Page 5 of The Witches of Cambridge

“If you were required to slit your throat and fuck a duck, would you do it?”

Ava looked shocked. “Of course not.”

“Then you’re not doing the photograph either. We’ll say we have migraines and we can’t pose. I’ll tell the desk clerk.”

“Fine,” Ava said, secretly relieved. Perhaps this roommate of hers wasn’t as awful as she’d initially seemed to be. She was piling up a collection of novels, some of which Ava had longed to read. Frankenstein and Jane Eyre and volume after volume of poetry.

“Don’t bother to unpack,” Lauren told her. “We won’t be here long. All you have to do is find your invitation.”

“What is that supposed to mean?” Ava wanted to know.

“You truly know nothing.” Lauren found it hard to believe that Ava possessed bloodline magic, but the sign was there, a scar on Ava’s left hand where an extra finger had been removed. Lauren went to peer in the closets. She wasn’t about to unpack, but one closet already held a few austere gray skirts, a lone saggy sweater, a pathetic, shapeless coat, and blue jeans, which Radcliffe women were forbidden to be seen in on campus. “This is what you wear?” Lauren asked.

“Not always.” Ava looked with awe at Lauren’s short, stylish hair, her red lipstick, her gold earrings made from ancient coins.

Lauren had packed dresses in shades of blue and gray, along with silk jackets and armfuls of cashmere sweaters. “Don’t worry,” she said. “You can wear my clothes.”

Ava’s mother had always warned her never to accept favors from other girls. Once she did, she would surely find herself at their mercy, for that was what friendship was all about. They’ll have you where they want you, and they’ll call upon you to do what you should not. Listen to me, I have your best interests at heart.

The crows had perched on the window ledge, rapping sharply on the glass. All twelve had followed Ava. “Find your way home,” she told the birds, and when she raised her hand, they flew away, but not to Maine. They perched in the nearest tree.

“You talk to crows,” Lauren said.

Ava had always kept her talents to herself, and she continued to do so. “Crows will talk to anyone willing to listen,” she said.

“Especially if you’re one of us.” When Ava looked blank, Lauren shook her head. “You truly know nothing. I suppose I’m stuck with you, so if you’re smart you’ll listen to what I have to say. Maybe you will be one of us. Maybe you won’t be.”

Ava found herself fascinated by this pale, witchy creature who seemed so confident. But she could spy sparks of her roommate’s past. When she looked at Lauren, she saw cemetery paths and long, cold, blue evenings, and a garden where the roses bloomed black and a girl sat in the boughs of a tree. “You’re lonely,” Ava said bluntly.

“If you want to talk, talk to the crows,” Lauren responded in a chilly, precise tone. “I prefer my own company.” Soon she would head off to collect the rest of her luggage from the first floor, calling over her shoulder, “Don’t forget to check for your invitation. If all goes well, we’ll both be gone by tonight.”

“To where?”

Lauren threw Ava an exasperated look. “Lilith House. Do I have to spell it out for you?”

Ava had never heard of Adam’s first wife, Lilith, who had not been created out of her husband’s rib but had been made of her own flesh and blood and bone. When Lilith refused to do as she was told, she’d been exiled to wander through the night, so forgotten she’d been mentioned only once in the Bible. She was the night bird called upon in the most ancient incantation, the owl pictured on amulets and talismans, the wife some righteous people liked to forget. Her castles will be overgrown with thorns, her fortresses with thistles and briars.

Lauren looked under the pillow of the bed Ava had intended to take for herself. There was an envelope addressed to Lauren Bell.

“I told you this bed was mine. You should pack up,” Lauren told Ava. “It’s not as if we’ll be here long. And we need to be ready for tonight.”

Ava had no choice but to take the bed that was under the eaves.

When Lauren saw Ava fussing with her bed, she laughed, then said, “Don’t worry. You likely won’t sleep tonight.”

Lauren made her nervous, and Ava wondered if she meant to play some trick that would cause Ava not to sleep. There was maid service in the dorm, and the white sheets were freshly pressed and smelled of lavender. Ava could hear the rising voices of girls moving into their rooms on the floors below. They’d surely want nothing to do with her, and she couldn’t blame them. She wasn’t like them, and the half-baked idea that she was a legacy of any sort was preposterous. Neither of her parents had been to college. Books will lead you down the wrong path, her mother always told her, but the path had led her here, to Radcliffe College, and so Ava did exactly as Lauren had suggested. She reached beneath her pillow. There was an envelope addressed to Ava Abbot. When she pulled out the card her heart began to race. What was done could not be undone. What was read could not be forgotten.

The Lilith Society. The Cambridge Common. Midnight.

The message had been written in ink but was now disappearing as Ava read, leaving her with a blank card and the sense that she’d imagined the perfect sloping handwriting in red ink. All the same, what was invisible continued to exist even when it could no longer be seen. Even if the words had vanished, the invitation had not. Her future had already begun.

The bed was lumpy, the room was cold, and birds had gathered on the ledge like a black curtain, settling in for the night. Ava had trouble falling asleep, especially with Lauren reading at the desk, the light switched on. Ava was surprised to discover that she missed the scent of apples and the gusts of wind that shook the trees, and the white metal bed she’d slept in all her life. When she did finally drift off, her dreams were pitch dark, as if she’d tumbled down a well. Finally, she spied a yellow light in her dream. Follow me, a voice told her, and before she knew it, she was in a garden where a lilac tree grew. This is for you. I planted it on the day I lost you. Do you think I haven’t thought about you every single day?

Someone was grabbing Ava out of the garden in her dreams, shaking her, telling her it was time.

“Wake up. We can’t be late!”

Ava sat bolt upright, and there was Lauren, hovering over her. All of her mother’s warnings came back to her in a rush. Lock the door, call out if there is a stranger, stay away from girls who go out at midnight, beware those who wish to take you to the world underground, where there are no rules and no way to return to all that you’ve known.