Ghosts of Harvard

by Francesca Serritella

  Dense clouds hung low and heavy, painting the sky the mottled gray of a tombstone. As she crossed campus toward Weld, the chill in the air cooled her anger and made room for something else—doubt. As much as she hated Hines for his condescension, the whiff of sexism in his jabs, the way he clearly enjoyed making her squirm, she had the sinking sensation that he could be right. She didn’t remember the bulk of her own paper. She had been so exhausted that night, she had told herself she’d blocked it out, but had she? She knew for certain she hadn’t copied the paper from anywhere. But she couldn’t say she expressly remembered writing it.

  As soon as she got home to her dorm room, Cady went to her laptop computer. The second the screen awoke, she searched in her Documents folder for Hines Paper 1 and clicked Open. She read the first page, which was familiar; she remembered struggling with the introductory paragraph before Collegium and spilling Chinese food on her Norton Anthology when looking for the quote at the bottom. But halfway through the second page, her memory grew murky. The writing tightened, the tone became more formal, and the scope of the analysis broadened. It referenced other poems in seamless support of its newly nuanced thesis statement, poems Cady had a passing familiarity with but not an expertise. The author of this paper was confident, well-read, and a little bit of a show-off.

  Robert.

  Cady’s heart rate quickened. Hines was right, she hadn’t written it. But she also hadn’t copied it from anywhere. If she were called before the Ad Board, how could she explain this? What was she supposed to say, ‘The genius that talks to me in my head wrote it?’ That her study buddy is a ghost nerd from the 1920s with a penchant for French poetry? Her defense was its own indictment, only of something much worse—madness. Not that they would believe it anyway. They’d believe she was a cheat before they’d entertain the idea that she communed with dead students from another dimension.

  And about that communing—how much was too much? How far was too far? Letting a ghost inhabit your mind long enough to write a paper? Was she still the one “letting” it happen at all? How far out of her control could Cady let this go before her mind was out of her control forever?

  There was only one thing left she could control. She loaded the second location coordinates into her phone and changed into running gear.

  40

  Outside, the clouds had grown darker still, as if the sun had lost its fight behind them, ashes smothering fire. Cady zipped her jacket all the way to her neck and set out toward Harvard Square. She dodged around the ambling day trippers and dashed across Mass Ave at the first break in traffic, too impatient for caution. The run had mostly been a pretense to tell her roommates while Cady tracked down the second location, but the physical exertion was helping to burn off her mounting anxiety. She ran hard, her anxious thoughts clicking ahead with every step.

  The paper thing with Robert had shaken her, made her feel naive to have let the voices into her life. Was she doing the right thing? Was she getting closer to some insight about her brother, or was she in too deep? But no, Robert was harmless, a gentle person, who had only been trying to help her. All the ghosts had helped her in some way. And when she helped Bilhah to write the note, she felt more focused and purposeful than she had since before Eric died, maybe ever. She didn’t understand how or why the ghosts were reaching her, but if she had crossed paths with Bilhah for only that purpose, it had been worth listening.

  But still she was afraid.

  The crowds thinned as she got farther down JFK Street and closer to the river, and Cady picked up speed, making her breath ragged. Fear had been her first reaction to hearing the voices. Then she’d thought only of what they had to offer her. But now she had come to care deeply about them as people. Which, ironically, brought her back to fear. She was afraid for Bilhah and Eli. Afraid they would get caught; Bilhah could be tortured, executed, and God forbid what might happen her little boy. Cady hoped the note had come out well enough that her plan for Eli would work, but she knew Bilhah had no real safety as long as she remained a slave. Maybe Cady could help her a second time. Maybe she could help her write her own letter of freedom, forge papers as a freed woman, something so she could escape her own suffering.

  She was afraid for Whit, so loyal to his family legacy and his country. He was so desperate to connect with a father he never knew that he was willing to follow him to the grave. What would happen to him if he joined the Navy at the dawn of World War II? Her mind flashed through images of the explosions and smoldering ships at Pearl Harbor, the blood-soaked beaches of Normandy, the spray of earth and bodies, men slumped in the snow outside Stalingrad; she heard shells exploding and machine gunfire and cries of agony.

  Cady remembered that night last winter when the hail had sounded like gunfire striking the car as she and her father drove behind the ambulance that held her brother, bound to a stretcher. It was Eric’s loyalty that had gotten him there in the first place, his urge, however twisted, to protect Cady from terrors that had seemed real to him. For the first time, he’d had nightmares to tell her, but she hadn’t listened. She had been as cold and hard as packed snow. But her mind wouldn’t take her fully back there, it was still too painful. Cady’s feet struck the ground harder, grinding that pain into the dirt.

  The light across busy Memorial Drive was already blinking telling her to stop, but she crossed anyway, heedless of the SUV honking at her, its headlights mere feet from her hip as she darted past. She didn’t flinch. Maybe the ghosts had found her to teach her about loyalty, about sacrifice. Maybe they were a test of her willingness to put someone else before herself. A chance to redeem herself from the last time she failed to do so and someone she loved paid the price. She pounded the concrete along the riverside, filling her lungs with the hot car exhaust and the cold air, each traitorous breath stinging more than the last, as she deserved.

  The choppy bottle-green waters of the Charles River sounded angry, slapping against the banks, hocking foam at the tall grass, spitting up the red Solo cups and other trash. A mallard had to flap its inky wings to ride the cresting wakes. Since there was no sun, there was no shimmer on the water, only shifting shadows on the undulating surface. The water that drew closer to the banks grew rusty and brown with the churning soil beneath. Cady heard thunder rumble in the distance, and she knew she should head back, but not yet. She needed more time to purge her anxieties, to spit up the fear and guilt and dread as violently as the river. She welcomed the weather’s commiseration. A flock of geese soared overhead; their mournful voices called for escape, and their arrow urged her onward.

  She turned right, taking the steps of the Weeks Footbridge two by two, the burn in her thighs barely registering. She opened her jacket down to her breast and powered up the incline and over the water. The cold wind throttled her. Cady ran hard along the far side of the river, taking a dirt path closer to the water where roots and rocks threatened to turn her ankle, but she didn’t slow down. She longed to be too tired to think, and she had brain to burn. Thunder cracked again, louder this time, splitting the greedy clouds and spilling their pockets. The rain splashed on the lapping surface of the Charles, and falling drops hit Cady’s hair and brow and cheeks. But she ran straight past Anderson Memorial Bridge—everything a fucking memorial. The rain would have to do better than that.

  And it did. Torrents poured into the river’s churning stomach, sheets of rain hit Cady sideways, and the jealous wind stole water from the river’s surface and sprayed it on her feet. She checked her phone again, watching her blue dot approach its destination about a hundred yards ahead of her on the riverbank: the boathouse.

  41

  Cady found the red brick boathouse deserted, huddled beneath the roof’s narrow shelter, and wrung out her ponytail like a towel. The front of her leggings were soaked through and her jacket wasn’t as waterproof as she’d thought. She pulled out her phone, wiping the wet screen with her undershirt before pulling up the coordinates app. She kne
w she was in the right general location, but the specific spot seemed around the corner to the river-facing side of the building, it looked almost in the river on the map. In different weather, it would be easy to investigate, but with this downpour, she could barely see five yards in front of her. The most she could do was wait for it to let up.

  It showed no sign of doing so. The patter of raindrops on the roof had grown from a patter to a roar. She pressed closer to the building, flattening her body like a cat on a ledge. But as she pressed her ear to the wall, she heard something else among the rainfall: she heard music. And not just any music: jazz. She knocked lightly on the front door and whispered into it:

  Whit?

  Cady. The music suddenly sounded louder, as if a door to the interior had been opened, although the one in front of her remained shut. Come in, quick, you’re drenched.

  Even soaked, Cady’s body warmed at the sound of his voice. The doorknob turned easily in her hand. She slipped inside and found herself in a cool, dark anteroom that looked part office, part mudroom. Maybe it was the old music, but her attention was drawn to the original, more elegant features of the interior, now covered with the daily stuff of modern college life. Walls with beautiful dark wood paneling served as an overdressed backdrop for a smudgy whiteboard scrawled with scheduling notes and a few frat house jokes. The metal front desk and filing cabinets were pushed against elegant beaded board. A rubber mat for scuffing wet feet lay atop what looked like an original hardwood floor, ridged and weathered with age, with grooves between each plank like front teeth that are gapped and all the lovelier for it.

  What’s the music?

  I’ve got the radio keeping me company. It’s Duke Ellington, “Mood Indigo,” seemed to suit the day. You like it?

  Cady nodded.

  Let me get you a towel. We’ve got plenty upstairs.

  I’ll come with you —Cady thought to him. With Whit especially, she always found herself wanting to preserve the illusion that they were in the same place and time. However he experienced her in his world, she wanted to play along. She didn’t know whether she did it for his benefit or her own.

  Cady mounted the creaking stairs. On the second floor, the walls also had wood paneling, which you could hardly see for all the framed photos covering them.

  It’s this green door where we keep the clean uniforms and linens. Here’s hoping someone brought in the clothesline before it rained.

  She looked for where he might mean and saw only one door, but it was painted black. Poking her head in, she found not a linen closet, but a cramped office with a small table, desktop computer, and shelves of binders, some leather-bound but most cheap plastic. But she could see the bones of its past iteration, the shelves that used to hold stacks of crisp folded linens instead of overstuffed binders, the window that opened out to a taut clothesline instead of musty shoes, she even noticed an edge of green on the door jamb where the black paint coat had chipped. She peeked inside the dryer and found some clean, if crumpled, towels. Boys, she thought. Eric never remembered to fold his clean laundry either.

  Here you go.

  She draped one around her shoulders and thanked him as if he’d given it to her.

  What were you doing out in this storm?

  I went for a run and got caught in the rain. What are you doing here?

  Weight training. Trying to make the most of my time left on Varsity Eight.

  Cady’s gaze wandered to the team photos on the wall, one as old as 1894, in which the men wore long shorts, lace-up leather shoes, and turtleneck sweaters sporting a block-letter H in the center. They looked older than their age, on account of the handlebar mustache and the gleam on their polished, parted hair. She scanned the dates at the bottom of each team picture, hoping to get a glimpse of Whit. She didn’t know what he looked like, other than how she had imagined him, but she had an irrational belief that she would recognize him.

  Where’s your picture?

  Our ’33 crew portrait hasn’t been taken yet. They’ll take it in the spring.

  The wall he was looking at may not include 1933, but hers would. Her heart quickened as she searched for it. She was deprived of so many senses in her experiences with Whit, the prospect of seeing him took on the thrill of an embrace.

  You know, I was just thinking of you, and then you turn up. How do you do that?

  I could ask you the same thing.

  Finally, she found it. The photo showed one man seated with the other seven standing tall, as straight and strong as the oars they held beside them. Despite their sentinel pose, there was a relaxed quality to the men in the photo; they possessed the comfortable pride of those accustomed to winning. Their uniforms were simpler than the turn of the century ones, but still looked far from modern swimwear. They wore a white tank top with a black border, or maybe crimson, the picture had no color, and the same block H on the chest, and on the bottom, the shorts looked like boxer briefs. She could tell the photo was taken outside on a beautiful day; even in black-and-white, she saw the sun’s touch in the shade of their tan shoulders, and the way the wind tousled their hair into cowlicks or tangled it in their brows. She studied each handsome face, but to her dismay, none stood out to her.

  Do you want to see the boats?

  Cady felt a sense of being guided downstairs, visceral and compelling as instinct. She walked past the front desk and through a short hallway to two double doors. A draft of cold air came in from underneath them and tickled her ankles, giving her goosebumps. She slid one of the heavy doors aside, and this time there was no question she was in the right room.

  The wood floor’s aged surface softened the storm light, but against the state-of-the-art boats, the light streaked across each smooth side, gleaming in sharp geometry, daggers upon daggers. The boats were stacked vertically on racks one on top of another, like arrows in a quiver, poised to cut through water or air or whichever medium they met. They appeared impossibly long and narrow, unlike any other vessel Cady had seen before, and she found it hard to believe these razor blades could carry one man, much less eight. But despite their imposing size and shape, they appeared almost weightless hung as they were, bottom-up, all the way to the ceiling. Some were milky white and others were canary yellow, but their color was irrelevant, everything about their design conveyed their purpose—these were built for speed and aggression.

  Cady walked down the corridor created by the tall boat racks on either side. She trailed her fingers along the ridge of one long boat’s underside. Indirect light from the gray sky streamed into the darkened room from a large, arched, barn-style door left open on the opposite wall. A half-moon of stray rainwater shined on the floor, as if the boat room itself was perspiring.

  Her phone beeped in her jacket pocket. She pulled it out, and the GPS app was alerting her that she was nearing her coordinate target. She zoomed in again on the image, where it looked like the red destination dot was just outside. She looked out on the dock, rendered white with the splashing of the heavy rain that pummeled it. She took several steps forward toward the open door, until ricocheting raindrops sprayed her ankles. From this vantage point, Cady could guess what the virtual dot coincided with: a tall, wooden post on the righthand side of the dock, which appeared accessible via the riverbank if the torrential downpour wasn’t making the water so high. It reminded her of the dock at Lake Wallenpaupack, their dock. Uncle Pete’s favorite prank was to join you swimming, only to pull your dry clothes and towel into the lake when you weren’t looking, but he couldn’t do it from the back ones. So Eric had always hung his things on the back, right dock-post, and Cady took the left. Apparently, he hadn’t changed.

  I have news.

  Cady turned around, forgetting that she couldn’t search Whit’s face for answers—Good or bad?—She asked to the empty room.

  That depends on how you look at it.

  She listened.

 
I got into the Lighter-than-Air Division of the Navy, they want me to work on the latest prototype of dirigible aircraft carrier, the USS Akron.

  The muscles in her chest tightened—Whit, that’s great, I’m so happy for you! That’s your dream job, isn’t it?

  Pretty much. I’d probably be doing grunt work, but it’s a chance to be part of something big, a new frontier in aviation. Something that could change the course of history.

  Will this ship, the …

  Akron.

  Will it be seeing combat?

  No, she’s still a prototype, so we’ll be refining the technology, test flights, that sort of thing.

  She exhaled—So you’ll be safe. You won’t be enlisting as a regular soldier, you won’t be in the line of fire.

  Relief flowed into her system, reviving her like water to a wilted flower. The terrible fates she had feared for him dissipated like bad dreams upon waking. He wouldn’t play the role of the doomed enlisted man, after all; he would be one of the lucky ones. He would be far away and high above the spray of bullets. He would dodge them all.

  But there’s no war right now, so it’s an unexpected chance to serve.

  War is coming.

  Gotta be prepared, right? Hence the push to get these dirigibles ready to go, guarding the Pacific. They need men. I had expressed interest in aeronautical engineering on some forms after high school, I planned to defer until after graduation, but they’re fast-tracking me, say I don’t need the degree to start. If I say yes, they want me to pack up and report to Lakehurst air base in a matter of days.

  Why don’t you sound excited about it? Isn’t this exactly what you wanted?

  I don’t know, it’s happening so fast. I’d have to leave, and it’s too abrupt of an ending to … he trailed off.