A Discovery of Witches - Deborah Harkness [286]
“That’s next week.” Miriam shifted in her seat so that she could meet Sarah’s eyes. “Would timewalking be easier around the feasts of All Saints and All Souls?”
“Miriam,” Matthew snarled, but it was too late.
“What’s timewalking?” Nathaniel whispered to Sophie.
“Mama was a timewalker,” Sophie whispered back. “She was good at it, too, and always came back from the 1700s with lots of ideas for pots and jugs.”
“Your mother visited the past?” Nathaniel asked faintly. He looked around the room at the motley assortment of creatures, then at his wife’s belly. “Does that run in witches’ families, too, like second sight?”
Sarah answered Miriam over the daemons’ whispered conversation. “There’s not much keeping the living from the dead between Halloween and All Souls. It would be easier to slip between the past and the present then.”
Nathaniel looked more anxious. “The living and the dead? Sophie and I just came to deliver that statue or whatever it is so she can sleep through the night.”
“Will Diana be strong enough?” Marcus asked Matthew, ignoring Nathaniel.
“This time of year, it should be much easier for Diana to timewalk,” Sarah mused aloud.
Sophie looked contentedly around the table. “This reminds me of the old days when granny and her sisters got together and gossiped. They never seemed to pay attention to one another, but they always knew what had been said.”
The room’s many competing conversations stopped abruptly when the dining-room doors banged open and shut, followed by a booming sound produced by the heavier keeping-room doors. Nathaniel, Miriam, and Marcus shot to their feet.
“What the hell was that?” Marcus asked.
“The house,” I said wearily. “I’ll go see what it wants.”
Matthew scooped up the figurine and followed me.
The old woman with the embroidered bodice was waiting at the keeping room’s threshold.
“Hello, ma’am.” Sophie had followed right behind and was nodding politely to the old woman. She scrutinized my features. “The lady looks a bit like you, doesn’t she?”
So you’ve chosen your road, the old woman said. Her voice was fainter than before.
“We have,” I said. Footsteps sounded behind me as the remaining occupants of the dining room came to see what the commotion was about.
You’ll be needing something else for your journey, she replied.
The coffin doors swung open, and the press of creatures at my back was matched by the crowd of ghosts waiting by the fireplace.
This should be interesting, my grandmother said drily from her place at the head of the ghostly bunch.
There was a rumbling in the walls like bones rattling. I sat in my grandmother’s rocker, my knees no longer able to hold my weight.
A crack developed in the paneling between the window and the fireplace. It stretched and widened in a diagonal slash. The old wood shuddered and squeaked. Something soft with legs and arms flew out of the gap. I flinched when it landed in my lap.
“Holy shit,” Sarah said.
That paneling will never look the same, my grandmother commented, shaking her head regretfully at the cracked wood.
Whatever flew at me was made of rough-spun fabric that had faded to an indiscriminate grayish brown. In addition to its four limbs, it had a lump where the head belonged, adorned with faded tufts of hair. Someone had stitched an X where the heart should be.
“What is it?” I reached my index finger toward the uneven, rusty stitches.
“Don’t touch it!” Em cried.
“I’m already touching it,” I said, looking up in confusion. “It’s sitting on my lap.”
“I’ve never seen such an old poppet,” said Sophie, peering down at it.
“Poppet?” Miriam frowned. “Didn’t one of your ancestors get in trouble over a poppet?”
“Bridget Bishop.” Sarah, Em, and I said the name at the same moment.
The old woman with the embroidered bodice was now standing next to my grandmother.
“Is this yours?” I whispered.
A smile turned up one corner of Bridget’s mouth. Remember to be canny when you find yourself at a crossroads, daughter. There’s no telling