A Discovery Of Witches Part 72

Sophie smiled at Marcus. "Okay. I can do that."

"Do you always do everything he tells you to do?" Nathaniel asked Marcus with contempt, unfolding from the couch. He looked down at his wife. "Sophie, we're leaving."

"Stop fussing, Nathaniel," Sophie said. "You'll upset the house-the baby, too-if you start talking about leaving. We're not going anywhere."

Nathaniel gave Matthew an evil look and sat down.

In the stillroom Matthew had me take off my sweatshirt and turtleneck and then began swabbing my left arm with alcohol. The door creaked open.

It was Sarah. She'd stood by without comment during the exchange between Matthew and Nathaniel, though her eyes had seldom left the newly delivered box.

Matthew had already sliced open the protective tape wrapped around the molded-foam container. Seven small vials were nestled within, along with a bag of pills, something that looked like a container of salt, and a two-p.r.o.nged metal instrument I'd never seen before. He'd already entered the same state of clinical detachment I'd first detected in his lab in Oxford, with no time for chatter or a warm bedside manner. Sarah was welcome moral support.

"I've got some old white shirts for you to wear." Sarah momentarily distracted me from what Matthew was doing. "They'll be easy to bleach. Some white towels, too. Leave your laundry upstairs and I'll take care of it."

"Thank you, Sarah. That's one less risk of contagion to worry about." Matthew selected one of the vials. "We'll start with the teta.n.u.s booster."

Each time he stuck something in my arm, I winced. By the third shot, there was a thin sheen of sweat on my forehead and my heart was pounding. "Sarah," I said faintly. "Can you please not stand behind me?"

"Sorry." Sarah moved to stand behind Matthew instead. "I'll get you some water." She handed me a gla.s.s of ice-cold water, the outside slippery with condensation. I took it gratefully, trying to focus on holding it steady rather than on the next vial Matthew was opening.

Another needle entered my skin, and I jumped.

"That's the last shot," Matthew said. He opened the container that looked like it was filled with salt crystals and carefully added the contents to a bottle of liquid. After giving it a vigorous shake, he handed it to me. "This is the cholera vaccine. It's oral. Then there's the smallpox immunization, and some pills to take after dinner for the next few nights."

I drank it down quickly but still almost gagged at the thick texture and vile taste.

Matthew opened up the sealed pouch holding the two-p.r.o.nged smallpox inoculator. "Do you know what Thomas Jefferson wrote to Edward Jenner about this vaccine?" he asked, voice hypnotic. "Jefferson said it was medicine's most useful discovery." There was a cold touch of alcohol on my right arm, then p.r.i.c.ks as the inoculator's p.r.o.ngs pierced the skin. "The president dismissed Harvey's discovery of the circulation of blood as nothing more than a 'beautiful addition' to medical knowledge." Matthew moved in a circular pattern, distributing the live virus on my skin.

His diversionary tactics were working. I was too busy listening to his story to pay much attention to my arm.

"But Jefferson praised Jenner because his inoculation relegated smallpox to a disease that would be known only to historians. He'd saved the human race from one of its most deadly enemies." Matthew dumped the empty vial and the inoculator into a sealed biohazard container. "All done."

"Did you know Jefferson?" I was already fantasizing about timewalking to eighteenth-century Virginia.

"I knew Washington better. He was a soldier-a man who let his actions speak for him. Jefferson was full of words. But it wasn't easy to reach the man behind the intellect. I'd never drop by his house unannounced with a bluestocking like you in tow."

I reached for my turtleneck, but Matthew stilled my arm and carefully covered the inoculation site with a waterproof bandage. "This is a live virus, so you have to keep it covered. Sophie and Nathaniel can't come into contact with it, or with anything that touches it." He moved to the sink and vigorously washed his hands in steaming-hot water.

"For how long?"

"It will form a blister, and then the blister will scab over. No one should touch the site until the blister heals."

I pulled the old, stretched-out turtleneck over my head, taking care not to dislodge the bandage.

"Now that that's done, we need to figure out how Diana is going to carry you-and herself-to some distant time by Halloween. She may have been timewalking since she was an infant, but it's still not easy," Sarah worried, her face twisted in a frown.

Em appeared around the door. We made room for her at the table.

"I've been timewalking recently, too," I confessed.

"When?" Matthew paused for a moment in his work of clearing up what remained from the inoculations.

"First on the driveway when you were talking to Ysabeau. Then again the day Sarah was trying to make me light a candle, when I went from the stillroom to the orchard. Both times I picked up my foot, wished myself somewhere else, and put my foot down where I wanted to be."

"That sounds like timewalking," Sarah said slowly. "Of course, you didn't travel far-and you weren't carrying anything." She sized up Matthew, her expression turning doubtful.

There was a knock at the door. "Can I come in?" Sophie's call was m.u.f.fled.

"Can she, Matthew?" Em asked.

"As long as she doesn't touch Diana."

When Em opened the door, Sophie was moving soothing hands around her belly. "Everything's going to be all right," she said serenely from the threshold. "As long as Matthew has a connection to the place they're going, he'll help Diana, not weigh her down."

Miriam appeared behind Sophie. "Is something interesting happening?"

"We're talking about timewalking," I said.

"How will you practice?" Miriam stepped around Sophie and pushed her firmly back toward the door when she tried to follow.

"Diana will go back in time a few hours, then a few more. We'll increase the time involved, then the distance. Then we'll add Matthew and see what happens." Sarah looked at Em. "Can you help her?"

"A bit," Em replied cautiously. "Stephen told me how he did it. He never used spells to go back in time-his power was strong enough without them. Given Diana's early experiences with timewalking and her difficulties with witchcraft, we might want to follow his example."

"Why don't you and Diana go to the barn and try?" Sarah suggested gently. "She can come straight back to the stillroom."

When Matthew started after us, Sarah put a hand out and stopped him. "Stay here."

Matthew's face had gone gray again. He didn't like me in a different room, never mind a different time.

The hop barn still held the sweet aroma of long-ago harvests. Em stood opposite and quietly issued instructions. "Stand as still as possible," she said, "and empty your mind."

"You sound like my yoga teacher," I said, arranging my limbs in the familiar lines of mountain pose.

Em smiled. "I've always thought yoga and magic had a lot in common. Now, close your eyes. Think about the stillroom you just left. You have to want to be there more than here."

Re-creating the stillroom in my mind, I furnished it with objects, scents, people. I frowned. "Where will you be?"

"It depends on when you arrive. If it's before we left, I'll be there. If not, I'll be here."

"The physics of this don't make sense." My head filled with concerns about how the universe would handle multiple Dianas and Ems-not to mention Miriams and Sarahs.

"Stop thinking about physics. What did your dad write in his note? 'Whoever can no longer wonder, no longer marvel, is as good as dead.'"

"Close enough," I admitted reluctantly.

"It's time for you to take a big step into the mysterious, Diana. The magic and wonder that was always your birthright is waiting for you. Now, think about where you want to be."

When my mind was br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with images of it, I picked up my foot.

When I put it down again, there I was in the hop barn with Em.

"It didn't work," I said, panicking.

"You were too focused on the details of the room. Think about Matthew. Don't you want to be with him? Magic's in the heart, not the mind. It's not about words and following a procedure, like witchcraft. You have to feel feel it." it."

"Desire." I saw myself calling Notes and Queries Notes and Queries from the shelf at the Bodleian, felt once more the first touch of Matthew's lips on mine in his rooms at All Souls. The barn dropped away, and Matthew was telling me the story about Thomas Jefferson and Edward Jenner. from the shelf at the Bodleian, felt once more the first touch of Matthew's lips on mine in his rooms at All Souls. The barn dropped away, and Matthew was telling me the story about Thomas Jefferson and Edward Jenner.

"No," Em said, her voice steely. "Don't think about Jefferson. Think about Matthew."

"Matthew." I brought my mind back to the touch of his cool fingers against my skin, the rich sound of his voice, the sense of intense vitality when we were together.

I picked up my foot.

It landed in the corner of the stillroom, where I was squashed behind an old barrel.

"What if she gets lost?" Matthew sounded tense. "How will we get her back?"

"We don't have to worry about that," Sophie said, pointing in my direction. "She's already here."

Matthew whipped around and let out a ragged breath.

"How long have I been gone?" I felt light-headed and disoriented, but otherwise fine.

"About ninety seconds," Sarah said. "More than enough time for Matthew to have a nervous breakdown."

Matthew pulled me into his arms and tucked me under his chin. "Thank G.o.d. How soon can she take me with her?"

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," Sarah warned. "One step at a time."

I looked around. "Where's Em?"

"In the barn." Sophie was beaming. "She'll catch up."

It took more than twenty minutes for Em to return. When she did, her cheeks were pink from concern as well as the cold, though some of the tension left her when she saw me standing with Matthew.

"You did good, Em," Sarah said, kissing her in a rare public display of affection.

"Diana started thinking about Thomas Jefferson," Em said. "She might have ended up at Monticello. Then she focused on her feelings, and her body got blurry around the edges. I blinked, and she was gone."

That afternoon, with Em's careful coaching, I took a slightly longer trip back to breakfast. Over the next few days, I went a bit farther with each timewalk. Going back in time aided by three objects was always easier than returning to the present, which required enormous concentration as well as an ability to accurately forecast where and when you wanted to arrive. Finally it was time to try carrying Matthew.

Sarah had insisted on limiting the variables to accommodate the extra effort required. "Start out wherever you want to end up," she advised. "That way all you have to worry about is thinking yourself back to a particular time. The place will take care of itself."

I took him up to the bedroom at twilight without telling him what was in store. The figure of Diana and the golden earring from Bridget Bishop's poppet were sitting on the chest of drawers in front of a photograph of my parents.

"Much as I'd like to spend a few hours with you in here-alone-dinner is almost ready," he protested, though there was a calculating gleam in his eyes.

"There's plenty of time. Sarah said I'm ready to take you timewalking. We're going back to our first night in the house."

Matthew thought for a moment, and his eyes brightened further. "Was that the night the stars came out-inside?"

I kissed him in answer.

"Oh." He looked shyly pleased. "What should I do?"

"Nothing." This would be the hardest thing about timewalking for him. "What are you always telling me? Close your eyes, relax, and let me do the rest." I grinned wickedly.

He laced his fingers through mine. "Witch."

"You won't even know it's happening," I a.s.sured him. "It's fast. Just pick up your foot and put it down again when I tell you. And don't let go."

"Not a chance," Matthew said, tightening his grip.

I thought about that night, our first alone after my encounter with Satu. I remembered his touch against my back, fierce and gentle at the same time. I felt the connection, immediate and tenacious, to that shared moment in our past.

"Now," I whispered. Our feet rose together.

But timewalking with Matthew was different. Having him along slowed us down, and for the first time I was aware of what was happening.

The past, present, and future shimmered around us in a spiderweb of light and color. Each strand in the web moved slowly, almost imperceptibly, sometimes touching another filament before moving gently away again as if caught by a breeze. Each time strands touched-and millions of strands were touching all the time-there was the soft echo of an original, inaudible sound.

Momentarily distracted by the seemingly limitless possibilities before us, we found it easy to lose sight of the twisted red-and-white strand of time we were following. I brought my concentration back to it, knowing it would take us back to our first night in Madison.

I put my foot down and felt rough floorboards against my bare skin.

"You told me it would be fast," he said hoa.r.s.ely. "That didn't feel fast to me."

"No, it was different," I agreed. "Did you see the lights?"

Matthew shook his head. "There was nothing but blackness. I was falling, slowly, with only your hand keeping me from hitting bottom." He raised it to his mouth and kissed it.

There was a lingering smell of chili in the quiet house, and it was night outside. "Can you tell who's here?"

His nostrils flared, and he closed his eyes. Then he smiled and sighed with happiness. "Just Sarah and Em, and you and me. None of the children."

I giggled, drawing him closer.

"If this house gets any more crowded, it's going to burst." Matthew buried his face in my neck, then drew back. "You still have your bandage. It means that when we go back in time, we don't stop being who we are in the present or forget what happened to us here." His cold hands crept under the hem of my turtleneck. "Given your rediscovered talents as a timewalker, how accurate are you at gauging the pa.s.sing of time?"

Though we happily lingered in the past, we were back in the present before Emily finished making the salad.

"Timewalking agrees with you, Matthew," Sarah said, scrutinizing his relaxed face. She rewarded him with a gla.s.s of red wine.

"Thank you, Sarah. I was in good hands." He raised his gla.s.s to me in salute.

"Glad to hear it," Sarah said drily, sounding like my ghostly grandmother. She threw some sliced radishes into the biggest salad bowl I'd ever seen.