"If you stain-" I began.
"I heard you the first two times, Diana. This is a spel for a vapor. Nothing but air wil touch your precious manuscript page. Stop fussing."
"I'l go get it," Matthew said hastily. I shot him a filthy look.
After he returned from the dining room with the picture cradled careful y in his hands, he and Sarah went off into the stil room together. My aunt was talking a mile a minute as Matthew listened intently.
"Who would have imagined?" said Em, shaking her head.
Em and I washed the dinner dishes and had started the process of tidying the family room, which looked like a crime scene, when a pair of headlights swept the driveway.
"They're here." My stomach tightened.
"It'l be fine, honey. They're Matthew's family." Em squeezed my arm encouragingly.
By the time I reached the front door, Marcus and Miriam were getting out of the car. Miriam looked awkward and out of place in a lightweight brown sweater with the sleeves rol ed up to her elbows, a miniskirt, and ankle boots, her dark eyes taking in the farm and its surroundings with an attitude of disbelief. Marcus was observing the house's architecture and sniffing the breeze-which was no doubt redolent with coffee and witches-clothed in a short- sleeved T-shirt from a 1982 concert tour and a pair of jeans.
When the door swung open, Marcus's blue eyes met mine with a twinkle. "Hi, Mom, we're home!"
"Did he tel you?" I demanded, furious with Matthew for not obeying my wishes.
"Tel me what?" Marcus's forehead creased in puzzlement.
"Nothing," I muttered. "Hel o, Marcus. Hel o, Miriam."
"Diana." Miriam's fine features were drawn into their familiar look of disapproval.
"Nice house." Marcus headed up the porch stairs. He held a brown bottle in his fingers. Under the porch lights, his golden hair and polished white skin positively gleamed.
"Come in, welcome." I hurriedly pul ed him inside, hoping that no one driving by the house had glimpsed the vampire on the landing.
"How are you, Diana?" There was worry in his eyes, and his nose flared to take in my scent. Matthew had told him about La Pierre.
"I'm fine." Upstairs, a door closed with a bang. "No nonsense! I am deadly serious!"
"About what?" Miriam stopped in her tracks, and her flat black curls wiggled over her shoulders like snakes.
"Nothing. Don't worry about it." Now that both vampires were safely within the wal s, the house sighed.
"Nothing?" Miriam had heard the sigh, too, and her brows rose.
"The house gets a bit worried when visitors come to cal , that's al ."
Miriam looked up the staircase and sniffed. "How many residents does the house have?"
It was a simple question, for which there was no simple answer.
"Unsure," I said shortly, lugging a duffel bag in the direction of the stairs. "What do you have in here?"
"It's Miriam's bag. Let me." Marcus hooked it easily with his index finger.
We went upstairs so I could show them their rooms. Em had asked Matthew outright if the two would be sharing a bed. First he'd looked shocked at the impropriety of the question, and then he'd burst into gales of laughter and assured her that if they weren't separated, there would be one dead vampire by morning. Periodical y throughout the day, he'd chuckled under his breath, saying "Marcus and Miriam. What an idea."
Marcus was staying in the guest bedroom that used to belong to Em, and we'd put Miriam in my old attic room.
Stacks of fluffy towels were waiting on their beds, and I showed each of them where the bathroom was. There wasn't much to do to get vampire guests settled-you couldn't offer them food, or a place to lie down, or much of anything in the way of creature comforts. Happily, there'd been no spectral apparitions or fal ing plaster to indicate the house was displeased with their presence.
Matthew certainly knew that his son and Miriam had arrived, but the stil room was secluded enough that Sarah remained oblivious. When I led the two vampires past the keeping room, Elizabeth peeped around the door, her eyes wide as an owl's.
"Go find Grandma." I turned to Marcus and Miriam.
"Sorry, we've got ghosts."
Marcus covered his laugh with a cough. "Do al of your ancestors live with you?"
Thinking of my parents, I shook my head.
"Too bad," he murmured.
Em was waiting in the family room, her smile wide and genuine. "You must be Marcus," she said, getting to her feet and holding out her hand. "I'm Emily Mather."
"Em, this is Matthew's col eague, Miriam Shephard."
Miriam stepped forward. Though she and Em were both fine-boned, Miriam looked like a china dol in comparison.
"Welcome, Miriam," said Em, looking down with a smile.
"Do either of you need something to drink? Matthew opened wine." She was entirely natural, as if vampires were always dropping by. Both Marcus and Miriam shook their heads.
"Where's Matthew?" Miriam asked, making her priorities clear. Her keen senses absorbed the details of her new environment. "I can hear him."
We led the two vampires toward the old wooden door that closed off Sarah's private sanctuary. Marcus and Miriam continued to take in al the scents of the Bishop house as we proceeded-the food, the clothes, the witches, the coffee, and the cat.
Tabitha came screeching out of the shadows by the fireplace, aiming straight for Miriam as if the two were deadly enemies.
Miriam hissed, and Tabitha froze in mid-hurtle. The two assessed each other, predator to predator. Tabitha was the first to avert her eyes when, after several long moments, the cat discovered an urgent need to groom herself. It was a silent acknowledgment that she was no longer the only female of consequence on the premises.
"That's Tabitha," I said weakly. "She's quite fond of Matthew."
In the stil room Matthew and Sarah were crouched over a pot of something set atop an old electric burner, rapt expressions on their faces. Bunches of dried herbs swung from the rafters, and the original colonial ovens stood ready for use, their iron hooks and cranes waiting to hold heavy cauldrons over the coals.
"The eyebright is crucial," Sarah was explaining like a schoolmarm. "It clears the sight."
"That smel s vile," Miriam observed, wrinkling her tiny nose and creeping closer.
Matthew's face darkened.
"Matthew," Marcus said evenly.
"Marcus," his father replied.
Sarah stood and examined the newest members of the household, both of whom glowed. The stil room's subdued light only accentuated their unnatural paleness and the startling effect of their dilated pupils. "Goddess save us, how does anyone think you're human?"
"It's always been a mystery to me," Miriam said, studying Sarah with equal interest. "You're not exactly inconspicuous either, with al that red hair and the smel of henbane coming off you in waves. I'm Miriam Shephard."
Matthew and I exchanged a long look, wondering how Miriam and Sarah were going to coexist peaceful y under the same roof.
"Welcome to the Bishop house, Miriam." Sarah's eyes narrowed, and Miriam responded in kind. My aunt turned her attention to Marcus. "So you're his kid." As usual, she had no patience with social niceties.
"I'm Matthew's son, yes." Marcus, who looked like he'd seen a ghost, slowly held out a brown bottle. "Your namesake was a healer, like you. Sarah Bishop taught me how to set a broken leg after the Battle of Bunker Hil . I stil do it the way she taught me."
Two roughly shod feet dangled over the edge of the stil room loft.
Let's hope he's got more strength now than he did then, said a woman who was the spitting image of Sarah.
"Whiskey," Sarah said, looking from the bottle to my son with new appreciation.
"She liked spirits. I thought you might, too."
Both Sarah Bishops nodded.
"You thought right," my aunt said.
"How's the potion going?" I said, trying not to sneeze in the close atmosphere.
"It needs to steep for nine hours," Sarah said. "Then we boil it again, draw the manuscript through the vapor, and see what we see." She eyed the whiskey.
"Let's take a break, then. I could open that for you,"
Matthew suggested, gesturing at the bottle.
"Don't mind if I do." She took the bottle from Marcus.
"Thank you, Marcus."
Sarah turned off the burner and clapped a lid on the pot before we al streamed into the kitchen. Matthew poured himself some wine, offered it to Miriam and Marcus, who declined again, and got Sarah some whiskey. I made myself tea-plain Lipton's from the grocery store-while Matthew asked the vampires about their trip and the state of work at the lab.
There was no trace of warmth in Matthew's voice, or any indication he was pleased by his son's arrival. Marcus shifted uneasily from one foot to the other, knowing that he wasn't welcome. I suggested we might go into the family room and sit down in hopes that some of the awkwardness would fade.
"Let's go to the dining room instead." Sarah raised her glass to her charming great-nephew. "We'l show them the letter. Get Diana's picture, Matthew. They should see that, too."
"Marcus and Miriam won't be staying long," Matthew said with quiet reproach. "They have something to tel Diana, and then they're going back to England."
"But they're family," Sarah pointed out, seemingly oblivious to the tension in the room.
My aunt retrieved the picture herself while Matthew continued to glower at his son. Sarah led us to the front of the house. Matthew, Em, and I assembled on one side of the table. Miriam, Marcus, and Sarah sat on the other.
Once settled, my aunt began chattering about the morning's events. Whenever she asked Matthew for some point of clarification, he bit out the answer without embel ishment.
Everyone in the room save Sarah seemed to understand that Matthew didn't want Miriam and Marcus to know the details of what had happened. My aunt blithely continued, finishing with a recitation of my mother's letter along with the postscript from my father. Matthew held firmly on to my hand while she did so.
Miriam took up the picture of the chemical wedding. She studied it careful y before turning her eyes to me. "Your mother was right. This is a picture of you. Matthew, too."
"I know," I said, meeting her gaze. "Do you know what it means?"
"Miriam?" Matthew said sharply.
"We can wait until tomorrow." Marcus looked uneasy and rose to his feet. "It's late."
"She already knows," Miriam said softly. "What comes after marriage, Diana? What's the next step in alchemical transmutation after conjunctio?"
The room tilted, and I smel ed the herbs in my tea from Sept-Tours.
"Conceptio." My body turned to jel y, and I slid down the back of the chair as everything went black.