A Discovery of Witches(222)

Sarah answered Miriam over the daemons’ whispered conversation. “There’s not much keeping the living from the dead between Halloween and All Souls. It would be easier to slip between the past and the present then.”

Nathaniel looked more anxious. “The living and the dead? Sophie and I just came to deliver that statue or whatever it is so she can sleep through the night.”

“Will Diana be strong enough?” Marcus asked Matthew, ignoring Nathaniel.

“This time of year, it should be much easier for Diana to timewalk,” Sarah mused aloud.

Sophie looked contentedly around the table. “This reminds me of the old days when granny and her sisters got together and gossiped. They never seemed to pay attention to one another, but they always knew what had been said.”

The room’s many competing conversations stopped abruptly when the dining-room doors banged open and shut, followed by a booming sound produced by the heavier keeping-room doors. Nathaniel, Miriam, and Marcus shot to their feet.

“What the hell was that?” Marcus asked.

“The house,” I said wearily. “I’ll go see what it wants.”

Matthew scooped up the figurine and followed me.

The old woman with the embroidered bodice was waiting at the keeping room’s threshold.

“Hello, ma’am.” Sophie had followed right behind and was nodding politely to the old woman. She scrutinized my features. “The lady looks a bit like you, doesn’t she?”

So you’ve chosen your road, the old woman said. Her voice was fainter than before.

“We have,” I said. Footsteps sounded behind me as the remaining occupants of the dining room came to see what the commotion was about.

You’ll be needing something else for your journey, she replied.

The coffin doors swung open, and the press of creatures at my back was matched by the crowd of ghosts waiting by the fireplace.

This should be interesting, my grandmother said drily from her place at the head of the ghostly bunch.

There was a rumbling in the walls like bones rattling. I sat in my grandmother’s rocker, my knees no longer able to hold my weight.

A crack developed in the paneling between the window and the fireplace. It stretched and widened in a diagonal slash. The old wood shuddered and squeaked. Something soft with legs and arms flew out of the gap. I flinched when it landed in my lap.

“Holy shit,” Sarah said.

That paneling will never look the same, my grandmother commented, shaking her head regretfully at the cracked wood.

Whatever flew at me was made of rough-spun fabric that had faded to an indiscriminate grayish brown. In addition to its four limbs, it had a lump where the head belonged, adorned with faded tufts of hair. Someone had stitched an X where the heart should be.

“What is it?” I reached my index finger toward the uneven, rusty stitches.

“Don’t touch it!” Em cried.

“I’m already touching it,” I said, looking up in confusion. “It’s sitting on my lap.”

“I’ve never seen such an old poppet,” said Sophie, peering down at it.

“Poppet?” Miriam frowned. “Didn’t one of your ancestors get in trouble over a poppet?”

“Bridget Bishop.” Sarah, Em, and I said the name at the same moment.

The old woman with the embroidered bodice was now standing next to my grandmother.

“Is this yours?” I whispered.

A smile turned up one corner of Bridget’s mouth. Remember to be canny when you find yourself at a crossroads, daughter. There’s no telling what secrets are buried there.

Looking down at the poppet, I lightly touched the X on its chest. The fabric split open, revealing a stuffing made of leaves, twigs, and dried flowers and releasing the scent of herbs into the air. “Rue,” I said, recognizing it from Marthe’s tea.

“Clover, broom, knotweed, and slippery elm bark, too, from the smell of it.” Sarah gave the air a good sniff. “That poppet was made to draw someone—Diana, presumably—but it’s got a protection spell on it, too.”

You did well by her, Bridget told my grandmother with an approving nod at Sarah.

Something was gleaming through the brown. When I pulled at it gently, the poppet came apart in pieces.

And there’s an end to it, Bridget said with a sigh. My grandmother put a comforting arm around her.

“It’s an earring.” Its intricate golden surfaces caught the light, and an enormous, teardrop-shaped pearl shone at the end.

“How the hell did one of my mother’s earrings get into Bridget Bishop’s poppet?” Matthew’s face was back to that pasty gray color.

“Were your mother’s earrings in the same place as your chess set on that long-ago night?” Miriam asked. Both the earring and the chess piece were old—older than the poppet, older than the Bishop house.

Matthew thought a moment, then nodded. “Yes. Is a week enough time? Can you be ready?” he asked me urgently.

“I don’t know.”

“Sure you’ll be ready,” Sophie crooned to her belly. “She’ll make things right for you, little witch. You’ll be her godmother,” Sophie said with a radiant smile. “She’ll like that.”

“Counting the baby—and not counting the ghosts, of course,” Marcus said in a deceptively conversational tone that reminded me of the way Matthew spoke when he was stressed, “there are nine of us in this room.”