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st_aurafinaTitle: The Witch and the Water
Fandom: A Discovery of Witches (TV)
Rating: General
Words: 5155
Characters/Pairings: Diana & Sophie, Diana/Matthew, Sophie/Nathaniel, Satu Järvinen
Warnings/Content: Roadtrips, Friendship, Magic, Pies
Notes: Written for![[archiveofourown.org profile]](https://p.dreamwidth.org/b164c54b26e4/-/archiveofourown.org/favicon.ico)
colorofsaying for Yuletide 2019
Summary: Sophie's visions lead her and Diana on a road trip.
Also at the Archive
Diana woke up to a soft conversation taking place above her head, one male voice, patient and amused, and one female, rising in pitch with excitement and enthusiasm. Matthew's body was warm against hers, and the covers smelled of the rosemary and sage bundles that Sarah used in the linen press to keep away pests.
"They're the best mornings, the ones with a little bit of mist, and that feeling that there's something to be discovered when it lifts. Don't you think?" Even without opening her eyes, Diana could identify Sophie from her soft voice and accent. What she didn't understand is why she and Matthew were deep in conversation at some unearthly hour of the morning.
"I don't mind them," Matthew said. His voice – always calm, always polite – had a note of gentleness that was new to Diana's ear. "I like them best when I can stay warm in bed with someone I love."
"Yeah, that's great," said Sophie. Diana heard the rustle of curtains, and then the familiar jingle of the wooden curtain rings as they were pulled across. "But not today. Today is a day for travelling. And discovering."
"Is it?" Diana emerged from under the covers, her hair all in her eyes, and her voice hoarse from sleep. "Hello Sophie," she said, and wriggled in against Matthew's side.
Matthew brushed her hair aside to kiss her forehead. "Sophie woke me up this morning," he said, lips against her skin. Diana could hear the amusement in his voice, the lack of concern or any need to question why a woman he barely knew had bustled into their bedchamber with no invitation or explanation. He'd been friends with daemons for a long time, Diana supposed. She wasn't so used to daemon nature herself, but there was an openness to Sophie that was disarming. It made her daemon oddness easier to accept, a little more so than that of Matthew's friend Hamish whose quick tongue occasionally cut a little close to the bone.
"We're going on a road trip," Sophie said to Diana. "I had a dream last night, we were buying apples on the side of the road. I really hope that part was literal because this little lady –" she patted her round stomach gently "– is telling me to eat a bushel of apples." She grinned at Diana. "I wouldn't eat a literal bushel," she said. "That would be a really bad idea."
Diane moved her legs so that they were intertwined with Matthew's. The window above her bed was clouded with fog except where the eaves had leaked and let droplets draw snake-like wiggles down the wobbly old glass. This was not a day for a road trip. It was a day to sleep in, make love, then convince Matthew to bring her breakfast on a tray.
"How about we wait and see what the weather's going to do?" she said. She spread her fingers across Matthew's thigh and felt the muscle tense.
Behind her, Sophie put her finger to the glass and drew lines in the condensation. "No, that's not how it unfolds," she said, voice distant.
Intrigued, Diana curled around in the bed to watch. The lines became a face, long and angular. Sophie sketched in a pair of arched eyebrows, a straight edge for the hairline, then turned to face them, her expression solemn. "We really need to go now. There's somewhere we have to be soon."
Diana gasped and her fingers tightened on Matthew's leg. Over Sophie's shoulder, drawn in fog on the antique glass pane, was Satu's face. Where Sophie had drawn the eyes, the surface tension had broken and run down the pane, giving the impression of tears falling.
Matthew was determined that he would drive Sophie and Diana wherever they needed to be.
In the driveway, Sophie had been immovable. "No, you're not in the dream," she said. "It's just not the way it goes." Diana was surprised at how calm she was about it: standing there, fists pushed into the small of her back, firmly refusing the wishes of a man who could throw her across the garden without a second thought. Sophie wasn't afraid or domineering. She didn't need to make a big demonstration of her will. It was just the way things were.
"It could be," said Matthew. "There's no reason I couldn't come along, to make sure the two of you are safe."
Sophie took his hands and looked up into his eyes. There were few people who could meet Matthew's gaze and not be intimidated, but Sophie did so with an easy smile. "It's okay, Matthew," she said. "We're going for a drive. We'll have to stop twenty times so I can pee, but we'll be fine. We'll buy you some apples, and tonight you can make us a pie."
Diana covered her mouth to hide her smile. People didn't gaze earnestly into Matthew's eyes and talk about pee. She was fairly sure of that.
Diana had to drive, because first of all, Sophie didn't fit behind the steering wheel any more. Secondly, and it was very daemonic that Sophie mentioned this small prophetic fact in an off-hand, casual way: it had been Diana driving in Sophie's dream.
"I was actually in the dream?" Diana drove Sarah's station wagon gingerly down the muddy and corrugated road away from the Bishop house. Behind them, still arguing in the yard over who was driving, were Matthew and Nathaniel. Nate made a grab for the keys and Matthew held them far, far above his head, too high for Nate to get hold of them.
"Yeah, it was you and me," said Sophie. "That part was pretty straight forward, at least." She sat slouched down in the car seat, balancing her belly on her legs, apparently completely comfortable, though she surely couldn't see over the dashboard. She wore a thick knitted scarf and a bright orange bobble hat, so the only part of her face that was visible was a nose and her bright blue eyes.
Diana got to the first intersection. If she went left, she'd be heading into town. Right would take her to the highway, towards Oneida County. She glanced sideways towards Sophie.
Sophie shuffled more upright so she could peer left and right down the road. "Do either of them lead to a lake?" she asked.
"There was a lake in the dream?" Diana said. "We should maybe have sorted the larger details before we got going." She flicked on the indicator and turned left. They could get some coffee in town, and she could gently interrogate Sophie about her dream geography. Maybe there had been a map in her dream. Maybe that was too literal.
Behind them, at the gates to the Bishop property, Diana saw Matthew's car pull out of the driveway at last. She didn't need to squint to know that Matthew was driving. As open-minded as he was about other species, there was no way he would be someone's passenger, especially since Nate wouldn't be used to driving on the right.
Beside her, Sophie's phone buzzed. "Nate's coming along," she said. "That's nice; he can keep Matthew company."
Diana heaved the car into a park just outside Madison's co-op and coffee house. She'd chosen it because it was eclectic enough to hold Sophie's attention, and because it was familiar and friendly, a place she'd gone after school, a place she'd had a summer job. If Sophie had some unintended dream bombshells to drop, this was a good place to hear them. Also, there was a huge vintage map of Madison County on the wall behind her favourite table. Hopefully she could get some more concrete details out of Sophie with an actual map in front of her.
Sophie eased herself out of the car, and immediately made friends with a small white dog waiting patiently outside the door. Margie, the co-op owner was very strict about animals in the store – Diana had been soundly reprimanded for bringing in a pet rat once, and she still harboured a tiny teenage sense of outrage, because Freya had been safe and warm inside her shirt at the time – but Margie was an animal lover herself and always had a bale of straw for visiting animals to sit on.
"Aw, he's so cosy!" Sophie said, and straightened up with a groan. "Do they have a bathroom here?"
Diana laughed and pointed her in the right direction, then went in to say hello to Margie.
Matthew appeared through the back door when Diana had taken a table under the framed map. "Is it safe to come in?" he said, scanning the tables for Sophie.
Diana laughed and beckoned him over. "It's okay, you don't have to maintain a safe distance." She held her mug of tea between her palms, and blew on it, scattering the steam. "But Sophie was right, we'll be fine. I grew up here, I know every square inch of this place. There's nothing that can hurt either of us here."
"I did tell you that before we left," said Sophie. She carried a huge cup of hot chocolate and a plate with one of Margie's chocolate brownies on it. "Margie's a potter too. Isn't this mug gorgeous?" She showed the sky-blue mug to Diana, and, forgotten in her other hand, the brownies tilted alarmingly. Matthew immediately reached for the plate and righted it, then put it on the table.
"Thank you! Did you leave your keys in the car?" Sophie said to Matthew, who was in the process of pulling out her seat for her.
Matthew paused in the act. "I did," he said, suspicious suddenly.
"Oh good," said Sophie. Outside, an engine roared into life, and Matthew, his face briefly appalled, was gone in a blur of light.
"Nathan says he saw a sign for an apple orchard on the way in, he promised to get me some." Sophie settled into her seat with a sigh. "That's better," she said. Diana wasn't sure if she was talking about her aching back, or Matthew's absence. She didn't have time to ask, because Sophie had discovered the map on the wall.
"Wow! That's beautiful." Sophie found their position immediately, one finger pressed to the glass, and she traced a line, from the coffee house to the nearest body of water, Lake Moraine. "That's not too far."
"About twenty minutes drive," Diana said. "Satu won't actually be there, will she?" It hadn't occurred to her until now that this was a possibility.
Sophie sipped her chocolate carefully, the hand-thrown mug balanced between her two forefingers. "No, not yet." She put the cup down gently. "What are you going to do when she arrives?"
Diana took a too-large swallow of tea, and it burned all the way down to her belly. The burn on her back still hurt, the skin tight and itchy where Matthew's mark was burned into her skin. Her belly was now an unhappy curdled mix of anger and fear. How dare Satu do that to her, how dare she? Her hair prickled at the back of her neck, lifting away from her collar with a crackle.
Sophie reached out to touch Diana's elbow, and a blue spark leapt from Diana to her fingertip with an audible snap. "Ouch!" she said and blew on her finger as if to cool it down.
"Sophie! I'm so sorry!" Diana said, rising half out of her chair, horrified. She'd hurt Sophie – what if she'd hurt the baby?
"I'm fine!" Sophie took her by the wrist to prove it, and pushed her gently towards her seat. "It's okay. No worse than I've done to myself with a cheap sweater."
Diana slumped down, exhausted as always when magic erupted from her unexpectedly. "This is a disaster," she said. "How am I ever going to be able to defend myself, let alone…" She didn't want to say what she had promised to do to Satu, not to Sophie who was stirring the marshmallows into her chocolate and gazing up the map.
"You'll be fine," Sophie said. "You just need to consider all the sides to the story."
In the car again, Sophie unfolded the tiny knitted jacket she'd bought from Margie's store and spread it out across her knees. "Isn't it wild that she could be wearing this in a month or so? I know she's been with me for nearly a year now, but every now and then, I get this flash of amazement about it."
Diana took the turnoff to Lake Moraine. "Are you nervous?" she said. "I'd be terrified." She couldn't imagine it, being responsible for another living being, especially one so helpless. As she had demonstrated in the coffee house, she could barely control her own magic, let alone use it to protect someone.
"Not really," said Sophie. "Babies are pretty tough, you know? The best thing I can do for her is love her, and I already do that. If she's a witch, she'll have the best teachers – my parents are great, and now I know Sarah and Emily. And if she's a daemon like me, well, she'll know from the start that she's amazing. She won't have to go through what most of us do, being outsiders and feeling lost."
Diana drove for a while in silence. "So many of us – magical creatures, I mean – know too much about pain."
Sophie was thoughtful for a moment as the car sped towards the lake. "It's changing slowly," she said. "At home – at your home, I mean – there's all sorts of people coming together to make our world better. Maybe my little girl will be able to grow up in the world that we're all creating."
"Maybe," said Diana. She wasn't all that hopeful about it, not after she'd seen the conniving politics driving the Congregation.
"Definitely," Sophie said, emphatic. "At the very least, this baby has been protected by daemons, witches and vampires. There's no way she will see them as evil."
Diana thought this was a bit much optimism – after all, she was on the run, chased by the Congregation – but she could see Sophie's point. "At the very least, she'll have a whole lot of aunts and uncles who want to see her safe and happy."
That pleased Sophie. "Matthew will make an excellent uncle," she said. "She'll have him wrapped round her little finger in no time.
That image made Diana smile, despite the ache in her shoulder where the brand lay, despite the looming arrival of Satu. "Seems like your little girl is the most powerful creature of all," she said.
Sophie smiled and folded her arms gently over her belly. "Doesn't it, just?"
Diana knew Lake Moraine as a holiday spot, a place for summer hikes, camping and cookouts. Out of season, they were the only people here, and the quiet was disturbing. The lake was hung with mist, which left every surface slick and damp, and the fog soaked up ambient noise, so even their footsteps over the grass were strangely muted.
Sophie seemed entranced, walking to the water's edge with her fingers outstretched, as if she were trailing them through the mist like someone's hair. "It's so beautiful," she said. "Even the ground seems to be holding its breath."
Diane picked her way along the muddy, debris-littered surface, a little less enthusiastically than Sophie. "I guess it's not so bad," she said, stepping over a fallen log that crawled with woodlice. She wasn't fastidious or afraid of bugs, but her years of rowing had shown her the blood-thirsty side of waterways, and it was little difficult to see the romance after you've been menaced by nesting herons, or had to pick the leeches off your calves after you've finished your morning workout.
They walked along the edge of the lake, moving up and down the shore depending on the behaviour of the small lapping waves. Sophie slipped her hand into Diana's as they walked, and Diana found herself pointing out landmarks where things of significance had happened as she was growing up.
"In really hot summers, the water levels drop and expose a huge boulder embedded in the lake floor. Out there where it's a darker green. There were a couple of years when I could stand on it, right in the middle," she said, remembering the night: humid and close, the sky huge above her, the water whispering at her feet. There had been crickets singing on shore, a high-pitched hum from midges, and the occasional splash as a big fish surfaced. It had all added up to an eerie symphony of nature. At the time, Diana spun herself a story that the music was for a beautiful woman living under the surface, hair drifting here and there in the gentle currents.
She closed her eyes as she walked, and she could hear it again: that soft hum of summer insects, the rhythmic splash of the water over stones, a drum and voice composition of nature. She could see the woman's face in her mind's eye: long cheekbones, slanted eyes and straight, dark hair. The beat of the waves got faster in her mind, and she imagined the water rising as it slapped against the shore.
"Are you casting?" Sophie asked, with all the casual interest of a woman with witches for parents, who had grown up unafraid of spell-casting and magical power. She didn't know much about Diana's conflicted relationship with magic, didn't know how much she was struggling with it right now. Diana's skin had prickled as if gathering electric charge again, and for a moment she felt the great weight of water lifting off her as she emerged, dripping and renewed.
"Diana! Diana!" Sophie's voice was far away, though she shook Diana's arm vigorously. Diana blinked herself back to the present time, and was surprised to see daylight, to feel the chill air against her skin. The rushing, agitated sound of water moving was only the waves splashing against the mish-mash of driftwood that gathered at this end of the lake.
"I'm sorry, Sophie," she said, and wrapped her in a hug. "I got a bit lost in my thoughts." Matthew's gaze rested on her from the edge of the trees, but for the moment, Diana focused her attention on Sophie. "Are you all right? Did anything happen?"
Sophie patted Diana's shoulder, well above the area where Satu's brand left the skin tender and tight. "I'm fine. And nothing happened, not really. Just that sensation when you know a storm is gathering, you know? All that potential just hanging in the air." She eased herself out of Diana's arms and pointed ahead to a bobbing collection of lumber tied together with twine in many colours. "What is that?"
"That's the raft," said Diana. "It's hard to explain." The raft was a floating pontoon, an unofficial assembly that changed from season to season depending on which fishermen held sway that year. Every season, the park rangers came to clear it away, at which time construction would begin afresh as soon as the ranger's truck departed. Right now, it was a series of reclaimed planks with various degrees of peeling paint in a multitude of colours, all lashed to a collection of plastic drums to keep it suspended half a foot above the surface. "I guess you could call it an experiment in hydrodynamic engineering. People fish off it. And there might be a crab pot on the end, if Mr Mulvaney didn't take off for the winter."
Sophie's face was a mix of fascination and horror. She put a tentative foot onto the floating platform.
"It's not really safe, Sophie," said Diana, reaching for her arm to pull her back, but Sophie was too fast, darting along the plank with surprising nimbleness, considering the ballast she was carrying. Diana's fingers reached through empty air, grasping nothing. "Please be careful!"
"I'm fine," said Sophie, turning on one foot to face Diana. The platform bobbed and shifted with her weight, but she didn't fall. Diana's heart was suddenly in her mouth: Sophie could slip, the plank could break, and she'd be in the water with the rest of the debris that made up the raft. Injured and submerged, or even worse, dragged away by the mysterious currents, her and her baby gone forever.
Diana felt dry wood beneath her feet; she'd stepped onto the raft without a second thought. She didn't know how this would help Sophie, she didn't know what she'd do when she reached her. All she knew was the weight she held, a cold and heavy mass shifting in her arms and threatening to unbalance her. She flexed her shoulders like she was pulling the oars, stood straight up, certain and assured. She would force the lake to keep Sophie dry, keep Sophie safe. There was no question that she would be obeyed.
Sophie gasped, and Diana heard the rush of air that meant Matthew moving at speed to be beside her. When she opened her eyes, she saw that the water had moved away, tilting like soup in a bowl held on an angle. The raft now sat on the muddy bottom, and the submerged rock she'd pointed out to Sophie had appeared nearby, glossy and dark but solid. On top of the boulder sat a snapping turtle with a disgruntled expression, obviously extremely put out to have been so rudely exposed. It slid into the water with a soft plop, and was gone.
"Are you all right, Diana?" Matthew's hand was at her elbow.
Diana nodded slowly. "Yes, I think so." It was strange to see the lake water piled up to one side, waiting patiently for her to release it. There was oddly little effort involved in holding it there; she would have assumed from watching her mother, and later Sarah, casting spells that something of this magnitude would be very tiring, but she was less exhausted than she would be after a morning run.
Nate thundered up to the shore at last, breathing heavily, leaning on his thighs to catch his breath. "You… okay… babe?" he gasped.
Still on the platform, Sophie laughed. "Yeah, I'm pretty good," she said. "How are you doing?"
Nate nodded, still breathless. "We got those apples," he said. "Matthew knows how to make shortcrust pastry."
Matthew seemed startled by this revelation. "In theory, " he said, hastily. "I've watched Marthe do it, at least." His hand was on the small of Diana's back supporting her, and though she didn't need it, it was good to know he was there.
"That's great," said Sophie. "We just need to head over to that rock, and we can go home."
"Absolutely not!" said Matthew.
Nate spoke at exactly the same time. "Sure thing! I'll go get the car." He elbowed Matthew. "Reckon we can drive over that grass without getting stuck?"
Matthew turned on him with an appalled and yet tired expression, and Diana giggled. He'd obviously been making that face all day. She took the chance to step away from him and reach out for Sophie.
"You can totally hold that lake up for a bit, can't you?" Sophie said to her as she stepped down onto solid ground. Her voice was full of confidence, and like a wave, it bounced off Diana, magnifying her own determination.
She nodded. "Pretty sure it's not going anywhere just yet," she said.
"Diana!" said Matthew. "Please, do not take unnecessary risks."
Diana watched the rock drying in the weak sunlight as she calculated a path towards it through the newly formed shallows. It was odd how the curving sandbars, partially exposed by the shifted water, appeared like a road leading up to the rock. Somehow she knew before she took her first step that it would be solid enough to walk on. Whether that was because she controlled the lake waters right now or some other mystical reason, she could sort out with Sarah later.
She and Sophie walked the gentle contour of the sandbars, stepping from one to the other as each scything path finished and another one began, until the two of them could step up onto the boulder. It had dried a little in the gentle breeze, though not even Diana's magic could remove the chill that came from total submersion. It radiated upward through Diana's shoes, and she reminded herself that she mustn't keep Sophie here too long. Not that Sophie would be kept anywhere she didn't want to be.
They stood close with arms locked, and there was just enough room for the two of them. Diana gazed around her, amazed. It was spectacular: weak sun filtering green though the shifting wedge of water to her left; and on the shore, Matthew standing frozen, hands outstretched, ready to snatch the two of them away should that standing wave come crashing down.
"Do you feel it?" said Sophie. "This is where we're supposed to be right now. We are in exactly the right place at the right time. That's so rare."
Diana did feel it, a portentous expectation, very different to the electric crackle she was beginning to recognise as her own power. It was more like when Emily scried, a kind of reaching, like she had snagged a thread and now she was following it back to its origin.
"It's a balance thing," Sophie said, almost to herself. "It's all necessary: light and dark, heat and cold. Anger and love. You don't ever want to destroy one. You'll lose the other, and then you've lost everything."
Diana took a deep breath and caught a hint of brackish canal water, the smell of old stone and old books. The sounds of the outdoors dissipated, and instead she heard the low and metallic tock of a pendulum. When she opened her eyes, she was staring across a table into Satu's face. Her breath caught, and anger started to swell in her chest.
For her part, Satu appeared exhausted: eyes hollow, hair lank, skin as sallow as old cream. She was in a library, and she leaned over a wooden bowl from which steam curled, ribboning through the air, wreathing her face. All over the table, piled in stacks as high as herself, were leather-bound books and loose papers.
"What are you doing?" she hissed at Diana. "You can't be here! There are protections."
"I get it now," said Sophie, warm against Diana's cheek and yet miles away. "It's like a mirror." Diana felt Sophie's hand in hers again. "Do you see it, Diana? Are you seeing yourself or seeing her? You can smash the glass but you're going to cut your hand if you do."
Diana watched Satu, and wondered what Sophie could be talking about: surely she didn't mean that she and Satu were alike? That was impossible. There were no similarities there to be drawn.
For one thing, Satu was angry, had been angry the whole time they'd been together. Then Diana remembered that discussion in Sept-Tours, when she'd made Matthew promise to leave Satu for her. She didn't fully understand what Sophie meant, but that small connection made her wonder what other parallels Sophie could see.
Satu's dark eyes narrowed, and her left hand began to move in a dreamy, hypnotic pattern. Diana's gaze wandered over the pattern, trying to puzzle out the solution.
"Honestly, I wouldn't do that," Sophie's voice cut clearly through the sleepy haze settling on Diana's shoulders. "She's holding up half a lake right now, and you really don't want to distract her. Especially while you're in a sinking city."
The vision was so clear that Diana heard the rustle of papers as Satu flinched and dropped her hand. As she did, she knocked the scrying bowl and water sloshed over the edge.
"Uh-oh," said Sophie and threw her arms round Diana's waist. On the cold rock in the middle of Lake Moraine, Diana had only a second to realise that the wall of water was coming down before Matthew had them both, and was carrying them to shore. He deposited them a long way from the edge which was a good thing, as the water washed far up the stony beach as it found equilibrium again. A flight of ducks took off in fright, wings clapping as they climbed into the sky, but very quickly the surface was calm again.
Matthew clasped her by the shoulder. "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine," said Diana. He had been so fast. "I didn't even got wet."
Sophie laughed. "Satu did though," she said. "There's a couple of inches of water in that room now. Possibly a cranky snapping turtle, also."
Matthew looked from one to the other, obviously exasperated. There was nothing much to be said, though, and he left to find out where Nate had gone.
"Thank you, Sophie," said Diana. "I don't know if I completely understand, but it's certainly been an adventure."
"You don't have to understand it." Sophie watched the waves still breaking on the shore. "As long as you feel it, you know?"
Diana nodded. "I think I do."
Later that evening, Diana sat at the kitchen table, peeling apples. On the other side of the table, Matthew eased a sheet of pastry into a pie dish. He had a dusting of flour on his sweater, which was strangely endearing in a man so meticulous.
"You seem nervous," Diana said. She cut herself a slice of apple and nibbled on it. "You shouldn't be; it smells amazing."
In the living room, Sophie was curled up on the sofa, half asleep against Nate's chest. In front of them was a bowl filled with apple cores: Sophie had not quite managed a whole bushel, but she had done quite well nonetheless.
"I don't know if it was me messing up Satu's spell or something Sophie did, or another thing all together," said Diana. At Matthew's questioning gaze, she added, "I don't know. A connection, maybe, like Sophie said. It doesn't change how angry I am about what she did, but I think I can be less afraid of the next time we meet. Does that make sense?"
Matthew put the pie in the oven to bake the pastry, then stood up, and, horrified at discovering the flour on his sweater, brushed at it fussily. "It makes a lot of sense. Though I admit I am surprised at your temperance."
"I'll dish it back to her, I promise," said Diana. "I'm just saying that maybe I'll try and see it from her side first, before I deck her with a plank."
Matthew's laugh was everything Diana had wished for this morning when she'd woken up: warm, kind, safe and loving. "She doesn't know what's coming for her," he said.
Diana took the last whole apple and bit into it savagely. "She certainly doesn't."
Fandom: A Discovery of Witches (TV)
Rating: General
Words: 5155
Characters/Pairings: Diana & Sophie, Diana/Matthew, Sophie/Nathaniel, Satu Järvinen
Warnings/Content: Roadtrips, Friendship, Magic, Pies
Notes: Written for
Summary: Sophie's visions lead her and Diana on a road trip.
Also at the Archive
Diana woke up to a soft conversation taking place above her head, one male voice, patient and amused, and one female, rising in pitch with excitement and enthusiasm. Matthew's body was warm against hers, and the covers smelled of the rosemary and sage bundles that Sarah used in the linen press to keep away pests.
"They're the best mornings, the ones with a little bit of mist, and that feeling that there's something to be discovered when it lifts. Don't you think?" Even without opening her eyes, Diana could identify Sophie from her soft voice and accent. What she didn't understand is why she and Matthew were deep in conversation at some unearthly hour of the morning.
"I don't mind them," Matthew said. His voice – always calm, always polite – had a note of gentleness that was new to Diana's ear. "I like them best when I can stay warm in bed with someone I love."
"Yeah, that's great," said Sophie. Diana heard the rustle of curtains, and then the familiar jingle of the wooden curtain rings as they were pulled across. "But not today. Today is a day for travelling. And discovering."
"Is it?" Diana emerged from under the covers, her hair all in her eyes, and her voice hoarse from sleep. "Hello Sophie," she said, and wriggled in against Matthew's side.
Matthew brushed her hair aside to kiss her forehead. "Sophie woke me up this morning," he said, lips against her skin. Diana could hear the amusement in his voice, the lack of concern or any need to question why a woman he barely knew had bustled into their bedchamber with no invitation or explanation. He'd been friends with daemons for a long time, Diana supposed. She wasn't so used to daemon nature herself, but there was an openness to Sophie that was disarming. It made her daemon oddness easier to accept, a little more so than that of Matthew's friend Hamish whose quick tongue occasionally cut a little close to the bone.
"We're going on a road trip," Sophie said to Diana. "I had a dream last night, we were buying apples on the side of the road. I really hope that part was literal because this little lady –" she patted her round stomach gently "– is telling me to eat a bushel of apples." She grinned at Diana. "I wouldn't eat a literal bushel," she said. "That would be a really bad idea."
Diane moved her legs so that they were intertwined with Matthew's. The window above her bed was clouded with fog except where the eaves had leaked and let droplets draw snake-like wiggles down the wobbly old glass. This was not a day for a road trip. It was a day to sleep in, make love, then convince Matthew to bring her breakfast on a tray.
"How about we wait and see what the weather's going to do?" she said. She spread her fingers across Matthew's thigh and felt the muscle tense.
Behind her, Sophie put her finger to the glass and drew lines in the condensation. "No, that's not how it unfolds," she said, voice distant.
Intrigued, Diana curled around in the bed to watch. The lines became a face, long and angular. Sophie sketched in a pair of arched eyebrows, a straight edge for the hairline, then turned to face them, her expression solemn. "We really need to go now. There's somewhere we have to be soon."
Diana gasped and her fingers tightened on Matthew's leg. Over Sophie's shoulder, drawn in fog on the antique glass pane, was Satu's face. Where Sophie had drawn the eyes, the surface tension had broken and run down the pane, giving the impression of tears falling.
Matthew was determined that he would drive Sophie and Diana wherever they needed to be.
In the driveway, Sophie had been immovable. "No, you're not in the dream," she said. "It's just not the way it goes." Diana was surprised at how calm she was about it: standing there, fists pushed into the small of her back, firmly refusing the wishes of a man who could throw her across the garden without a second thought. Sophie wasn't afraid or domineering. She didn't need to make a big demonstration of her will. It was just the way things were.
"It could be," said Matthew. "There's no reason I couldn't come along, to make sure the two of you are safe."
Sophie took his hands and looked up into his eyes. There were few people who could meet Matthew's gaze and not be intimidated, but Sophie did so with an easy smile. "It's okay, Matthew," she said. "We're going for a drive. We'll have to stop twenty times so I can pee, but we'll be fine. We'll buy you some apples, and tonight you can make us a pie."
Diana covered her mouth to hide her smile. People didn't gaze earnestly into Matthew's eyes and talk about pee. She was fairly sure of that.
Diana had to drive, because first of all, Sophie didn't fit behind the steering wheel any more. Secondly, and it was very daemonic that Sophie mentioned this small prophetic fact in an off-hand, casual way: it had been Diana driving in Sophie's dream.
"I was actually in the dream?" Diana drove Sarah's station wagon gingerly down the muddy and corrugated road away from the Bishop house. Behind them, still arguing in the yard over who was driving, were Matthew and Nathaniel. Nate made a grab for the keys and Matthew held them far, far above his head, too high for Nate to get hold of them.
"Yeah, it was you and me," said Sophie. "That part was pretty straight forward, at least." She sat slouched down in the car seat, balancing her belly on her legs, apparently completely comfortable, though she surely couldn't see over the dashboard. She wore a thick knitted scarf and a bright orange bobble hat, so the only part of her face that was visible was a nose and her bright blue eyes.
Diana got to the first intersection. If she went left, she'd be heading into town. Right would take her to the highway, towards Oneida County. She glanced sideways towards Sophie.
Sophie shuffled more upright so she could peer left and right down the road. "Do either of them lead to a lake?" she asked.
"There was a lake in the dream?" Diana said. "We should maybe have sorted the larger details before we got going." She flicked on the indicator and turned left. They could get some coffee in town, and she could gently interrogate Sophie about her dream geography. Maybe there had been a map in her dream. Maybe that was too literal.
Behind them, at the gates to the Bishop property, Diana saw Matthew's car pull out of the driveway at last. She didn't need to squint to know that Matthew was driving. As open-minded as he was about other species, there was no way he would be someone's passenger, especially since Nate wouldn't be used to driving on the right.
Beside her, Sophie's phone buzzed. "Nate's coming along," she said. "That's nice; he can keep Matthew company."
Diana heaved the car into a park just outside Madison's co-op and coffee house. She'd chosen it because it was eclectic enough to hold Sophie's attention, and because it was familiar and friendly, a place she'd gone after school, a place she'd had a summer job. If Sophie had some unintended dream bombshells to drop, this was a good place to hear them. Also, there was a huge vintage map of Madison County on the wall behind her favourite table. Hopefully she could get some more concrete details out of Sophie with an actual map in front of her.
Sophie eased herself out of the car, and immediately made friends with a small white dog waiting patiently outside the door. Margie, the co-op owner was very strict about animals in the store – Diana had been soundly reprimanded for bringing in a pet rat once, and she still harboured a tiny teenage sense of outrage, because Freya had been safe and warm inside her shirt at the time – but Margie was an animal lover herself and always had a bale of straw for visiting animals to sit on.
"Aw, he's so cosy!" Sophie said, and straightened up with a groan. "Do they have a bathroom here?"
Diana laughed and pointed her in the right direction, then went in to say hello to Margie.
Matthew appeared through the back door when Diana had taken a table under the framed map. "Is it safe to come in?" he said, scanning the tables for Sophie.
Diana laughed and beckoned him over. "It's okay, you don't have to maintain a safe distance." She held her mug of tea between her palms, and blew on it, scattering the steam. "But Sophie was right, we'll be fine. I grew up here, I know every square inch of this place. There's nothing that can hurt either of us here."
"I did tell you that before we left," said Sophie. She carried a huge cup of hot chocolate and a plate with one of Margie's chocolate brownies on it. "Margie's a potter too. Isn't this mug gorgeous?" She showed the sky-blue mug to Diana, and, forgotten in her other hand, the brownies tilted alarmingly. Matthew immediately reached for the plate and righted it, then put it on the table.
"Thank you! Did you leave your keys in the car?" Sophie said to Matthew, who was in the process of pulling out her seat for her.
Matthew paused in the act. "I did," he said, suspicious suddenly.
"Oh good," said Sophie. Outside, an engine roared into life, and Matthew, his face briefly appalled, was gone in a blur of light.
"Nathan says he saw a sign for an apple orchard on the way in, he promised to get me some." Sophie settled into her seat with a sigh. "That's better," she said. Diana wasn't sure if she was talking about her aching back, or Matthew's absence. She didn't have time to ask, because Sophie had discovered the map on the wall.
"Wow! That's beautiful." Sophie found their position immediately, one finger pressed to the glass, and she traced a line, from the coffee house to the nearest body of water, Lake Moraine. "That's not too far."
"About twenty minutes drive," Diana said. "Satu won't actually be there, will she?" It hadn't occurred to her until now that this was a possibility.
Sophie sipped her chocolate carefully, the hand-thrown mug balanced between her two forefingers. "No, not yet." She put the cup down gently. "What are you going to do when she arrives?"
Diana took a too-large swallow of tea, and it burned all the way down to her belly. The burn on her back still hurt, the skin tight and itchy where Matthew's mark was burned into her skin. Her belly was now an unhappy curdled mix of anger and fear. How dare Satu do that to her, how dare she? Her hair prickled at the back of her neck, lifting away from her collar with a crackle.
Sophie reached out to touch Diana's elbow, and a blue spark leapt from Diana to her fingertip with an audible snap. "Ouch!" she said and blew on her finger as if to cool it down.
"Sophie! I'm so sorry!" Diana said, rising half out of her chair, horrified. She'd hurt Sophie – what if she'd hurt the baby?
"I'm fine!" Sophie took her by the wrist to prove it, and pushed her gently towards her seat. "It's okay. No worse than I've done to myself with a cheap sweater."
Diana slumped down, exhausted as always when magic erupted from her unexpectedly. "This is a disaster," she said. "How am I ever going to be able to defend myself, let alone…" She didn't want to say what she had promised to do to Satu, not to Sophie who was stirring the marshmallows into her chocolate and gazing up the map.
"You'll be fine," Sophie said. "You just need to consider all the sides to the story."
In the car again, Sophie unfolded the tiny knitted jacket she'd bought from Margie's store and spread it out across her knees. "Isn't it wild that she could be wearing this in a month or so? I know she's been with me for nearly a year now, but every now and then, I get this flash of amazement about it."
Diana took the turnoff to Lake Moraine. "Are you nervous?" she said. "I'd be terrified." She couldn't imagine it, being responsible for another living being, especially one so helpless. As she had demonstrated in the coffee house, she could barely control her own magic, let alone use it to protect someone.
"Not really," said Sophie. "Babies are pretty tough, you know? The best thing I can do for her is love her, and I already do that. If she's a witch, she'll have the best teachers – my parents are great, and now I know Sarah and Emily. And if she's a daemon like me, well, she'll know from the start that she's amazing. She won't have to go through what most of us do, being outsiders and feeling lost."
Diana drove for a while in silence. "So many of us – magical creatures, I mean – know too much about pain."
Sophie was thoughtful for a moment as the car sped towards the lake. "It's changing slowly," she said. "At home – at your home, I mean – there's all sorts of people coming together to make our world better. Maybe my little girl will be able to grow up in the world that we're all creating."
"Maybe," said Diana. She wasn't all that hopeful about it, not after she'd seen the conniving politics driving the Congregation.
"Definitely," Sophie said, emphatic. "At the very least, this baby has been protected by daemons, witches and vampires. There's no way she will see them as evil."
Diana thought this was a bit much optimism – after all, she was on the run, chased by the Congregation – but she could see Sophie's point. "At the very least, she'll have a whole lot of aunts and uncles who want to see her safe and happy."
That pleased Sophie. "Matthew will make an excellent uncle," she said. "She'll have him wrapped round her little finger in no time.
That image made Diana smile, despite the ache in her shoulder where the brand lay, despite the looming arrival of Satu. "Seems like your little girl is the most powerful creature of all," she said.
Sophie smiled and folded her arms gently over her belly. "Doesn't it, just?"
Diana knew Lake Moraine as a holiday spot, a place for summer hikes, camping and cookouts. Out of season, they were the only people here, and the quiet was disturbing. The lake was hung with mist, which left every surface slick and damp, and the fog soaked up ambient noise, so even their footsteps over the grass were strangely muted.
Sophie seemed entranced, walking to the water's edge with her fingers outstretched, as if she were trailing them through the mist like someone's hair. "It's so beautiful," she said. "Even the ground seems to be holding its breath."
Diane picked her way along the muddy, debris-littered surface, a little less enthusiastically than Sophie. "I guess it's not so bad," she said, stepping over a fallen log that crawled with woodlice. She wasn't fastidious or afraid of bugs, but her years of rowing had shown her the blood-thirsty side of waterways, and it was little difficult to see the romance after you've been menaced by nesting herons, or had to pick the leeches off your calves after you've finished your morning workout.
They walked along the edge of the lake, moving up and down the shore depending on the behaviour of the small lapping waves. Sophie slipped her hand into Diana's as they walked, and Diana found herself pointing out landmarks where things of significance had happened as she was growing up.
"In really hot summers, the water levels drop and expose a huge boulder embedded in the lake floor. Out there where it's a darker green. There were a couple of years when I could stand on it, right in the middle," she said, remembering the night: humid and close, the sky huge above her, the water whispering at her feet. There had been crickets singing on shore, a high-pitched hum from midges, and the occasional splash as a big fish surfaced. It had all added up to an eerie symphony of nature. At the time, Diana spun herself a story that the music was for a beautiful woman living under the surface, hair drifting here and there in the gentle currents.
She closed her eyes as she walked, and she could hear it again: that soft hum of summer insects, the rhythmic splash of the water over stones, a drum and voice composition of nature. She could see the woman's face in her mind's eye: long cheekbones, slanted eyes and straight, dark hair. The beat of the waves got faster in her mind, and she imagined the water rising as it slapped against the shore.
"Are you casting?" Sophie asked, with all the casual interest of a woman with witches for parents, who had grown up unafraid of spell-casting and magical power. She didn't know much about Diana's conflicted relationship with magic, didn't know how much she was struggling with it right now. Diana's skin had prickled as if gathering electric charge again, and for a moment she felt the great weight of water lifting off her as she emerged, dripping and renewed.
"Diana! Diana!" Sophie's voice was far away, though she shook Diana's arm vigorously. Diana blinked herself back to the present time, and was surprised to see daylight, to feel the chill air against her skin. The rushing, agitated sound of water moving was only the waves splashing against the mish-mash of driftwood that gathered at this end of the lake.
"I'm sorry, Sophie," she said, and wrapped her in a hug. "I got a bit lost in my thoughts." Matthew's gaze rested on her from the edge of the trees, but for the moment, Diana focused her attention on Sophie. "Are you all right? Did anything happen?"
Sophie patted Diana's shoulder, well above the area where Satu's brand left the skin tender and tight. "I'm fine. And nothing happened, not really. Just that sensation when you know a storm is gathering, you know? All that potential just hanging in the air." She eased herself out of Diana's arms and pointed ahead to a bobbing collection of lumber tied together with twine in many colours. "What is that?"
"That's the raft," said Diana. "It's hard to explain." The raft was a floating pontoon, an unofficial assembly that changed from season to season depending on which fishermen held sway that year. Every season, the park rangers came to clear it away, at which time construction would begin afresh as soon as the ranger's truck departed. Right now, it was a series of reclaimed planks with various degrees of peeling paint in a multitude of colours, all lashed to a collection of plastic drums to keep it suspended half a foot above the surface. "I guess you could call it an experiment in hydrodynamic engineering. People fish off it. And there might be a crab pot on the end, if Mr Mulvaney didn't take off for the winter."
Sophie's face was a mix of fascination and horror. She put a tentative foot onto the floating platform.
"It's not really safe, Sophie," said Diana, reaching for her arm to pull her back, but Sophie was too fast, darting along the plank with surprising nimbleness, considering the ballast she was carrying. Diana's fingers reached through empty air, grasping nothing. "Please be careful!"
"I'm fine," said Sophie, turning on one foot to face Diana. The platform bobbed and shifted with her weight, but she didn't fall. Diana's heart was suddenly in her mouth: Sophie could slip, the plank could break, and she'd be in the water with the rest of the debris that made up the raft. Injured and submerged, or even worse, dragged away by the mysterious currents, her and her baby gone forever.
Diana felt dry wood beneath her feet; she'd stepped onto the raft without a second thought. She didn't know how this would help Sophie, she didn't know what she'd do when she reached her. All she knew was the weight she held, a cold and heavy mass shifting in her arms and threatening to unbalance her. She flexed her shoulders like she was pulling the oars, stood straight up, certain and assured. She would force the lake to keep Sophie dry, keep Sophie safe. There was no question that she would be obeyed.
Sophie gasped, and Diana heard the rush of air that meant Matthew moving at speed to be beside her. When she opened her eyes, she saw that the water had moved away, tilting like soup in a bowl held on an angle. The raft now sat on the muddy bottom, and the submerged rock she'd pointed out to Sophie had appeared nearby, glossy and dark but solid. On top of the boulder sat a snapping turtle with a disgruntled expression, obviously extremely put out to have been so rudely exposed. It slid into the water with a soft plop, and was gone.
"Are you all right, Diana?" Matthew's hand was at her elbow.
Diana nodded slowly. "Yes, I think so." It was strange to see the lake water piled up to one side, waiting patiently for her to release it. There was oddly little effort involved in holding it there; she would have assumed from watching her mother, and later Sarah, casting spells that something of this magnitude would be very tiring, but she was less exhausted than she would be after a morning run.
Nate thundered up to the shore at last, breathing heavily, leaning on his thighs to catch his breath. "You… okay… babe?" he gasped.
Still on the platform, Sophie laughed. "Yeah, I'm pretty good," she said. "How are you doing?"
Nate nodded, still breathless. "We got those apples," he said. "Matthew knows how to make shortcrust pastry."
Matthew seemed startled by this revelation. "In theory, " he said, hastily. "I've watched Marthe do it, at least." His hand was on the small of Diana's back supporting her, and though she didn't need it, it was good to know he was there.
"That's great," said Sophie. "We just need to head over to that rock, and we can go home."
"Absolutely not!" said Matthew.
Nate spoke at exactly the same time. "Sure thing! I'll go get the car." He elbowed Matthew. "Reckon we can drive over that grass without getting stuck?"
Matthew turned on him with an appalled and yet tired expression, and Diana giggled. He'd obviously been making that face all day. She took the chance to step away from him and reach out for Sophie.
"You can totally hold that lake up for a bit, can't you?" Sophie said to her as she stepped down onto solid ground. Her voice was full of confidence, and like a wave, it bounced off Diana, magnifying her own determination.
She nodded. "Pretty sure it's not going anywhere just yet," she said.
"Diana!" said Matthew. "Please, do not take unnecessary risks."
Diana watched the rock drying in the weak sunlight as she calculated a path towards it through the newly formed shallows. It was odd how the curving sandbars, partially exposed by the shifted water, appeared like a road leading up to the rock. Somehow she knew before she took her first step that it would be solid enough to walk on. Whether that was because she controlled the lake waters right now or some other mystical reason, she could sort out with Sarah later.
She and Sophie walked the gentle contour of the sandbars, stepping from one to the other as each scything path finished and another one began, until the two of them could step up onto the boulder. It had dried a little in the gentle breeze, though not even Diana's magic could remove the chill that came from total submersion. It radiated upward through Diana's shoes, and she reminded herself that she mustn't keep Sophie here too long. Not that Sophie would be kept anywhere she didn't want to be.
They stood close with arms locked, and there was just enough room for the two of them. Diana gazed around her, amazed. It was spectacular: weak sun filtering green though the shifting wedge of water to her left; and on the shore, Matthew standing frozen, hands outstretched, ready to snatch the two of them away should that standing wave come crashing down.
"Do you feel it?" said Sophie. "This is where we're supposed to be right now. We are in exactly the right place at the right time. That's so rare."
Diana did feel it, a portentous expectation, very different to the electric crackle she was beginning to recognise as her own power. It was more like when Emily scried, a kind of reaching, like she had snagged a thread and now she was following it back to its origin.
"It's a balance thing," Sophie said, almost to herself. "It's all necessary: light and dark, heat and cold. Anger and love. You don't ever want to destroy one. You'll lose the other, and then you've lost everything."
Diana took a deep breath and caught a hint of brackish canal water, the smell of old stone and old books. The sounds of the outdoors dissipated, and instead she heard the low and metallic tock of a pendulum. When she opened her eyes, she was staring across a table into Satu's face. Her breath caught, and anger started to swell in her chest.
For her part, Satu appeared exhausted: eyes hollow, hair lank, skin as sallow as old cream. She was in a library, and she leaned over a wooden bowl from which steam curled, ribboning through the air, wreathing her face. All over the table, piled in stacks as high as herself, were leather-bound books and loose papers.
"What are you doing?" she hissed at Diana. "You can't be here! There are protections."
"I get it now," said Sophie, warm against Diana's cheek and yet miles away. "It's like a mirror." Diana felt Sophie's hand in hers again. "Do you see it, Diana? Are you seeing yourself or seeing her? You can smash the glass but you're going to cut your hand if you do."
Diana watched Satu, and wondered what Sophie could be talking about: surely she didn't mean that she and Satu were alike? That was impossible. There were no similarities there to be drawn.
For one thing, Satu was angry, had been angry the whole time they'd been together. Then Diana remembered that discussion in Sept-Tours, when she'd made Matthew promise to leave Satu for her. She didn't fully understand what Sophie meant, but that small connection made her wonder what other parallels Sophie could see.
Satu's dark eyes narrowed, and her left hand began to move in a dreamy, hypnotic pattern. Diana's gaze wandered over the pattern, trying to puzzle out the solution.
"Honestly, I wouldn't do that," Sophie's voice cut clearly through the sleepy haze settling on Diana's shoulders. "She's holding up half a lake right now, and you really don't want to distract her. Especially while you're in a sinking city."
The vision was so clear that Diana heard the rustle of papers as Satu flinched and dropped her hand. As she did, she knocked the scrying bowl and water sloshed over the edge.
"Uh-oh," said Sophie and threw her arms round Diana's waist. On the cold rock in the middle of Lake Moraine, Diana had only a second to realise that the wall of water was coming down before Matthew had them both, and was carrying them to shore. He deposited them a long way from the edge which was a good thing, as the water washed far up the stony beach as it found equilibrium again. A flight of ducks took off in fright, wings clapping as they climbed into the sky, but very quickly the surface was calm again.
Matthew clasped her by the shoulder. "Are you all right?"
"I'm fine," said Diana. He had been so fast. "I didn't even got wet."
Sophie laughed. "Satu did though," she said. "There's a couple of inches of water in that room now. Possibly a cranky snapping turtle, also."
Matthew looked from one to the other, obviously exasperated. There was nothing much to be said, though, and he left to find out where Nate had gone.
"Thank you, Sophie," said Diana. "I don't know if I completely understand, but it's certainly been an adventure."
"You don't have to understand it." Sophie watched the waves still breaking on the shore. "As long as you feel it, you know?"
Diana nodded. "I think I do."
Later that evening, Diana sat at the kitchen table, peeling apples. On the other side of the table, Matthew eased a sheet of pastry into a pie dish. He had a dusting of flour on his sweater, which was strangely endearing in a man so meticulous.
"You seem nervous," Diana said. She cut herself a slice of apple and nibbled on it. "You shouldn't be; it smells amazing."
In the living room, Sophie was curled up on the sofa, half asleep against Nate's chest. In front of them was a bowl filled with apple cores: Sophie had not quite managed a whole bushel, but she had done quite well nonetheless.
"I don't know if it was me messing up Satu's spell or something Sophie did, or another thing all together," said Diana. At Matthew's questioning gaze, she added, "I don't know. A connection, maybe, like Sophie said. It doesn't change how angry I am about what she did, but I think I can be less afraid of the next time we meet. Does that make sense?"
Matthew put the pie in the oven to bake the pastry, then stood up, and, horrified at discovering the flour on his sweater, brushed at it fussily. "It makes a lot of sense. Though I admit I am surprised at your temperance."
"I'll dish it back to her, I promise," said Diana. "I'm just saying that maybe I'll try and see it from her side first, before I deck her with a plank."
Matthew's laugh was everything Diana had wished for this morning when she'd woken up: warm, kind, safe and loving. "She doesn't know what's coming for her," he said.
Diana took the last whole apple and bit into it savagely. "She certainly doesn't."