A Discovery of Witches(7)
I pulled two coiled weights from the upper corners of the manuscript and closed it carefully, pleased at the amount of work I’d completed. After encountering the bewitched manuscript on Friday, I’d devoted the weekend to routine tasks rather than alchemy in order to restore a sense of normalcy. I filled out financial-reimbursement forms, paid bills, wrote letters of recommendation, and even finished a book review. These chores were interspersed with more homely rituals like doing laundry, drinking copious amounts of tea, and trying recipes from the BBC’s cooking programs.
After an early start this morning, I’d spent the day trying to focus on the work at hand, rather than dwelling on my recollections of Ashmole 782’s strange illustrations and mysterious palimpsest. I eyed the short list of todos jotted down over the course of the day. Of the four questions on my follow-up list, the third was easiest to resolve. The answer was in an arcane periodical, Notes and Queries, which was shelved on one of the bookcases that stretched up toward the room’s high ceilings. I pushed back my chair and decided to tick one item off my list before leaving.
The upper shelves of the section of Duke Humfrey’s known as the Selden End were reachable by means of a worn set of stairs to a gallery that looked over the reading desks. I climbed the twisting treads to where the old buckram-covered books sat in neat chronological rows on wooden shelves. No one but me and an ancient literature don from Magdalen College seemed to use them. I located the volume and swore softly under my breath. It was on the top shelf, just out of reach.
A low chuckle startled me. I turned my head to see who was sitting at the desk at the far end of the gallery, but no one was there. I was hearing things again. Oxford was still a ghost town, and anyone who belonged to the university had left over an hour earlier to down a glass of free sherry in their college’s senior common room before dinner. Given the Wiccan holiday, even Gillian had left in the late afternoon, after extending one final invitation and glancing at my pile of reading material with narrowed eyes.
I searched for the gallery’s stepstool, which was missing. The Bodleian was notoriously short on such items, and it would easily take fifteen minutes to locate one in the library and haul it upstairs so that I could retrieve the volume. I hesitated. Even though I’d held a bewitched book, I’d resisted considerable temptations to work further magic on Friday. Besides, no one would see.
Despite my rationalizations, my skin prickled with anxiety. I didn’t break my rules very often, and I kept mental accounts of the situations that had spurred me to turn to my magic for assistance. This was the fifth time this year, including putting the spell on the malfunctioning washing machine and touching Ashmole 782. Not too bad for the end of September, but not a personal best either.
I took a deep breath, held up my hand, and imagined the book in it.
Volume 19 of Notes and Queries slid backward four inches, tipped at an angle as if an invisible hand were pulling it down, and fell into my open palm with a soft thwack. Once there, it flopped open to the page I needed.
It had taken all of three seconds. I let out another breath to exhale some of my guilt. Suddenly two icy patches bloomed between my shoulder blades.
I had been seen, and not by an ordinary human observer.
When one witch studies another, the touch of their eyes tingles. Witches aren’t the only creatures sharing the world with humans, however. There are also daemons—creative, artistic creatures who walk a tightrope between madness and genius. “Rock stars and serial killers” was how my aunt described these strange, perplexing beings. And there are vampires, ancient and beautiful, who feed on blood and will charm you utterly if they don’t kill you first.
When a daemon takes a look, I feel the slight, unnerving pressure of a kiss.
But when a vampire stares, it feels cold, focused, and dangerous.
I mentally shuffled through the readers in Duke Humfrey’s. There had been one vampire, a cherubic monk who pored over medieval missals and prayer books like a lover. But vampires aren’t often found in rare-book rooms. Occasionally one succumbed to vanity and nostalgia and came in to reminisce, but it wasn’t common.
Witches and daemons were far more typical in libraries. Gillian Chamberlain had been in today, studying her papyri with a magnifying glass. And there were definitely two daemons in the music reference room. They’d looked up, dazed, as I walked by on the way to Blackwell’s for tea. One told me to bring him back a latte, which was some indication of how immersed he was in whatever madness gripped him at the moment.
No, it was a vampire who watched me now.
I’d happened upon a few vampires, since I worked in a field that put me in touch with scientists, and there were vampires aplenty in laboratories around the world. Science rewards long study and patience. And thanks to their solitary work habits, scientists were unlikely to be recognized by anyone except their closest co-workers. It made a life that spanned centuries rather than decades much easier to negotiate.
These days vampires gravitated toward particle accelerators, projects to decode the genome, and molecular biology. Once they had flocked to alchemy, anatomy, and electricity. If it went bang, involved blood, or promised to unlock the secrets of the universe, there was sure to be a vampire around.
I clutched my ill-gotten copy of Notes and Queries and turned to face the witness. He was in the shadows on the opposite side of the room in front of the paleography reference books, lounging against one of the graceful wooden pillars that held up the gallery. An open copy of Janet Roberts’s Guide to Scripts Used in English Handwriting Up to 1500 was balanced in his hands.