A Discovery of Witches

  “It’s time to close your eyes.” Amira picked up a tiny remote control, and the soft strains of a meditative chant came out of the walls and ceiling. It sounded medieval, and one of the vampires sighed happily.

  My eyes wandered, distracted by the ornate plasterwork of what must once have been the house’s great hall.

  “Close your eyes,” Amira suggested again gently. “It can be hard to let go of our worries, our preoccupations, our egos. That’s why we’re here tonight.”

  The words were familiar—I’d heard variations on this theme before, in other yoga classes—but they took on new meaning in this room.

  “We’re here tonight to learn to manage our energy. We spend our time striving and straining to be something that we’re not. Let those desires go. Honor who you are.”

  Amira took us through some gentle stretches and got us onto our knees to warm up our spines before we pushed back into downward dog. We held the posture for a few breaths before walking our hands to our feet and standing up.

  “Root your feet into the earth,” she instructed, “and take mountain pose.”

  I concentrated on my feet and felt an unexpected jolt from the floor. My eyes widened.

  We followed Amira as she began her vinyasas. We swung our arms up toward the ceiling before diving down to place our hands next to our feet. We rose halfway, spines parallel to the floor, before folding over and shooting our legs back into a pushup position. Dozens of daemons, vampires, and witches dipped and swooped their bodies into graceful, upward curves. We continued to fold and lift, sweeping our arms overhead once more before touching palms lightly together. Then Amira freed us to move at our own pace. She pushed a button on the stereo’s remote, and a slow, melodic cover of Elton John’s “Rocket Man” filled the room.

  The music was oddly appropriate, and I repeated the familiar movements in time to it, breathing into my tight muscles and letting the flow of the class push all thoughts from my head. After we’d started the series of poses for a third time, the energy in the room shifted.

  Three witches were floating about a foot off the wooden floorboards.

  “Stay grounded,” Amira said in a neutral voice.

  Two quietly returned to the floor. The third had to swan-dive to get back down, and even then his hands reached the floor before his feet.

  Both the daemons and the vampires were having trouble with the pacing. Some of the daemons were moving so slowly that I wondered if they were stuck. The vampires were having the opposite problem, their powerful muscles coiling and then springing with sudden intensity.

  “Gently,” Amira murmured. “There’s no need to push, no need to strain.”

  Gradually the room’s energy settled again. Amira moved us through a series of standing poses. Here the vampires were clearly at their best, able to sustain them for minutes without effort. Soon I was no longer concerned with who was in the room with me or whether I could keep up with the class. There was only the moment and the movement.

  By the time we took to the floor for back bends and inversions, everyone in the room was dripping wet—except for the vampires, who didn’t even look dewy. Some performed death-defying arm balances and handstands, but I wasn’t among them. Clairmont was, however. At one point he looked to be attached to the ground by nothing more than his ear, his entire body in perfect alignment above him.

  The hardest part of any practice for me was the final corpse pose—savasana. I found it nearly impossible to lie flat on my back without moving. The fact that everyone else seemed to find it relaxing only added to my anxiety. I lay as quietly as possible, eyes closed, trying not to twitch. A swoosh of feet moved between me and the vampire.

  “Diana,” Amira whispered, “this pose is not for you. Roll over onto your side.”

  My eyes popped open. I stared into the witch’s wide black eyes, mortified that she had somehow uncovered my secret.

  “Curl into a ball.” Mystified, I did what she said. My body instantly relaxed. She patted me lightly on the shoulder. “Keep your eyes open, too.”

  I had turned toward Clairmont. Amira lowered the lights, but the glow of his luminous skin allowed me to see his features clearly.

  In profile he looked like a medieval knight lying atop a tomb in Westminster Abbey: long legs, long torso, long arms, and a remarkably strong face. There was something ancient about his looks, even though he appeared to be only a few years older than I was. I mentally traced the line of his forehead with an imaginary finger, from where it started at his uneven hairline up slightly over his prominent brow bone with its thick, black brows. My imaginary finger crested the tip of his nose and the bowing of his lips.

  I counted as he breathed. At two hundred his chest lifted. He didn’t exhale for a long, long time afterward.

  Finally Amira told the class it was time to rejoin the world outside. Matthew turned toward me and opened his eyes. His face softened, and my own did the same. There was movement all around us, but the socially correct had no pull on me. I stayed where I was, staring into a vampire’s eyes. Matthew waited, utterly still, watching me watch him. When I sat up, the room spun at the sudden movement of blood through my body.

  At last the room stopped its dizzying revolutions. Amira closed the practice with chant and rang some tiny silver bells that were attached to her fingers. Class was over.

  There were gentle murmurs throughout the room as vampire greeted vampire and witch greeted witch. The daemons were more ebullient, arranging for midnight meetings at clubs around Oxford, asking where the best jazz could be found. They were following the energy, I realized with a smile, thinking back to Agatha’s description of what tugged at a daemon’s soul. Two investment bankers from London—both vampires—were talking about a spate of unsolved London murders. I thought of Westminster and felt a flicker of unease. Matthew scowled at them, and they began arranging lunch tomorrow instead.

  Everyone had to file by us as they left. The witches nodded at us curiously. Even the daemons made eye contact, grinning and exchanging meaningful glances. The vampires studiously avoided me, but every one of them said hello to Clairmont.

  Finally only Amira, Matthew, and I remained. She gathered up her mat and padded toward us. “Good practice, Diana,” she said.

  “Thank you, Amira. This was a class I’ll never forget.”

  “You’re welcome anytime. With or without Matthew,” she added, tapping him lightly on the shoulder. “You should have warned her.”

  “I was afraid Diana wouldn’t come. And I thought she’d like it, if she gave it a chance.” He looked at me shyly.

  “Turn out the lights, will you, when you leave?” Amira called over her shoulder, already halfway out of the room.

  My eyes traveled around the perfect jewel of a great hall. “This was certainly a surprise,” I said drily, not yet ready to let him off the hook.

  He came up behind me, swift and soundless. “A pleasant one, I hope. You did like the class?”

  I nodded slowly and turned to reply. He was disconcertingly close, and the difference in our heights meant that I had to lift my eyes so as not to be staring straight into his sternum. “I did.”

  Matthew’s face split into his heart-stopping smile. “I’m glad.” It was difficult to pull free from the undertow of his eyes. To break their spell, I bent down and began rolling up my mat. Matthew turned off the lights and grabbed his own gear. We slid our shoes on in the gallery, where the fire had burned down to embers.

  He picked up his keys. “Can I interest you in some tea before we head back to Oxford?”

  “Where?”

  “We’ll go to the gatehouse,” Matthew said matter-of-factly.

  “There’s a café there?”

  “No, but there’s a kitchen. A place to sit down, too. I can make tea,” he teased.

  “Matthew,” I said, shocked, “is this your house?”

  By that time we were standing in the doorway, looking out into the courtyard. I saw the keystone over the house�
��s gate: 1536.

  “I built it,” he said, watching me closely.

  Matthew Clairmont was at least five hundred years old.

  “The spoils of the Reformation,” he continued. “Henry gave me the land, on the condition that I tear down the abbey that was here and start over. I saved what I could, but it was difficult to get away with much. The king was in a foul mood that year. There’s an angel here and there, and some stonework I couldn’t bear to destroy. Other than that, it’s all new construction.”

  “I’ve never heard anyone describe a house built in the early sixteenth century as ‘new construction’ before.” I tried to see the house not only through Matthew’s eyes but as a part of him. This was the house he had wanted to live in nearly five hundred years ago. In seeing it I knew him better. It was quiet and still, just as he was. More than that, it was solid and true. There was nothing unnecessary—no extra ornamentation, no distractions.

  “It’s beautiful,” I said simply.

  “It’s too big to live in now,” he replied, “not to mention too fragile. Every time I open a window, something seems to fall off it, despite careful maintenance. I let Amira live in some of the rooms and open the house to her students a few times a week.”

  “You live in the gatehouse?” I asked as we walked across the open expanse of cobbles and brick to the car.

  “Part of the time. I live in Oxford during the week but come here on the weekends. It’s quieter.”

  I thought that it must be challenging for a vampire to live surrounded by noisy undergraduates whose conversations he couldn’t help overhearing.

  We got back into the car and drove the short distance to the gatehouse. As the manor’s onetime public face, it had slightly more frills and embellishments than the main house. I studied the twisted chimneys and the elaborate patterns in the brick.

  Matthew groaned. “I know. The chimneys were a mistake. The stonemason was dying to try his hand at them. His cousin worked for Wolsey at Hampton Court, and the man simply wouldn’t take no for an answer.”

  He flipped a light switch near the door, and the gatehouse’s main room was bathed in a golden glow. It had serviceable flagstone floors and a big stone fireplace suitable for roasting an ox.

  “Are you cold?” Matthew asked as he went to the part of the space that had been turned into a sleek, modern kitchen. It was dominated by a refrigerator rather than a stove. I tried not to think about what he might keep in it.

  “A little bit.” I drew my sweater closer. It was still relatively warm in Oxford, but my drying perspiration made the night air feel chilly.

  “Light the fire, then,” Matthew suggested. It was already laid, and I set it alight with a long match drawn from an antique pewter tankard.

  Matthew put the kettle on, and I walked around the room, taking in the elements of his taste. It ran heavily toward brown leather and dark polished wood, which stood out handsomely against the flagstones. An old carpet in warm shades of red, blue, and ocher provided jolts of color. Over the mantel there was an enormous portrait of a dark-haired, late-seventeenth-century beauty in a yellow gown. It had certainly been painted by Sir Peter Lely.

  Matthew noticed my interest. “My sister Louisa,” he said, coming around the counter with a fully outfitted tea tray. He looked up at the canvas, his face touched with sadness. “Dieu, she was beautiful.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “She went to Barbados, intent on making herself queen of the Indies. We tried to tell her that her taste for young gentlemen was not likely to go unnoticed on a small island, but she wouldn’t listen. Louisa loved plantation life. She invested in sugar—and slaves.” A shadow flitted across his face. “During one of the island’s rebellions, her fellow plantation owners, who had figured out what she was, decided to get rid of her. They sliced off Louisa’s head and cut her body into pieces. Then they burned her and blamed it on the slaves.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said, knowing that words were inadequate in the face of such a loss.

  He mustered a small smile. “The death was only as terrible as the woman who suffered it. I loved my sister, but she didn’t make that easy. She absorbed every vice of every age she lived through. If there was excess to be had, Louisa found it.” Matthew shook himself free from his sister’s cold, beautiful face with difficulty. “Will you pour?” he asked. He put the tray on a low, polished oak table in front of the fireplace between two overstuffed leather sofas.

  I agreed, happy to lighten the mood even though I had enough questions to fill more than one evening of conversation. Louisa’s huge black eyes watched me, and I made sure not to spill a drop of liquid on the shining wooden surface of the table just in case it had once been hers. Matthew had remembered the big jug of milk and the sugar, and I doctored my tea until it was precisely the right color before sinking back into the cushions with a sigh.

  Matthew held his mug politely without once lifting it to his lips.

  “You don’t have to for my sake, you know,” I said, glancing at the cup.

  “I know.” He shrugged. “It’s a habit, and comforting to go through the motions.”

  “When did you start practicing yoga?” I asked, changing the subject.

  “The same time that Louisa went to Barbados. I went to the other Indies—the East Indies—and found myself in Goa during the monsoons. There wasn’t a lot to do but drink too much and learn about India. The yogis were different then, more spiritual than most teachers today. I met Amira a few years ago when I was speaking at a conference in Mumbai. As soon as I heard her lead a class, it was clear to me that she had the gifts of the old yogis, and she didn’t share the concerns some witches have about fraternizing with vampires.” There was a touch of bitterness in his voice.

  “You invited her to come to England?”

  “I explained what might be possible here, and she agreed to give it a try. It’s been almost ten years now, and the class is full to capacity every week. Of course, Amira teaches private classes, too, mainly to humans.”

  “I’m not used to seeing witches, vampires, and daemons sharing anything—never mind a yoga class,” I confessed. The taboos against mixing with other creatures were strong. “If you’d told me it was possible, I wouldn’t have believed you.”

  “Amira is an optimist, and she loves a challenge. It wasn’t easy at first. The vampires refused to be in the same room with the daemons during the early days, and of course no one trusted the witches when they started showing up.” His voice betrayed his own ingrained prejudices. “Now most in the room accept we’re more similar than different and treat one another with courtesy.”

  “We may look similar,” I said, taking a gulp of tea and drawing my knees toward my chest, “but we certainly don’t feel similar.”

  “What do you mean?” Matthew said, looking at me attentively.

  “The way we know that someone is one of us—a creature,” I replied, confused. “The nudges, the tingles, the cold.”

  Matthew shook his head. “No, I don’t know. I’m not a witch.”

  “You can’t feel it when I look at you?” I asked.

  “No. Can you?” His eyes were guileless and caused the familiar reaction on my skin.

  I nodded.

  “Tell me what it feels like.” He leaned forward. Everything seemed perfectly ordinary, but I felt that a trap was being set.

  “It feels . . . cold,” I said slowly, unsure how much to divulge, “like ice growing under my skin.”

  “That sounds unpleasant.” His forehead creased slightly.

  “It’s not,” I replied truthfully. “Just a little strange. The daemons are the worst—when they stare at me, it’s like being kissed.” I made a face.

  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 w
ish 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.”