THE BOOK OF LIFE by Deborah Harkness
Chapter 1 Excerpt
Ghosts didn’t have much substance. All they were composed of was memories
and heart. Atop one of Sept-Tours’ round towers, Emily Mather pressed a
diaphanous hand against the spot in the center of her chest that even now was
heavy with dread.
Does it ever get easier? Her
voice, like the rest of her, was almost imperceptible. The watching? The waiting? The knowing?
Not
that I’ve noticed, Philippe de Clermont replied shortly. He was
perched nearby, studying his own
transparent fingers. Of all the things
Philippe disliked about being dead—the inability to touch his wife, Ysabeau;
his lack of smell or taste; the fact that he had no muscles for a good sparring
match—invisibility topped the list. It was a constant reminder of how
inconsequential he had become.
Emily’s face fell, and Philippe silently cursed himself. Since she’d
died, the witch had been his constant companion, cutting his loneliness in two.
What was he thinking, barking at her as if she were a servant?
Perhaps it will be easier when they
don’t need us anymore, Philippe said in a gentler tone. He might be the more
experienced ghost, but it was Emily who understood the metaphysics of their
situation. What the witch had told him went against everything Philippe
believed about the afterworld. He thought the living saw the dead because they needed something from them:
assistance, forgiveness, retribution. Emily insisted these were nothing more
than human myths, and it was only when the living moved on and let go that the
dead could appear to them.
This information made Ysabeau’s failure to notice him somewhat easier to
bear, but not much.
“I can’t wait to see Em’s reaction. She’s going to be so surprised.”
Diana’s warm alto floated up to the battlements.
Diana and Matthew, Emily and
Philippe said in unison, peering down to the cobbled courtyard that surrounded
the château.
There, Philippe said, pointing at the
drive. Even dead, he had vampire sight that was sharper than any human’s. He
was also still handsomer than any man had a right to be, with his broad
shoulders and devilish grin. He turned the latter on Emily, who couldn’t help
grinning back. They are a fine couple,
are they not? Look how much my son has changed.
Vampires weren’t supposed to be altered by the passing of time, and
therefore Emily expected to see the same black hair, so dark it glinted blue;
the same mutable gray-green eyes, cool and remote as a winter sea; the same
pale skin and wide mouth. There were a few subtle differences, though, as
Philippe suggested. Matthew’s hair was shorter, and he had a beard that made
him look even more dangerous, like a pirate. She gasped.
Is Matthew . . . bigger?
He is. I fattened him up when he
and Diana were here in 1590. Books were making him soft. Matthew needed to
fight more and read less. Philippe had always contended there was such a
thing as too much education. Matthew was living proof of it.
Diana looks different, too. More
like her mother, with that long, coppery hair, Em said, acknowledging the
most obvious change in her niece.
Diana stumbled on a cobblestone, and Matthew’s hand shot out to steady
her. Once, Emily had seen Matthew’s incessant hovering as a sign of vampire
overprotectiveness. Now, with the perspicacity of a ghost, she realized that
this tendency stemmed from his preternatural awareness of every change in
Diana’s expression, every shift of mood, every sign of fatigue or hunger.
Today, however, Matthew’s concern seemed even more focused and acute.
It’s not just Diana’s hair that has
changed. Philippe’s face had a look of wonder. Diana is with child—Matthew’s child.
Emily examined her niece more carefully, using the enhanced grasp of
truth that death afforded. Philippe was right—in part. You mean “with children.”
Diana is having twins.
Twins, Philippe said in an awed
voice. He looked away, distracted by the appearance of his wife. Look, here are Ysabeau and Sarah with Sophie
and Margaret.
What will happen now, Philippe?
Emily asked, her heart growing heavier with anticipation.
Endings. Beginnings, Philippe
said with deliberate vagueness. Change.
Diana has never liked change,
Emily said.
That is because Diana is afraid of
what she must become, Philippe replied.
Marcus Whitmore had faced horrors aplenty since the night in 1781 when
Matthew de Clermont made him a vampire. None had prepared him for today’s
ordeal: telling Diana Bishop that her beloved aunt, Emily Mather, was dead.
Marcus had received the phone call
from Ysabeau while he and Nathaniel Wilson were watching the television news in the family library.
Sophie, Na- thaniel’s wife, and their baby, Margaret, were dozing on a nearby
sofa.
“The temple,” Ysabeau had said
breathlessly, her tone frantic. “Come.
At once.”
Marcus had obeyed his grandmother
without question, only taking time to shout for his cousin, Gallowglass, and
his Aunt Verin on his way out the door.
The summer half-light of evening
had lightened further as he approached the clearing at the top of the mountain,
brightened by the otherworldly power that Marcus glimpsed through the trees.
His hair stood at attention at the magic in the air.
Then he scented the presence of a
vampire, Gerbert of Aurillac. And someone else—a witch.
A light, purposeful step sounded down the stone corridor, drawing Marcus
out of the past and back into the present. The heavy door opened, creaking as
it always did.
From The
Book of Life by Deborah Harkness, published on May 26, 2015 by Penguin
Books, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random
House LLC. Copyright by Deborah Harkness, 2015.
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