A Discovery of Witches - Deborah Harkness [229]
Matthew reached for my wrist, his fingers cool against my pulse.
“This conversation is over for the present,” he said firmly. “There’s plenty of time to talk about whether the Knights of Lazarus exist or not.”
Matthew ushered out a reluctant Em and Sarah. Once my aunts were in the hall, the house took matters into its own hands and shut the door. The lock scraped in the frame.
“I don’t have a key for that room,” Sarah called to Matthew.
Unconcerned, Matthew climbed onto the bed, pulling me into the crook of his arm so that my head rested on his heart. Every time I tried to speak, he shushed me into silence.
“Later,” he kept repeating.
His heart pulsed once and then, several minutes later, pulsed again.
Before it could pulse a third time, I was sound asleep.
Chapter 33
A combination of exhaustion, medication, and the familiarity of home kept me in bed for hours. I woke on my stomach, one knee bent and arm outstretched, searching vainly for Matthew.
Too groggy to sit up, I turned my head toward the door. A large key sat in the lock, and there were low voices on the other side. As the muzziness of sleep slowly gave way to awareness, the mumbling became clearer.
“It’s appalling,” Matthew snapped. “How could you let her go on this way?”
“We didn’t know about the extent of her power—not absolutely,” Sarah said, sounding equally furious. “She was bound to be different, given her parents. I never expected witchfire, though.”
“How did you recognize she was trying to call it, Emily?” Matthew softened his voice.
“A witch on Cape Cod summoned it when I was a child. She must have been seventy,” Em said. “I never forgot what she looked like or what it felt like to be near that kind of power.”
“Witchfire is lethal. No spell can ward it off, and no witchcraft can heal the burns. My mother taught me to recognize the signs for my own protection—the smell of sulfur, the way a witch’s arms moved,” said Sarah. “She told me that the goddess is present when witchfire is called. I thought I’d go to my grave without witnessing it, and I certainly never expected my niece to unleash it on me in my own kitchen. Witchfire—and witchwater, too?”
“I hoped the witchfire would be recessive,” Matthew confessed. “Tell me about Stephen Proctor.” Until recently, the authoritative tone he adopted in moments like this had seemed a vestige of his past life as a soldier. Now that I knew about the Knights of Lazarus, I understood it as part of his present, too.
Sarah was not accustomed to having anyone use that tone with her, however, and she bristled. “Stephen was private. He didn’t flaunt his power.”
“No wonder the witches went digging to discover it, then.”
My eyes closed tightly against the sight of my father’s body, opened up from throat to groin so that other witches could understand his magic. His fate had nearly been mine.
Matthew’s bulk shifted in the hall, and the house protested at the unusual weight. “He was an experienced wizard, but he was no match for them. Diana might have inherited his abilities—and Rebecca’s, too, God help her. But she doesn’t have their knowledge, and without it she’s helpless. She might as well have a target painted on her.”
I continued eavesdropping shamelessly.
“She’s not a transistor radio, Matthew,” Sarah said defensively. “Diana didn’t come to us with batteries and an instruction manual. We did the best we could. She became a different child after Rebecca and Stephen were killed, withdrawing so far that no one could reach her. What should we have done? Forced her to face what she was so determined to deny?”
“I don’t know.” Matthew’s exasperation was audible. “But you shouldn’t have left her like this. That witch held her captive for more than twelve hours.”
“We’ll teach her what she needs to know.”
“For her sake, it had better not take too long.”
“It will take her whole life,” Sarah snapped. “Magic isn’t macramé. It takes time.”
“We don’t have time,” Matthew hissed. The creaking of the floorboards told me Sarah had taken an instinctive