A Discovery of Witches - Deborah Harkness [118]
“I’m here, I’m here,” I began, talking over my aunt’s agitated voice.
“We thought you were dead,” Sarah said. The realization that she and I were the last remaining Bishops struck me forcefully. I could picture her sitting in the kitchen, phone to her ear and hair wild around her face. She was getting older, and despite her feistiness, the fact that I was far away and in danger had rocked her.
“I’m not dead. I’m in my rooms, and Matthew is with me.” I smiled at him weakly. He didn’t smile back.
“What’s going on?” Em asked from another extension. After my parents died, Em’s hair had turned silver in the space of a few months. At the time she was still a young woman—not yet thirty—but Em had always seemed more fragile after that, as if she might blow away in the next puff of wind. Like my aunt, she was clearly upset at what her sixth sense told her was happening in Oxford.
“I tried to recall the manuscript, that’s all,” I said lightly, making an effort not to worry them further. Matthew stared at me disapprovingly, and I turned away. It didn’t help. His glacial eyes bored into my shoulder instead. “But this time it didn’t come up from the stacks.”
“You think we’re calling because of that book?” demanded Sarah.
Long, cold fingers grasped the phone and drew it away from my ear.
“Ms. Bishop, this is Matthew Clairmont,” he said crisply. When I reached to take the receiver from him, Matthew gripped my wrist and shook his head, once, in warning. “Diana’s been threatened. By other witches. One of them is Peter Knox.”
I didn’t need to be a vampire to hear the outburst on the other end of the line. He dropped my wrist and handed me the phone.
“Peter Knox!” Sarah cried. Matthew’s eyes closed as if the sound hurt his eardrums. “How long has he been hanging around?”
“Since the beginning,” I said, my voice wavering. “He was the brown wizard who tried to push his way into my head.”
“You didn’t let him get very far, did you?” Sarah sounded frightened.
“I did what I could, Sarah. I don’t exactly know what I’m doing, magic-wise.”
Em intervened. “Honey, a lot of us have problems with Peter Knox. More important, your father didn’t trust him—not at all.”
“My father?” The floor shifted under my feet, and Matthew’s arm circled my waist, keeping me steady. I wiped at my eyes but couldn’t remove the sight of my father’s misshapen head and gashed torso.
“Diana, what else happened?” Sarah said softly. “Peter Knox should scare the socks off you, but there’s more to it than that.”
My free hand clutched at Matthew’s arm. “Somebody sent me a picture of Mom and Dad.”
The silence stretched on the other end of the line. “Oh, Diana,” Em murmured.
“That picture?” Sarah asked grimly.
“Yes,” I whispered.
Sarah swore. “Put him back on the phone.”
“He can hear you perfectly from where he’s standing,” I remarked. “Besides, anything you have to say to him you can say to me, too.”
Matthew’s hand moved from my waist to the small of my back. He began to rub it with the heel of his hand, pressing into the rigid muscles until they started to relax.
“Both of you listen to me, then. Get far, far away from Peter Knox. And that vampire had better see that you do, or I’m holding him responsible. Stephen Proctor was the most easygoing man alive. It took a lot to make him dislike someone—and he detested that wizard. Diana, you will come home immediately.”
“I will not, Sarah! I’m going to France with Matthew.” Sarah’s far less attractive option had just convinced me.
There was silence.
“France?” Em said faintly.
Matthew held out his hand.
“Matthew would like to speak to you.” I handed him the phone before Sarah could protest.
“Ms. Bishop? Do you have caller ID?”
I snorted. The brown phone hanging on the kitchen wall in Madison had a rotary dial and a cord a mile long so that Sarah could wander around while she talked. It took forever to simply dial a local number. Caller ID? Not likely.
“No? Take down these numbers, then.” Matthew slowly doled out the number to