A Discovery Of Witches

chapter 1

The leather-bound volume was nothing remarkable. To an ordinary historian, it would have looked no different from hundreds of other manuscripts in Oxford's Bodleian Library, ancient and worn. But I knew there was something odd about it from the moment I col ected it.

Duke Humfrey's Reading Room was deserted on this late-September afternoon, and requests for library materials were fil ed quickly now that the summer crush of visiting scholars was over and the madness of the fal term had not yet begun. Even so, I was surprised when Sean stopped me at the cal desk.

"Dr. Bishop, your manuscripts are up," he whispered, voice tinged with a touch of mischief. The front of his argyle sweater was streaked with the rusty traces of old leather bindings, and he brushed at it self-consciously. A lock of sandy hair tumbled over his forehead when he did.

"Thanks," I said, flashing him a grateful smile. I was flagrantly disregarding the rules limiting the number of books a scholar could cal in a single day. Sean, who'd shared many a drink with me in the pink-stuccoed pub across the street in our graduate-student days, had been fil ing my requests without complaint for more than a week.

"And stop cal ing me Dr. Bishop. I always think you're talking to someone else."

He grinned back and slid the manuscripts-al containing fine examples of alchemical il ustrations from the Bodleian's col ections-over his battered oak desk, each one tucked into a protective gray cardboard box. "Oh, there's one more." Sean disappeared into the cage for a moment and returned with a thick, quarto-size manuscript bound simply in mottled calfskin. He laid it on top of the pile and stooped to inspect it. The thin gold rims of his glasses sparked in the dim light provided by the old bronze reading lamp that was attached to a shelf. "This one's not been cal ed up for a while. I'l make a note that it needs to be boxed after you return it."

"Do you want me to remind you?"

"No. Already made a note here." Sean tapped his head with his fingertips.

"Your mind must be better organized than mine." My smile widened.

Sean looked at me shyly and tugged on the cal slip, but it remained where it was, lodged between the cover and the first pages. "This one doesn't want to let go," he commented.

Muffled voices chattered in my ear, intruding on the familiar hush of the room.

"Did you hear that?" I looked around, puzzled by the strange sounds.

"What?" Sean replied, looking up from the manuscript.

Traces of gilt shone along its edges and caught my eye.

But those faded touches of gold could not account for a faint, iridescent shimmer that seemed to be escaping from between the pages. I blinked.

"Nothing." I hastily drew the manuscript toward me, my skin prickling when it made contact with the leather. Sean's fingers were stil holding the cal slip, and now it slid easily out of the binding's grasp. I hoisted the volumes into my arms and tucked them under my chin, assailed by a whiff of the uncanny that drove away the library's familiar smel of pencil shavings and floor wax.

"Diana? Are you okay?" Sean asked with a concerned frown.

"Fine. Just a bit tired," I replied, lowering the books away from my nose.

I walked quickly through the original, fifteenth-century part of the library, past the rows of Elizabethan reading desks with their three ascending bookshelves and scarred writing surfaces. Between them, Gothic windows directed the reader's attention up to the coffered ceilings, where bright paint and gilding picked out the details of the university's crest of three crowns and open book and where its motto, "God is my il umination," was proclaimed repeatedly from on high.