A Discovery of Witches | 2.02Though my fingers were nowhere near the countess’s shoes, I saw the fac

A Discovery of Witches | 2.02Though my fingers were nowhere near the countess’s shoes, I saw the face of a young woman. She was peering at a sheet of paper with the design for Mary’s shoes on it. Tiny holes along the lines of the drawing solved the mystery of how its intricacies had been transferred to leather. Focusing on the drawing, my mind’s eye took several steps backward in time. Now I saw Mary sitting with a stern, stubborn-jawed man, a table full of insect and plant specimens before them. Both were talking with great animation about a grasshopper, and when the man began to describe it in detail, Mary took up her pen and sketched its outlines.So Mary is interested in plants and insects, as well as alchemy, I thought, searching her shoes for the grasshopper. There it was, on the heel. So lifelike. And the bee on her right toe looked as though it might fly away at any moment. A faint buzzing filled my ears as the silver-and-black bee detached itself from the Countess of Pembroke’s shoe and took to the air.“Oh, no,” I gasped.“What a strange bee,” Henry commented, swatting at it as it flew past. But I was looking instead at the snake that was slithering off Mary’s foot and into the rushes. “Matthew!” He shot forward and lifted the snake by the tail. It extended its forked tongue and hissed indignantly at the rough treatment. With a flick of his wrist, he tossed the snake into the fire, where it sizzled for a moment before catching light.“I didn’t mean …” I trailed off.“It’s all right, mon coeur. You can not help it.” Matthew touched my cheek before he looked at the countess, who was staring down at her mismatching slippers.Shadow of Night  | P304 -- source link

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