used magic in her scholarship, too. Many of the men she wrote about had been friends of his—Cornelius Drebbel, Andreas Libavius, Isaac Newton. She’d captured their quirks and obsessions perfectly. Without magic how could a modern woman understand men who had lived so long ago? Fleetingly, Matthew wondered if Bishop would be able to understand him with the same uncanny accuracy.

  The clocks struck three, startling him. His throat felt parched. He realized he’d been standing for several hours, motionless, watching the witch dream while her power rose and fell in waves. He briefly considered slaking his thirst with this witch’s blood. A taste of it might reveal the location of the missing volume and indicate what secrets the witch was keeping. But he restrained himself. It was only his desire to find Ashmole 782 that made him linger with the enigmatic Diana Bishop.

  If the manuscript wasn’t in the witch’s rooms, then it was still in the library.

  He padded to the kitchen, slid out the window, and melted into the night.

  Chapter 4

  Four hours later I woke up on top of the duvet, clutching the phone. At some point I’d kicked off my right slipper, leaving my foot trailing over the edge of the be
d. I looked at the clock and groaned. There was no time for my usual trip to the river, or even for a run.

  Cutting my morning ritual short, I showered and then drank a scalding cup of tea while drying my hair. It was straw blond and unruly, despite the ministrations of a hairbrush. Like most witches, I had a problem getting the shoulder-length strands to stay put. Sarah blamed it on pent-up magic and promised that the regular use of my power would keep the static electricity from building and make my hair more obedient.

  After brushing my teeth, I slipped on a pair of jeans, a fresh white blouse, and a black jacket. It was a familiar routine, and this was my habitual outfit, but neither proved comforting today. My clothes seemed confining, and I felt self-conscious in them. I jerked on the jacket to see if that would make it fit any better, but it was too much to expect from inferior tailoring.

  When I looked into the mirror, my mother’s face stared back. I could no longer remember when I’d developed this strong resemblance to her. Sometime in college, perhaps? No one had commented on it until I came home for Thanksgiving break during freshman year. Since then it was the first thing I heard from those who had known Rebecca Bishop.

  Today’s check in the mirror also revealed that my skin was pale from lack of sleep. This made my freckles, which I’d inherited from my father, stand out in apparent alarm, and the dark blue circles under my eyes made them appear lighter than usual. Fatigue also managed to lengthen my nose and render my chin more pronounced. I thought of the immaculate Professor Clairmont and wondered what he looked like first thing in the morning. Probably just as pristine as he had last night, I decided—the beast. I grimaced at my reflection.

  On my way out the door, I stopped and surveyed my rooms. Something niggled at me—a forgotten appointment, a deadline. There was something I was missing that was important. The sense of unease wrapped around my stomach, squeezed, then let go. After checking my datebook and the stacks of mail on my desk, I wrote it off as hunger and went downstairs. The obliging ladies in the kitchen offered me toast when I passed by. They remembered me as a graduate student and still tried to force-feed me custard and apple pie when I looked stressed.