Shadow of Night (All Souls Trilogy, #2)(17)
Thinking back on the threads of blue and amber that I’d seen in the corner of the Old Lodge, I wondered what the disappearance of some powers and the emergence of others might signify. There had been the episode this morning, too. . . .
Something in the corner had caught my eye, another glimmer of amber shot through with hints of blue. There was an echo, something so quiet it was more felt than heard. When I’d turned my head to locate its source, the sensation faded. Strands of color and light pulsed in my peripheral vision, as if time were beckoning me to return home.
Ever since my first timewalk in Madison, when I’d traveled a brief span of minutes, I’d thought of time as a substance made of threads of light and color. With enough concentration you could focus on a single thread and follow it to its source. Now, after walking through several centuries, I knew that apparent simplicity masked the knots of possibility that tied an unimaginable number of pasts to a million presents and untold potential futures. Isaac Newton had believed that time was an essential force of nature that couldn’t be controlled. After fighting our way back to 1590, I was prepared to agree with him.
“Diana? Are you all right?” Matthew’s insistent voice broke through my reveries. His friends looked at me with concern.
“Fine,” I said automatically.
“You’re not fine.” He tossed the quill onto the table. “Your scent has changed. I think your magic might be changing, too. Kit is right. We must find you a witch as quickly as possible.”
“It’s too soon to bring in a witch,” I protested. “It’s important that I be able to look and sound as if I belong.”
“Another witch will know you’re a timewalker,” he said dismissively. “She’ll make allowances. Or is there something else?”
I shook my head, unwilling to meet his eyes.
Matthew hadn’t needed to see time unwinding in the corner to sense that something was out of joint. If he already suspected that there was more going on with my magic than I was willing to reveal, there would be no way for me to conceal my secrets from any witch who might soon come to call.
Chapter Four
The bells of St. Mary’s Church sounded the hour, faint echoes of their music lingering long after the peals ceased. Quince, rosemary, and lavender scented the air. I was perched on an uncomfortable wooden chair in a confining array of smocks, petticoats, sleeves, skirts, and a tightly laced bodice. My career-oriented, twenty-first-century life faded further with each restricted breath. I stared out into the murky daylight, where cold rain pinged against the panes of glass in the leaded windows.
“Elle est ici,” Pierre announced, his glance flicking in my direction. “The witch is here to see madame.”
“At last,” Matthew said. His friends had been eager to help him find the creature. Their suggestions illuminated a collective disregard for women, witches, and everyone who lacked a university education. Henry thought London might provide the most fertile ground for the search, but Walter assured him that it would be impossible to conceal me from superstitious neighbors in the crowded city. George wondered if the scholars of Oxford might be persuaded to lend their expertise, since they at least had proper intellectual credentials. Tom and Matthew gave a brutal critique of the strengths and weaknesses of the natural philosophers in residence, and that idea was cast aside, too. Kit didn’t believe it was wise to trust any woman with the task and drew up a list of local gentlemen who might be willing to establish a training regimen for me. It included the parson of St. Mary’s, who was alert to apocalyptic signs in the heavens, a nearby landowner named Smythson, who dabbled in alchemy and had been looking for a witch or daemon to assist him, and a student at Christ Church College who paid his overdue book bills by casting horoscopes.
Matthew vetoed all these suggestions and called on Widow Beaton, Woodstock’s cunning woman and midwife. She was poor and female— precisely the sort of creature the School of Night scorned—but this, Matthew argued, would better ensure her cooperation. Besides, Widow Beaton was the only creature for miles with purported magical talents. All others had long since fled, he admitted, rather than live near a wearh.
“Summoning Widow Beaton may not be a good idea,” I said later when we were getting ready for bed.
“So you’ve mentioned,” Matthew replied with barely concealed impatience. “But if Widow Beaton can’t help us, she’ll be able to recommend someone who can.”
“The late sixteenth century really isn’t a good time to openly ask around for a witch, Matthew.” I’d been able to do little more than hint at the prospect of witch-hunts when we were with the School of Night, but Matthew knew the horrors to come. Once again he dismissed my concern.
“The Chelmsford witch trials are only memories now, and it will be another twenty years before the Lancashire hunts begin. I wouldn’t have brought you here if a witch-hunt were about to break out in England.” Matthew picked through a few letters that Pierre had left for him on the table.
“With reasoning like that, it’s a good thing you’re a scientist and not a historian,” I said bluntly. “Chelmsford and Lancashire were extreme outbursts of far more widespread concerns.”
“You think a historian can understand the tenor of the present moment better than the men living through it?” Matthew’s eyebrow cocked up in open skepticism.