A Lesson in Vengeance(35)

“No.” Ellis pushes the cup and saucer aside and leans over the table again, her elbows planted on the wood and her chin resting atop a shelf of both hands. “Because you know everything there is to know about the Dalloway Five. Because you’ve researched them—you’ve clearly done your homework. Not to sound too utilitarian, but I’d like to capitalize on that.”

“There’s a whole occult library at this school,” I inform her. “You could just go there.”

“It’s not only that. You didn’t kill anyone, Felicity, not maliciously, and you aren’t being haunted. There are no ghosts, there’s no magic, and you didn’t kill Alex. I’ll prove it to you. Besides,” she adds, “if you help me with this, maybe you can go back to your old thesis. You know so much about the Dalloway witches; that knowledge shouldn’t go to waste. It’s all those horror novels making you believe in ghosts. Reality is reality. It’s pretty clear you’ve strayed far from that in recent weeks. Don’t you think it would be grounding, to look history in the eye and name it what it is?”

“I haven’t lost my grip on reality,” I argue, but it’s a moot point. I have. I demonstrated that just yesterday. I want to argue that plenty of people manage to believe in ghosts and witches without others questioning their sanity, but I suspect Ellis would find some way to twist my words.

“Help me,” Ellis says. “I want to reenact the Dalloway murders. Not for real, of course—but we could figure out how they were done. Because it wasn’t magic, no matter how impossible they seem. Maybe someone wanted to frame them, to persecute the Dalloway girls for the crime of possessing their own agency. It would have been easy, back then, to convince people that five odd, educated girls were witches. We’ll go through each death, one by one, and figure out how they were accomplished without the use of magic. And of course, it will be good for me to understand the mechanics of it all, for my book.”

A ridiculous proposition. I know that. I know it. But Ellis watches me with eyes lit from some arcane internal light, one long strand of black hair fallen into her face. All I want is to compulsively tuck it back behind her ear—it’s intensely distracting—but I find myself saying: “Fine.”

“Fine?”

“Fine. I’ll help you. We’ll…” A giggle rises in me, helpless; I’ve never been a giggler. “We’ll re-create the Dalloway murders, and you’ll write your book, and then we all live happily ever after. Not the Ellis Haley ending I expected, but I can appreciate a plot twist as well as the next person.”

Ellis rolls her eyes, and I spare a thought to wonder if I’m the first person who has ever managed to make Ellis Haley do something so pedestrian as roll her eyes.

“This will be good closure for you,” she says, rising to retrieve the broom to clean up the broken pottery. “Trust me.”

“I don’t,” I tell her, but we both know that makes little difference.

Whether I trust Ellis or not, I need to do this. I need to understand what happened the night Alex died. I need to know if some shadow of Margery Lemont has curled up in my heart, guiding the movements of my hands and the words in my mouth. The ghost raised by the Dalloway Five didn’t rest until all of them were dead. I need to know if I’m cursed by that same fate. If raising Margery’s spirit in our unfinished ritual cursed me and Alex. If it killed her.

I need to face whatever caused the broken ceramic shards on the floor, the misty handprint on my window.

I need to face the truth.





I don’t tell Wyatt I’m researching the witches again.

Maybe it’s because I know what she’d say. I can visualize the precise character of the disappointment that would settle over her features. I can even imagine her deciding to call my mother, who would call Dr. Ortega, who would ask if I’ve been taking my medication.

Better to wait, to prove I’m healthy—stable—before I tell Wyatt the truth.

And there’s research to do, not just for myself now, but for Ellis as well if I’m going to help her write this book. I reread my old notes a dozen times, but they’re full of references to primary source material, questions scribbled in the margins that I meant to answer later, when I could go back to the occult collection.

There’s no other option. I need to access the original sources before I can get anything else done. Wyatt gave me a signed permission slip last year, which is what it takes to get into the occult library as a student. They say it’s because the books are old and rare, but really it’s because the administration is afraid more students will turn out like me. I have no idea if my old permission slip will still work, but I smile at the front desk librarian anyway as I pass it over with my student identification card.

“Good evening,” I say, and I notice even as I’m speaking that my voice has taken on crisper enunciation—my mother’s accent, laden with all its connotations of privilege and power. “I need to access the occult collection. Felicity Morrow.”

The librarian examines the slip and then scans my card. She shakes her head.

“I’m afraid your permission to view this collection has been revoked,” she says, passing my ID back across the desk.

Of course it has.

“Are you sure? Can you check again?” I ask.