The Black Bird Oracle, page 7
Julie snorted into her tea. “Maybe more.”
“You must miss it,” I said, comparing the constant energy of a liberal arts campus with life on the quiet banks of the Ipswich River.
“At times. Especially in October, when the skies are Mary Lyon blue, and the leaves are at their most spectacular. I still get a call from the department secretary to tell me it’s Mountain Day,” Gwyneth admitted, her voice wistful. “Once upon a time, I used to lead the students on hikes up Mount Tom and Mount Holyoke.”
A wave of grief at all that I’d missed by not knowing Gwyneth—including not having another academic role model in the family to rely on for advice and perspective—threatened to pull me under.
“Why didn’t you contact me sooner, Gwyneth?” I cried. “Didn’t you want me—before?”
“We all wanted you,” Gwyneth said sharply. “But Stephen was determined that you not know us, and your grandparents died before you were born. Sarah had sole custody of you after he and Rebecca were murdered. As far as she was concerned, you were a Bishop—first, last, always. The lawyers told us we had few legal rights to challenge that, even though you were our flesh and blood, too.”
“If Dad didn’t want me to know you, then why is my mother here?” My questions were tripping over Gwyneth’s answers, eager to be heard.
“Rebecca felt at home at Ravenswood,” Gwyneth explained. “She always wanted to return, but Stephen wouldn’t allow it. Your mother was creative, though—and persistent.”
“So I have been here before,” I said, remembering the feeling of running down the warm grass toward the house. “Not with Dad—but with Mom.”
“Only once.” Gwyneth’s regret was etched into her face in painful lines. “We hoped that it would be enough to make an impression, but when we didn’t hear from you—”
“I was seven years old!” Now that I’d vented some of my questions, my anger erupted. “What did you expect me to do? Hijack a Greyhound bus and follow my nose?”
“Exactly what you did do: live your life, grow into a woman, and make your own decisions,” Gwyneth replied. “Time was on our side. Stephen and Sarah knew that they were fighting a losing battle. So did Rebecca. She understood that higher magic could only be denied and suppressed for so long. Shadow always finds us, in the end.”
“You make it sound as though my parents were at war over magic.” My stomach tightened at the implications.
“Not at war, but in an uneasy state of détente,” Aunt Gwyneth said. “Stephen refused to let your mother practice the higher, darker branch of the craft, or to teach you its basic principles. It was a condition of their marriage.”
My father’s love for my mother couldn’t have been conditional. It wasn’t possible. What Gwyneth was saying went against everything I believed about my parents.
“Their relationship was built on a foundation of rules established by Stephen,” Gwyneth continued, her voice disapproving. She ticked them off, one by one. “No higher magic, only the simplest workings of the craft. No contact with the Proctors. No further involvement with the Congregation. No local coven membership. No further intimacy unless Rebecca promised she would spellbind any child who showed an inclination to follow the Dark Path. It was quite a prenup.”
I’d made a similar promise to Matthew’s brother Baldwin—only my oath involved spellbinding any of our children with blood rage, not higher magic.
“Dad would never do such a thing.” I was numb in the face of these latest revelations.
But something Sarah once told me made me pause and reconsider: Rebecca seemed to lose interest in higher magic once she met your father. Maybe Mom hadn’t lost interest, but had been forced to give up these aspects of the craft?
“Your father didn’t believe in negotiation. It was his way or the highway,” Gwyneth said. “Rebecca loved Stephen so much she agreed to his demands. She would have been a formidable witch—a legendary one, perhaps—if only he’d let her hone her talents. Rebecca was relying on time and love to soften his stance. The clock ran out. Her love for him never did.”
The silence in the house was absolute. Not a floorboard creaked. The logs in the fireplace stopped crackling. There was not even the soft tick of a clock to break the stillness.
“You still haven’t answered my question,” I said. “Why did you decide to go against Dad’s wishes now, Gwyneth?”
“Because when you turned seven and the Congregation sent someone to examine you, two people I loved died.” Gwyneth’s tone was flat and tinged with weariness. “The oracles told me that your children were about to reach that milestone in a witch’s life. I won’t sit back and let tragedy befall the Proctors again. Not while there is breath and blood in my body.”
“How long have these childhood examinations been going on?” I had always thought that Peter Knox’s arrival at our house had been primarily because of his obsession with my mother, and by extension me—not because of an established schedule of magical assessments.
“The standardized Congregation tests are relatively new,” Gwyneth replied. “Before the 1880s or so, it was left to families and local covens to send word if a young person showed a talent for higher magic. The old tests were straightforward, and required only filling out a form that the Congregation sent to witches who had been earmarked as having noticeable magical potential.”
I’d never understood what, precisely, Knox had been looking for when he probed my mind on that long ago Cambridge afternoon. Matthew and I thought it might have been my ability to weave new spells. Might he have been searching for evidence of a propensity for higher magic instead?
“The world wars made it difficult for the Congregation to enforce any kind of global initiative, however,” Gwyneth continued. “It wasn’t until the 1960s that the tests started up again, with a new format and in-person examinations by a Congregation member or their representative.”
A shadow crossed Gwyneth’s face. It was fleeting, but a sense of darkness remained. There was more to the story than she was telling me.
“I suspect you’re unfinished business, as far as the Congregation is concerned,” Gwyneth said.
“The Congregation knows I’m different, if that’s what you mean,” I replied. “They know I’m a maker of new spells, like Dad—a weaver. Surely one of the witches would have noticed if I had other talents as well.”
“A weaver, eh?” Julie’s blue eyes sparkled. “We call them knotters around here, but I suppose it’s the same thing.”
“Maybe one of the Congregation representatives did notice.” Gwyneth blinked at me like an owl.
Peter Knox. I closed my eyes at the sudden vision of him, fatally caught in my snare of magic. I had taken his life to save Matthew.
“Peter Knox was the witch the Congregation sent to examine me,” I said. “He knew that my parents were hiding something. I always thought it was the fact that I was a weaver, but maybe Knox’s interest was also connected to Mom’s study of higher magic.”
“Perhaps,” Gwyneth said. “But Knox would have recognized that you’d inherited your mother’s talent for higher magic, too.”
“But it wasn’t just the prospect of the Congregation examining your children that led me to write to you,” Gwyneth confessed. “The oracles told me that you had also reached a point in your life’s journey where difficult choices must be made.”
She conjured up a bright green ribbon.
“Your father’s Proctor heritage and your ability to make new spells.”
Another ribbon, this one blue, blossomed out of the air.
“The Bishops, and their talent for higher magic.” Gwyneth pulled out yet another magic ribbon, this one black as night. “Your marriage to Matthew de Clermont, and the children born to your union. These are the three paths that led you here, to Ravenswood,” Gwyneth said, her voice ringing with power and prophecy.
The ribbons fluttered in the breeze from the open window. The currents of air carried a raven-black feather into the house. The feather sailed through the ends of the ribbons, the sharp point on the feather’s hollow shaft piercing the soft fabric. Its weight dragged the ribbons down to the table, pinning them so that they were spread out in three directions with the feather at the center of a brilliant crossroads.
A crossroads usually had four paths, however, not three. One of the paths was missing.
“If Ravenswood is here,” I said, lightly touching the feather with the tip of my finger, “and these are the three paths that have brought me here, where do I go next?”
“You must choose your own path forward,” Gwyneth replied. “Not the road that Sarah chose for you, or Stephen, or even the one you embarked upon with your husband. This is a path you must walk alone.”
I didn’t like the sound of that, and Matthew wouldn’t like it, either. I had come to Ravenswood to find out how to protect my children from the Congregation, not to go on a magical adventure. I drew the old card that Gwyneth sent me from the side pocket of my cargo pants and laid it on the table where the missing ribbon should have been.
“I saw this man, walking along the carriage road.”
“I doubt it was this man,” Gwyneth said.
“Wait.” Julie stared at the card, her face drained of color. “That looks like descriptions of John Proctor. Diana saw John Proctor, Gwyneth. Out on the carriage road. In the middle of the day.”
“The John Proctor?” If asked to name one of the poor souls executed at Salem in 1692, most Americans would rely on their high school reading of The Crucible and dredge up his memory. I knew my father was descended from him, but I had not been able to figure out how.
“Our many-times great-grandfather,” Julie said. “Why didn’t I see him? I look for him every Halloween when the veil between the worlds is thin. He never appears!”
“If it was our ancestor, I don’t suppose John was here for a family visit,” Gwyneth said, “or to answer your questions about his sundial spell.”
“If only I could figure out the last part of it, I know it would work,” Julie said, frustrated.
Gwyneth took a considered pause. “My oracle cards are in the cupboard. Could you fetch them for me, Julie?”
Something told me that Gwyneth’s oracle deck was not available next to the register at Be Blessed, Sarah’s shop in Madison, where impulse items tempted visitors as they checked out with their herbs, tisanes, and organic vegetables.
Julie scrambled to her feet. She returned with a black velvet pouch. I eyed it with curiosity.
The bag was threadbare in places, and someone had embroidered a hexafoil on it using tiny beads. Gwyneth drew a pack of cards from the enclosure. The cards inside were old—but not as ancient as the one she’d sent me through the mail.
“These belonged to my granny Elizabeth Proctor,” Gwyneth explained, shuffling them between her fingers.
“She was a teacher, like Gwynie,” Julie said. “Granny Elizabeth was the head of magical education here in Ipswich.”
“Hush, Julie.” Gwyneth’s eyes were foggy, like Goody Wu’s had been at The Thirsty Goat. “I can’t formulate a decent question with you yapping.”
Julie made the gesture of locking her lips and throwing the key over her shoulder.
We waited in silence while Gwyneth considered her possible queries, all the while shuffling the cards.
The cards became uncooperative and flew from Gwyneth’s hands into the air. I gasped, prepared for them to rain down on all our heads. After a few seconds of suspension, however, they fluttered down onto the table where nine of the cards arranged themselves into a pattern, face up. The rest of the cards were clumped to the side, face down.
Most witches laid out their cards one at a time. But Gwyneth’s cards sorted themselves out.
The Proctors had enchanted oracle cards.
“Ooh,” Julie said, peering at the cards. “The Two Paths spread. If you read the cards clockwise, the oracles will help you determine a logical course of action. If you proceed widdershins, their guidance will reveal a more intuitive path.”
I was for logic at this point.
“Gwynie always uses the widdershins technique,” Julie continued, dashing my hopes. “She believes the answers are more reliable.”
We fell silent once more so that Gwyneth could get on with the difficult work of interpreting the cards’ message.
“You’re being pulled backward in every direction and struggling to move forward at the same time, Diana.” Gwyneth sat back against the carved chair. “At the moment, it’s still possible for you to return to your old life and the bright, familiar roads that have brought you this far.”
Vivid visions of New Haven and the Old Lodge, of a summer spent in the Bodleian and visiting family, shot through my mind like blazing stars. But Gwyneth was right; I was always caught between what would be best for the children, Matthew’s interests, and my own desires.
“Or?” I asked quietly.
“You can take another step, and then another, until the direction of your own path becomes clear,” Gwyneth replied. “Your path, Diana—one not mapped out for you by someone else.”
Something undeniably powerful had called me to Ravenswood, opening up new worlds that had been hidden for far too long.
“Stay for dinner.” Gwyneth’s face looked drawn. She was exhausted by the excitement of the afternoon. “I’ve readied a room for you at the farm, in case you’d rather sleep at Ravenswood tonight than the Squid and Anchor.”
How did Gwyneth know that Matthew had made a reservation for me there? It had been the only bed-and-breakfast with a last-minute weekend vacancy.
“A lot of bad blood between the Proctors and the Perleys,” Julie muttered. “I wouldn’t sleep there, if I were you.”
After the reception I’d received at The Thirsty Goat, I’d been inclined to cancel the booking and stay in Boston—and that was before I knew of the family feud between the Proctors and the Perleys. I hesitated, then nodded.
“Thank you, Gwyneth.” Agreeing to remain at Ravenswood, even for one night, felt like a monumental commitment.
“It’s just one step, one meal, one night,” Gwyneth said, drawing her hand across her forehead.
“I’ll get Diana settled,” Julie told my aunt, grabbing two muffins for the road. “You need to rest, Gwynie.”
Aunt Gwyneth acquiesced, an indication of her fatigue, for I was sure that my aunt wasn’t the type who liked being coddled and fussed over. She disappeared into another room, leaving her cards scattered on the table. With a cluck of disapproval, Julie gathered them and returned them to their bag.
“If you leave them out, oracle cards can get into all kinds of mischief,” she explained. “Let’s get you settled at the farm. You probably need a rest, too.”
Julie guided me out the back door—which was really the front door, a rather grand affair with sidelights and carved molding—and past a small vegetable patch enclosed within four black iron posts and some chicken wire. It was immaculately kept, with straight rows of seedlings all neatly marked so you could tell the carrot sprouts from the radish, and not a weed in sight. The same orderliness was evident in the perennial borders, which were filled with irises and delphiniums at this time of year. The peonies were still in tight balls but would blossom in the coming weeks.
“My uncle Tally—your grandfather—loved the early summer here on the marsh,” Julie said. “He said it was like watching the flesh grow on Ravenswood’s bones, when the trees leafed out and the vegetables sprouted.”
“Did my dad grow up here?” I asked.
“At Ravenswood? Yes. Not in the Old Place, though. We all grew up in the big house.” Julie looked fondly at the spacious white farmhouse peeking out from the small apple orchard just past the garden, the curtains billowing out from the open upper windows.
“Orchard Farm has better plumbing. You need that with teenagers,” Julie continued. “The Old Place was the original house on this parcel of land, and it depends on magic to keep it going rather than electricity and sewers.”
A large barn was tucked into a rambunctious hedge between the two houses. Its sliding wooden doors were tightly shut, and the whole structure was clad in magic, from alarm spells to wizard bolts. Like the witches’ marks in the house, the magic was surprisingly robust and intricate. I frowned at the sheer number of preventive spells.
“Is it safe for Aunt Gwyneth to be here alone?” I asked Julie.
“Oh, those wards are just to keep the local teenagers out,” Julie explained. “Witch, daemon, or human, kids turn sixteen and they dare one another to try to get inside the Proctor barn. It’s an Ipswich rite of passage.”
“What do they think they’ll find in there?” I wondered. The Ark of the Covenant? The Holy Grail?
“Wonderful things,” Julie replied, a twinkle in her eye, as though she had heard my thoughts.
My cousin opened a screen door into the passageway between the farmhouse proper and its attached carriage house. Gardening trugs and tools, galoshes and hip waders, folded brown paper bags for the grocery store and kindling for the stove, indicated that this was the main artery of the house.
Julie led me to a room painted a vivid turquoise. The color clashed with the softer blues of the massive Blue Willow teapot resting on the shelves of an old Welsh dresser. Tins and bags of tea were tucked in among the plates and cups. The mystery of my beverage of choice was solved; tea was a Proctor preference. The Bishops all loved coffee.
The kitchen was anchored by a round table that had been scoured clean so many times its wooden edges were now soft. A ring of mismatched chairs of varying heights and styles surrounded the table, including a black Windsor chair embellished with a college seal—Mount Holyoke, of course. A large farmhouse sink, a small stove, another vintage mint-green icebox, and an old jelly cupboard with pierced tin panels in the doors completed the room’s furnishings.
