“Ginny,” I said as I descended the staircase, gripping the banister tight. The house was in shadows, and I feared I would tumble down to the first floor.
When I reached the foyer, I saw that the front door was open and snowflakes were lazily drifting inside, landing on the carpet. I wasn’t properly dressed, all I’d done was put my shoes on, and the cold nipped at my skin as I poked my head outside.
Ginny was standing a few feet from the house with her back to me. I hurried to her side as fast as I could. My feet felt clumsy and heavy in the snow.
“Ginny, we must head back inside,” I said.
But when I reached her, she did not look at me. She was staring in the direction of Briar’s Commons.
“It’s there. Between the trees,” she said.
“What is there?”
She raised a hand and pointed, but all I could see was a fallen tree trunk half submerged in snow. I sighed and crossed my arms, trying hard to keep my teeth from chattering.
“I tried to see its face, but it hid in the shadows. Wait and you might see it.”
Her words made me shiver, for they were low and quiet and had a cadence of suppressed panic, as if she were gazing at a horrible sight rather than a simple fallen tree covered in snow. This, more than anything, hinted at madness. I pictured the stately asylum in Danvers with its red brick walls and pretty gardens. I pictured her there and shook my head.
“There’s nothing,” I said, and tugged at her arm. “Let’s go back in. I’m freezing.”
We walked back to the house together and slipped into bed. I didn’t see anything that night, nothing hiding between the trees.When Ginny’s breath was slow and steady and she was fast asleep, I stood up and pulled the curtains aside. I looked at the alabaster whiteness blanketing the trees and again tried hard to see something, anything out of the ordinary.
My eyes perceived nothing. Yet as I stood at the window I heard a high-pitched noise, which I took to be the wind making the branches of the trees rattle. After a few seconds I realized that the snow was falling straight and steady, with no strong winds to bend the trees. The realization startled me, yet I couldn’t begin to dwell on the true source of the noise, for it had ceased.
Had it been an owl or some other bird crying out? Yes, most likely. As I stood by the window, I heard Ginny speak.
“It’s out there again,” she said. “Don’t tell Edgar. They’ll throw me in a madhouse, Betty. Don’t tell him about tonight.”
Her tired eyes fixed on me for a moment, then she turned her back to me and faced the wall.
I didn’t tell Edgar. I’ve wondered what might have happened if I had. What would have been the result if I had phoned him the next morning? If not him, then perhaps I could have spoken to Ginny’s father. Would he have whisked her back to the warmth of California? Would I have spoken to her ever again after that?
Yet most of the time, I fear nothing would have changed. That Ginny was condemned, and it was as she said: an invisible noose had fastened itself around her neck. Each hour it grew tighter. The evening of December 19, the last time I would ever see her, was fast approaching.
1998: 9
She’d left food outfor the cat on two consecutive days. It hadn’t bothered eating it. Minerva called for Karnstein half a dozen times before admitting defeat. In the end, she plopped another can of cat food into a dish and placed it next to the back door.
She had a headache and did not look forward to spending hours bent over a table, looking at Beatrice Tremblay’s papers. But she went to the Willows and soldiered on, her pen quickly moving across her notebook, eyes on the manuscript one second, on a journal entry the next. Her Discman spun music by Gustavo Cerati and she tapped her foot to the rhythm of “Amor Amarillo.”
At one point, she openedA History of Witchcraft Loreand stared at the page showing apotropaic marks, then kept flipping through the book until she landed on an illustration showing several animals—a toad, a cat, a dog—that functioned as servants of witches.
“Familiars were thought to do the bidding of witches. When associated with cunning-folk, they had a more benevolent purpose,” she read out loud. “While they often manifested as animals, they might also appear human. Such demonic familiars could remain invisible to everyone but the witch.”
Minerva tapped her foot faster and stared at Ginny’s painting across the room. She stood up and slowly made her way toward it,her fingers brushing its frame. She sighed and whirled back to her seat, feeling utterly lost.
When Carolyn Yates sent word that she wanted to have tea with her, Minerva stretched her arms and shoved her belongings into her backpack.
Carolyn was having her tea in the solarium, like the first time they’d met. The sun blazed through the windows as she tucked a silver bookmark into a slim volume and smiled at Minerva.
“One lump, isn’t that right?” she asked, plopping a sugar cube into a cup before Minerva had a chance to reply.
Minerva set her backpack down and sat. “Yes. Thanks.”
“When we were young, we’d have our beaux over for tea in the dorms. They’d file into the house under the eye of the house mother and we’d serve them tea. That horrid Benjamin Hoffman held a sugar cube in his mouth while drinking it. Such terrible manners!” Carolyn sipped her tea. “Incidentally, how is your exploration of Betty’s manuscript going?”
“I’m finding my way through it,” Minerva said with a smile, which was an outright lie. She wasn’t sure what she was doing anymore. “It’s always complicated, the whole thesis process.”
