A Discovery of Witches - Deborah Harkness [48]
Matthew laughed and put his tea down on the table. He rested his elbows on his knees and kept his body angled toward mine. “So you do use some of your witch’s power.”
The trap snapped shut.
I looked at the floor, furious, my cheeks flushing. “I wish I’d never opened Ashmole 782 or taken that damn journal off the shelf! That was only the fifth time I’ve used magic this year, and the washing machine shouldn’t count, because if I hadn’t used a spell the water would have caused a flood and wrecked the apartment downstairs.”
Both his hands came up in a gesture of surrender. “Diana, I don’t care if you use magic or not. But I’m surprised at how much you do.”
“I don’t use magic or power or witchcraft or whatever you want to call it. It’s not who I am.” Two red patches burned on my cheeks.
“It is who you are. It’s in your blood. It’s in your bones. You were born a witch, just as you were born to have blond hair and blue eyes.”
I’d never been able to explain to anyone my reasons for avoiding magic. Sarah and Em had never understood. Matthew wouldn’t either. My tea grew cold, and my body remained in a tight ball as I struggled to avoid his scrutiny.
“I don’t want it,” I finally said through gritted teeth, “and never asked for it.”
“What’s wrong with it? You were glad of Amira’s power of empathy tonight. That’s a large part of her magic. It’s no better or worse to have the talents of a witch than it is to have the talent to make music or to write poetry—it’s just different.”
“I don’t want to be different,” I said fiercely. “I want a simple, ordinary life . . . like humans enjoy.” One that doesn’t involve death and danger and the fear of being discovered, I thought, my mouth closed tight against the words. “You must wish you were normal.”
“I can tell you as a scientist, Diana, that there’s no such thing as ‘normal. ’” His voice was losing its careful softness. “‘Normal’ is a bedtime story—a fable—that humans tell themselves to feel better when faced with overwhelming evidence that most of what’s happening around them is not ‘normal’ at all.”
Nothing he said would shake my conviction that it was dangerous to be a creature in a world dominated by humans.
“Diana, look at me.”
Against my instincts I did.
“You’re trying to push your magic aside, just as you believe your scientists did hundreds of years ago. The problem is,” he continued quietly, “it didn’t work. Not even the humans among them could push the magic out of their world entirely. You said so yourself. It kept returning.”
“This is different,” I whispered. “This is my life. I can control my life.”
“It isn’t different.” His voice was calm and sure. “You can try to keep the magic away, but it won’t work, any more than it worked for Robert Hooke or Isaac Newton. They both knew there was no such thing as a world without magic. Hooke was brilliant, with his ability to think through scientific problems in three dimensions and construct instruments and experiments. But he never reached his full potential because he was so fearful of the mysteries of nature. Newton? He had the most fearless intellect I’ve ever known. Newton wasn’t afraid of what couldn’t be seen and easily explained—he embraced it all. As a historian you know that it was alchemy and his belief in invisible, powerful forces of growth and change that led him to the theory of gravity.”
“Then I’m Robert Hooke in this story,” I said. “I don’t need to be a legend like Newton.” Like my mother.
“Hooke’s fears made him bitter and envious,” Matthew warned. “He spent his life looking over his shoulder and designing other people’s experiments. It’s no way to live.”
“I’m not having magic involved in my work,” I said stubbornly.
“You’re no Hooke, Diana,” Matthew said roughly. “He was only a human, and he ruined his life trying to resist the lure of magic. You’re a witch. If you do the same, it will destroy you.”
Fear began to worm its way into my thoughts, pulling me away from Matthew Clairmont. He was alluring, and he made it seem as if you could be a creature without any worries or repercussions.