31 October 1590 rain, clearing
On this day I was introduced to my husband’s good friend CM
1 November 1590 cold and dry
In the early hours of the morning I made the acquaintance of GC. After sunrise, T H,
HP, WR arrived, all friends of my husband. The moon was full. Some future scholar might suspect that these initials referred to the School of Night, especially given the name Roydon on the first page, but there would be no way to prove it. Besides, these days few scholars were interested in this group of intellectuals. Educated in the finest Renaissance style, the members of the School of Night were able to move between ancient and modern languages with alarming speed. All of them knew Aristotle backward and forward. And when Kit, Walter, and Matthew began talking politics, their encyclopedic command of history and geography made it nearly impossible for anyone else to keep up. Occasionally George and Tom managed to squeak in an opinion, but Henry’s stammer and slight deafness made his full participation in the intricate discussions impossible. He spent most of the time quietly observing the others with a shy deference that was endearing, considering that the earl outranked everyone in the room. If there weren’t so many of them, I might be able to keep up, too.
As for Matthew, gone was the thoughtful scientist brooding over his test results and worrying about the future of the species. I’d fallen in love with that Matthew but found myself doing so all over again with this sixteenth-century version, charmed by every peal of his laughter and each quick rejoinder he made when battles broke out over some fine point of philosophy. Matthew shared jokes over dinner and hummed songs in the corridors. He wrestled with his dogs by the fire in the bedroom—two enormous, shaggy mastiffs named Anaximander and Pericles. In modern Oxford or France, Matthew had always seemed slightly sad. But he was happy here in Woodstock, even when I caught him looking at his friends as though he couldn’t quite believe they were real.
“Did you realize how much you missed them?” I asked, unable to refrain from interrupting his work.
“Vampires can’t brood over those we leave behind,” he replied. “We’d go mad. I have had more to remember them by than is usually the case: their words, their portraits. You forget the little things, though—a quirk of expression, the sound of their laughter.”
“My father kept caramels in his pocket,” I whispered. “I had no memory of them, until La Pierre.” When I shut my eyes, I could still smell the tiny candies and hear the rustle of the cellophane against the soft broadcloth of his shirts.
“And you wouldn’t give up that knowledge now,” Matthew said gently, “not even to be rid of the pain.”
He took up another letter, his pen scratching against the page. The tight look of concentration returned to his face, along with a small crease over the bridge of his nose. I imitated the angle at which he held the quill, the length of time that elapsed before he dipped it in the ink. It was indeed easier to write when you didn’t hold the pen in a death grip. I poised the pen over the paper and prepared to write more.
Today was the feast of All Souls, the traditional day to remember the dead. Everyone in the house was remarking upon the thick frost that iced the leaves in the garden. Tomorrow would be even colder, Pierre promised.
2 November 1590 frost Measured for shoes and gloves. Fran?oise sewing.
Fran?oise was making me a cloak to keep the chill away, and a warm suit of clothes for the wintry weather ahead. She had been in the attics all morning, sorting through Louisa de Clermont’s abandoned wardrobe. Matthew’s sister’s gowns were sixty years out of date, with their square necklines and bell-shaped sleeves, but Fran?oise was altering them to better fit what Walter and George insisted was the current style as well as my less statuesque frame. She wasn’t pleased to be ripping apart the seams of one particularly splendid black-and-silver garment, but Matthew had insisted. With the School of Night in residence, I needed formal clothes as well as more practical outfits.
“But Lady Louisa was wed in that gown, my lord,” Fran?oise protested. “Yes, to an eighty-five-year-old with no living offspring, a bad heart, and numerous profitable estates. I believe the thing has more than repaid the family’s investment in it,” Matthew replied. “It will do for Diana until you can make her something better.”
My book couldn’t refer to that conversation, of course. Instead I’d chosen all my words carefully so that they would mean nothing to anyone else even though they conjured vivid images of particular people, sounds, and conversations for me. If this book survived, a future reader would find these tiny snippets of my life sterile and dry. Historians pored over documents like this, hoping in vain to see the rich, complex life hidden behind the simple lines of text.
Matthew swore under his breath. I was not the only one in this house hiding something. My husband received many letters today and gave me this booke to keep my memories.
As I lifted my pen to replenish its ink, Henry and Tom entered the room looking for Matthew. My third eye blinked open, surprising me with sudden awareness. Since we had arrived, my other nascent powers—witchfire, witchwater, and witchwind—had been oddly absent. With the unexpected extra perception offered by my witch’s third eye, I could discern not only the black-red intensity of the atmosphere around Matthew but also Tom’s silvery light and Henry’s barely perceptible green-black shimmer, each as individual as a fingerprint.
Thinking back on the threads of blue and amber that I’d seen in the corner of the Old Lodge, I wondered what the disappearance of some powers and the emergence of others might signify. There had been the episode this morning, too. . . .
Something in the corner had caught my eye, another glimmer of amber shot through with hints of blue. There was an echo, something so quiet it was more felt than heard. When I’d turned my head to locate its source, the sensation faded. Strands of color and light pulsed in my peripheral vision, as if time were beckoning me to return home.
Ever since my first timewalk in Madison, when I’d traveled a brief span of minutes, I’d thought of time as a substance made of threads of light and color. With enough concentration you could focus on a single thread and follow it to its source. Now, after walking through several centuries, I knew that apparent simplicity masked the knots of possibility that tied an unimaginable number of pasts to a million presents and untold potential futures. Isaac Newton had believed that time was an essential force of nature that couldn’t be controlled. After fighting our way back to 1590, I was prepared to agree with him.
“Diana? Are you all right?” Matthew’s insistent voice broke through my reveries. His friends looked at me with concern.
“Fine,” I said automatically.
“You’re not fine.” He tossed the quill onto the table. “Your scent has changed. I think your magic might be changing, too. Kit is right. We must find you a witch as quickly as possible.”
“It’s too soon to bring in a witch,” I protested. “It’s important that I be able to look and sound as if I belong.”
“Another witch will know you’re a timewalker,” he said dismissively. “She’ll make allowances. Or is there something else?”
I shook my head, unwilling to meet his eyes.
Matthew hadn’t needed to see time unwinding in the corner to sense that something was out of joint. If he already suspected that there was more going on with my magic than I was willing to reveal, there would be no way for me to conceal my secrets from any witch who might soon come to call.