The Witches of Cambridge (4 page)

Noa knows, before he says another word, that he is the artist.

—

He reaches out his hand, but drops his beautiful eyes to the floor.

“Santiago Costa,” he whispers. “It’s a pleasure.”

Noa slips her coffee and remaining croissant into her left hand and shakes his hand. “Noa Sparrow.”

They stand together in silence for several moments.

“Your work,” Noa begins, searching for adequate words, “your work is, it’s…”

“Thank you.” Santiago gives a slight bow, a lock of black hair falls over one brown eye. He brushes it back with long fingers.

“I can’t really explain why I love it so much, it’s just so, so…”

“Good, that’s the best way,” Santiago says. “Too much analysis kills a thing. Art is created from passion and inspires passion. And passion is beyond reason. Don’t you think?”

Noa laughs. “If that’s the case then I’ve just wasted the last two years of my life.”

Santiago frowns. “Why?”

“I’m studying for a degree in art history. It involves rather a lot of analysis.”

“Oh dear,” Santiago says, sounding genuinely concerned. “That is a shame.”

“I’m going to put it to use,” Noa protests. “So it won’t be a total shame. It’ll be in service to the greater good.”

“What will you do with it?”

Noa doesn’t answer immediately. She hasn’t shared this dream with anyone else, not her parents or her teachers, no one. She glances at his paintings, then back at him. Santiago holds her gaze and Noa sees in his soft eyes the promise of something spectacular. What it is exactly, she can’t be sure, but Noa sees enough to want to know more.

“Well, I want to work as a curator for the National Gallery,” she says softly, hoping the girl at the counter won’t hear. “It’s what I want…more than anything else in the world.”

Santiago smiles. “And I admire you for it. When you could be putting your excellent education to lucrative ends for private clients, you’ve chosen to work in virtual penury for the public, so everyone can enjoy great works of art. It’s a beautiful, noble ambition.” His smile deepens. “And one I have every belief you’ll achieve.”

“Really?”

Santiago nods. “But of course. Don’t you?”

Noa shrugs. “I certainly hope so, but I don’t know…”

Santiago fixes her with his deep brown eyes. “I do. And you can trust me. I can see things in people that they can’t see in themselves.”

“Oh?” Noa says and, before she can stop herself from asking such a thing from a virtual stranger, she blurts it out. “And what do you see in me?”

Santiago smiles and Noa feels her skin flush. He brushes his fingers through his thick black hair again and Noa feels suddenly overcome with the desire to touch his long, thin fingers, to entwine them with her own.

“Great strength,” he says. “The power to do anything you put your mind to.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yes.” He nods. “And so, when you’re a curator at the National Gallery, I hope you’ll invite me to exhibit there. I should be most honored.”

“Of course,” Noa exclaims. “As soon as I’m in place, you’ll be the first artist I’ll ask.”

Santiago places one long-fingered hand on his chest and reaches out the other to her. “It’s a deal.” He gives a little bow. “And now I have two reasons to hope your dream comes true. First, for you. Second, for me, so that I will see you again.”

Then, in a gesture so quick Noa doesn’t see where it came from, Santiago plucks a card from his pocket and holds it out to her, between two fingers. Noa takes the little dark purple card and reads, in delicate silver letters, his name and phone number inscribed across the front.

“So you can call me when you get that job,” he says. “I hope it will be soon. I have a feeling it will be sooner than you think.”

And, with that, Santiago turns and walks away. When Noa blinks again, he’s gone and she’s left standing next to his paintings in the empty shop.

It’s only when she’s walking back along Bene’t Street that Noa realizes she hadn’t seen any of Santiago’s secrets. She’d looked deep into his soft eyes and seen nothing. It certainly wasn’t because he didn’t have any secrets. Everyone has secrets, even little fears and facts they won’t tell another living soul. Noa has never met a person for whom this wasn’t true. It’s what has made her life so difficult up to now. And Santiago is no exception. If anything, she’d guess he has more secrets than most. So why couldn’t she see them?

—

Amandine is scared of heights. Which wouldn’t matter ordinarily, except that she’s president of the Cambridge University Society of Literature and Witchcraft, which meets on the first Friday of every month, at midnight, on the top of various university turrets, each one at least fifty feet from the ground. This means that, for twelve days of the year, Amandine has to take a dash of valerian and a sprinkling of passionflower in her tea before she leaves the house, which serves to stop her legs shaking and her heart beating quite so fast.

Three women and one man are members of the Cambridge University Society of Literature and Witchcraft, all professors and all witches, but only one is afraid of heights. In the early days Amandine had suggested the group meet in a more conventional location, a library or café, but she’d always been voted down by the others, who prefer places that afford better views. Each professor takes it in turn to choose the book and host the event at the highest point of their respective colleges. A month ago George Benett had chosen E. M. Forster’s
Maurice
and discussions took place on the roof of Pembroke Chapel, just next to the ornate silver weather vane. It was the first of April, a chilly evening with a cool breeze, but the weather didn’t affect the witches, who are not subject to petty physical limitations.

In three days’ time, on Friday, it’s Amandine’s turn. By rights it should be her mother’s, but Héloïse Bisset hasn’t attended a book group meeting or taught a tutorial for nearly two years now. She’s hardly left the house since her husband died. For many months, Amandine had let her mother sink into her sorrow. She brought her food and forced her to eat it. She wiped her mother’s nose while she sobbed, she held her while she shook, she made sure she washed and dressed every few days. For fourteen months she allowed her mother to fall apart, along with the scattering pieces of her shattered universe. But, six months ago, Amandine decided that enough was enough. Héloïse is still young, not yet sixty, and it was time for her to start living again.

Perhaps Amandine’s decision was partly selfish; she could no longer cope with feeling her mother’s pain so acutely every day, trying to shed the heavy cloak of sadness when she came home at night so she could be with her husband and boys and feel joy as she hugged them close. Perhaps she’d reached her limit of self-sacrifice. So, for the last six months, Amandine has stopped pandering to her mother’s pain and agoraphobic tendencies and instead tried to force her out of the house and back into life among the living. She took her on walks, packed picnics, dragged her into cafés and cinemas. Amandine has chosen her book—
She Came to Stay
by Simone de Beauvoir—in a bid to tempt Héloïse back into the fold by picking her favorite author. So far, sadly, it hasn’t worked. But Amandine hasn’t given up, nor will she.

Amandine has picked, as their meeting place to discuss the book, a nice discreet turret at the back of Magdalene College far from the street, just in case any curious passersby happen to glance up, although she knows from experience that normal people rarely look very far above their own noses. After eight hundred years in existence, the Cambridge University Society of Literature and Witchcraft has only been spotted by the public a handful of times. People don’t look up. They scurry about, lost in their thoughts, and rarely consider slowing down and gazing at the sky. It’s a shame, Amandine sometimes thinks, since they miss so much. She’s always particularly shocked at how many of her own students, who should be drawn to architecture, haven’t noticed the incredibly intricate turrets and towers crammed into the city.

Amandine has been gazing up at the colleges of Cambridge since the first day she arrived as an undergraduate. Now, in her thirty-seventh year, she knows every single carving, every stone spire and sculpture. She knows all 149 gargoyles by name, having named them one weekend when she wasn’t in the mood to stay at her desk and mark essays.

Amandine joined the group as soon as she was admitted to the university. She attended her first meeting on the evening of her matriculation, finally achieving a dream she’d been dreaming since she was a teenager. On the eve of her thirteenth birthday Amandine had followed her mother, Professor Héloïse Bisset, out of the house and under the cover of a cloudy sky.

Every month Héloïse went out and Amandine always wondered where she was going. She knew it was somewhere special because she felt the anticipation and delight that bubbled inside her mother on the morning of the day she was set to go out. Little Amandine begged Héloïse to tell her, but her mother always refused, telling her she was too young, that she’d tell her one day but not yet. By the time she was nearly thirteen, Amandine finally got fed up with the waiting and determined to find the truth for herself.

She followed Héloïse to Emmanuel College, crept up the stairs of the north wing on tiptoe, and alighted on the rooftop. There sat three other women and a man sitting in a circle, each hovering five inches in the air, holding a book and a cup of hot chocolate. Amandine watched as Héloïse went to join them, finding her place in the circle, mysteriously producing a book and, even more mysteriously, a hot chocolate of her own as she sat down. That night Amandine watched and listened. The book they talked about was one she’d never heard of but, after hearing all its salacious details discussed in depth, she borrowed it off her mother’s bedside the next morning and spent her birthday reading it cover to cover.

Amandine hadn’t really been surprised by the strange things she saw that night: the sudden appearance of marshmallows and chocolate on sticks, along with a tiny elevated fire, flickering and spitting a few inches off the roof, upon which to roast them. She didn’t gasp in shock when the strangers themselves hovered a few feet in the air whenever they laughed or argued. She didn’t wonder why, when it started to rain, none of her mother’s friends got wet.

Amandine had always suspected there was something different about her mother. Unlike her father, her mother seemed to know what would happen
before
it happened—she picked up the phone the second it started to ring, she started to pack before they had to move house, she made tea with lemon and honey just before her father started sneezing and complaining of a cold. Amandine also knew there was something different about herself quite early on, quickly realizing that other people didn’t feel their fellow human beings’ feelings in the same way she did. But it wasn’t until the night that she turned thirteen that Amandine finally confronted her mother.

When she saw that the book group was coming to an end, when the marshmallows had all been eaten and the little fire went out, Amandine scampered back down the staircase—treading as lightly and quickly as she could—then waited for Héloïse around the corner so she could catch her on her own.

“So,” Héloïse said, before she saw her, “
ma petite fille
is ready to grow up now, is she?”

“Can I join your book group,
Maman,
can I, please?” Amandine asked, running along to catch up to her mother.

“Not yet,
ma petite
,” Héloïse said. “But yes, in time, you can.”

“When?”

Héloïse gave a small sigh then, as if deciding whether to tell her. A few hundred feet away the golden stone clock on King’s College chimed one o’clock. Each note pierced the air around them.

“Please,
Maman
,” Amandine begged. “I’m thirteen now, I’m very much old enough.”

“Are you now?” Héloïse laughed. “All right then, you’ll join us after you turn eighteen, when you’re accepted at Magdalene College.”

Amandine stopped walking, eyes wide. “Really? I will, are you sure?”

Héloïse nodded. “Yes,
ma petite
, I’m sure.”

“Brilliant! Brilliant!” Amandine exclaimed, her voice echoing through the emptiness, excited words bouncing off ancient buildings. She started to skip down the street. “I can’t wait!”

H
ÉLOÏSE WAKES JUST
before dawn, as she always does, the sun pulling her out of bed. Sometimes, now that she no longer has a husband to take care of, Héloïse wishes she could sleep in. But it’s a habit she doesn’t mind very much, since the stillness and silence of the early morning suit her.

She sits up, slowly stretching her arms above her head with a yawn, then picks a brush off her bedside table and brushes her short bob flat, tucking stray wisps behind her ears. It’s entirely gray now. She stopped dyeing it back to black when François died. Now, nearly two years later, she can hardly remember what she used to look like. A vague image of beauty and glamour lingers at the edge of her memories but the taint of guilt and death have darkened it.