Ms. Storer,
I’m not sure if your proposal is intended as a joke, or perhaps a ploy so that I will be more amenable to whatever you suggest next, but it sounds like we should indeed discuss the matter; please come with a list of backup topics (that is, ones that are even remotely feasible). And while I cannot comprehend your apparent allergy to my office hours, yes, having lived on Partridge Hill for over a decade, I am well acquainted with The Frayed Page, and am typically there on Thursday afternoon around 4p.m. What it lacks in selection, it generally makes up for in quiet, so please don’t make a habit of intruding upon my time there.
Sincerely,
Rawlins
Rawlins
The Frayed Page was a sleepy bookstore with a quaint coffee shop attached, far enough from the campus that it was rarely a hangout for undergraduates. It generally attracted an older crowd, mostly local eccentrics and retirees, the sort with free time on a Thursday afternoon. The proprietors, a couple in their seventies, were generally content to let “customers” pick up books off the shelf and read them for hours without spending a cent. Rawlins often wondered how the place stayed in business.
He had adopted The Frayed Page as a refuge, and made a weekly practice of coming there for a few hours of reading whatever battered paperback caught his eye, ideally something entirely unrelated to his field of study. But now, his sanctuary was being violated by, of course, Ellsbeth Storer. She not only had invited herself into the shop in his neighborhood but had again shown up unbidden in his mind. He had hoped that admitting her to the program would silence the thoughts, but instead, she had promptly sent him a proposal for a topic that was so flagrantly absurd, he could not understand what she was playingat.
Writ magic?The subset of the arcane arts that enabled a practitioner to control and manipulate others had been banned for decades, and with good reason; yet Ellsbeth Storer—presumptuous, arrogant, infuriating—seemed to think it the ideal topic of study.
What was the girl playing at? And why had she insisted on coming to speak on the matter in person?Paenitereindeed. Perhaps he shouldsimply rescind the offer of admission. No doubt she would kick up a fuss, but the paperwork hadn’t cleared yet. It would be messy. It would be humiliating for her. Good.
But Rawlins couldn’t help but be intrigued by Ellsbeth’s—there was no other word for it—gumption. Why in God’s name would she be so driven to study writ magic of all things? Was it simply her ambition to make an impact on the field? If so, it was daring to the point of unwise. Was she intrinsically disagreeable? So intellectually restless that only the most taboo knowledge would satisfy her? So obsessed with beinguniquethat she would spite her own prospects to set herself apart?
These thoughts and more churned through Rawlins’s mind as he collected his espresso and fig scone from the counter and took a seat in the corner of the café, where he had a view of the entire bookstore. He opened his laptop, half intending to get back into his past-due manuscript, but instead, he found himself opening a webpage and typing the name “Ellsbeth Storer” into the search bar.
Her social media presence was robust; it seemed that, for years, she had maintained a deliberate and calculated cultivation of her public persona, attempting to present herself as a sophisticated iconoclast. She had studied in Scotland as an undergrad, no doubt imagining that this afforded her some measure of gravitas, and her posts featured not debauched parties but literary events, classical music, and visits to historic castles.
There were the requisite selfies, of course, but even when she smiled, it was with lips sealed, head tilted, as if showing genuine happiness would be embarrassing. Even in the pictures with friends, she seemed to float apart from the group, alone in a crowd, distancing herself from her peers. It was laughable, how clearly she wanted to be taken seriously.
He studied her face, looking for clues. She was not the sort of natural beauty who would have been praised for her looks since youth, but he conceded that she wasn’t unattractive. Her facial features had sharpened as she escaped puberty so that she emerged into adulthood with a look that was, at least, distinctive. At some point, she must have realized that her mouth was her most striking feature, with full lips and a cupid’s-bow curve, and she had started to accentuate it with bold red lipstick and a coy smile. No doubt the grin was calculated to projectthe air of intellectual mystery she aspired to, but Rawlins had to admit that it was effective.
He stopped at a post in which she boasted of receiving an award for a paper she had submitted to a contest. He clicked the link, wondering if her writing might provide some clue to her mind.
The paper was an essay on the impact of the arcane on American history, and none of the ideas within were nearly as bold as the notion of studying writ magic. But he was impressed by the clarity of her prose, and paused on an illuminating phrase:The arcane does not change us; it merely gives us the power to call forth that which we dream—thus revealing the dreams of the nation to itself.
And what doyoudream, Ellsbeth Storer? He found himself trying to imagine her as she had been writing those words years prior. Where had she been? In a grand library? In a dorm room in pajamas?
He drifted back to the post, which featured a photo of Ellsbeth with a hollow smile on her face as she accepted an award, posing with a tacky gold paperweight. She wore a too-large blazer and a too-short skirt, which, in a picture meant to commemorate her academic achievement, drew the eye inevitably to her thighs.
Rawlins glanced around the café, startled from his reverie, suddenly paranoid that someone might see his screen and wonder why he was poring over the social media of a student. Even worse, that Ellsbeth might arrive early and see him—and yes, he had to admit this is what he was doing—digitally stalking her; he suspected she would absolutelylovethat. He needed to get back to his actual work.
And yet he continued scrolling, and he started to see a change when he got to photographs of Ellsbeth and her sister, easily identified by their visible familial resemblance. The same round cheeks, the same brown eyes. Laughing together at a mini-golf course. Posing at an art museum in front of a Renaissance painting, making goofy faces in mockery of the serious expressions behind them. There was ajoythere, a vitality, which disappeared in the procession toward the highly curated photos of the present day.
When Ellsbeth relayed the story of her sister’s death during their conversation in the garden, it had clicked with Rawlins why the nameStorerhad sounded so familiar. But now, looking at the two sisters side by side, he felt a deeper appreciation for what a monumental event theloss had been, the sort that can divide a life into before and after eras. He was meeting her in the aftermath—a driven girl who had known sorrow on a nearly unfathomable scale.
The chime of the bell hanging over the door drew Rawlins’s attention, and suddenly, she was there. In a sweater that did indeed fit her well, and another skirt that was shorter than it ought to be, and that red lipstick he recognized from her photos as the shade she wore when she wanted to be noticed.
Seeing her in person after nearly an hour of studying her online, he found himself uncomfortably nervous. He hastily closed his laptop and opened a book, pretending to be absorbed in the text.
Ellsbeth spotted him and approached the table, an infectious grin filling her face. “I love it here,” she said. “It’s a little far for me, but it’s worth the trip every time.”
Rawlins did not look up from the book, merely held up a finger to signal her to wait while he pretended to finish his chapter, before he finally marked the (random) page and indicated for her to sit.
The table was small, and as she took her seat, setting her backpack to the side, their legs briefly touched. A glancing brush against his knee, but he could not help but wonder if it was deliberate, and he could not help but hope it would come again.
“So. Your thesis topic,” he said, his voice oddly low.
Ellsbeth had clearly hoped for a bit of small talk first, but seeing his demeanor, she switched gears for intellectual combat. “Writ magic,” she said, elaborating no further than she had in her email.
He stared at her. His first question—Are you serious?—had been clearly answered by her defiant expression. The girl certainly didn’t want for courage. Not fearlessness—he could tell that she was afraid, but she was steering her ship straight into the winds of her own terror.
Rawlins was intrigued. He had been fascinated by writ magic in his youth—find any arcane scholar who wasn’t, even if they wouldn’t admit it—and it remained an illicit fascination, though it was nothing he would dare speak about openly. And nothing he would even consider pursuing publicly.
