The Witches of Cambridge (18 page)

“Oh!” Kat says suddenly. “Oh, my God. Of course.”

Noa frowns, suddenly herself again and feeling a little foggy. “What?”

“Of course. Of course! How didn’t I see it? She’s enchanted him.” Kat starts pacing up and down. “I know what she’s doing. The stupid, foolish girl, she knows it’s the last thing in the world she should do, she’s risking her life.”

“I’m afraid I…” Noa says, still a little lost.

“I’ve got to do something right now.” Kat grabs Noa by the shoulders and starts shaking her. “I’ve got to save her—both of them—before it’s too late.”

—

Ever since her first vision of the man with the green pen, Héloïse has been doing everything she can to get another. Unfortunately, these peeks into past, present, or future have always been beyond her control. She’s never been able to conjure them up at will, although there are circumstances that can encourage a little extra sight, so Héloïse has been focusing on doing what she can: long candlelit baths, walks in the Gwydir Street cemetery at twilight, afternoon naps in the hammock in her garden, drinking cups of cold almond milk and eating a pistachio croissant at Gustare for breakfast…Sadly, so far, none of these little tricks has worked, although Héloïse has certainly appreciated an excuse to try, and she’s rather surprised by how she’s starting to enjoy the little things in life again. It isn’t much, but it is something.

She hasn’t heard from François in nearly a week. She wonders if he’s punishing her for taking her attention away, for trying to live again. She hopes not and, if he is, she hopes he’ll forgive her for the second time. Not that, in all his pleadings for her not to let him go, François has ever blamed her for the circumstances surrounding his death; it’s only Héloïse who’s done that.

Today Héloïse is taking a big step: she’s returning to her college. Not to teach, she doesn’t know if she’ll ever return to that. But she misses the library, the beautiful college library with its high ceilings, cream walls, dark wooden bookshelves, mosaic floors, and busts of famous alumni in alcoves under each enormous window. Apart from the two-year sabbatical, Héloïse has been researching the works of Simone de Beauvoir all her life. Her expertise is renowned throughout the university, so whenever a student was studying French literature of the early-to-mid-twentieth century, or feminism, they came to Héloïse. Before François died, Héloïse imagined that if she ever stopped reading she’d stop breathing too and, even after she semi-retired, she’d spent every afternoon of every day in the Newnham College library researching and writing and watching students come and go. She’s always thought she’d rather die here than any place on earth and, as she hurries up the stone staircase leading to the library, Héloïse finds that she still does. She only hopes that when the time finally comes it’ll be swift and sweet, like falling asleep on a Sunday afternoon in the sunshine, with her nose in a good book. If only it had been that way for poor François too.

“
Je t’aime
,” she tells him, softly. “
Je vous aimerai toujours
.”

Héloïse waits a moment for his echo and, when none comes, she pushes open the heavy wooden door, her heart quickening as she steps inside. She’s grateful that the ancient librarian, Molly, is on her break as Héloïse isn’t ready for consolations and chats just yet. She’d waited until eleven o’clock before coming, knowing that Molly usually had her cup of tea and biscuits around that time. Slowly crossing the mosaic floor, Héloïse finds her favorite reading desk overlooking the master’s private garden. It’s the only view of the walled garden in the college, and Héloïse can only see a little slice of it: the edge of a bench and half of an enormous red rose bush. It’d make a lovely reading spot on those rare rain-free days, she’s sure. But Héloïse is content just to look from the window, to imagine and speculate what it might feel like to sit in the garden, though she will probably never know for certain.

Héloïse opens
A Moveable Feast
, hoping to find a clue or get another glimpse. As she turns the pages, she feels almost overwhelmed with desire to know the man whose words she loves to read, whose thoughts and feelings are so close to her own. Not that she expects anything to come of it, not really, but the very fact of being curious, of feeling adventurous, after so long of feeling nothing but grief and guilt, is wonderful enough. Héloïse simply wants to try and solve the mystery; anything that happens after that is a bonus.

Héloïse lays her hands on her open book and gazes out of the window again. The sun glints in through the window and flashes into her eyes. Héloïse blinks, then closes her eyes on the bench and the bush of red roses. It’s in that moment that the vision comes to her: two men standing at the market stall surrounded by books. Ben smiles at the other man, who has his back to her, and talks animatedly, though Héloïse can’t hear any sound. The other man carries a bag; he lifts it up and removes a pile of books. On the top is
A Moveable Feast
. It gives off a slight glow. The man hands the books to Ben, who smiles and says, “Thank you.” Héloïse waits, hoping the man will turn so she can see his face, but he does not. And then the vision disappears.

Héloïse opens her eyes. Ben knows him. He knows the man with the green pen. It’s a lead. She smiles. Her adventure is about to begin.

H
ÉLOÏSE HAS ALWAYS
believed that the world can be divided into two sorts of people: those who, once their wound has healed, rip off the Band-Aid quickly and those who pull it off slowly, bit by bit, prolonging the agony. Héloïse has always been a ripper. She has to wait two days before she can confront Ben about the man with the green pen, since he doesn’t work on Wednesdays. On Thursday, after a gulped-down breakfast of milky coffee and crisp bread, she arrives at the market square to find him setting up his bookstall in the soft early morning sun.

“
Bonjour,
Ben.”

Crouched over a box of books, he looks up, surprised.

“You’re up early, Lou.”

Héloïse nods, not wanting to waste time on chitchat.

“I have a question,” she says.

“Yes?” Ben stands, brushing his hands off on his T-shirt.

Héloïse dips inside her bag and brings out the two books she’d bought. Ben frowns when he sees them.

“You didn’t like
The Old Man and the Sea
? Really?” he asks. “I’m sorry, I thought you would.”

“No.” Héloïse shakes her head, impatient. “It’s not that. I loved it. I’m not here to return anything. I’d just like to know who sold them to you.”

“Oh?”

“The books are full of marks,” Héloïse explains, “in green pen. Thoughts and comments on the text…” She trails off, reluctant to go into greater detail. She may be direct in saying what she wants, but Héloïse is still of a generation that doesn’t discuss private experiences with strangers. Ben isn’t a stranger, but still. Héloïse hasn’t even told her daughter about the man with the green pen.

“Ah, I see,” Ben says. “I’m sorry about that, I can give you clean copies, I didn’t realize—”

“
Non
,” Héloïse says quickly, “it’s not that. I don’t want new copies.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I want to know who sold them to you.” She slips the books back into her bag and fixes him with her most winning smile, the one that got Héloïse her first date with François and a lot of other lovely things over the years. She knows she’s nearly sixty, and still a little haggard from two years of sleepless nights, but she hopes she still has it. “Are you allowed to? Or is there some sort of code? A book buyer to seller confidentiality, like a lawyer or doctor?”

Ben smiles in return. “No, of course not. It’s just…”

“What?”

“They belonged to my father.”

Héloïse’s heart soars and plunges in the same instant. “
Mon Dieu
, I’m so sorry, I didn’t realize he had passed away too, I—”

“No, no, he’s not dead.” Ben grins. “Far from it, crazy old goat. Last week he was on a boat in the Atlantic Ocean protesting whaling.”

Héloïse widens her eyes and pulls her silk scarf a little tighter around her shoulders. “He was?”

Ben nods. “Yep, ever since he retired, Dad’s been doing his best to save the world from rack and ruin. It’s pretty amazing really, if a little worrying sometimes, the things he gets up to.”

“
Alors!
” Héloïse says. “I had no idea.”

“I know, crazy, huh?”

Héloïse smiles, then she’s tentative, picking up a book from the pile already stacked on the table, turning it over in her hands as if she might be thinking of buying it. She doesn’t look up. “And your mother, she doesn’t mind?”

Ben shakes his head. “She died five years ago. That’s when everything kicked off, actually. I think he wanted to do something special, to make a difference before he died…”

“Oh, I see.” Héloïse wonders what to say next. How can she direct this conversation toward getting what she wants? What
does
she want? “And is he home now, or still on the Atlantic Ocean?”

Beginning to stack up new piles of books from his boxes, Ben laughs. “No, he’s back, in one piece, thank God. Sleeping off all the protesting at home.”

An idea strikes Héloïse. She should invite them both over for tea. Then she realizes she can’t. It’s one thing trying to track down a man with a green pen, it’s quite another to serve him tea and cake in your kitchen. Whatever would François make of that? Not very much, she’s sure.

“I’d love to see him sometime,” Héloïse says, trying a different tack. “It’s been so long. Perhaps…”

“Yes, he’d love that, I’m certain. You must visit him for tea. I’ll give you his number.”

Héloïse smiles, slightly surprised at how well that tactic worked. “That would be delightful,” she says. “Do you think he might be free tomorrow?”

—

Amandine has arrived early. She sits on a turret at the north of Magdalene College chapel, directly above the nave. Amandine is happiest when the book group meets at her college because she times their meeting to coincide with Mass. Amandine would have loved to have sung in a choir, if only she wasn’t as tone deaf as her mother. Even Bertie and Frankie tease her, giggling whenever she inadvertently bursts into song when a pop song comes on the radio. Her rendition of “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” particularly amuses them. Occasionally, Amandine has thought of applying a little magic to smooth the sharp edges off her voice but it doesn’t seem fair somehow to all the real singers who’ve worked so hard to hone theirs.

The moon hangs low and full in the sky. It’s buttery yellow, heavy and rich. Amandine can feel its tug. She wraps her cardigan around her, not that she can really feel the cool breeze, but just to give her a little comfort. Over the past few days she’s searched the house for Eliot’s letter but found nothing. She’s been through every drawer, every bookshelf, every cabinet. Nothing. For the next half hour, Amandine mentally scours her house, checking all the potential hiding places where the letter might be. Perhaps Eliot threw it out, so it’ll never be found, but Amandine doubts it. Her husband is a hoarder. He keeps random receipts for years; he certainly wouldn’t have thrown away something as important as a letter from his lover. Or whoever Sylvia might be.

Just as Amandine is beginning to wonder if she’s being stood up tonight or if she somehow miscalculated the date, George pokes his head over the turret.

“Hello.”

Amandine rests her copy of
Great Expectations
on the tiles and stands to help George onto the roof. He dusts himself off and nods at the book.

“He should have stuck with the original ending.”

Amandine frowns. “The depressing one where Pip and Estella don’t end up together? Why would you want that?”

George shrugs as he sits on the roof. “It’s more realistic. I didn’t believe in the Hollywood sunset. Didn’t fit with the rest of the book.”

Amandine sighs. “Realism’s highly overrated. I get enough of that from life, I don’t need it from books as well.”

George looks at her, a little concerned. He opens his mouth, then shuts it again and glances at his watch. “Oh, sorry I’m late.”

Now Amandine shrugs. “At least you showed up. No one else has.”

George glances about, as if some of the other witches might be hiding behind the turrets. “Ah, okay.”

Amandine regards him quizzically. “Why are you relieved?”

George shakes his head. “No, I’m not, of course not.” He pauses. “Well, yes, perhaps just a little.”

“Why?” Amandine sits next to him. “What’s going on? Is my mother—?”

“It’s not Héloïse, I haven’t seen her since our last meeting.” George takes a deep breath. “It’s Kat.”

Amandine frowns. She feels sadness, desperate confusion wafting about, so thick in the air it almost makes her queasy.

“What happened?”

“She hates me,” George murmurs. “She absolutely hates me.”

“Why?”

George shrugs. “I don’t know. I don’t, I think…maybe she thinks I’m not good enough for her sister. But I don’t get it; if I’ve been good enough to be her best friend for this long, then why is she so upset by my dating her sister? I just, I don’t—”