A Discovery of Witches(157)

My mind slid toward oblivion, losing its struggle against the combination of fear, pain, and cold. Frowning with concentration, I remembered the last passages I’d read in the Aurora Consurgens and repeated them aloud in the hope it would help me remain sane.

“‘It is I who mediates the elements, bringing each into agreement,’” I mumbled through stiff lips. “‘I make what is moist dry again, and what is dry I make moist. I make what is hard soft again, and soften that which is hard. As I am the end, so my lover is the beginning. I encompass the whole work of creation, and all knowledge is hidden in me.’” Something shimmered against the wall nearby. Here was another ghost, come to say hello, but I closed my eyes, too tired to care, and returned to my recitation.

“‘Who will dare to separate me from my love? No one, for our love is as strong as death. ’”

My mother interrupted me. Won’t you try to sleep, little witch?

Behind my closed eyes, I saw my attic bedroom in Madison. It was only a few days before my parents’ final trip to Africa, and I’d been brought to stay with Sarah while they were gone.

“I’m not sleepy,” I replied. My voice was stubborn and childlike. I opened my eyes. The ghosts were drawing closer to the shimmer in the shadows to my right.

My mother was sitting there, propped against the oubliette’s damp stone walls, holding her arms open. I inched toward her, holding my breath for fear she would disappear. She smiled in welcome, her dark eyes shining with unshed tears. My mother’s ghostly arms and fingers flicked this way and that as I snuggled closer to her familiar body.

Shall I tell you a story?

“It was your hands I saw when Satu worked her magic.”

Her answering laugh was gentle and made the cold stones beneath me less painful. You were very brave.

“I’m so tired.” I sighed.

It’s time for your story, then. Once upon a time, she began, there was a little witch named Diana. When she was very small, her fairy godmother wrapped her in invisible ribbons that were every color of the rainbow.

I remembered this tale from my childhood, when my pajamas had been purple and pink with stars on them and my hair was braided into two long pigtails that snaked down my back. Waves of memories flooded into rooms of my mind that had sat empty and unused since my parents’ death.

“Why did the fairy godmother wrap her up?” I asked in my child’s voice.

Because Diana loved making magic, and she was very good at it, too. But her fairy godmother knew that other witches would be jealous of her power. “When you are ready,” the fairy godmother told her, “you will shrug off these ribbons. Until then you won’t be able to fly, or make magic.”

“That’s not fair,” I protested, as seven-year-olds are fond of doing. “Punish the other witches, not me.”

The world isn’t fair, is it? my mother asked.

I shook my head glumly.

No matter how hard Diana tried, she couldn’t shake her ribbons off. In time she forgot all about them. And she forgot her magic, too.

“I would never forget my magic,” I insisted.

My mother frowned. But you have, she said in her soft whisper. Her story continued. One day, long after, Diana met a handsome prince who lived in the shadows between sunset and moonrise.

This had been my favorite part. Memories of other nights flooded forth. Sometimes I had asked for his name, other times I’d proclaimed my lack of interest in a stupid prince. Mostly I wondered why anyone would want to be with a useless witch.

The prince loved Diana, despite the fact that she couldn’t seem to fly. He could see the ribbons binding her, though nobody else could. He wondered what they were for and what would happen if the witch took them off. But the prince didn’t think it was polite to mention them, in case she felt self-conscious. I nodded my seven-year-old head, impressed with the prince’s empathy, and my much older head moved against the stone walls, too. But he did wonder why a witch wouldn’t want to fly, if she could.

Then, my mother said, smoothing my hair, three witches came to town. They could see the ribbons, too, and suspected that Diana was more powerful than they were. So they spirited her away to a dark castle. But the ribbons wouldn’t budge, even though the witches pulled and tugged. So the witches locked her in a room, hoping she’d be so afraid she’ d take the ribbons off herself.

“Was Diana all alone?”

All alone, my mother said.

“I don’t think I like this story.” I pulled up my childhood bedspread, a patchwork quilt in bright colors that Sarah had bought at a Syracuse department store in anticipation of my visit, and slid down to the floor of the oubliette. My mother tucked me against the stones.

“Mama?” Yes, Diana?

“I did what you told me to do. I kept my secrets—from everybody.”

I know it was difficult.

“Do you have any secrets?” In my mind I was running like a deer through a field, my mother chasing me.

Of course, she said, reaching out and flicking her fingers so that I soared through the air and landed in her arms.

“Will you tell me one of them?”

Yes. Her mouth was so close to my ear that it tickled. You. You are my greatest secret.

“But I’m right here!” I squealed, squirming free and running in the direction of the apple tree. “How can I be a secret if I’m right here?”