The Witches of Cambridge (15 page)

“I always eat dessert first,” Cosima explains. “It’s how I like to live, without waiting for the future.” This statement, though she believes it brings happiness, reminds her of the risks she’s taking, the risks that hover on the horizon, refusing to disappear, much as she’d like to forget them. Cosima takes another bite, swallowing her fears along with the cake and returning to George with a smile. “Your turn.”

George steps toward her and picks up a cupcake. “You’re like Eve in the garden of Eden, only you’ve got cupcakes instead of apples. A much better choice.” He bends his head to take a bite; swallowing, he stares at her, unable to say anything.

Cosima frowns. “Is something wrong?”

He shakes his head.

“Are you okay?”

George just gazes at her.

“What? Do I have cake on my nose?”

George shakes his head again. “You are the most beautiful, the most lovely, the most magnificent woman I’ve ever met in my life.”

He says it so simply, so matter-of-factly, so without reservation or consideration, that his words—even though she knows they’re the result of a spell—drop straight into Cosima’s heart, before she’s able to think about, analyze, or question them. Cosima is used to compliments, though they are rarely so sincere. She’d received one that very afternoon from a tall, thin, breathtakingly handsome man who’d slipped her a purple business card with his name written in silver. But she knew men like him, she encountered them every day; they flirted their way through life, stealing hearts with every word, snatching up looks of adoration and infatuation and stuffing them into their pockets to pore over later. George is different. He is honest and true, a good man right down to his marrow.

Forgetting everything else, Cosima leans forward and kisses him.

S
HAKING A LITTLE,
her heart thumping, her breath tight in her chest, Cosima reaches a sweaty palm out toward George and takes his hand.

“I want to ask you something. It’s really important you tell the truth, okay?”

George nods.

“Do you want to have children?”

George doesn’t take much of a moment before answering. “Yes,” he says, a slightly wistful smile on his face. “Yes. I do. But…”

“But?” Cosima’s heart beats faster still. “You can’t have them?”

George shakes his head. “No, it’s not that, I just never thought I would, given…”

“What?”

“I don’t…” George frowns, focusing. “I can’t quite remember.”

“Well, that’s all right,” Cosima says. Perhaps it isn’t, but she so desperately wants it to be that she ignores all signs to the contrary. She takes a deep breath. “Would you—would you like to have a child with me?”

“You want a baby?”

“Yes.” Cosima sighs. “More than anything in the world.”

“But…are you doing this because your husband is having a baby with another woman?”

“No, it’s not like that. It’s not for revenge,” Cosima says. “I’ve wanted babies forever. We were trying for years…Now I’ve lost him, I can deal with that, but I can’t lose my chance of having a baby. And I will love her more than anything else in the world. I promise you that.”

“Her?”

Cosima shrugs. “Just a feeling I have.”

George considers. There’s a reason, something that lingers at the edges of his mind, in his memories, why he should say no. Yet he can’t think of it, no matter how hard he concentrates. He does, after all, want children. And he’s certainly not getting any younger.

“Okay then, let’s do it.”

When Cosima smiles, George knows he’s said the right thing. He’s never in his life seen someone so happy at the result of something he’s said.

“It’ll be wonderful, I promise,” she says, dearly hoping she’s right. It doesn’t matter that she doesn’t love him. It doesn’t matter that he’s under a spell. It’ll work out. In time, it’ll all work out. “Everything will be wonderful,” she says again, with a little more conviction. “It’ll be perfect.”

“Yes,” George says, his other thoughts forgotten. “Yes, it will.”

Cosima kisses him again, then takes his hand and leads him into the kitchen.

“What are we doing?”

Cosima smiles. “I’m going to show you how to bake a spell.”

George nods. “Oh, okay.”

Cosima begins lining up her ingredients.

“Kat taught me,” she says, stirring a handful of bright, butter yellow celandine petals into the flour. She picks a glass bottle labeled
Cinquefoil
off the counter, untwists the cap, and adds three spiked leaves. “Kat taught me the meanings of all the flowers and herbs, and how they best complement each other.”

“When did you learn?” George asks, feeling a twinge in his chest at the mention of Kat.

“When I was about four, I think. And I loved it, baking, instantly. And Kat was a great teacher.” Cosima opens a bottle labeled
Starwort
and sprinkles a few tiny green leaves and white petals into the mix. “I felt as if I was being included in some sort of special big-sister club. She was going to tell me all her secrets and I couldn’t wait.”

George smiles. “Were you very close?”

“Very. I adored her. Idolized her. She was the first person I ever loved. I suppose…” Cosima sighs. “Pass me that jar.”

George passes her a jar marked
Sorrel
, filled with puffs of red. He waits to see what she might say.

“Kat probably told you about our mum, that she died after giving birth to me.” Cosima sprinkles the sorrel onto the flour, then adds a pinch of dried moss. She carries on, without waiting for an answer. “And Dad was so devastated he virtually abandoned us for years. I mean, he didn’t leave, but he was never really at home either. Kat had to look after me for the most part. I clung to her. She was a teenager with a screaming baby sister. It’s a wonder she didn’t try to smother me in my sleep, but she was amazing. Really and truly. I should probably tell her that more often…”

“How did your mother die?” George asks.

“A brain hemorrhage. All the women in my family have a blood-clotting disease. It’s pretty serious. We have to take medicine for it every day. And pregnancy is a great risk factor, that’s why Mum—”

“Wait,” George says, “if that’s the case, then surely you shouldn’t be putting yourself at risk too? I know you want a baby, but it’s not worth…You could adopt, or—”

“Don’t worry,” Cosima says, swallowing down another bubble of doubt. “I’m managing it. I’ve got it under control. I take herbs every day and”—she smiles—“I have my magic.”

“I don’t know…”

“Trust me, it’s fine.” Cosima plucks a few fresh flowers out of a vase and hands them to George. “Pluck the petals off these.”

“What are they?”

“Daisies and dittany.”

George examines the delicate pink and white flowers. “Are you going to teach me the secrets of your baking spells, then?”

“Maybe.” Cosima winks. “Though usually husbands aren’t told these particular secrets, only daughters.”

“Oh?” George smiles. “Is that so you can cast the spells on us?”

“Perhaps.”

It’s only then that George notices Cosima has just—sort of—referred to him as her husband. His shock reverberates, humming at the edges of the hours while they wait for the bread to rise and bake. It’s only when he’s eating his first slice that George realizes he doesn’t even know the nature of this spell. He chews and swallows. Whatever it is, it must be something joyful, since the bread is delicious.

“So, what was the spell?” George asks. “Will you tell me the secret now?”

A look of dismay passes over Cosima’s face. “But—I thought you knew.”

“No, sorry, I didn’t…”

“After we spoke about children, I just assumed…” Cosima says. “It’s for…fertility. It’s for fertility.”

“Oh.” George is wide-eyed. “Oh, I see.”

—

Since seeing George looking at her sister like that, Kat’s been walking around in a depressed daze, unable to focus on anything, even numbers. Things that would normally have excited and delighted her no longer have any effect at all. Even her favorite PhD student, Hamish—a slightly eccentric but undeniably handsome chap who speaks in mathematical equations, never seems to eat or sleep, and has an extremely infectious laugh—can’t rouse her from this fog.

She hates to think of what might have happened that night. And she hasn’t seen either George or Cosima since that afternoon. She’s been ignoring their calls and has had to resist a strong urge to read her sister the riot act and ask what the hell she’s thinking, seducing George on the rebound. It’s an idiotic move and it’ll all end in tears—mostly Kat’s own. The worst of it is that she can’t talk to her best friend about how she’s feeling, since her best friend is the cause of it all.

Kat calls Amandine and Héloïse, hoping for a chance to unburden herself, but neither answer. So, after pacing up and down by her chalkboards, Kat decides to visit Amandine, since her college is only just down the road. She takes the back route to Magdalene College, avoiding the center of town, where she might bump into George or, worse, George and Cosima together, to follow the path of the river running through the fields behind King’s and Trinity Colleges.

As students Kat and George spent many lazy afternoons sitting on the banks of the river, on the bench at the edge of Trinity College’s lawns (avoiding the glare of the porter guarding his patch from unsuspecting tourists foolish enough to ignore the “keep off the grass” notices) watching the punts glide past. Mostly they sat in silence, waiting to see who’d fall into the river first, listening to the (sometimes invented) facts the tour guides would dispense to the tourists.

Kat had fallen for George on their first afternoon, when they’d talked about witchcraft and feeling lonely and trying to find their places in the world. Admittedly, given the difference in their levels of attractiveness, Kat had rather assumed that George would reciprocate her feelings with happy appreciation. Unfortunately, not only did he not fall for her, but he never even seemed to notice her subtle romantic overtures.

For a little while Kat lied to herself, almost believing that she was perfectly happy just to have George as her best friend. She even dated a stunningly handsome American scientist, who bore an uncanny resemblance to Clark Gable, for a few months, but had to give the ruse up when he started getting too serious, wanting to talk about the future and all that rot. Since then Kat had been biding her time, telling herself that one day, somehow, everything might fall into place, fortuitously, serendipitously, miraculously. Without her having to say anything. Without her having to skirt humiliation. Without her having to risk her heart. More fool her.

—

“
Bonjour
, Ben,” Héloïse says. “Have you any more Hemingway?”

Sitting on his tall wooden stool, Ben glances up from the book he’s reading.

“I may have,” he says, “I can take a look.”

Héloïse smiles. “
Merci
.”

Héloïse stands at the bookstall, attempting to appear nonchalant, to keep the note of hope out of her voice, to act like a sensible fifty-eight-year-old instead of a jittery teenager. She wonders what François would say if he’s watching her now— would he be pleased or jealous? She hopes the former but fears the latter, so decides not to think about it. There’s no guarantee that another book by the same author will yield the same results, but Héloïse considers it her best chance. Hopefully Ben will have bought a batch of books from the person with the green pen, not just one, and it’s possible that someone who owned one Hemingway would own a few others too. Héloïse could significantly increase her odds of success and simply ask Ben outright. But, despite how well they know each other, she’s a little too shy to tell him her silly tale.

Ben gets down from his stool, placing his book carefully on its smooth seat, and begins searching through the boxes of books stacked underneath the wooden tables that form his stall.

“I don’t think I have any more Hemingway,” he calls up to her, voice muffled. “But I’ve got something else I thought you might like.” Ben comes out from under the table holding a book. He hands it to Héloïse.

“
The Travelling Hornplayer
. Sounds interesting,” she says, though right now, even the most brilliant work of literature wouldn’t hold her attention, not unless it was annotated with notes and comments in green pen.

“Wait a sec, I just remembered…” Ben ducks under the tables again. Héloïse’s heart lifts at the sound of wood scraping against stone. A second chance. “Oh, yes, here we go.”

Héloïse holds her breath as Ben emerges. She isn’t sure what she’s expecting will come of all this—does she really think she’ll meet the man who wrote out her own thoughts and feelings with his little green pen? Does she imagine they might meet and fall in love? It’s a ridiculous notion. And yet, when Ben offers Héloïse a copy of
The Old Man and the Sea,
her fingers tremble slightly as she takes it.

“So, you loved the last one, did you?” Ben asks.

“
Pardon?
”

“
A Moveable Feast
.”

“Ah,
oui
, of course.
Superbe
. I want to read all his work.”