Shadow of Night: A Novel Read online

  The discovery has electrified the scientific and historical communities. For centuries, Italian mathematician Galileo Galilei had been credited with borrowing rudimentary telescope technology from the Dutch in order to view the moon in 1609.

  “The history books will have to be rewritten,” said Carter. “Thomas Harriot had read Giambattista della Porta’s Natural Magic and become intrigued with how convex and concave lenses could be used to ‘see both things afar off, and things near hand, both greater and clearly.’”

  Thomas Harriot’s contributions to the field of astronomy were overlooked in part because he did not publish them, preferring to share his discoveries with a close group of friends some call “The School of Night.” Under the patronage of Walter Raleigh and Henry Percy, the “Wizard Earl” of Northumberland, Harriot was financially free to explore his interests.

  Mr I. P. Riddell discovered the telescope, along with a box of assorted mathematical papers in Thomas Harriot’s hand and an elaborate silver mousetrap also signed by Vallin. He was repairing the bells of St. Michael’s Church, near the Percy family’s seat in Alnwick, when a particularly strong gust of wind brought down a faded tapestry of St. Margaret slaying the dragon, revealing the box that had been secreted there.

  “It is rare for instruments of this period to have so many identifying marks,” Dr Carter explained to reporters, revealing the date mark stamped into the telescope, which confirms the item was made in 1591–92. “We owe a great debt to Nicholas Vallin, who knew that this was an important development in the history of scientific instrumentation and took unusual measures to record its genealogy and provenance.”

  “They refuse to sell it,” Marcus said, leaning against the doorframe. With his arms and legs crossed, he looked very much like Matthew. “I’ve spoken with everyone from the Alnwick church officials to the Duke of Northumberland to the Bishop of Newcastle. They’re not going to give up the telescope, not even for the small fortune you’ve offered. I think I’ve convinced them to let me buy the mousetrap, though.”

  “The whole world knows about it,” Ysabeau said. “Even Le Monde has reported the story.”

  “We should have tried harder to squash the story. This could give the witches and their allies vital information,” Marcus said. The growing number of people living inside the walls of Sept-Tours had been worrying for weeks about what the Congregation might do if the exact whereabouts of Diana and Matthew were discovered.

  “What does Phoebe think?” Ysabeau asked. She had taken an instant liking to the observant young human with her firm chin and gentle ways.

  Marcus’s face softened. It made him look as he had before Matthew left, when he was carefree and joyful. “She thinks it’s too soon to tell what damage has been done by the telescope’s discovery.”

  “Smart girl,” Ysabeau said with a smile.

  “I don’t know what I’d do—” Marcus began. His expression turned fierce. “I love her, Grand-mère.”

  “Of course you do. And she loves you, too.” After the events of May, Marcus had wanted her with the rest of the family and had brought her to Sept-Tours to stay. The two of them were inseparable. And Phoebe had shown remarkable savoir faire as she met the assembly of daemons, witches, and vampires currently in residence. If she had been surprised to learn there were other creatures sharing the world with humans, she had not revealed it.

  Membership in Marcus’s Conventicle had swelled considerably over the past months. Matthew’s assistant, Miriam, was now a permanent resident at the château, as were Philippe’s daughter Verin and her husband Ernst. Gallowglass, Ysabeau’s restless grandson, had shocked them all by staying put there for six whole weeks. Even now he showed no signs of leaving. Sophie Norman and Nathaniel Wilson welcomed their new baby, Margaret, into the world under Ysabeau’s roof, and now the baby’s authority in the château was second only to the de Clermont matriarch’s. With her grandchild living at Sept-Tours, Nathaniel’s mother Agatha appeared and reappeared without warning, as did Matthew’s best friend, Hamish. Even Baldwin flitted through occasionally.

  Never in her long life had Ysabeau expected to be chatelaine of such a household.

  “Where is Sarah?” Marcus asked, tuning in to the hum of activity all around. “I don’t hear her.”

  “In the Round Tower.” Ysabeau ran her sharp nail around the edge of the newspaper story and neatly lifted the clipped columns from their printed surround. “Sophie and Margaret sat with her for a while. Sophie says Sarah is keeping watch.”

  “For what? What’s happened now?” Marcus said, snatching at the newspaper. He’d read them all that morning, tracking the subtle shifts in money and influence that Nathaniel had found a way to analyze and isolate so that they could be better prepared for the Congregation’s next move. A world without Phoebe was inconceivable, but Nathaniel had become nearly as indispensable. “That damn telescope is going to be a problem. I just know it. All the Congregation needs is a timewalking witch and this story and they’ll have everything they need to go back into the past and find my father.”

  “Your father won’t be there for much longer, if he’s still there at all.”

  “Really, Grand-mère,” Marcus said with a note of exasperation, his attention still glued to the text surrounding the hole that Ysabeau had left in the Times. “How can you possibly know that?”

  “First there were the miniatures, then the laboratory records, and now this telescope. I know my daughter-in-law. This telescope is exactly the kind of gesture Diana would make if she had nothing left to lose.” Ysabeau brushed past her grandson. “Diana and Matthew are coming home.”

  Marcus’s expression was unreadable.

  “I expected you to be happier about your father’s return,” Ysabeau said quietly, stopping by the door.

  “It’s been a difficult few months,” Marcus said somberly. “The Congregation made it clear they want the book and Nathaniel’s daughter. Once Diana is here . . .”

  “They will stop at nothing.” Ysabeau took in a slow breath. “At least we will no longer have to worry about something happening to Diana and Matthew in the past. We will be together, at Sept-Tours, fighting side by side.” Dying side by side.

  “So much has changed since last November.” Marcus stared into the shining surface of the table as though he were a witch and it might show him the future.

  “In their lives, too, I suspect. But your father’s love for you is a constant. Sarah needs Diana now. You need Matthew, too.”

  Ysabeau took her clipping and headed for the Round Tower, leaving Marcus to his thoughts. Once it had been Philippe’s favorite jail. Now it was used to store old family papers. Though the door to the room on the third floor was ajar, Ysabeau rapped on it smartly.

  “You don’t have to knock. This is your house.” The rasp in Sarah’s voice indicated how many cigarettes she’d been smoking and how much whiskey she’d been drinking.

  “If that’s how you behave, I am glad not to be your guest,” Ysabeau said sharply.

  “My guest?” Sarah laughed softly. “I would never have let you into my house.”

  “Vampires don’t usually require an invitation.” Ysabeau and Sarah had perfected the art of acerbic banter. Marcus and Em had tried without success to persuade them to obey the rules of courteous communication, but the two clan matriarchs knew that their sharp exchanges helped maintain their fragile balance of power. “You should not be up here, Sarah.”

  “Why not? Afraid I’ll catch my death of cold?” Sarah’s voice hitched with sudden pain, and she doubled over as if she’d been struck. “Goddess help me, I miss her. Tell me this is a dream, Ysabeau. Tell me that Emily is still alive.”

  “It’s not a dream,” Ysabeau said as gently as she could. “We all miss her. I know that you are empty and aching inside, Sarah.”

  “And it will pass,” Sarah said dully.

  “No. It won’t.”

  Sarah looked up, surprised at Ysabeau’s vehemence.

  �
�Every day of my life, I yearn for Philippe. The sun rises and my heart cries out for him. I listen for his voice, but there is silence. I crave his touch. When the sun sets, I retire in the knowledge that my mate is gone from this world and I will never see his face again.”

  “If you’re trying to make me feel better, it’s not working,” Sarah said, the tears streaming.

  “Emily died so that Sophie and Nathaniel’s child might live. Those who played a part in killing her will pay for it, I promise you. The de Clermonts are very good at revenge, Sarah.”

  “And revenge will make me feel better?” Sarah squinted up through her tears.

  “No. Seeing Margaret grow to womanhood will help. So will this.” Ysabeau dropped the cutting into the witch’s lap. “Diana and Matthew are coming home.”

  PART VI

  New World, Old World

  41

  My attempts to reach the Old Lodge’s future from its past were unsuccessful. I focused on the look and smell of the place and saw the threads that bound Matthew and me to the house—brown and green and gold. But they slipped out of my fingers repeatedly.

  I tried for Sept-Tours instead. The threads that linked us there were tinged with Matthew’s idiosyncratic blend of red and black shot through with silver. I imagined the house full of familiar faces—Sarah and Em, Ysabeau and Marthe, Marcus and Miriam, Sophie and Nathaniel. But I couldn’t reach that safe port either.

  Resolutely ignoring the rising panic, I searched among hundreds of options for an alternative destination. Oxford? The Blackfriars underground station in modern London? St. Paul’s Cathedral?

  My fingers kept returning to the same strand in the warp and weft of time that was not silky and smooth but hard and rough. I inched along its twisting length and discovered that it was not a thread but a root connected to some unseen tree. With that realization I tripped, as over an invisible threshold, and fell into the keeping room of the Bishop House.

  Home. I landed on my hands and knees, the knotted cords flattened between my palms and the floor. Centuries of polish and the passage of hundreds of ancestral feet had long since smoothed out its wide pine boards. They felt familiar under my hands, a token of permanence in a world of change. I looked up, half expecting to see my aunts waiting in the front hall. It had been so easy to find my way back to Madison that I assumed they were guiding us. But the air in the Bishop House was still and lifeless, as though not a soul had disturbed it since Halloween. Not even the ghosts seemed to be in residence.

  Matthew was kneeling next to me, his arm still linked to mine and his muscles trembling from the stress of moving through time.

  “Are we alone?” I asked.

  He took in the house’s scents. “Yes.”

  With his quiet response, the house wakened and the atmosphere went from flat and lifeless to thick and uneasy in a blink. Matthew looked at me and smiled. “Your hair. It’s changed again.”

  I glanced down to find not the strawberry blond curls I’d grown accustomed to but straight, silky strands that were a brighter reddish gold—just like my mother’s hair.

  “It must be the timewalking.”

  The house creaked and moaned. I felt it gathering its energy for an outburst.

  “It’s only me and Matthew.”

  My words were soothing, but my voice was oddly accented and harsh. The house recognized it nonetheless, and a sigh of relief filled the room. A breeze came down the chimney, carrying an unfamiliar aroma of chamomile mixed with cinnamon. I looked over my shoulder to the fireplace and the cracked wooden panels that surrounded it and scrambled to my feet.

  “What the hell is that?”

  A tree had erupted from under the grate. Its black trunk filled the chimney, and its limbs had pushed through the stone and the surrounding wood paneling.

  “It’s like the tree from Mary’s alembic.” Matthew crouched down by the hearth in his black velvet breeches and embroidered linen shirt. His finger touched a small lump of silver embedded in the bark. Like mine, his voice sounded out of time and place.

  “That looks like your pilgrim’s badge.” The outline of Lazarus’s coffin was barely recognizable. I joined him, my full black skirts belling out over the floor.

  “I think it is. The ampulla had two gilded hollows inside to hold holy water. Before I left Oxford, I’d filled one with my blood and the other with yours.” Matthew’s eyes met mine. “Having our blood so close made me feel as though we could never be separated.”

  “It looks as though the ampulla was exposed to heat and partially melted. If the inside of the ampulla was gilded, traces of mercury would have been released along with the blood.”

  “So this tree was made with some of the same ingredients as Mary’s arbor Dianæ.” Matthew looked up into the bare branches.

  The scent of chamomile and cinnamon intensified. The tree began to bloom—but not the usual fruit or flowers. Instead a key and a single sheet of vellum sprouted from the branches.

  “It’s the page from the manuscript,” said Matthew, pulling it free.

  “That means the book is still broken and incomplete in the twenty-first century. Nothing we did in the past altered that fact.” I took a steadying breath.

  “Then the likelihood is that Ashmole 782 is safely hidden in the Bodleian Library,” Matthew said quietly. “This is the key to a car.” He snagged it off the branches. For months I hadn’t thought about any form of transportation besides a horse or a ship. I looked out the front window, but no vehicle awaited us there. Matthew’s eyes followed mine.

  “Marcus and Hamish would have made sure we had a way to get to Sept-Tours as planned without calling them for help. They probably have cars waiting all over Europe and America just in case. But they wouldn’t have left one visible,” Matthew continued.

  “There’s no garage.”

  “The hop barn.” Matthew’s hand automatically moved to slide the key into the pocket at his hip, but his clothing had no such modern conveniences.

  “Would they have thought to leave clothes for us, too?” I gestured down at my embroidered jacket and full skirts. They were still dusty from the unpaved, sixteenth-century Oxford road.

  “Let’s find out.” Matthew carried the key and the page from Ashmole 782 into the family room and kitchen.

  “Still brown,” I commented, looking at the checked wallpaper and ancient refrigerator.

  “Still home,” Matthew said, drawing me into the crook of his arm.

  “Not without Em and Sarah.” In contrast with the overstuffed household that had surrounded us for so many months, our modern family seemed fragile and its membership small. Here there was no Mary Sidney to discuss my troubles with in the course of a stormy evening. Neither Susanna nor Goody Alsop would drop by the house in the afternoon for a cup of wine and to help me perfect my latest spell. I wouldn’t have Annie’s cheerful assistance to get me out of my corset and skirts. Mop wasn’t underfoot, or Jack. And if we needed help, there was no Henry Percy to rush to our aid without question or hesitation. I slid my hand around Matthew’s waist, needing a reminder of his solid indestructibility.

  “You will always miss them,” he said softly, gauging my mood, “but the pain will fade in time.”

  “I’m beginning to feel more like a vampire than a witch,” I said ruefully. “Too many good-byes, too many missing loved ones.” I spotted the calendar on the wall. It showed the month of November. I pointed it out to Matthew.

  “Is it possible that no one has been here since last year?” he wondered, worried.

  “Something must be wrong,” I said, reaching for the phone.

  “No,” said Matthew. “The Congregation could be tracing the calls or watching the house. We’re expected at Sept-Tours. Whether our time away can be measured in an hour or a year, that’s where we need to go.”

  We found our modern clothes on top of the dryer, slipped into a pillowcase to keep them from getting dusty. Matthew’s briefcase sat neatly beside them. Em at least had been her
e since we left. No one else would have thought of such practicalities. I wrapped our Elizabethan clothes in the linens, reluctant to let go of these tangible remnants of our former lives, and tucked them under my arms like two lumpy footballs. Matthew slid the page from Ashmole 782 into his leather bag, closing it securely.

  Matthew scanned the orchard and the fields before we left the house, his keen eyes alert to possible danger. I made my own sweep of the place with my witch’s third eye, but no one seemed to be out there. I could see the water under the orchard, hear the owls in the trees, taste the summer sweetness in the dusk air, but that was all.

  “Come on,” Matthew said, grabbing one of the bundles and taking my hand. We ran across the open space to the hop barn. Matthew put all his weight against the sliding door and pushed, but it wouldn’t budge.

  “Sarah put a spell on it.” I could see it, twisted around the handle and through the grain of the wood. “A good one, too.”

  “Too good to break?” Matthew’s mouth was tight with worry. It wasn’t surprising that he was concerned. Last time we were here, I hadn’t been able to light the Halloween pumpkins. I located the loose ends of the bindings and grinned.

  “No knots. Sarah’s good, but she’s not a weaver.” I’d tucked my Elizabethan silks into the waistband of my leggings. When I pulled them free, the green and brown cords in my hand reached out and latched onto Sarah’s spell, loosening the restrictions my aunt had placed on the door faster than even our master thief Jack could have managed it.

  Sarah’s Honda was parked inside the barn.

  “How the hell are we going to fit you into that?” I wondered.

  “I’ll manage,” Matthew said, tossing our clothes into the back. He handed me the briefcase, folded himself into the front seat, and after a few false starts the car sputtered to life.