A Discovery of Witches - Deborah Harkness [239]
Sarah tore the paper from his hands. “Stop grinning like the Cheshire cat. What did you think?”
At the mention of another member of her species, Tabitha strutted into the house through the cat door. With a look of complete devotion, she dropped a tiny, dead field mouse at Matthew’s feet.
“Merci, ma petite,” Matthew said gravely. “Unfortunately, I am not hungry at present.”
Tabitha yowled in frustration and hauled her offering off to the corner, where she punished it by batting it between her paws for failing to please Matthew.
Undeterred, Sarah repeated her question. “What do you think?”
“The spells that Rebecca and Stephen cast ensure that nobody can force the magic from Diana. Her magic is bound up in necessity. Very clever.” He smoothed out his rumpled paper and resumed reading.
“Clever and impossible,” Sarah grumbled.
“Not impossible,” he replied. “We just have to think like her parents. Rebecca had seen what would happen at La Pierre—not every detail, but she knew that her daughter would be held captive by a witch. Rebecca also knew that she would get away. That’s why the spellbinding held fast. Diana didn’t need her magic.”
“How are we supposed to teach Diana how to control her power if she can’t command it?” demanded my aunt.
The house gave us no chance to consider the options. There was a sound like cannon fire, followed by tap dancing.
“Oh, hell.” Sarah groaned. “What does it want now?”
Matthew put down his paper. “Is something wrong?”
“The house wants us. It slams the coffin doors on the keeping room and then moves the furniture around to get our attention.” I licked the butter off my fingers and padded through the family room. The lights flickered in the front hall.
“All right, all right,” Sarah said testily. “We’re coming.”
We followed my aunts into the keeping room. The house sent a wing chair careening across the floor in my direction.
“It wants Diana,” Emily said unnecessarily.
The house might have wanted me, but it didn’t anticipate the interference of a protective vampire with quick reflexes. Matthew shot his foot out and stopped the chair before it hit me in the back of the knees. There was a crack of old wood on strong bones.
“Don’t worry, Matthew. The house only wants me to sit down.” I did so, waiting for its next move.
“The house needs to learn some manners,” he retorted.
“Where did Mom’s rocker come from? We got rid of it years ago,” Sarah said, pursing her lips at the old chair near the front window.
“The rocking chair is back, and so is Grandma,” I said. “She said hello when we arrived.”
“Was Elizabeth with her?” Em sat on the uncomfortable Victorian sofa. “Tall? Serious expression?”
“Yes. I didn’t get a good look, though. She was mostly behind the door.”
“The ghosts don’t hang around much these days,” Sarah said. “We think she’s some distant Bishop cousin who died in the 1870s.”
A ball of green wool and two knitting needles rocketed down the chimney and rolled across the hearth.
“Does the house think I should take up knitting?” I asked.
“That’s mine—I started making a sweater a few years ago, and then one day it disappeared. The house takes all sorts of things and keeps them,” Em explained to Matthew as she retrieved her project. She gestured at the sofa’s hideous floral upholstery. “Come sit with me. Sometimes it takes the house awhile to get to the point. And we’re missing some photographs, a telephone book, the turkey platter, and my favorite winter coat.”
Matthew, not surprisingly, found it difficult to relax, given that a porcelain serving dish might decapitate him, but he did his best. Sarah sat in a Windsor chair nearby, looking annoyed.
“Come on, out with it,” she snapped several minutes later. “I’ve got things to do.”
A thick brown envelope wormed its way through a crack in the green-painted paneling next to the fireplace. Once it had worked itself free, it shot across the keeping room and landed, faceup, in my lap.
“Diana” was scrawled on the