A Discovery of Witches - Deborah Harkness [230]
“How dare you call what happened to my niece a game?” Sarah’s voice rose.
“Shh,” Em said. “You’ll wake her.”
“What might help us understand how Diana is spellbound, Emily?” Matthew was whispering now. “Can you remember anything about the days before Rebecca and Stephen left for Africa—small details, what they were worried about?”
Spellbound.
The word echoed in my mind as I slowly drew myself upright. Spellbinding was reserved for extreme circumstances—life-threatening danger, madness, pure and uncontrollable evil. Merely to threaten it earned you the censure of other witches.
Spellbound?
By the time I got to my feet, Matthew was at my side. He was frowning. “What do you need?”
“I want to talk to Em.” My fingers were snapping and turning blue. So were my toes, sticking out of the bandages that protected my ankle. The gauze on my foot snagged an old nail head poking up from the floor’s pine boards as I pushed past him.
Sarah and Em were waiting on the landing, trepidation on their faces.
“What’s wrong with me?” I demanded.
Emily crept into the crook of Sarah’s arm. “There’s nothing wrong with you.”
“You said I’m spellbound. That my own mother did it.” I was some kind of monster. It was the only possible explanation.
Emily heard my thoughts as if I’d spoken them aloud. “You’re not a monster, honey. Rebecca did it because she was afraid for you.”
“She was afraid of me, you mean.” My blue fingers provided an excellent reason for someone to be terrified. I tried to hide them but didn’t want to singe Matthew’s shirt, and resting them on the old wooden stair rail risked setting the whole house on fire.
Watch the rug, girl! The tall female ghost from the keeping room was peeking around Sarah and Em’s door and pointing urgently at the floor. I lifted my toes slightly.
“No one is afraid of you.” Matthew stared with frosty intensity at my back, willing me to face him.
“They are.” I pointed a sparkling finger at my aunts, eyes resolutely in their direction.
So am I, confessed another dead Bishop, this one a teenage boy with slightly protruding teeth. He was carrying a berry basket and wore a pair of ripped britches.
My aunts took a step backward as I continued to glare at them.
“You have every right to be frustrated.” Matthew moved so that he was standing just behind me. The wind rose, and touches of snow from his glance glazed my thighs, too. “Now the witchwind has come because you feel trapped.” He crept closer, and the air around my lower legs increased slightly. “See?”
Yes, that roiling feeling might be frustration rather than anger. Distracted from the issue of spellbinding, I turned to ask him more about his theories. The color in my fingers was already fading, and the snapping sound was gone.
“You have to try to understand,” Em pleaded. “Rebecca and Stephen went to Africa to protect you. They spellbound you for the same reason. All they wanted was for you to be safe.”
The house moaned through its timbers and held its breath, its old wooden joists creaking.
Coldness spread through me from the inside out.
“Is it my fault they died? They went to Africa and someone killed them—because of me?” I looked at Matthew in horror.
Without waiting for an answer, I made my way blindly to the stairs, unconcerned with the pain in my ankle or anything else except fleeing.
“No, Sarah. Let her go,” Matthew said sharply.
The house opened all the doors before me and slammed them behind as I went through the front hall, the dining room, the family room, and into the kitchen. A pair of Sarah’s gardening boots slipped over my bare feet, their rubber surfaces cold and smooth. Once outside, I did what I’d always done when the family was too much for me and went into the woods.
My feet didn’t slow until I had made it through the scraggy apple trees and into the shadows cast by the ancient white oaks and sugar maples. Out of breath and shaking with shock and exhaustion, I found myself at the