“Don’t tell me you’re the kind of academics who can’t tell the difference between their life and their job.” He flung up his hands as if warding off the plague. “I refuse to believe that my daughter could be one of them.”
“That’s a bit melodramatic, Daddy,” I said stiffly. “We could spend the evening with you. I’ve never smoked. It will be historic to do it with Walter for the first time, since he introduced tobacco into England.”
My father looked even more horrified. “Absolutely not. We’ll be bonding as fellow men. Lionel Tiger argues—”
“I’m not a big fan of Tiger,” Matthew interjected. “The social carnivore never made sense to me.”
“Can we put the topic of eating people aside for a moment and discuss why you don’t want to spend your last night with Matthew and me?” I was hurt.
“It’s not that, honey. Help me out here, Matthew. Take Diana out on a date. You must be able to think of something to do.”
“Like rollerskating?” Matthew’s brows shot up. “There aren’t any skating rinks in sixteenth-century London—and precious few of them left in the twenty-first century, I might add.”
“Damn.” My father and Matthew had been playing “fad versus trend” for days, and while my father was delighted to know that the popularity of disco and the Pet Rock would fade, he was shocked to hear that other things—like the leisure suit—were now the butt of jokes. “I love rollerskating. Rebecca and I go to a place in Dorchester when we want to get away from Diana for a few hours, and—”
“We’ll go for a walk,” I said hastily. My father could be unnecessarily frank when it came to discussing how he and my mother spent their free time. He seemed to think it might shock Matthew’s sense of propriety. When that failed, he took to calling Matthew “Sir Lancelot” for an added measure of annoyance.
“A walk. You’ll take a walk.” My father paused. “You mean that literally, don’t you?”
He pushed away from the table. “No wonder creatures are going the way of the dodo. Go out. Both of you. Now. And I’m ordering you to have fun.” He ushered us toward the door.
“How?” I asked, utterly mystified.
“That is not a question a daughter should ask her father. It’s Midsummer Eve. Go out and ask the first person you meet what you should do. Better yet, follow someone else’s example. Howl at the moon. Make magic. Make out, at the very least. Surely even Sir Lancelot makes out.” He waggled his eyebrows. “Get the picture, Miss Bishop?”
“I think so.” My tone reflected my doubts about my father’s notion of fun.
“Good. I won’t be back until sunrise, so don’t wait up. Better yet, stay out all night yourselves. Jack is with Tommy Harriot. Annie is with her aunt. Pierre is— I don’t know where Pierre is, but he doesn’t need a babysitter. I’ll see you at breakfast.”
“When did you start calling Thomas Harriot ‘Tommy’？” I asked. My father pretended not to hear me.
“Give me a hug before you go. And don’t forget to have fun, okay?” He enveloped me in his arms. “Catch you on the flip side, baby.”
Stephen pushed us out the door and shut it in our faces. I extended my hand to the latch and found it taken into a vampire’s cool grip.
“He’ll be leaving in a few hours, Matthew.” I reached for the door with the other hand. Matthew took that one, too.
“I know. So does he,” Matthew explained.
“Then he should understand that I want to spend more time with him.” I stared at the door, willing my father to open it. I could see the threads leading from me, through the grain in the wood, to the wizard on the other side. One of the threads snapped and struck the back of my hand like a rubber band. I gasped. “Daddy!”
“Get moving, Diana!” he shouted.
Matthew and I wandered around town, watching the shops close early and noting the revelers already filling the pubs. More than one butcher was casually stacking bones by the front door. They were white and clean, as though they had been boiled.
“What’s going on with the bones?” I asked Matthew after we saw the third such display.
“They’re for the bone fires.”
“Bonfires?”
“No,” Matthew said, “the bone fires. Traditionally, people celebrate Midsummer Eve by lighting fires: bone fires, wood fires, and mixed fires. The mayor’s warnings to cease and desist all such superstitious celebrations go up every year, and people light them anyway.”