I recognized that power and had felt it before.
Matthew heard my blood begin to sing. He came to stand behind me, his hands resting lightly on my shoulders.
I unfolded the wrappings. On top, blocking Mathew’s view and separated by still more tissue from what lay beneath, was a piece of ordinary white paper, the edges brown with age. There were three lines written on it in spidery script.
“‘It begins with absence and desire,’”
I whispered around the tightness in my throat.
“‘It begins with blood and fear.’”
“‘
It begins with a discovery of witches
,’” Matthew finished, looking over my shoulder.
After I’d delivered the note to Matthew’s waiting fingers, he held it to his nose for a moment before passing it silently to Sarah. I lifted the top sheet of tissue paper.
Sitting in my lap was one of the missing pages from Ashmole 782.
“Christ,” he breathed. “Is that what I think it is? How did your mother get it?”
“She explains in the letter,” I said numbly, staring down at the brightly colored image.
Matthew bent and picked up the dropped sheet of stationery. “‘
My darling Diana,’”
he read aloud.
“‘Today you are seven—a magical age for a witch, when your powers should begin to stir and take shape. But your powers have been stirring since you were born. You have always been different.’”
My knees shifted under the image’s uncanny weight.
“‘That you are reading this means that your father and I succeeded. We were able to convince the Congregation that it was your father—and not you—whose power they sought. You mustn’t blame yourself. It was the only decision we could possibly make. We trust that you are old enough now to understand.’”
Matthew gave my shoulder a gentle squeeze before continuing.
“‘You’re old enough now, too, to take up the hunt that we began when you were born—the hunt for information about you and your magic. We received the enclosed note and drawing when you were three. It came to us in an envelope with an Israeli stamp. The department secretary told us there was no return address or signature—just the note and the picture.
“‘We’ve spent much of the past four years trying to make sense of it. We couldn’t ask too many questions. But we think the picture shows a wedding. ’”
“It is a wedding—the chemical marriage of mercury and sulfur. It’s a crucial step in making the philosopher’s stone.” My voice sounded harsh after Matthew’s rich tones.
It was one of the most beautiful depictions of the chemical wedding I’d ever seen. A golden-haired woman in a pristine white gown held a white rose in one hand. It was an offering to her pale, dark-haired husband, a message that she was pure and worthy of him. He wore black-and-red robes and clasped her other hand. He, too, held a rose—but his was as red as fresh-spilled blood, a token of love and death. Behind the couple, chemicals and metals were personified as wedding guests, milling around in a landscape of trees and rocky hills. A whole menagerie of animals gathered to witness the ceremony: ravens, eagles, toads, green lions, peacocks, pelicans. A unicorn and a wolf stood side by side in the center background, behind the bride and groom. The whole scene was gathered within the outspread wings of a phoenix, its feathers flaming at the edges and its head curved down to watch the scene unfold.
“What does it mean?” Em asked.
“That someone has been waiting for Matthew and me to find each other for a long time.”
“How could that picture possibly be about you and Matthew?” Sarah craned her neck to inspect it more closely.
“The queen is wearing Matthew’s crest.” A gleaming silver-and-gold circlet held back the bride’s hair. In its midst, resting against her forehead, was a jewel in the shape of a crescent moon with a star rising above it.
Matthew reached past the picture and took up the rest of my mother’s letter. “Do you mind if I continue?” he asked gently.
I shook my head, the page from the manuscript still resting on my knees. Em and Sarah, wary of its power, were exercising proper caution in the presence of an unfamiliar bewitched object and remained where they were.
“‘We think the woman in white is meant to be you, Diana. We are less certain about the identity of the dark man. I’ve seen him in your dreams, but he’s hard to place. He walks through your future, but he’s in the past as well. He’s always in shadows, never in the light. And though he’s dangerous, the shadowed man doesn’t pose a threat to you. Is he with you now? I hope so. I wish I could have known him. There is so much I would have liked to tell him about you.’”
Matthew’s voice stumbled over the last words.
“‘We hope the two of you will be able to discover the source of this picture. Your father thinks it’s from an old book. Sometimes we see text moving on the back of the page, but then the words disappear again for weeks, even months, at a time. ’”
Sarah sprang out of her chair. “Give me the picture.”
“It’s from the book I told you about. The one in Oxford.” I handed it to her reluctantly.
“It feels so heavy,” she said, walking toward the window with a frown. She turned the picture over and angled the page this way and that. “But I don’t see any words. Of course, it’s no wonder. If this page was removed from the book it belongs to, then the magic is badly damaged.”
“Is that why the words I saw were moving so fast?”
Sarah nodded. “Probably. They were searching for this page and couldn’t find it.”
“Pages.” This was a detail I hadn’t told Matthew.
“What do you mean, ‘pages’?” Matthew came around the chair, flicking little shards of ice over my features.
“This isn’t the only page that’s missing from Ashmole 782.”
“How many were removed?”
“Three,” I whispered. “Three pages were missing from the front of the manuscript. I could see the stubs. It didn’t seem important at the time.”
“Three,” Matthew repeated. His voice was flat, and it sounded as though he were about to break something apart with his bare hands.
“What does it matter whether there are three pages missing or three hundred?” Sarah was still trying to detect the hidden words. “The magic is still broken.”
“Because there are three types of otherworldly creatures.” Matthew touched my face to let me know he wasn’t angry at me.
“And if we have one of the pages . . .” I started.
“Then who has the others?” Em finished.
“Damn it all to hell, why didn’t Rebecca tell us about this?” Sarah, too, sounded like she wanted to destroy something. Emily took the picture from her hands and laid it carefully on an antique tea table.
Matthew continued reading.
“‘Your father says that you will have to travel far to unlock its secrets. I won’t say more, for fear this note will fall into the wrong hands. But you will figure it out, I know. ’”
He handed the sheet to me and went on to the next.
“‘The house wouldn’t have shared this letter if you weren’t ready. That means you also know that your father and I spellbound you. Sarah will be furious, but it was the only way to protect you from the Congregation before the shadowed man was with you. He will help you with your magic. Sarah will say it’s not his business because he’s not a Bishop. Ignore her.’”
Sarah snorted and looked daggers at the vampire.
“‘Because you will love him as you love no one else, I tied your magic to your feelings for him. Even so, only you will have the ability to draw it into the open. I’m sorry about the panic attacks. They were the only thing I could think of. Sometimes you’re too brave for your own good. Good luck learning your spells—Sarah is a perfectionist.’”
Matthew smiled. “There always was something odd about your anxiety.”
“Odd how?”
“After we met in the Bodleian, it was almost impossible to provoke you into panicking.”
“But I panicked when you came out of the fog by the boathouses.”
“You were startled. Your instincts should have been screaming with panic whenever I was near. Instead you came closer and closer.” Matthew dropped a kiss on my head and turned to the last page.
“‘It’s hard to know how to finish this letter when there is so much in my heart. The past seven years have been the happiest of my life. I wouldn’t give up a moment of our precious time with you—not for an ocean of power or a long, safe life without you. We don’t know why the goddess entrusted you to us, but not a day has passed that we didn’t thank her for it.’”
I suppressed a sob but couldn’t stop the tears.
“‘I cannot shield you from the challenges you will face. You will know great loss and danger, but also great joy. You may doubt your instincts in the years to come, but your feet have been walking this path since the moment you were born. We knew it when you came into the world a caulbearer. You’ve remained between worlds ever since. It’s who you are, and your destiny. Don’t let anyone keep you from it.’”
“What’s a caulbearer?” I whispered.
“Someone born with the amniotic sac still intact around them. It’s a sign of luck,” Sarah explained.
Matthew’s free hand cradled the back of my skull. “Much more than luck is associated with the caul. In times past, it was thought to foretell the birth of a great seer. Some believed it was a sign you would become a vampire, a witch, or a werewolf.” He gave me a lopsided grin.
“Where is it?” Em asked Sarah.
Matthew and I swung our heads in quick unison. “What?” we asked simultaneously.
“Cauls have enormous power. Stephen and Rebecca would have saved it.”
We all looked at the crack in the paneling. A phonebook landed in the grate with a thud, sending a cloud of ash into the room.
“How do you save a caul?” I wondered aloud. “Do you put it in a baggie or something?”
“Traditionally, you press a piece of paper or fabric onto the baby’s face and the caul sticks to it. Then you save the paper,” explained Em.
All eyes swiveled to the page from Ashmole 782. Sarah picked it up and studied it closely. She muttered a few words and stared some more.
“There’s something uncanny about this picture,” she reported, “but it doesn’t have Diana’s caul attached to it.”
That was a relief. It would have been one strange thing too many.
“So is that all, or does my sister have any other secrets she’d like to share with us?” Sarah asked tartly. Matthew frowned at her. “Sorry, Diana,” she murmured.
“There’s not much more. Can you manage it,
mon coeur
?”
I grabbed his free hand and nodded. He perched on one of the chair’s padded arms, which creaked slightly under his weight.
“‘Try not to be too hard on yourself as you journey into the future. Keep your wits about you, and trust your instincts. It’s not much in the way of advice, but it’s all that a mother can give. We can scarcely bear leaving you, but the only alternative is to risk losing you forever. Forgive us. If we have wronged you, it was because we loved you so much. Mom.’”
The room was silent, and even the house was holding its breath. A sound of loss started somewhere deep within me just before a tear fell from my eye. It swelled to the size of a softball and hit the floor with a splash. My legs felt liquid.
“Here it comes,” Sarah warned.
Matthew dropped the page from the letter and swept me out of the chair and through the front door. He set me on the driveway, and my toes gripped the soil. The witchwater released harmlessly into the ground while my tears continued to flow. After a few moments, Matthew’s hands slid around my waist from behind. His body shielded me from the rest of the world, and I relaxed against his chest.
“Let it all go,” he murmured, his lips against my ear.
The witchwater subsided, leaving behind an aching sense of loss that would never go away completely.
“I wish they were here,” I cried. “My mother and father would know what to do.”
“I know you miss them. But they didn’t know what to do—not really. Like all parents, they were just doing their best from moment to moment.”
“My mother saw you, and what the Congregation might do. She was a great seer.”
“And so will you be, one day. Until then we’re going to have to manage without knowing what the future holds. But there are two of us. You don’t have to do it by yourself.”
We went back inside, where Sarah and Em were still scrutinizing the page from the manuscript. I announced that more tea and a fresh pot of coffee were in order, and Matthew came with me into the kitchen, though his eyes lingered on the brightly colored image.
The kitchen looked like a war zone, as usual. Every surface was covered with dishes. While the kettle came to the boil and the coffee brewed, I rolled up my sleeves to do the dishes.
Matthew’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He was ignoring it, intent on putting more logs into the already overloaded fireplace.
“You should get that,” I said, squirting dish liquid into the sink.
He pulled out his phone. His face revealed that this was not a call he wanted to take.
“Oui?”
It must be Ysabeau. Something had gone wrong, someone wasn’t where he or she was supposed to be—it was impossible for me to follow the particulars given their rapid exchange, but Matthew’s annoyance was clear. He barked out a few orders and disconnected the phone.
“Is Ysabeau all right?” I swished my fingers through the warm water, hoping there was no new crisis.
Matthew’s hands pushed my shoulders gently away from my ears, kneading the tight muscles. “She’s fine. This had nothing to do with Ysabeau. It was Alain. He was doing some business for the family and ran into an unexpected situation.”
“Business?” I picked up the sponge and started washing. “For the Knights of Lazarus?”
“Yes,” he said shortly.
“Who is Alain?” I set the clean plate in the drainer.
“He began as my father’s squire. Philippe couldn’t manage without him, in war or in peace, so Marthe made him a vampire. He knows every aspect of the brotherhood’s business. When my father died, Alain transferred his loyalty from Philippe to me. He called to warn me that Marcus wasn’t pleased to receive my message.”