Chapter 21
Chapter
Henry grinned madly as I tried to gather my thoughts.
“You mean these dots are—?”
“Yes,” he said, nodding eagerly. “Witches. Most suspected, some confirmed. Of course, there must be more, both historical and contemporary; I don’t claim this to be an exhaustive compendium.
” He shuffled through the other papers and handed one to me.
“Ah, here. The corresponding names. Lucy, you’ll note, is number five hundred sixty-two. ”
I jumped quickly down the list, then to the next page, all the way to number 562. Lucy Marienne Murray, 1803– , Place of Birth: Gloucestershire. Parents: Marienne Radcliffe and Viscount Merlton, Randall Murray. Marienne Radcliffe was listed at 558.
I flipped back up to the earliest entry—Taliesin, Approx. 530–590, Place of Birth: Unknown; Parents: Unknown—and then peered at Henry with a new appreciation for his commitment to thorough scholarship.
“How long did this take you to assemble? This is impressive work.”
“About twelve years.” He pulled out another map and set it next to the first. “But, here. See?”
This second map was also annotated with dates and drawings, scrawled notes along the margins in Henry’s familiar hand.
I looked at Brighton. “Storm, 1703,” I read aloud.
My eye darted between the two maps, comparing the clusters of witches with the marked locations on the other, and I began to understand what Henry was suggesting. Bristol: Flood, 1607. Dover: Earthquake, 1580. Edinburgh: Blizzard, 1699. Lincoln: Earthquake, 1185.
“No. No, that can’t be,” I murmured. “Surely someone would have noticed.”
“They did,” Henry said, and slid another document in front of me. It was a parchment fragment, the text faded and stained.
“…for fiftene dayes we coulede not leave, th’ sky was whitae and icae froze on thy brow…”
I skipped to the next legible area.
“…in th’ wake ophe th’ storm we, ten ophe our number claimede able to worke enchaunting without a relique, an was demonstratede in the villauge square…”
“A terrible blizzard,” Henry said softly. “In 1323. Crops, cattle, hundreds of people—all lost. The toll was staggering. This account is from a small village near what is now Hereford. See?”
Sure enough, there was a cluster of witch-dots near Hereford, and several dates of birth around that year. But there were many after, too.
“…and th’ reliques were burned lowe. And so the newe weirde folke, made hooly, for God’s purpose, save’d the croppes….”
The reliqs were all drained over the course of the blizzard, and then the crops died. But somehow, some of the people had magic. Were made hooly, the document said. Ten of them, according to this account. And somehow, even without reliqs, they’d saved the crops.
“You’re saying they were created,” I said slowly. “That…that the blizzard created witches. People who could do magic without reliqs.”
Henry shook his head. “I am not saying anything. I’m simply sharing the evidence I’ve assembled. You can draw your own conclusions.”
I huffed, and he chuckled.
“No. It can’t be.” I shook my head. “We know that witchery is passed through the family line. That would explain these clusters.” I tapped the one at Hereford.
“It certainly would. Many of the people who survived the blizzard and gained new powers would have procreated. As humans are inclined to do.” His mouth twitched.
“So the witchery would have passed to their children. But how does it begin, Mary? How does it get into the bloodline in the first place?”
Hundreds of years ago, when witches were put to the stake with some regularity, it was believed that they gained power by siphoning it from others.
We knew better now; some people were just born with witchery, the same way a man might be born with red hair, or buckteeth.
But Henry was suggesting something extraordinary.
I could see now why Buckland and Davies had forbidden him from publishing this theory in his book.
To suggest that animals could be changed from God’s design by the force of natural magic was already stretching the limits of accepted theomagical doctrine.
To go further—to argue that mankind itself might be shaped and changed by natural phenomena…
Henry saw all of this cross my face, I’m sure. He watched me closely, gaze steady. He must have seen something there—I don’t know what—because he took a deep breath and pulled a clip of a newspaper from the stack, and slid it across to me.
“One last thing.”
My blood went cold. My fingers trembled as they ran over my own name, lettered in blurred, worn ink. Three Dead in Lightning Strike in Lyme Regis, Infant Miraculously Survives.
“You’re number five hundred thirty-three.”
I stared. I swallowed. My mouth was dry. I looked down at the newspaper clipping. I stared at Henry a while longer.
Then I laughed.
“You know, you almost had me.”
“This isn’t a joke, Mary.”
I pushed the torn, faded paper back across the table. “For a minute there, I almost believed you.” I tugged meaningfully at my ammonite reliq on its leather thong. That was obvious-enough evidence; I couldn’t do magic without it.
Henry sputtered. His cheeks were red, jaw clenched. He blinked rapidly.
“You’re not—I—look! See.” He dug frantically through the stack of books, then shoved one—thick, the leather embossed in gold—into my hands.
Taxonomia Malleficarum: a Taxonomy of Witchery, by Heinrich Nachtnebel, read the gilt. The parchment was fragile, and smelled of dust and dampness.
“There are different kinds of witches,” Henry said quickly. “For a while, witchery classifications were quite a popular topic in theomagical circles. The field fell out a bit after that shameful business over in Salem.”
I winced. “I can imagine.” The first British colonists in the Americas had been dissenters—notably, Calumnates—who held that any and all magic was sin. There were few geomagicians working in the Americas, but you could always pick them out; their work so often had an anti-magic slant to it.
“After that, witches were, well, a bit more hesitant to sit for anthropological interviews, even here.”
I flipped through the pages of the Taxonomia, skimming chapter headings. Green-witches. Water-witches. Paper-witches. Stitch-witches.
“Nachtnebel theorized that many witches have a special affinity. Essentially, an area in which they do not need to use a reliq.”
My nose wrinkled. “But that’s the very definition of a witch. Someone who doesn’t need a reliq for any magic.”
“That’s the conventional definition. But maybe the ones we think of now as witches—extraordinary people like Lucy, who have affinities for all magic—maybe that is only one category of witch? And what if there are others?”
Even as I followed this argument, a small part of my brain noticed that I liked to see Henry excited. I liked the way his eyes lit, and his mouth worked quickly; how the smirk fell away to reveal the truth of his joy in the work. It reminded me of the boy I’d known.
“If Nachtnebel is right, if I am right, think how many witches there may be, right now, living their lives in ignorance. Unaware of their potential. Men and women with some area of magic for which they wouldn’t need a reliq.
Who just have no idea of their gift, because it’s simply not part of our framework for how witchery works.
But such frameworks should—must!—adapt to new information. That’s basic scientific principle.”
“And what would that make me, then?” I asked, and realized, as the words fell out, that he had me half convinced already.
Henry’s face softened, slackened, and his hand darted out across the still-spread map to catch my chin gently. His thumb stroked across my cheek, and my skin lit where he touched me.
“Isn’t it obvious? Why, Mary, you’re a fossil witch.”