The Witches of Cambridge (9 page)

Héloïse sips her coffee and sighs. “
Exactement
. You worry about a stranger. You should worry instead about your own marriage.”

Amandine tears off a large piece of croissant and chews it slowly. “I’ve asked her to meet Eliot,” she says. “I’m hoping she’ll tell me what’s going on.”

Kat sits forward, leaning across the table. “Are you sure that’s wise? She’s your student, you don’t want her knowing the intimate details of your marriage.”

“I can trust her,” Amandine says, reaching for the remainder of the croissant. “She won’t tell anyone what she finds out.”

“How do you know?” Kat asks. “Since she says everything she sees, maybe she won’t be able to help it.”

Amandine shakes her head. “That’s only to the person whose secret she sees, not the whole wide world. At least, I hope so.”

“
Moi aussi
,” Héloïse says.

Amandine catches her mother’s eye. “Can’t you tell me what’s going on with Eliot?”

“
Désolé
,” Héloïse says softly. “I would, if I could, of course. But since your father…I still can’t…”

“Maman?”
Amandine asks, tentative. “Is it true?”

“Quoi?”

“What she said about the—pills.”

Héloïse gazes into her coffee cup. Amandine waits until her mother at last looks up.

“I won’t do anything,” Héloïse says. “I can promise you that.”

“But you want to?”

Héloïse gives another little shrug. The blue silk scarf on her shoulders ripples and slides down across her breast. She picks it up and turns to Kat.

“So this girl is right in everything, is she?” Héloïse says. “You will not tell George again how you feel?”

“Shush!” Kat hisses, glancing around the café.

Amandine giggles. “I don’t think he has spies hiding around corners, he’s not the subterfuge type.”

“It’s his favorite café,” Kat snaps. “And if my sister overheard, she’d tell him in a second. She’s forever trying to fix me up.”

“Is Cosi working tonight?” Amandine asks. “I haven’t seen her. I’ll say hello.”

Héloïse smiles. “You’re just hoping she’ll give you free cakes.”

“Well, there is that too, of course.”

Héloïse looks at Kat. “So, will you tell George?”

“Of course,” Kat says, picking at the flaky pastry of a croissant. “One day. When I solve Hilbert’s eighth problem or Kepler’s
M = E−
ε
sin E
.”

Héloïse raises an eyebrow. “And am I right in supposing that this will not happen especially soon?”

“It’s a delicate situation,” Kat says. “And there are other factors to consider, it’s not just a simple matter of declaring oneself. It’s complicated.”

“Ah,
oui
.” Héloïse smiles. “Of course it is.”

“Shut up,” Kat snaps. “I’m waiting for the right time.”

Amandine fixes Kat with a coy smile. “And a perfect opportunity hasn’t happened to crop up in the two decades you’ve known each other, is that it?”

Kat glares at her.

“
Alors
, so you’re not really scared,” Héloïse says. “You are simply being strategic,
oui
?”

Kat starts shredding the croissant. “You two don’t know what you’re talking about. There’s a lot more to it. For starters, he wants children, and I can’t have them. And, anyway—”

“That’s not a deal-breaker,” Amandine says. “You can adopt.”

“I’m sure he wants his own,” Kat protests. “And I can’t ask him to compromise that, it wouldn’t be fair—”

“You could ask him,” Héloïse suggests. “That might be a first step.”

“Hey,” Kat snaps, “when was the last time you put your heart out there to be stamped on? You were married forever, to a man who adored you—you never had to risk anything.”

A silence falls over the table and the three women all avoid one another’s eyes. Amandine sneaks a sideways glance at her mother, wondering if she should say something to deflect the subject and fill the silence. But then Héloïse looks up.

“
C’est vrai
,” she says. “But I’m no longer married, am I? So what’s left of my heart has now been quite thoroughly stamped on, wouldn’t you say?”

Kat nods, ceasing her shredding of the unfortunate croissant.

“But I am learning,” Héloïse continues, “that hiding my heart away from the world—for risk of further stamping—is to give up on life. I’m afraid I cannot recommend it.”

Kat nods, taking the older woman’s hand and squeezing it. “I’m sorry. And I’m glad you’re back. We missed you.”

“Yes,” Héloïse says softly, “me too.”

Amandine takes her mother’s free hand and Kat’s. The three women sit together, holding one another tight and falling into silence again.

—

Ten sleepless nights later, Cosima still slips into unconsciousness only at dawn, then wakes an hour later. And, for one blissful moment, she forgets. She still thinks Tommy is sleeping beside her, still believes in true love, still has an unbroken heart. And then, in the next terrible moment, she remembers.

Every morning Kat visits, bringing treats and things she hopes will help to heal her sister. She force-feeds Cosima chocolate brownies for breakfast, baked to her own special recipe: a pinch of powdered Michaelmas daisy for farewell, two pinches of dried magnolia for dignity, three drops of jasmine for separation, and celandine for joys to come. This, along with four drops of witch hazel in her glass of warm milk, ensures Cosima’s relatively easy recovery. Of course, Kat isn’t a miracle worker and broken hearts will only fully heal when their owners finally want to forgive and forget, but incredibly, on the eleventh morning Kat is able to persuade Cosima to return to the café.

And, when Cosima is again holding a bag of sugar and a jar of dried daisy petals over a fresh, warm batch of sour cherry and chocolate cupcakes, she makes two vows: she will never give her heart to a man again and she will take her destiny into her own hands.

In six months she’ll turn thirty and Cosima knows that a woman’s fertility drops drastically after that fateful birthday. The clock is ticking. Now that she’s lost Tommy and sworn off true love, she needs to find a man who shares her dream of parenthood. She’s given up on the idea of being loved; she’s no longer looking for Prince Charming, she’s just looking for a man who’s happy to impregnate her, a man who wants to be a father. Given what Kat told her all those years ago, Cosima understands the enormous risks of such a venture, which is why she’s being extra stringent in her standards. She needs to find the best possible father for her baby, to compensate for the worst-case scenario that she won’t survive to be its mother, just as her own mother didn’t for her. And since she’s failed to find and keep romantic love by natural means, Cosima decides that morning to settle for platonic love by magical means instead.

—

Cosima stands at her oak-topped counter, absorbing the scent of a batch of walnut and stilton bread she’s just pulled out of her oven. As she sniffs the air, Cosima contemplates her plan. She’s decided to add a deeper dimension to her baking spells, putting a pinch of dried honeysuckle and purple rose petals into everything—savory and sweet—in order to help find a suitable father for her child. The spell won’t change a man’s desire, only highlight it for Cosima to see. It’ll make spotting a potential candidate much easier; then she can better pick the one she wants before asking him to sit down and discuss the details. The spell will also highlight those with the necessary credentials, so she doesn’t waste precious months on someone who wants a child but sadly can’t help create one. In her wildest dreams, she might still be hoping for the whole package— love and a baby—but she’s quite happy to settle for a confirmed bachelor who wants a child but not a wife.

As the milky early morning sun slips in through her kitchen windows, Cosima plucks the blossoms off her yellow squash and begins to make her way through today’s menu: courgette blossom and artichoke pizza, wild mushroom and tomato bruschetta, lemon and pistachio cake, vanilla and orange oil cannoli, espresso and hazelnut tart…And into each bowl she sprinkles a generous pinch of paternal love, protection, and devotion. If she’s right, this will bring her a brilliant batch of potential fathers before the week is out.

G
EORGE NODS ABSENTLY,
sneaking a glance at his watch. He’s still got forty minutes of listening to first-year students muddle their way through the meaning of the archaeological sites of Christianity in ninth-century England. Forty minutes until lunchtime, until he can consume one of Cosima’s delicious pizzas and a divine cannoli.

“Go on,” he directs the third student, whose name escapes him.

While she continues in a dull monotone, George looks down at his stomach, significantly rounder than it was three years ago. He’s never been slim but certainly wouldn’t be quite so fat now if not for Cosima’s cooking. Every afternoon he dines on pizza slathered with rich sauces and rarely a vegetable in sight. At this rate he’ll be dead before he hits fifty.

George has never been a particularly powerful witch, with only a slight dose of magic passed down on his father’s side, just a sprinkling of the supernatural in his otherwise human blood. He can move things with his mind, insignificant objects like pens and spoons; he can hear the occasional thought and invoke the odd simple incantation. But he’s not an empath like Amandine, a psychic like Héloïse, or a master spell caster like Kat. George has one supernatural skill and that’s the ability to keep secrets—one particular, personal secret—free from the prying eyes of psychic witches. That’s been pretty useful, he supposes. But he’s always longed for a little more power (Kat has always theorized that his magical powers, like his self-confidence, are locked up deep inside and he just has to unlock and unleash them) and he’s never been able to find it. Which is lucky, perhaps, or he’d be tempted to work a bit of magic in his own favor to cancel the calories of the delicious food he consumes in excess every day, for example, or to find true love. And he knows the dangers of self-serving spells, the probability that they might backfire or cause general havoc and mayhem.

Less than an hour later George is standing in line to buy another deliciously decadent lunch. He’s pretty sure Cosima puts something in her food to seduce her customers into coming back again and again, though he can’t be certain. He’d ask her outright, if he had the guts, but he’s always found Kat’s sister a little bit intimidating. As he edges closer to the counter, standing in the heat of the pizza ovens, a light sweat gathers on his brow. George opens his wallet and starts counting out his cash.

“What can I get you today, Georgie?” Cosima asks. “The usual?”

“Thanks.” George nods. He leans forward. “Are you okay? Kat told me…I’m really sorry…”

Cosima shakes her head. “I don’t want to think about it. But I’m okay, I mean, I’ll be okay.”

“That’s good,” George says. “You deserve it. To be happy, I mean.”

Cosima smiles. “Thank you. You’re sweet.”

Picking up a slice of squash blossom pizza with a pair of tongs, Cosima tucks a stray black curl behind her ear and adds a dusting of flour from her fingers to her cheek. George watches as she bags it up, then adds two vanilla and orange oil cannoli for luck.

“Espresso?”

George nods. “Double, thanks.”

Sometimes George wishes that Cosima were his type. How glorious it would be to combine love and food, two physical and emotional delights wrapped up in one human being. Perfection. Perhaps it’s a good thing, saving him from a premature heart attack.

“Try this,” Cosima says, handing him a sliver of lemon-pistachio cake. “While you wait.”

George’s eyes widen as he takes it. “Looks delicious.” He gobbles it down in one gulp. “Incredible.”

Cosima laughs. “You barely tasted it.”

“I have highly sophisticated taste buds,” George explains. “They only need a passing lick of something in order to fully appreciate the delicate subtleties of its flavors.”

“Oh, really?” Cosima smiles. “Okay then, try this and tell me what’s in it.” She hands him a slice of wild mushroom and grape tomato bruschetta. “Every single ingredient.”

“All right then,” George says, as he begins to chew. “You’re on.” He swallows. “Okay, in addition to the obvious: basil, garlic, olive oil, black pepper, salt…a splash of lemon juice and a dash of rosemary.”

Cosima studies him with a raised eyebrow and a curious smile. “That’s very impressive. Anything else?”

“Nope.” George shakes his head. “That’s what my extremely sophisticated taste buds are telling me.”

“Well then, they’re pretty damn good, but not absolutely flawless.”

“Really?” George asks. “What have I missed?”

“That’d be telling.” Cosima grins.

“Oh, come on,” George says, “that’s cheating, you’ve got to tell me.”

Cosima shakes her head. “No I don’t. Trade secrets.”

George smiles. “Tease.”

Cosima regards George curiously. Is she sensing a frisson of flirting? She’s known George since she was a kid, and she’s never noticed any such thing before. How curious.

“That’ll be nine pounds and eighty pence then,” Cosima says. “Including the freebies and the being-Kat’s-best-friend discount.”