The Book of Life (52 page)

“No!” Sarah cried. “Don’t break the circle, Ysabeau.”

My mother-in-law clearly thought this was madness. Without Matthew here she was prepared to be overprotective in his stead. But Sarah was right: Nobody could break the circle but me. Feet dragging, I returned to the same spot where I’d started weaving my spell. Sybil and Tamsin smiled encouragingly as the fingers on my left hand flicked and furled, releasing the circle’s hold. All that remained to do then was to trudge around the circle counterclockwise, unmaking the magic.

Linda was much quicker, briskly walking her own path in reverse. The moment she was through, both Ysabeau and Sarah rushed to my side. The London witches raced to the map that revealed Weston’s location.

“
Dieu,
I have not seen magic like that for centuries. Matthew told me true when he said you were a formidable witch,” Ysabeau said with admiration.

“Very nice spell casting, honey.” Sarah was proud of me. “Not a single wobble of doubt or moment of hesitation.”

“Did it work?” I certainly hoped so. Another spell of that magnitude would require weeks of rest first. I joined the witches at the map. “Oxfordshire?”

“Yes,” Linda said doubtfully. “But I fear we may not have asked a specific enough question.”

There, on the map, was the blackened outline of a very English-sounding village called Chipping Weston.

“The initials were on the paper, but I forgot to include them in the words of the spell.” My heart sank.

“It is far too soon to admit defeat.” Ysabeau already had her phone out and was dialing. “Phoebe?

Does a T. J. Weston live in Chipping Weston?”

The possibility that T. J. Weston could live in a town called Weston had not occurred to any of us.

We waited for Phoebe’s reply.

Ysabeau’s face relaxed in sudden relief. “Thank you. We will be home soon. Tell Marthe that Diana will need a compress for her head and cold cloths for her feet.”

Both were aching, and my legs were more swollen with each passing minute. I looked at Ysabeau gratefully.

“Phoebe tells me there is a T. J. Weston in Chipping Weston,” Ysabeau reported. “He lives in the Manor House.”

“Oh, well done. Well done, Diana.” Linda beamed at me. The other London witches clapped, as though I had just performed a particularly difficult piano solo without flubbing a note.

“This is not a night we will soon forget,” Tamsin said, her voice shaking with emotion, “for tonight a weaver came back to London, bringing the past and future together so that old worlds might die and new be born.”

“That’s Mother Shipton’s prophecy,” I said, recognizing the words.

“Ursula Shipton was born Ursula Soothtell. Her aunt, Alice Soothtell, was my ancestor,” Tamsin said. “She was a weaver, like you.”

“
You
are related to Ursula Shipton!” Sarah exclaimed. “I am,” Tamsin replied. “The women in my family have kept the knowledge of weavers alive, even though we have had only one other weaver born into the family in more than five hundred years. But Ursula prophesied that the power was not lost forever. She foresaw the years of darkness, when witches would forget weavers and all they represent: hope, rebirth, change. Ursula saw this night, too.”

“How so?” I thought of the few lines of Mother Shipton’s prophecy that I knew. None of them seemed relevant to tonight’s events.

“‘And those that live will ever fear

The dragon’s tail for many year,

But time erases memory.

You think it strange. But it will be,’”
Tamsin recited.

She nodded, and the other witches joined in, speaking in one voice.

And before the race is built anew, A silver serpent comes to view And spews out men of like unknown To mingle with the earth now grown Cold from its heat, and these men can Enlighten the minds of future man.

“The dragon and the serpent?” I shivered.

“They foretell the advent of a new golden age for creatures,” Linda said. “It has been too long in coming, but we all are pleased to have lived to see it.”

It was too much responsibility. First the twins, then Matthew’s scion, and now the future of the species? My hand covered the bump where our children grew. I felt pulled in too many directions, the parts of me that were witch battling with the parts that were scholar, wife, and now mother.

I looked at the walls. In 1591 every part of me had fit together. In 1591 I had been myself.

“Do not worry,” Sybil said gently. “You will be whole once more. Your vampire will help you.”

“We will all help you,” Cassandra said.

27

“S
top here,” Gallowglass ordered. Leonard stepped on the Mercedes’ brakes, and they engaged immediately and silently in front of the Old Lodge’s gatehouse. Since no one was prepared to wait in London for news of the third page except for Hamish, who was busy saving the euro from collapse, my full entourage had come along, Fernando following in one of Matthew’s inexhaustible supply of Range Rovers.

“No. Not here. Go on to the house,” I told Leonard. The gatehouse would remind me too much of Matthew. As we passed down the drive, the Old Lodge’s familiar outlines emerged from the Oxfordshire fog. It was strange to see it again without the surrounding fields filled with sheep and piles of hay, and only one chimney sending a thin plume of smoke into the sky. I rested my forehead against the car’s cold window and let the black-and-white half-timbering and the diamond-shaped panes of glass remind me of other, happier times.

I sat back in the deep leather seat and reached for my phone There was no new message from Matthew. I consoled myself with looking once more at the two pictures he’d already sent: Jack with Marcus and Jack sitting on his own with a sketch pad propped on his knee, utterly absorbed in what he was doing. This last picture had arrived after I sent Matthew my shot of the Greyfriars frescoes. Thanks to the magic of photography, I had captured the ghost of Queen Isabella as well, her face arranged in a look of haughty disdain.

Sarah’s glance fell on me. She and Gallowglass had insisted we rest for a few hours here before traveling on to Chipping Weston. I had protested. Weaving spells always left me feeling hollow afterward, and I’d assured them that my paleness and lack of appetite were due entirely to magic. Sarah and Gallowglass had ignored me.

“Here, madame?” Leonard slowed in front of the clipped yew hedge that stood between the gravel driveway and the moat. In 1590 we’d simply ridden right into the house’s central courtyard, but now neither automobile could make it over the narrow stone bridge.

Instead, we traveled around to the small courtyard at the rear of the house that had been used for deliveries and tradesmen when I lived here in 1590. A small Fiat was parked there, along with a battered lorry that was clearly used for chores around the estate. Amira Chavan, Matthew’s friend and tenant, was waiting for us.

“It is good to see you again, Diana,” Amira said, her tingling glance familiar. “Where is Matthew?”

“Away on business,” I said shortly, climbing out of the car. Amira gasped and hurried forward.

“You’re pregnant,” she said in the tone one would use to announce the discovery of life on Mars.

“Seven months,” I said, arching my back. “I could use one of your yoga classes.” Amira led extraordinary classes here at the Old Lodge—classes that catered to a mixed clientele of daemons, witches, and vampires.

“No tying yourself into a pretzel.” Gallowglass took my elbow gently. “Come inside, Auntie, and rest a spell. You can put your feet up on the table while Fernando makes us all something to eat.”

“I’m not lifting a pan—not with Amira here.” Fernando kissed Amira on the cheek. “No incidents that I should worry about,
shona
?”

“I haven’t seen or sensed anything.” Amira smiled at Fernando with fondness. “It has been too long since we’ve seen each other.”

“Make Diana some akuri on toast and I will forgive you,” Fernando said with an answering grin.

“The scent alone will transport me to heaven.”

After a round of introductions, I found myself in the tiny room where we had taken our family meals in 1590. There was no map on the wall, but a fire burned cheerily, dispelling some of the dampness. Amira put plates of scrambled eggs and toast before us, along with bowls of rice and lentils.

Everything was fragrant with chilies, mustard seed, lime, and coriander. Fernando hovered over the dishes, inhaling the aromatic steam.

“Your kanda poha reminds me of that little stall we visited on our way to Gharapuri to see the caves, the one that had the chai made with coconut milk.” He inhaled deeply.

“It should,” Amira said, sticking a spoon in the lentils. “He was using my grandmother’s recipe.

And I ground the rice the traditional way, in an iron mortar and pestle, so it is very good for Diana’s pregnancy.”

In spite of my insistence that I was not hungry, there was something downright alchemical in the effect that cumin and lime had on my appetite. Soon I was looking down at an empty plate.

“That’s more like it,” Gallowglass said with satisfaction. “Now, why don’t you lie on the settle and close your eyes. If you’re not comfortable there, you can always rest on the bed in Pierre’s old office, or your own bed, come to think of it.”

The settle was oaken, heavily carved, and designed to discourage loafing. It had been in the formal parlor during my previous life in the house and had simply drifted a few rooms to provide a seat underneath the window. The stack of papers on the end of it suggested that this was where Amira sat in the mornings to catch up on the news.

I was beginning to understand how Matthew treated his houses. He lived in them, left them, and returned decades or centuries later without touching the contents other than to slightly rearrange the furniture. It meant he owned a series of museums, rather than proper homes. I thought of what awaited me upstairs—the great hall where I’d met George Chapman and Widow Beaton, the formal parlor where Walter Raleigh had discussed our predicament under the watchful eyes of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, and the bedchamber where Matthew and I had first set foot in the sixteenth century.

“The settle will be fine,” I said hastily. If Gallowglass would surrender his leather jacket and Fernando his long woolen coat, the carved roses on the backrest wouldn’t jab into my side too sharply. To make my desire real, the pile of coats by the fireplace arranged themselves into a makeshift mattress.

Surrounded by scents of bitter orange, sea spray, lilac, tobacco, and narcissus, I felt my eyes grow heavy and I drifted into sleep.

“No one has caught so much as a glimpse of him,” Amira said, her low voice waking me from my nap.

“Still, you shouldn’t be teaching classes so long as Benjamin poses a risk to your safety.” Fernando sounded uncharacteristically firm. “What if he were to walk through the front door?”

“Benjamin would find himself facing two dozen furious daemons, vampires, and witches, that’s what,” Amira replied. “Matthew told me to stop, Fernando, but the work that I’m doing seems more important now than ever.”

“It is.” I swung my legs off the settle and sat up, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. According to the clock, forty-five minutes had passed. It was impossible to gauge the passage of time from the changing light, since we were still entombed in fog.

“You look less pale.” Sarah called to Marthe, who brought tea. It was mint and rose hips, with none of the caffeine that would have made me more alert, but it was blessedly hot. I’d forgotten how cold sixteenth-century homes could be.

Gallowglass made a spot for me close to the fire. It saddened me to think of all that concern directed at me. He was so worthy of being loved; I didn’t want him to be alone. Something in my expression must have revealed what I was thinking.

“No pity, Auntie. The winds do not always blow as the ship desires,” he murmured, tucking me into my chair.

“The winds do what I tell them to do.”

“And I steer my own ship. If you don’t stop clucking over me, I’ll tell Matthew what you’re up to and you can deal with two royally pissed-off vampires instead of one.”

It was a prudent time to change the subject. “Matthew is establishing his own family, Amira,” I said, turning to our host. “It will have all kinds of creatures in it. Who knows, we might even let in humans. We’ll need all the yoga we can get if he succeeds.” I paused as my right hand began to tingle and pulse with color. I studied it for a moment in silence, then came to a decision. I wished the stiff leather portfolio that Phoebe had bought to protect the pages from the Book of Life was here at the table and not across the room. Despite the nap, I was still exhausted.

The portfolio appeared on a nearby table.

“Abracadabra,” Fernando murmured.

“Since we’re here and you live at Matthew’s house, it only seems right to explain to Amira why we’ve all descended on her,” I said. “You’ve probably heard stories about the witches’ first grimoire?”

Amira nodded. I handed her the two pages we’d already gathered.

“These come from that book—the same book the vampires call the Book of Life. We think another page is in the possession of someone named T. J. Weston, living in Chipping Weston. Now that we’re all fed and watered, Phoebe and I are going see if he or she is amenable to selling it.”

Ysabeau and Phoebe appeared right on cue. Phoebe was as white as a sheet. Ysabeau looked mildly bored.

“What’s wrong, Phoebe?” I asked.

“There’s a Holbein. In the bathroom.” She pressed her hands against her cheeks. “A small oil painting of Thomas More’s daughter, Margaret. It shouldn’t be hung over a toilet!”

I was beginning to understand why Matthew found my constant objections to the way his family treated their library books tiresome.

“Stop being so prudish,” Ysabeau said with mild irritation. “Margaret was not the kind of woman to be bothered by a bit of exposed flesh.”

“You think— That is—” Phoebe sputtered. “It’s not the decorum of the situation that troubles me, but the fact that Margaret More might tumble into the loo at any moment!”