“You haven’t been yourself, Diana,” Matthew continued. “We all feel it.”
“I don’t want Becca and Philip to end up in a situation they can’t control.” Nightmare visions of all the trouble it might cause washed through me—the fires they might start, the chaos that could be unleashed, the possibility that they would lose their way in time and I wouldn’t be able to find them. My anxieties about the children, which had been on a low simmer, boiled over.
“The children need to know you as a witch as well as a mother,” Matthew said, his tone gentling. “It’s part of who you are. It’s part of who they are, too.”
“I know,” I said. “I just didn’t expect Philip or Becca to show an inclination for magic so soon.”
“So what made Philip try to fix Marcus’s memories?” Matthew asked.
“Marcus told me where he was born. And when,” I replied. “Ever since he went after Phoebe, he’s been surrounded by a thick cloud of remembrance. Time is caught up in it, and it’s stretching the world out of shape. It’s impossible not to notice, if you’re a weaver.”
“I’m no weaver, nor am I a physicist, but it doesn’t seem possible that one person’s individual recollections could have such a serious effect on the space-time continuum,” Matthew said, sounding positively professorial.
“Really?” I marched up to him, grabbed a particularly iridescent strand of green memory that had been hanging off him for days, and gave it a good yank. “What do you think now?”
Matthew’s eyes widened as I pulled the thread tighter.
“I have no idea what happened, or when, but this has been flapping around you for days. And it’s beginning to bug me.” I released the strand. “So don’t you dare throw physics in my face. Science isn’t the answer to everything.”
Matthew’s mouth twitched.
“I know, I know. Go ahead. Laugh. Don’t think the irony is lost on me.” I sat down and sighed. “What was bothering you, by the way?”
“I was wondering whatever happened to a horse I lost at the Battle of Bosworth,” Matthew said pensively.
“A horse? That’s it?” I threw my hands up in utter exasperation. Given how bright the strand was, I’d been expecting a guilty secret or a former lover. “Well, don’t let Philip catch you worrying about it, or you’ll find yourself in 1485 extricating yourself from a thornbush.”
“It was a very fine horse,” Matthew said by way of explanation, sitting on the arm of my chair. “And I wasn’t laughing at you, mon coeur. I was just amused at how far we’ve come since the days when I believed I hated witches, and you thought you hated magic.”
“Life was simpler then,” I said, though at the time it had seemed quite complicated.
“And far less interesting, too.” Matthew kissed me. “Perhaps you shouldn’t stir up Marcus’s emotions any further until after he and Phoebe are back together. Not all vampires want to revisit their past lives.”
“Maybe not consciously, but there’s clearly something troubling him,” I replied, “something unresolved.” Whatever was bothering Marcus might have happened long ago, but it still had him tied in knots.
“A vampire’s memories aren’t arranged in a rational timeline,” Matthew explained. “They’re a jumbled mess—a magpie assortment of happy and sad, bright and dark. You might not be able to isolate the cause of Marcus’s unhappiness, never mind make sense of it.”
“I’m a historian, Matthew,” I said. “I make sense out of the past every day.”
“And Philip?” Matthew asked, one eyebrow raised.
“I’ll call Sarah,” I said. “She and Agatha are in Provence. I’m sure she’ll have some advice on how to raise witches.”
* * *
—
WE HAD SUPPER UP ON the roof deck so that we could enjoy the fine weather. I had demolished Marthe’s roasted chicken served with vegetables picked fresh from the garden—tender lettuce, peppery radishes, and the sweetest carrots imaginable—while Matthew opened a second bottle of wine to see him and Marcus through the rest of the evening. We withdrew from the old dining table to the chairs arranged around a cauldron full of logs. Once the fire was lit, the wood sent sparks and light shooting into the sky. Les Revenants became a beacon in the darkness, visible for miles.
I sat back in my chair with a sigh of contentment while Matthew and Marcus discussed their shared work on creature genetics in a slow, relaxed fashion that was very unlike what occurred between competitive, modern academics. Vampires had all the time in the world to mull over their findings. They had little cause to rush to conclusions, and the honest exchange that resulted was inspiring.
As the light faded, however, it was evident that Marcus was feeling Phoebe’s absence with renewed sharpness. The red threads that tied Marcus to the world turned rosy and shimmered with copper notes whenever he thought about his mate. I was usually able to screen out momentary slubs in the fabric of time, but these were impossible to ignore. Marcus was worried about what might be happening in Paris. In an effort to distract him, I suggested he tell me about his own transformation from warmblood to vampire.
“It’s up to you, Marcus,” I said. “But if you think it would help to talk about your past, I’d love to listen.”
“I wouldn’t know where to begin,” Marcus said.
“Hamish always says you should start at the end,” Matthew observed, sipping his wine.
“Or you could start with your origins,” I said, stating the obvious alternative.
“Like Dickens?” Marcus made a soft sound of amusement. “Chapter one, ‘I am born’?”
The usual biographical template of birth, childhood, marriage, and death might be too narrow and conventional for a vampire, I had to admit.
“Chapter two, I died. Chapter three, I was reborn.” Marcus shook his head. “I’m afraid it’s not so simple a tale, Diana. Strange, minor things stand out so clearly to me, and I can barely recall the dates of major events.”
“Matthew warned me that vampire memories might be tricky,” I said. “Why don’t we start with something easy, like your name?” He went by Marcus Whitmore now, but there was no telling what it had been originally.
Marcus’s darkening expression told me that my simple question didn’t have an easy answer.
“Vampires don’t normally share that information. Names are important, mon coeur,” Matthew reminded me.
For historians as well as vampires—which is why I’d asked. With a name, it would be possible for me to trace Marcus’s past in archives and libraries.
Marcus took a steadying breath, and the black threads surrounding him bristled with agitation. I exchanged a worried look with Matthew.
I did warn you, said Matthew’s expression.
“Marcus MacNeil.” Marcus blurted out the name.
Marcus MacNeil of Hadley, born August 1757. A name, a date, a place—these were the building blocks of most historical research. Even if Marcus were to stop there, I could probably find out more about him.
“My mother was Catherine Chauncey of Boston, and my father . . .” Marcus’s throat closed, shutting off the words. He cleared it and started again. “My father was Obadiah MacNeil from the nearby town of Pelham.”
“Did you have any brothers or sisters?” I asked.
“One sister. Her name was Patience.” Marcus’s face had turned ashen. Matthew poured him some more wine.
“Older or younger?” I wanted to get as much out of Marcus as possible in case tonight was the only chance I had to gather information from him.
“Younger.”
“Where did you live in Hadley?” I steered the conversation away from his family, which was clearly a painful subject.
“A house on the western road out of town.”
“What do you remember about the house?”