The Age of Witches Read online

  Grace rattled on with enthusiasm. Harriet nodded now and then, her usual way of dealing with Grace’s chatter. Free of her jacket and having wriggled her wet boots off her feet, she started down the hall to her bedroom.

  Grace pattered behind her. “Now, Miss Harriet, you get out of that wet skirt and into something dry and warm. It’s only May, you know, not summer yet. We don’t want you catching cold or something.”

  Harriet pursed her lips to prevent a smile of amusement. She had never, not once in their long relationship, caught a cold. Grace knew that.

  She did as she was told just the same. As Grace went off with the wet skirt draped over her arm, Harriet settled into a comfortable shirtwaist and light woolen skirt. She tied an apron over it, a long one with deep pockets for the scissors and string she used for tying up swatches of herbs. Only then did she go to the mirror to try to do something about her disordered hair.

  As she was trying to drag a brush through it, Grace tapped on her door and came in. “Your breakfast is almost ready,” she said. “Oh, Miss Harriet, look at that hair! Give me the brush, now. Let me do it.”

  Harriet surrendered the hairbrush and settled onto the dressing table stool so Grace, a good head shorter than she, could reach. As Grace worked, Harriet mused, “I suppose Mrs. Corning has a point, Grace. I did look a sight. But then, I so often do. You would think she’d be used to it.”

  “I expect she wishes she could look like you do,” Grace said. “She must have a devil of a time fitting herself into that corset, and here’s you not even needing one.”

  “I have a corset,” Harriet said, amused.

  “Do you, now?” Grace eyed her in the mirror. “You don’t never wear it, as far as I know. But never mind. Here’s your hair all better.”

  “I’m going gray,” Harriet observed.

  “Perfectly natural. That Mrs. Corning gets her color out of a bottle, believe you me, Miss Harriet. A little bird told me all about it. Besides, this nice touch of silver in your hair looks dignified, if you ask me.”

  “You can say that, with not a single gray hair on your head.” Harriet gave Grace an affectionate glance in the mirror. Grace, as she well knew, was vain about her hair.

  Grace’s naturally ruddy cheeks grew redder. “But you, Miss Harriet, don’t suffer from this flock of freckles!”

  “No,” Harriet admitted. “It’s true, my flock is considerably smaller, despite my being so careless about my hat.”

  “Yes, and you should do better,” Grace said. She began inserting pins into the loose chignon she had created on Harriet’s head. “You still have a lovely complexion, Miss Harriet, despite you not being so young anymore.”

  Harriet chuckled over this bluntness. “Yes, I think I bid youth farewell some time ago, Grace. Fifty! Hard to believe. But thanks for repairing my hair. It looks quite respectable now.”

  “Come on, then,” Grace said, leading the way out of the bedroom. “I’ve got your coffee made, and I have eggs and ham, a good breakfast, since you’ve been out in the cold with your herbs and things. Do you want marmalade? I think there’s some in the pantry. Or you could have honey, since I bought some down on Mulberry Street the other day. It looks good, and I think…”

  Harriet let the flow of talk run over and around her, as comforting as a warm bath. And why, she wondered, as she sat down with her coffee, should she need comfort? A silly woman like Lucille Corning didn’t have the power to hurt her. She didn’t care about any of the things that sort of woman put store in, not clothes, or society, or a fancy carriage to take her shopping, or champagne parties. She had never cared about such things, but still—except for Grace, she had no real friends.

  There was the woman who ran the herb shop down on Elizabeth Street. The proprietress was an aging Italian woman, Signora Carcano, a strega in her own language. She was a cranky old thing, and her shop smelled strongly of garlic and onions, but she and Harriet held each other in mutual respect. Harriet had never asked about the woman’s practice. It was better not to know. They had much in common, and they respected each other, but they were friendly without being actual friends.

  There were her patients, of course, but it would be unprofessional to think of them as friends.

  She couldn’t help wishing that once in a while someone would ask her to tea or to a quiet supper party. She lived in a fashionable building, paid her lease like anyone else, but she didn’t fit in. She was, as she had been since girlhood, an outsider. All the Bishops on her side were, she supposed. Why should she be any different?

  She sighed, sipped her coffee, and told herself to push the whole nonsense out of her mind. Deliberately she recalled the pleasure of seeing her great-niece riding past on her beautiful horse. It had been lovely to see her. She needed to find a way to meet her. She could not trust Frances when it came time for Annis’s instruction.

  The time for that was coming very soon. She knew it.

  2

  Frances

  Frances had argued with her stepdaughter that morning, and she regretted it. She had lost her temper again, but that was no excuse. Such disputes could undermine her plans. She must take more care in managing the girl.

  She had no doubt Annis would come in for luncheon in her spattered riding habit, her hair a-tumble and her nails dark with stable dirt, as usual, but she would refrain from criticizing. Perhaps the whole thing could be forgotten.

  George was at the factory, as he was most days, so the two of them would be alone in the dining room. She should ask Annis about her morning’s ride and inquire about the health of Black Satin. She could pretend an interest, at least for now. Before long horse and girl would be separated, and that was for the best. Annis’s obsession with the stallion was unnatural.

  Frances had objected to the foal when it arrived, and Annis had made clear she meant to keep it for herself. Such a horse was completely unsuitable for a young girl, of course. Girls should ride mares, or geldings, or quiet ponies of an appropriate size.

  Her complaints had gone unheard. Annis had won that argument, as she won so many others, by simply doing what she wanted. That was a luxury Frances had never enjoyed when she was that age. She had grown up with nothing, while Annis had everything any girl could want. Annis never waited for permission when she wanted something. In the case of Black Satin, the horse was in the stables almost before George was aware it was coming.

  Annis was intelligent and spirited, which could be fine qualities if properly directed. It was unfortunate she wasn’t prettier, but Frances thought she could work around that. It was for the girl’s own good, after all. There was no future in being a gangly, horse-mad spinster.

  When she and George had wed, she hadn’t anticipated being in charge of a spoiled little girl, but her new husband had made it clear that Annis was now Frances’s responsibility. He took no interest in the details. Such matters merely distracted him from his real concern, the Allington Iron Stove Company, and Frances had learned to accept that.

  George had been mad about her in the beginning, but the feeling hadn’t lasted long. She was forced to accept that, too. Fortunately, though she liked him well enough, she had not been so weak as to fall in love. She had not repeated her mother’s mistake.

  It would all have been easier if her stepdaughter took any interest in clothes or parties, but Annis cared for nothing but her horses. She more or less lived in her riding clothes and often came into the house covered in horsehair and other kinds of muck Frances didn’t want to know about.

  Well. She would put an end to all that soon enough. It was the kindest thing, in any case. Annis was nearly eighteen, old enough to understand that it was a man’s world. A woman had to hide her strength beneath softness. She had to know her place.

  Frances rang for her maid, and when Antoinette arrived, she said, “I’ll want a walking dress. I’m going out.”

  “Oui, madame.” Antoinette helped her out of her morning dress and carried it to the wardrobe while Frances sat at the d
ressing table in her corset and chemise, smoothing her hair. When Antoinette returned with a pink-and-cream ensemble, she shook her head. “Not that one. The gray wool.”

  “But, madame, there is sun today,” Antoinette said.

  “I can see that for myself, Antoinette. The gray, please.”

  Antoinette gave a Gallic sniff and went back to the wardrobe. Really, Frances thought, though having a French maid looked well in the eyes of society, she wished Antoinette were easier to get along with.

  Antoinette had been trained by a titled Englishwoman living in Paris. That detail pleased Frances, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that her maid’s black-eyed gaze saw right through her mistress’s facade of beautiful clothes and fine jewelry to the Brooklyn girl beneath. Antoinette had a trick of gazing at her with an unblinking stare, her brows lifted in disapproval. It made Frances’s skin crawl.

  Occasionally, uncomfortably, she thought Annis did the same, looking at her as if her exterior were no more than a wall of glass that couldn’t hide what she had once been. Annis had no idea where Frances had come from or how poor she had been. Frances had every intention she should never find out.

  She tried not to think about those things as Antoinette buttoned and draped and fastened the various parts of her ensemble. As Antoinette laid out her hat and gloves and cape, she asked, “Moi, I come with you?”

  “No,” Frances said. “Not today. That will be all.”

  It was a relief when she was gone. Frances smoothed her shirtwaist, taking consolation in her appearance. Her Royal Worcester corset made the most of her modest bosom and tiny waist. Her hair was shiny and soft, shaped into a perfect Newport knot. She usually arranged it herself, placing the knot in the most advantageous spot for her small features.

  Annis’s hair was another matter. She wished she could get Velma to do something about it. It was difficult, of course, thick and unruly, but it so often straggled every which way. It might be easier, in truth, to hire a new maid for her stepdaughter than to persuade her old one to change. Velma was as slow as she was plain, but maids were hard to find.

  Annis’s appearance would be a challenge in any case. A new maid would probably fare no better. There was only so much that could be done with a tall, angular figure like hers, and there was nothing to be done about such a long nose, however straight and fine. The freckles could have been avoided, of course. Only her eyes were good, that unusual pale blue she shared with her father.

  Well. There were some men who liked tall women. Especially tall women with money.

  Frances gave her hair a final pat and turned from the mirror. As she started down the staircase, she noted with satisfaction the gleam of the oak banister, the sparkle of the chandelier in the foyer, the elegant curve of the stairs. Her life was far from perfect, but who could have imagined that a girl from a dingy Brooklyn apartment would now live in a mansion on Riverside Drive?

  Still, it wasn’t Fifth Avenue. She was not one of the Four Hundred. There would be no invitations awaiting her on the breakfront engraved with the Astor crest or the Vanderbilt address. Her name would not appear in the society pages of that day’s Times.

  Yet.

  She paused on the landing to smooth away the scowl she could feel gathering on her brow. She must be patient. Soon enough she would achieve her ultimate goal. She had already proved she could do whatever was necessary, and she would not balk at going all the way.

  She swept on down the stairs, her head high and a cool smile on her lips.

  The best thing about the Riverside estate was its size. Frances could stroll out through the front of the house and around to the side, where a sun-spangled path led through the manicured gardens and into the tangle of woods beyond. The early afternoon was warm enough to make Frances shrug out of her cape once she was out of sight of the house. The path was half-overgrown with sword ferns and blackberry vines, but she would never order the gardeners to clear it. The path and the cabin it led to were her secret.

  The cabin was a near ruin, forgotten at the farthest boundary of the property. Once she had unlocked the door with its old-fashioned iron key, she had to wriggle it open, scraping it across the dirt floor. Its leather hinges had dried to the point of being nearly immovable, but she liked it that way.

  She also liked the unglazed window, the cobwebbed ceiling, and the splintered table abandoned by some long-ago occupant. All of these things, so different from her rooms in Allington House, meant no one cared about this crumbling little structure, and no one disturbed her when she was about her business.

  She wiped the veil of dust from the table, then opened her shopping bag to lift out the tools of her craft.

  She laid a small, discolored compact on the table. It no longer held face powder, but her own carefully collected fingernail shavings. Next to it she set a tiny corked bottle holding drops of her blood suspended in a tot of port wine. She had pierced her finger with a sewing needle and squeezed it over the bottle, thrilling to the sight of her own blood, shining red with her personal power, dripping into the green glass.

  She took out a packet of dried mandrake root purchased from the strega on Elizabeth Street. The crone had scowled at her when she asked for it and the other things she needed. She had shaken her finger in warning, but Frances had told her to keep her mouth shut about it, or she would see that her rich husband closed the shop down.

  She shouldn’t have crossed the old strega. That was dangerous, and she could lose her source of materials. She knew better than to do it, but she had lost her temper, just as she had with Annis that morning. When she got angry, when the fury simmering beneath her polished facade boiled over, she lost control. That was always a mistake. She must be more careful.

  She pulled three long sulfur matches out of her bag and laid them next to the mandrake. She lifted dried leaves of mistletoe from a box, and the fragile stems of barrenwort. Last, taking care so as not to break it, she lifted out the manikin.

  It was the sort of creation her ancestresses had called a poppet, and it was the finest she had ever made. She had found a large wooden bead with the lacquer worn off and used her fountain pen to paint two blue eyes on it. She had brushed on a dab of beetroot juice for the mouth. The body was sculpted of fine wax, as lifelike as she could make it, with small mounds for breasts, molded legs, a distinct vee where the legs met the body. She would need that.

  She had fashioned the dress from a white cotton handkerchief, its lace edging forming a ruffle at the bottom. She had cinched the middle with a narrow ribbon and tied it in the back.

  It was the manikin’s hair that made it perfect. On a day when Annis was out riding and her maid was in the kitchen having a gossip with the staff, Frances had slipped into Annis’s room. Her hairbrush lay on a silver tray on her dressing table, a handful of dark, glossy hairs still tangled in the bristles. Frances unwound them, wrapping the long strands around her fingers, and was back in her own room in less than three minutes. She had used her embroidery scissors to snip the strands of hair to the right lengths, and affixed them to the manikin’s head with tiny drops of mucilage.

  She propped the manikin in the midst of her other ritual objects and stood back to admire the effect. The poppet looked as if it were curtsying, the handkerchief skirt pooling around its feet, the bits of Annis’s hair fluffed around its wooden-bead head. No one, Frances thought, could mistake this manikin for anyone but Annis Allington. It was superb.

  Harriet would hate it.

  3

  Annis

  Robbie,” Annis called into the open door of the stable. “Would you take a look at Bits’s left forefoot? He’s favoring it.”

  The stableman emerged from the tack room and crossed the aisle. Annis pushed off her hat and let it fall into the sawdust as she bent to lift the horse’s hoof and prop it on her thigh. She couldn’t see anything wrong. The shoe was new, since the farrier had been there the week before. She had cleaned all four hooves before setting out for her ride, but she picked at
the frog and sole just the same, searching for a pebble that might have caused Bits to limp.

  Robbie scowled above her head. “No job for a young lady,” he said. “Dress all dirty, and that big horse like to crush your little foot.”

  Annis laughed. “My foot isn’t so little! And Bits would never step on me. Don’t worry. We know what we’re doing.”

  She preferred doing everything herself, rubdowns, brushing, cleaning stalls, soaping her saddle. She oversaw Bits’s feed, and she nursed his ailments, though she always sought Robbie’s advice. She supervised his breeding, too, though it troubled Robbie even more for her to stand by, the lead in her hand, as Bits serviced a mare.

  “Not seemly,” he inevitably muttered, a phrase she had been hearing from him for years. “Lose my job if your papa finds out. It ain’t easy for an Irishman to find work, see?”

  Annis didn’t want Robbie to lose his job. He was a wonderful horseman and a wizard with tack. Except for the breeding issue, he respected her capability, and he mostly stayed out of her way when she wanted him to.

  “Don’t worry, Robbie,” she had said after the last breeding. It had gone well, with an experienced mare and Bits his usual gentlemanly and efficient self. It was a pairing Annis was happy about. The mare had a good balanced conformation and a record of throwing healthy foals. “Papa doesn’t need to know,” she had assured Robbie that day. “But I need to know everything’s going well, as it just did.”

  “Not seemly,” Robbie lamented. “A young lady, a breeding stallion—not seemly at all.”

  Despite his reservations, Robbie had always been happy to assist with her studies of bloodlines. She had a clear vision of the sort of mare she would allow to conceive one of Bits’s foals, and she turned down as many requests for breeding as she accepted.

  “You’re a hardheaded lass,” Robbie once said, when she rejected a Thoroughbred filly.