Page 52 of Divine Oaths

Jojo clasped his hands together, his gaze darkening, like he was fighting something, something he wanted to say but couldn’t. When he looked at me again, my heart sank.

Whatever battle he’d been having with himself, the white flag of retreat fell heavy on him.

“I can’t. I’m sorry, Sianna.”

“You don’t have to decide right now,” I said. “But think about it. Please?”

It took him a moment but then he nodded.

“I will.”

It wasn’t much, but the unease in my heart settled into relief. I smiled, hopeful for the first time.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

And yet I see thee still

BEFORE I KNEW IT, SEPTEMBER came, and I found myself standing outside Theta House on the night before my twentieth birthday. Voices spilled into the dark, the words drowned by the heavy bass of music.

The Sigmas were the rowdiest in the gathering of people, carelessly manhandling others in line and chanting as they hyped up freshmen for their first frat party. Kasem was among them, again with that silver flask.

He wore tan athleisure sweats and a graphic tee with a Basquiat piece printed on it. He laughed easily, his drink sloshing from the flask when one of his frat brothers jostled him into doing some weird handshake. When our gazes met he gave me a little nod, but otherwise, he barely acknowledged my existence among his Sigma brothers. Vivian’s warning flared in the back of my mind. I couldn’t help the prickles of annoyance sprouting in me from his easy dismissal.

“You made it!” Honey said. She waved from the front porch.

Beside me, Vivian sighed.

“This is a bad idea,” she whispered.

Yet, nonetheless, we headed toward Honey and climbed the steps.

Honey screamed when she spotted Vivian with me. “And you brought Vivi? Vivi, you never come to these. It’s so great to see you, darling!”

Vivian gave Honey a grim smile as we gathered at the railing.

“Next weekend, when the buses go to town, we must go together. There are some really cute boutiques that opened.”

“I don’t go to town,” Vivian said. “I’d rather stay on campus.”

But Honey was already on to her next target. Me.

“And SiSi, you look cute. But jeans and a crew neck. I know it’s not midnight yet, birthday girl. But seriously?” She pouted. By the look of her half-finished Solo cup, her sense of volume control had deteriorated over the course of the night, so much so that a few heads turned in our direction, including Kasem’s.

Honey took my arm, leading Vivian and me inside the house. It was utterly packed. Every inch was people craning against one another for space as we snaked through hallways covered in Theta awards and regalia. The walls were decorated with framed photos of current members along with alumni who’d graduated years before, probably spanning as far back as the late nineteenth century. One of the photos caught my attention.

It was an old tintype of a group of women standing in front of Theta House in the 1850s. They wore huge hoopskirts, their dresses pleated, the long sleeves sewn with Theta’s Greek letters. A few of the women in the photo had dark brown skin, or facial features that looked more racially ambiguous than some of the other pale-skinned women in the tintype.

“Who are they?” I asked, stopping Honey in front of the photo.

It took her a moment to orient herself, her drink sloshing in her cup as she stumbled back to stare at the portrait too.

“Those are Theta’s founding members,” Honey said. She pointed to two of the women at the center of the image, a white woman with curly brown hair and pale skin, and then a dark-skinned Black woman next to her, her own hair just as curly and braided in a crown.

“That’s Evelyn Saint James and Yara Saint James.”

I startled at the mention of Kasem and Jojo’s ancestor.

“Evelyn is from Alaster’s side of the Saint James family. Westfield was actually one of the few institutions in Virginia that taught freedmen and -women and low-income white students. Evelyn and Yara were married to the heirs of Westfield, Duncan Saint James and Kent Saint James—Duncan’s half brother. They were all abolitionists, so when Kent ended up inheriting the school in his father’s will, Evelyn and Yara founded Theta and Duncan and Kent founded Sigma as its abolitionist societies. Their goal was to fight for emancipation through a social and academic front, and a legislative one too. Obviously things didn’t, like, turn out the way they wanted, with Virginia seceding from the Union. But even in the war, when Westfield was ransacked, they kept the secret societies running and did a lot in the war efforts to spy for the Union and undermine the Confederacy.”