A Discovery of Witches - Deborah Harkness [282]
“Even if you know where we’re going, Matthew, I’m not sure I can pull this off.” My decision to stay clear of magic had caught up with me again.
“I think you can,” Sarah said bluntly, “you have been doing it your whole life. When you were a baby, as a child when you played hide-and-seek with Stephen, and as an adolescent, too. Remember all those mornings we dragged you out of the woods and had to clean you up in time for school? What do you imagine you were doing then?”
“Certainly not timewalking,” I said truthfully. “The science of this still worries me. Where does this body go when I’m somewhere else?”
“Who knows? But don’t worry. It’s happened to everybody. You drive to work and don’t remember how you got there. Or the whole afternoon passes and you don’t have a clue what you did. Whenever something like that happens, you can bet there’s a timewalker nearby,” explained Sarah. She was remarkably unfazed at the prospect.
Matthew sensed my apprehension and took my hand in his. “Einstein said that all physicists were aware that the distinctions between past, present, and future were only what he called ‘a stubbornly persistent illusion.’ Not only did he believe in marvels and wonders, he also believed in the elasticity of time.”
There was a tentative knock at the door.
“I didn’t hear a car,” Miriam said warily, rising to her feet.
“It’s just Sammy collecting the newspaper money.” Em slid from her chair.
We waited silently while she crossed the hall, the floorboards protesting under her feet. From the way their hands were pressed flat against the table’s wooden surface, Matthew and Marcus were both ready to fly to the door, too.
Cold air swept into the dining room.
“Yes?” Em asked in a puzzled voice. In an instant, Marcus and Matthew rose and joined her, accompanied by Tabitha, who was intent on supporting the leader of the pack in his important business.
“Not the paperboy,” Sarah said unnecessarily, looking at the empty chair next to me.
“Are you Diana Bishop?” asked a deep male voice with a familiar foreign accent of flat vowels accompanied by a slight drawl.
“No, I’m her aunt,” Em replied.
“Is there something we can do for you?” Matthew sounded cold, though polite.
“My name is Nathaniel Wilson, and this is my wife, Sophie. We were told we might find Diana Bishop here.”
“Who told you that?” Matthew asked softly.
“His mother—Agatha.” I stood, moving to the door.
His voice reminded me of the daemon from Blackwell’s, the fashion designer from Australia with the beautiful brown eyes.
Miriam tried to bar my way into the hall but stepped aside when she saw my expression. Marcus was not so easily dealt with. He grabbed my arm and held me in the shadows by the staircase.
Nathaniel’s eyes nudged gently against my face. He was in his early twenties and had familiar fair hair and chocolate-colored eyes, as well as his mother’s wide mouth and fine features. Where Agatha had been compact and trim, however, he was nearly as tall as Matthew, with the broad shoulders and narrow hips of a swimmer. An enormous backpack was slung over one shoulder.
“Are you Diana Bishop?” he asked.
A woman’s face peeped out from Nathaniel’s side. It was sweet and round, with intelligent brown eyes and a dimpled chin. She was in her early twenties as well, and the gentle, insidious pressure of her glance indicated she, too, was a daemon.
As she studied me, a long, brown braid tumbled over her shoulder. “That’s her,” the young woman said, her soft accent betraying that she was born in the South. “She looks just as she did in my dreams.”
“It’s all right, Matthew,” I said. These two daemons posed no more danger to me than did Marthe or Ysabeau.
“So you’re the vampire,” Nathaniel said, giving Matthew an appraising look. “My mother warned me about you.”
“You should listen to her,” Matthew suggested, his voice dangerously soft.
Nathaniel seemed unimpressed. “She told me you wouldn’t welcome the son of a Congregation member. But I’m not here on their behalf. I’m here because of Sophie.” He