A Discovery of Witches (70 page)

There was a tightness between my eyes. I breathed into it, too, remembering Amira’s yoga instruction and Marthe’s advice to let the visions pass through me. The tightness turned to tingling and the tingling to a sense of possibility as my mind’s eye—a witch’s third eye—opened fully for the first time.

It took in everything that was alive in the forest—the vegetation, the energy in the earth, the water moving underneath the ground—each vital force distinct in color and shade. My mind’s eye saw the rabbits crouched in the hollow of a tree, their hearts thundering in fear as they smelled the vampire. It detected the barn owls, their late-afternoon naps brought to a premature end by this creature who swung from tree limbs and jumped like a panther. The rabbits and owls knew they couldn’t escape him.

“King of the beasts,” I whispered.

Matthew’s low chuckle sounded through the trees.

No creature in the forest could fight Matthew and win. “Except me,” I breathed.

My mind’s eye swept over the forest. A vampire is not fully alive, and it was hard to find him amid the dazzling energy that surrounded me. Finally I located his shape, a concentration of darkness like a black hole, the edges glowing red where his preternatural life force met the vitality of the world. Instinctively turning my face in his direction alerted him to my scrutiny and he slid away, fading into the shadows between the trees.

With both eyes closed and my mind’s eye open, I started walking, hoping to lure him into following. Behind me his darkness detached from a maple tree in a gash of red and black amid the green. This time my face remained pointed in the opposite direction.

“I see you, Matthew,” I said softly.

“Do you,
ma lionne
? And what will you do about it?” He chuckled again but kept stalking me, the distance between us constant.

With each step my mind’s eye grew brighter, its vision more acute. There was a brushy shrub to my left, and I leaned to the right. Then there was a rock in front of me, its sharp gray edges protruding from the soil. I picked up my foot to keep from tripping.

The movement of air across my chest told me there was a small clearing. It wasn’t just the life of the forest that was speaking to me now. All around me the elements were sending messages to guide my way. Earth, air, fire, and water connected with me in tiny pinpricks of awareness that were distinct from the life in the forest.

Matthew’s energy focused in on itself and become darker and deeper. Then his darkness—his absence of life—arced through the air in a graceful pounce that any lion would have envied. He stretched his arms to grab me.

Fly,
I thought, a second before his fingers touched my skin.

The wind rose from my body in a sudden whoosh of power. The earth released me with a gentle push upward. Just as Matthew had promised, it was easy to let my body follow where my thoughts had led. It took no more effort than following an imaginary ribbon up to the sky.

Far below, Matthew somersaulted in midair and landed lightly on his feet precisely where I’d stood a few moments before.

I soared above the treetops, my eyes wide. They felt full of the sea, as vast as the horizon, and bright with sunlight and stars. My hair floated on the currents of air, the ends of each strand turning into tongues of flame that licked my face without burning. The tendrils caressed my cheeks with warmth as the cold air swept past. A raven swooped by me in flight, amazed at this strange new creature sharing her airspace.

Matthew’s pale face was turned up to me, his eyes full of wonder. When our gazes connected, he smiled.

It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. There was a surge of desire, strong and visceral, and a rush of pride that he was mine.

My body dove toward him, and Matthew’s face turned in an instant from wonder to wariness. He snarled, unsure of me, his instincts warning that I might attack.

Pulling back on my nosedive, I descended more slowly until our eyes were level, my feet streaming behind in Sarah’s rubber boots. The wind whipped a lock of my flaming hair in his direction.

Don’t harm him.
My every thought was focused on his safety. Air and fire obeyed me, and my third eye drank in his darkness.

“Stay away from me,” he growled, “just for a moment.” Matthew was struggling to master his predatory instincts. He
wanted
to hunt me now. The king of beasts didn’t like to be bested.

Paying no attention to his warning, I lowered my feet until they floated a few inches above the ground and held out my hand, palm upturned. My mind’s eye filled with the image of my own energy: a shifting mass of silver and gold, green and blue, shimmering like a morning star. I scooped some of it up, watching as it rolled from my heart through my shoulder and arm.

A pulsing, swirling ball of sky, sea, earth, and fire sat in my palm. The ancient philosophers would have called it a microcosm—a little world that contained fragments of me as well as the larger universe.

“For you,” I said, voice hollow. My fingers tipped toward him.

Matthew caught the ball as it fell. It moved like quicksilver, molding itself to his cold flesh. My energy came to a quivering rest in the scoop of his hand.

“What is it?” he asked, distracted from his urge to hunt by the gleaming substance.

“Me,” I said simply. Matthew fixed his attention on my face, his pupils engulfing the gray-green irises in a wave of black. “You won’t hurt me. I won’t hurt you either.”

The vampire cradled my microcosm carefully in his hand, afraid to spill a drop.

“I still don’t know how to fight,” I said sadly. “All I can do is fly away.”

“That’s the most important lesson a warrior learns, witch.” Matthew’s mouth turned what was usually a derogatory term among vampires into an endearment. “You learn how to pick your battles and let go of those you can’t win, to fight another day.”

“Are you afraid of me?” I asked, my body still hovering.

“No,” he said.

My third eye tingled. He was telling the truth. “Even though I have that inside me?” My glance flickered to the glowing, twitching mass in his hand.

Matthew’s face was guarded and careful. “I’ve seen powerful witches before. We still don’t know all that’s inside you, though. We have to find out.”

“I never wanted to know.”

“Why, Diana? Why wouldn’t you want these gifts?” He drew his hand tighter, as if my magic might be snatched away and destroyed before he understood its possibilities.

“Fear? Desire?” I said softly, touching his strong cheekbones with the tips of my fingers, shocked anew at the power of my love for him. Remembering what his daemon friend Bruno had written in the sixteenth century, I quoted it again. “‘
Desire urges me on, as fear bridles me.’
Doesn’t that explain everything that happens in the world?”

“Everything but you,” he told me, his voice thick. “There’s no accounting for you.”

My feet touched the ground, and I pulled my fingers from his face, slowly unfurling them. My body seemed to know the smooth movement, though my mind was quick to register its strangeness. The piece of myself that I’d given to Matthew leaped from his hand into mine. My palm closed around it, the energy quickly reabsorbed. There was the tingle of a witch’s power, and I recognized it as my own. I hung my head, frightened by the creature I was becoming.

Matthew’s fingertip drew aside my curtain of hair. “Nothing will hide you from this magic—not science, not willpower, not concentration. It will always find you. And you can’t hide from me either.”

“That’s what my mother said in the oubliette. She knew about us.” Frightened by the memory of La Pierre, my mind’s eye closed protectively. I shivered, and Matthew drew me near. It was no warmer in his cold arms, but it felt far safer.

“Perhaps that made it easier for them, to know you wouldn’t be alone,” Matthew said softly. His lips were cool and firm, and my own parted to draw him closer. He buried his face in my neck, and I heard him take in my scent with a sharp inhalation. He pulled away with reluctance, smoothing my hair and tucking the parka more closely around me.

“Will you train me to fight, like one of your knights?”

Matthew’s hands stilled. “They knew how to defend themselves long before coming to me. But I’ve trained warriors in the past—humans, vampires, daemons. Even Marcus, and God knows he was a challenge. Never a witch, though.”

“Let’s go home.” My ankle was still throbbing, and I was ready to drop with fatigue. After a few halting steps, Matthew swung me onto his back like a child and walked through the twilight with my arms clasped around his neck. “Thank you again for finding me,” I whispered when the house came into view. He knew this time I wasn’t talking about La Pierre.

“I’d stopped looking long ago. But there you were in the Bodleian Library on Mabon. A historian. A witch, no less.” Matthew shook his head in disbelief.

“That’s what makes it magic,” I said, planting a soft kiss above his collar. He was still purring when he put me down on the back porch.

Matthew went to the woodshed to get more logs for the fire, leaving me to make peace with my aunts. Both of them looked uneasy.

“I understand why you kept it secret,” I explained, giving Em a hug that made her gasp with relief, “but Mom told me the time for secrets was over.”

“You’ve seen Rebecca?” Sarah said carefully, her face white.

“In La Pierre. When Satu tried to frighten me into cooperating with her.” I paused. “Daddy, too.”

“Was she . . . were they happy?” Sarah had to choke out the words. My grandmother was standing behind her, watching with concern.

“They were together,” I said simply, looking out the window to see if Matthew was headed back to the house.

“And they were with you,” Em said firmly, her eyes full. “That means they were more than happy.”

My aunt opened her mouth to say something, thought better of it, and closed it again.

“What, Sarah?” I said, putting a hand on her arm.

“Did Rebecca speak to you?” Her voice was hushed.

“She told me stories. The same stories she told me when I was a little girl—about witches and princes and a fairy godmother. Even though she and Daddy spellbound me, Mom tried to find a way to make me remember my magic. But I wanted to forget.”

“That last summer, before your mom and dad went to Africa, Rebecca asked me what made the most lasting impression on children. I told her it was the stories their parents read to them at night, and all the messages about hope and strength and love that were embedded in them.” Em’s eyes were spilling over now, and she dashed her tears away.

“You were right,” I said softly.

Though the three witches had made amends, when Matthew came into the kitchen, his arms laden with wood, Sarah pounced on him.

“Don’t ever ask me to ignore Diana’s cries for help, and don’t you ever threaten her again—no matter what the reason. If you do, I’ll put a spell on you that will make you wish you’d never been reborn. Got that, vampire?”

“Of course, Sarah,” Matthew murmured blandly, in perfect imitation of Ysabeau.

We ate dinner at the table in the family room. Matthew and Sarah were in an uneasy state of détente, but open warfare threatened when my aunt saw that there wasn’t a scrap of meat in sight.

“You’re smoking like a chimney,” Em said patiently when Sarah grumbled about the lack of “real” food. “Your arteries will thank me.”

“You didn’t do it for me,” Sarah said, shooting Matthew an accusatory glance. “You did it so he wouldn’t feel the urge to bite Diana.”

Matthew smiled mildly and pulled the cork from a bottle he’d brought in from the Range Rover. “Wine, Sarah?”

She eyed the bottle suspiciously. “Is that imported?”

“It’s French,” he said, pouring the deep red liquid into her water tumbler.

“I don’t like the French.”

“Don’t believe everything you read. We’re much nicer than we’re made out to be,” he said, teasing her into a grudging smile. “Trust me, we’ll grow on you.” As if to prove it, Tabitha jumped onto his shoulder from the floor and sat there like a parrot for the rest of the meal.

Matthew drank his wine and chatted about the house, asking Sarah and Em about the state of the farm and the place’s history. I was left with little to do but watch them—these three creatures I loved so much—and wolf down large quantities of chili and cornbread.

When at last we went up to bed, I slipped between the sheets naked, desperate to feel Matthew’s cool body against mine. He joined me, drawing me toward his bare flesh.

“You’re warm,” he said, snuggling more tightly against me.

“Mmm. You smell good,” I said, my nose pressed against his chest. The key turned itself in the lock. It had been there when I woke up that afternoon. “Was the key in the bureau?”

“The house had it.” His laughter rumbled underneath me. “It shot out of the floorboards next to the bed at an angle, hit the wall over the light switch, and slid down. When I didn’t pick it up straightaway, it flew across the room and landed in my lap.”

I laughed while his fingers drifted around my waist. He studiously avoided Satu’s marks.

“You have your battle scars,” I said, hoping to soothe him. “Now I have mine.”

His lips found mine unerringly in the darkness. One hand moved to the small of my back, covering the crescent moon. The other traveled between my shoulder blades, blotting out the star. No magic was necessary to understand his pain and regret. It was everywhere evident—in his gentle touch, the words he murmured in the darkness, and his body that was so solid next to mine. Gradually he let go of the worst of his fear and anger. We touched with mouths and fingers, our initial urgency slowing to prolong the joy of reunion.

Stars burst into life at the peak of my pleasure, and a few still hung beneath the ceiling, sparkling and sputtering out the remainder of their brief lives while we lay in each other’s arms and waited for the morning to find us.