A Discovery of Witches - Deborah Harkness [240]
“It’s from Mom.” I looked at Sarah, amazed. “What is it?”
She was equally startled. “I have no idea.”
Inside were a smaller envelope and something carefully wrapped in layers of tissue paper. The envelope was pale green, with a darker green border around the edges. My father had helped me pick it out for my mother’s birthday. It had a cluster of white and green lily of the valley raised up slightly on the corner of each page. My eyes filled with tears.
“Do you want to be alone?” Matthew asked quietly, already on his feet.
“Stay. Please.”
Shaking, I tore the envelope open and unfolded the papers inside. The date underneath the lily of the valley—August 13, 1983—caught my eye immediately.
My seventh birthday. It had fallen only days before my parents left for Nigeria.
I galloped through the first page of my mother’s letter. The sheet fell from my fingers, drifted onto the floor, and came to rest at my feet.
Em’s fear was palpable. “Diana? What is it?”
Without answering, I tucked the rest of the letter next to my thigh and picked up the brown envelope the house had been hiding for my mother. Pulling at the tissue paper, I wriggled a flat, rectangular object into the open. It was heavier than it should be, and it tingled with power.
I recognized that power and had felt it before.
Matthew heard my blood begin to sing. He came to stand behind me, his hands resting lightly on my shoulders.
I unfolded the wrappings. On top, blocking Mathew’s view and separated by still more tissue from what lay beneath, was a piece of ordinary white paper, the edges brown with age. There were three lines written on it in spidery script.
“‘It begins with absence and desire,’” I whispered around the tightness in my throat. “‘It begins with blood and fear.’”
“‘It begins with a discovery of witches,’” Matthew finished, looking over my shoulder.
After I’d delivered the note to Matthew’s waiting fingers, he held it to his nose for a moment before passing it silently to Sarah. I lifted the top sheet of tissue paper.
Sitting in my lap was one of the missing pages from Ashmole 782.
“Christ,” he breathed. “Is that what I think it is? How did your mother get it?”
“She explains in the letter,” I said numbly, staring down at the brightly colored image.
Matthew bent and picked up the dropped sheet of stationery. “‘My darling Diana,’” he read aloud. “‘Today you are seven—a magical age for a witch, when your powers should begin to stir and take shape. But your powers have been stirring since you were born. You have always been different.’”
My knees shifted under the image’s uncanny weight.
“‘That you are reading this means that your father and I succeeded. We were able to convince the Congregation that it was your father—and not you—whose power they sought. You mustn’t blame yourself. It was the only decision we could possibly make. We trust that you are old enough now to understand.’” Matthew gave my shoulder a gentle squeeze before continuing.
“‘You’re old enough now, too, to take up the hunt that we began when you were born—the hunt for information about you and your magic. We received the enclosed note and drawing when you were three. It came to us in an envelope with an Israeli stamp. The department secretary told us there was no return address or signature—just the note and the picture.
“‘We’ve spent much of the past four years trying to make sense of it. We couldn’t ask too many questions. But we think the picture shows a wedding. ’”
“It is a wedding—the chemical marriage of mercury and sulfur. It’s a crucial step in making the philosopher’s stone.” My voice sounded harsh after Matthew’s rich tones.
It was one of the most beautiful depictions of the chemical wedding I’d ever seen. A golden-haired woman in a pristine white gown held a white rose in one hand. It was an offering to her pale, dark-haired husband, a message that she was pure and worthy of him. He wore black-and-red robes and clasped her other