Invisible hands seemed to hold my foot up, refusing to let me lower it into Sept-Tours. The farther back in time we went, the thicker the strands were around my feet. And time clung to Matthew in st.u.r.dy, twining vines.
At last we made it to Matthew"s study. The room was just as we"d left it, with the fire lit and an unlabeled bottle of wine waiting on the table.
I dropped the books and the pen on the sofa, shaking with fatigue.
"What"s wrong?" Matthew asked.
"It was as if too many pasts were coming together, and it was impossible to wade through them. I was afraid you might let go."
"Nothing felt different to me," Matthew said. "It took a bit longer than before, but I expected that, given the time and distance."
He poured us both some wine, and we discussed the pros and cons of going downstairs. Finally, our desire to see Ysabeau and Marthe won out. Matthew remembered I"d been wearing my blue sweater. Its high neckline would hide my bandage, so I went upstairs to change.
When I came back down, his face broke into a slow, appreciative smile. "Just as beautiful now as then," he said, kissing me deeply. "Maybe more so."
"Be careful," I warned him with a laugh. "You hadn"t decided you loved me yet."
"Oh, I"d decided," he said, kissing me again. "I just hadn"t told you."
The women were sitting right where we expected them to be, Marthe with her murder mystery and Ysabeau with her newspapers. The conversation might not have been exactly the same, but it didn"t seem to matter. The most difficult part of the evening was watching Matthew dance with his mother. The bittersweet expression on his face as he twirled her was new, and he definitely hadn"t caught her up in a fierce bear hug when their dance was over. When he invited me to dance, I gave his hand an extra squeeze of sympathy.
"Thank you for this," he whispered in my ear as he whirled me around. He planted a soft kiss on my neck. That definitely hadn"t happened the first time.
Matthew brought the evening to a close just as he had before, by announcing that he was taking me to bed. This time we said good night knowing that it was good-bye. Our return trip was much the same, but less frightening for its familiarity. I didn"t panic or lose my concentration when time resisted our pa.s.sage, focusing intently on the familiar rituals of making dinner in the Bishop house. We were back in plenty of time to make the salad.
During dinner Sarah and Em regaled the vampires with tales of my adventures growing up. When my aunts ran out of stories, Matthew teased Marcus about his disastrous real-estate deals in the nineteenth century, the enormous investments he"d made in new technologies in the twentieth century that had never panned out, and his perpetual weakness for redheaded women.
"I knew I liked you." Sarah smoothed down her own unruly red mop and poured him more whiskey.
Halloween dawned clear and bright. Snow was always a possibility in this neck of the woods, but this year the weather looked encouraging. Matthew and Marcus took a longer walk than usual, and I lingered over tea and coffee with Sarah and Em.
When the phone rang, we all jumped. Sarah answered it, and we could tell from her half of the conversation that the call was unexpected.
She hung up and joined us at the table in the family room, which was once again big enough to seat all of us. "That was Faye. She and Janet are at the Hunters". In their RV. They want to know if we"ll join them on their fall trip. They"re driving to Arizona, then up to Seattle."
"The G.o.ddess has been busy," Em said with a smile. The two of them had been trying for days to decide how they would extricate themselves from Madison without setting off a flurry of gossip. "I guess that settles it. We"ll hit the road, then go meet Ysabeau."
We carried bags of food and other supplies to Sarah"s beat-up old car. When it was fully loaded and you could barely see out the rearview mirror, they started issuing orders.
"The candy"s on the counter," Em instructed. "And my costume is hanging on the back of the stillroom door. It will fit you fine. Don"t forget the stockings. The kids love the stockings."
"I won"t forget them," I a.s.sured her, "or the hat, though it"s perfectly ridiculous."
"Of course you"ll wear the hat!" Sarah said indignantly. "It"s tradition. Make sure the fire is out before you leave. Tabitha is fed at four o"clock sharp. If she isn"t, she"ll start barfing."
"We"ve got this covered. You left a list," I said, patting her on the shoulder.
"Can you call us at the Hunters", let us know Miriam and Marcus have left?" Em asked.
"Here. Take this," Matthew said, handing them his phone with a lopsided smile. "You call Marcus yourself. There won"t be reception where we"re going."
"Are you sure?" Em asked doubtfully. We all thought of Matthew"s phone as an extra limb, and it was strange to see it out of his hand.
"Absolutely. Most of the data has been erased, but I"ve left some contact numbers on it for you. If you need anything-anything at all-call someone. If you feel worried or if something strange happens, get in touch with Ysabeau or Hamish. They"ll arrange for you to be picked up, no matter where you are."
"They have helicopters," I murmured to Em, slipping my arm through hers.
Marcus"s phone rang. "Nathaniel," he said, looking at the screen. Then he stepped away to finish his call in a new gesture of privacy, one that was identical to what his father always did.
With a sad smile, Matthew watched his son. "Those two will get themselves into all kinds of trouble, but at least Marcus won"t feel so alone."
"They"re fine," Marcus said, turning back to us and disconnecting the phone. He smiled and ran his fingers through his hair in another gesture reminiscent of Matthew. "I should let Hamish know, so I"ll say my good-byes and call him."
Em held on to Marcus for a long time, her eyes spilling over. "Call us, too," she told him fiercely. "We"ll want to know that you"re both all right."
"Be safe." Sarah"s eyes scrunched tight as she gathered him in her arms. "Don"t doubt yourself."
Miriam"s farewell to my aunts was more composed, my own far less so.
"We"re very proud of you," Em said, cupping my face in her hands, tears now streaming down her face. "Your parents would be, too. Take care of each other."
"We will," I a.s.sured her, dashing the tears away.
Sarah took my hands in hers. "Listen to your teachers-whoever they are. Don"t say no without hearing them out first." I nodded. "You"ve got more natural talent than any witch I"ve ever seen-maybe more than any witch who"s lived for many, many years," Sarah continued. "I"m glad you"re not going to waste it. Magic is a gift, Diana, just like love." She turned to Matthew. "I"m trusting you with something precious. Don"t disappoint me."
"I won"t, Sarah," Matthew promised.
She accepted our kisses, then bolted down the steps to the waiting car.
"Good-byes are hard for Sarah," Em explained. "We"ll talk to you tomorrow, Marcus." She climbed into the front seat, waving over her shoulder. The car spluttered to life, b.u.mped its way across the ruts in the driveway, and turned toward town.
When we went back into the house, Miriam and Marcus were waiting in the front hall, bags at their feet.
"We thought you two should have some time alone," Miriam said, handing her duffel bag to Marcus, "and I hate long good-byes." She looked around. "Well," she said briskly, heading down the porch stairs, "see you when you get back."
After shaking his head at Miriam"s retreating figure, Matthew went into the dining room and returned with an envelope. "Take it," he said to Marcus, his voice gruff.
"I never wanted to be grand master," Marcus said.
"You think I did? This was my father"s dream. Philippe made me promise the brotherhood wouldn"t fall into Baldwin"s hands. I"m asking you to do the same."
"I promise." Marcus took the envelope. "I wish you didn"t have to go."
"I"m sorry, Marcus." I swallowed the lump in my throat and rested my warm fingers lightly on his cold flesh.
"For what?" His smile was bright and true. "For making my father happy?"
"For putting you in this position and leaving behind such a mess."
"I"m not afraid of war, if that"s what you mean. It"s following along in Matthew"s wake that worries me." Marcus cracked the seal. With that deceptively insignificant snap of wax, he became the grand master of the Knights of Lazarus.
"Je suis a votre commande, seigneur," Matthew murmured, his head bowed. Baldwin had spoken the same words at La Guardia. They sounded so different when they were sincere.
"Then I command you to return and take back the Knights of Lazarus," Marcus said roughly, "before I make a complete hash of things. I"m not French, and I"m certainly no knight."
"You have more than a drop of French blood in you, and you"re the only person I trust to do the job. Besides, you can rely on your famous American charm. And it is possible you might like being grand master in the end."
Marcus snorted and punched the number eight on his phone. "It"s done," he said briefly to the person on the other end. There was a short exchange of words. "Thank you."
"Nathaniel has accepted his position," Matthew murmured, the corners of his mouth twitching. "His French is surprisingly good."
Marcus scowled at his father, walked away to say a few more words to the daemon, and returned.
Between father and son there was a long look, the clasp of hand to elbow, the press of a hand on the back-a pattern of leave-taking based on hundreds of similar farewells. For me there was a gentle kiss, a murmured "Be well," and then Marcus, too, was gone.
I reached for Matthew"s hand.
We were alone.
Chapter 42.
It"s just us and the ghosts now." My stomach rumbled.
"What"s your favorite food?" he asked.
"Pizza," I said promptly.
"You should have it while you can. Order some, and we"ll pick it up."
We hadn"t been beyond the immediate environs of the Bishop house since our arrival, and it felt strange to be driving around the greater Madison area in a Range Rover next to a vampire. We took the back way to Hamilton, pa.s.sing south over the hills into town before swinging north again to get the pizza. During the drive I pointed out where I"d gone swimming as a child and where my first real boyfriend had lived. The town was covered with Halloween decorations-black cats, witches on brooms, even trees decorated in orange and black eggs. In this part of the world, it wasn"t just witches who took the celebration seriously.
When we arrived at the pizza place, Matthew climbed out with me, seemingly unconcerned that witches or humans might see us. I stretched up to kiss him, and he returned it with a laugh that was almost lighthearted.
The college student who rang us up looked at Matthew with obvious admiration when she handed him the pie.
"Good thing she isn"t a witch," I said when we got back into the car. "She would have turned me into a newt and flown off with you on her broomstick."
Fortified with pizza-pepperoni and mushroom-I tackled the mess left in the kitchen and the family room. Matthew brought out handfuls of paper from the dining room and burned them in the kitchen fireplace.
"What do we do with these?" he asked, holding up my mother"s letter, the mysterious three-line epigram, and the page from Ashmole 782.
"Leave them in the keeping room," I told him. "The house will take care of them."
I continued to putter, doing laundry and straightening up Sarah"s office. It was not until I went up to put our clothes away that I noticed both computers were missing. I went pounding downstairs in a panic.
"Matthew! The computers are gone!"
"Hamish has them," he said, catching me in his arms and smoothing my hair against the back of my head. "It"s all right. No one"s been in the house."
My shoulders sagged, heart still hammering at the idea of being surprised by another Domenico or Juliette.
He made tea, then rubbed my feet while I drank it. All the while he talked about nothing important-houses in Hamilton that had reminded him of some other place and time, his first sniff of a tomato, what he thought when he"d seen me row in Oxford-until I relaxed into the warmth and comfort.
Matthew was always different when no one else was around, but the contrast was especially marked now that our families had left. Since arriving at the Bishop house, he"d gradually taken on the responsibility for eight other lives. He"d watched over all of them, regardless of who they were or how they were related to him, with the same ferocious intensity. Now he had only one creature to manage.
"We haven"t had much time to just talk," I reflected, thinking of the whirlwind of days since we"d met. "Not just the two of us."
"The past weeks have been almost biblical in their tests. I think the only thing we"ve escaped is a plague of locusts." He paused. "But if the universe does want to test us the old-fashioned way, this counts as the end of our trial. It will be forty days this evening."
So little time, for so much to have happened.
I put my empty mug on the table and reached for his hands. "Where are we going, Matthew?"
"Can you wait a little longer, mon coeur mon coeur?" He looked out the window. "I want this day to last. And it will be dark soon enough."
"You like playing house with me." A piece of hair had fallen onto his forehead, and I brushed it back.
"I love playing house with you," he said, capturing my hand.
We talked quietly for another half hour, before Matthew glanced outdoors again. "Go upstairs and take a bath. Use every drop of water in the tank and take a long, hot shower, too. You may crave pizza every now and then in the days to come. But that will be nothing compared to your longing for hot water. In a few weeks, you will cheerfully commit murder for a shower."
Matthew brought up my Halloween costume while I bathed: a calf-length black dress with a high neck, sharp-toed boots, and a pointy hat.
"What, may I ask, are these?" He brandished a pair of stockings with red and white horizontal stripes.
"Those are the stockings Em mentioned." I groaned. "She"ll know if I don"t wear them."
"If I still had my phone, I would take a picture of you in these hideous things and blackmail you for eternity."
"Is there anything that would ensure your silence?" I sank lower into the tub.
"I"m sure there is," Matthew said, tossing the stockings behind him.
We were playful at first. As at dinner last night, and again at breakfast, we carefully avoided mentioning that this might be our last chance to be together. I was still a novice, but Em told me even the most experienced timewalkers respected the unpredictability of moving between past and future and recognized how easy it would be to wander indefinitely within the spiderweb of time.
Matthew sensed my changing mood and answered it first with greater gentleness, then with a fierce possessiveness that demanded I think of nothing but him.
Despite our obvious need for comfort and rea.s.surance, we didn"t consummate our marriage.