by Clea Simon
‘Words cannot conjure bad luck,’ she muttered to herself. ‘Words are simply tools for communication.’ After a lifetime of Lucy, whose vaguely Wiccan faith tended to absorb just about any supernatural belief that caught her fancy, this ethos – the creed of the scholar – was Dulcie’s defense. It was also, sometimes, a little hard to believe when everything seemed to be going wrong all at once.
‘A text, any text, is a vessel.’ She let herself wax lyrical as she emerged from the elevator, three levels below the yard. ‘A way for a story to be carried – and a means by which a reader can be carried away.’
She’d meant to cheer herself up. After all, how many times had she enjoyed being transported by a good book – by The Ravages of Umbria in particular? But as she pictured the two-hundred-year-old novel, she couldn’t help thinking of its author. Where had the author been heading on her own journey? And why was it surrounded by such a sense of dread?
Only a few months earlier, Dulcie had been sure she had the key to this particular mystery. The unnamed author had emigrated from England to the fledgling United States, of that she was sure. Essays in her distinctive style had been published in Philadelphia less than three years after she had ‘disappeared’ from the London scene, and Dulcie had a sneaking suspicion that the émigré had found love, or at least started a family, on this side of the Atlantic.
That was before the latest series of dreams, though. In these dreams, the author seemed to be fleeing something – or someone. Even worse, she seemed to be filled with despair. Dulcie had been shy about sharing these nightmares. Chris, rational thinker that he was, would have attributed them to too much late-night pepperoni pizza. And Lucy, she was sure, would over-interpret them and try to involve her daughter in some complicated herbal exorcism. Nobody else would understand at all, and so Dulcie had kept them to herself.
She dropped her books on the carrel with a thud. Had she just said to herself that nobody would understand? She sat with another thud, letting her head sink to the molded plastic desktop. Nobody – and no cat. Just when she needed him again, Mr Grey was absent. Leaving her alone with a recalcitrant kitten and the daylight world of clueless humans.
It was pointless. Dulcie made herself sit up and open a book. Chris wasn’t clueless. And he’d even heard Mr Grey speak – her former pet’s wise, warm voice advising them both to embrace their future together with open hearts. But Chris, as was befitting a computer sciences scholar, was more concerned with the practical here and now. Plus, he had never known her long-haired pet in life. To Chris, Mr Grey was a story and a voice. He would never be the comforting presence that the real cat had been, not that long ago.
A drop appeared on the page, spreading as it soaked into the paper. Dulcie sat up. There was no point in crying. Mr Grey had been a great cat. He’d set her up with Esmé – she was convinced of that – and he still visited occasionally. She had a living cat as well as a living boyfriend. Beyond that, Mr Grey’s silence didn’t bear thinking about; she had work to do.
Moving quickly, before her melancholy returned, Dulcie found herself in front of a row of collected journals. There she paused for a moment, deciding between two books. The one she opted for – another collection of political essays – was fairly new to her. It wasn’t a new book, far from it, but this particular volume was one she had never bothered with before. Pulling it from the shelf, Dulcie wondered why. It wasn’t much to look at: blue-dyed leather with its title, Early American Dissenters, impressed in small gold type. There was something appealing about it, however. Maybe, she realized with a chuckle, it was simply because she hadn’t opened it before. And so she took the volume – filled, as it was, with the promise of brilliant discoveries – back to her carrel with a lighter step than before.
Sitting with the book, Dulcie indulged in a little private ritual. Eyes closed, she leaned over the blue binding and inhaled, enjoying the almost imperceptible woodsy-dusty smell of old paper and leather: the aroma of a well-preserved book. Along with the smell of fresh brewed coffee, that subtle earthy smell always perked her up, just as the baby-powder smell of a clean cat could calm her down.
‘Maybe it’s just as well you aren’t here with me, Mr Grey,’ she whispered to the empty air. ‘Between the two of you, I’d be too blissed out to work.’ Instead, she settled in to read, looking for those distinctive phrases that set her author apart.
It was almost like a treasure hunt, looking for nameless essays from the author of The Ravages. Granted, Dulcie admitted, most of her colleagues wouldn’t see her findings as treasure. That just made her current tack all the more promising. Through her research, Dulcie had not only come close to proving that The Ravages, so-called sensationalist trash, had a very real and very witty message about the role of women. She had also linked the nameless author with the burgeoning feminist movement of the time. Two hundred years ago, women writers were staking a claim in literature – and their lives – and Dulcie was only now, retroactively, figuring it out. When she published . . .
She paused. Her breath catching in a way that had little to do with the atmospherically controlled setting. When she published, she’d be in the same situation Trista was: competing for post-docs. Hoping for a teaching job . . . somewhere. And Chris? Well, as a computer guy, he had a little more flexibility about his career. Still, it was the one thing they hadn’t talked about.
‘You could, you know.’ The deep voice, quiet, but no whisper, sounded right behind her ear.
‘Mr Grey?’ Dulcie sat up, but resisted the temptation to turn around. Although she could now feel the tickle of whiskers on her left ear, she knew that if she looked, she’d see nothing but shadows.
‘He’s been thinking about this, too.’ The voice had a slight edge to it, admonishing her, she knew, for her timidity.
‘You’ve talked to Chris?’ She didn’t know why, exactly, but that thought sent a twinge of jealousy pinging through her. And just like that, she knew the presence – Mr Grey – was gone.
‘I should be happy. My cat and my boyfriend get along.’ She bit her lip and tried to return to her book. ‘I mean, it’s a lot to ask.’
She started reading again, but her thoughts were elsewhere. Only recently had Mr Grey, her spectral visitor, revealed himself to Chris. The idea that the two were having discussions without her was a little disturbing. He wouldn’t leave her, would he? Maybe now that she had Esmé . . . maybe he always wanted a male human . . .
‘Now, now, little one.’ The voice was barely audible, an undertone on the hum of the air conditioning. But it was enough. Dulcie smiled to herself, and got down to work.
A half hour later, Dulcie wasn’t worried about her career prospects any more. An hour later, she wasn’t even worried about Mr Grey. Early American Dissenters was a mother lode: disorganized – the volume didn’t even have a table of contents – but full of exactly the kind of radical essays she had been hoping to find. Whoever had edited it had cared more about being inclusive than about presenting any kind of structured argument. Which was, to Dulcie’s mind, perfect.
Here was an essay trying to revive the Levellers – a proto-socialist school that had its heyday before the revolution. ‘Justice and Inequality cannot abide . . .’ the essay ran, before a list of such horrible disparities that Dulcie’s sympathies as well as her intellectual curiosity were raised. Following that piece was a discussion of liberalism and the republic that sounded almost like it could be current. How far should government be involved in everyday life? What rights did the individual have against corrupt power? It was as timely as anything in the Crimson op-ed pages. Except, of course, that the ‘Government, as limited as the Men who Decreed it’ consisted entirely of white men. Women and people of color – many of whom were enslaved – were not invited to such lofty debate.
Well, that would change, she thought. And her author would help change it. She skimmed ahead, browsing for familiar phrases: the ‘woman question’, that’s what she was looking for. That, as well as educat
ion, were the two areas her author cared most about.
Dulcie’s stomach grumbled, reminding her that even the heady combination of intellectual discovery and coffee were not sufficient for survival. She checked her watch. It was after noon. She looked back at the bound volume. Without a table of contents, it was hard to know what other topics its papers might cover. Then again, that made the volume more of a treasure trove, one filled with possibilities. She’d read one more essay . . .
She didn’t stop. She couldn’t. The piece on the limitations of government had been followed by one on the definition of ‘liberty’. It had not only raised the question of slavery – already a hot topic during the Constitutional debates – but even the issue of whether a person needed to own property to deserve full rights under the law. To a contemporary reader, Dulcie knew, this would sound incredibly restrictive, arcane and unfair. To her it was, well, revolutionary.
Her stomach grumbled again, but she had to continue. If only she could find her author in this group . . . .
In truth, Thorpe had been more impressed by Dulcie’s latest discovery about her author than he had been by the writer’s big novel. That the author of a ‘minor, and fragmented, Gothic’ – his words – had been an early feminist activist had impressed her balding tutor. He’d even asked her if she’d consider rethinking her thesis to focus on these later, political works. At the time, Dulcie had rejected his suggestion out of hand. Now, with this blue-bound volume in hand, she was tempted. Post-revolutionary social theory was hot right now, and that meant a thesis on an early émigré feminist might be more likely to land her a post-doc or even a tenure track position. Problem was, it would also mean shifting the focus of her work away from that one great novel, The Ravages of Umbria. That book, even in the incomplete form that survived, had been what had drawn her in in the first place. Was it worth giving it up?
‘Follow your spirit guide,’ Lucy had told her on more than one occasion. Of course, for Lucy, that usually meant letting your whim decide which incense was appropriate for the occasion. But even her old thesis adviser, now retired, had said something similar, if less poetic.
‘You’re going to live with this. Breathe it. Even eat it for the next few years,’ Professor Bullock had told her, early on, before his declining health had muted his famous brain. ‘Choose something you really love, Ms Schwartz. Because otherwise you’ll hate it – and yourself – by the time you’re done.’
She’d taken those words to heart, hitching her academic wagon to a book that few had read – and even fewer respected. And it had paid off for her. Surely, the fact that that original wonderful novel had led her into a new direction didn’t mean she had made the wrong move, did it?
She turned to the next essay, hoping for an answer and finding an argument about landholding and the public trust. The next was on term limits. Things really didn’t change, and as her stomach rumbled once more, she reached with one hand for her bag, using the other to close the leather cover. But the volume was heavier than she remembered, and it was with dismay that she saw the tissue-thin pages begin to flip in a disorderly fashion, falling, folding as they fell. She grabbed at the volume – even if it had disappointed her, it was a fine, old book. That’s when she saw it – one phrase on the bottom of the page: ‘ . . . a delicate issue of the Female mind . . .’ And then it was gone.
‘What? Where . . .’ Dulcie opened the volume again and began looking through the pages, turning the delicate paper as quickly as she dared while she scanned the lower right corners. ‘Who was writing about the female mind?’ No table of contents meant she had no clue as to which essay that phrase had come from. Starting again from that piece on the Levelers, she speed-read. Congress. Term limits. Nothing . . .
The buzzing almost made her jump out of her seat, her hands pulling back from the pages by reflex so as not to rip them. ‘What the . . .?’ That buzzing again, and Dulcie came back to earth. Her phone, deep in her bag, was vibrating. It must, she thought, digging for it, be up against something – a pen, the metal case of her laptop. Although she had turned the ringer off, it sounded like an angry bee, desperate for attention.
There, beneath a hair tie, she found it – and at that moment it fell silent, as if it really had just wanted her touch. Phone in hand, she looked around guiltily. Cell use was prohibited in the stacks. Even having the phone on could get her a reprimand, not to mention dirty looks from her colleagues. She leaned out of her carrel, ready to apologize. No stares greeted her, though. No frowns peered around the edges of the other carrels or from the stacks. Feeling like she’d gotten away with something, she reached for the switch on the small phone. Then she looked back at the volume. This would not be, she could see, a quick study.
‘Sorry,’ she murmured, to any stray scholars who studied on, unseen. Her concentration broken, she shoved her notebook into her bag. It was way past time for lunch.
Her phone started buzzing again as she was checking out the blue volume, vibrating against something in her bag and earning her a raised eyebrow from the rotund security guard.
‘Sorry.’ She smiled as she silenced it. ‘I thought I’d turned it off.’
He sniffed, staring down his pug nose at her, and she noticed how much like a bulldog he looked. Well, maybe it went with the job.
He finished checking her out and waved her through, and she reached for the phone. It wasn’t likely to be Chris, though she could hope. More likely it was Trista, with some excuse for blowing her off earlier in the day. Well, if that were the case, she would exact compensation in the form of company for lunch. She didn’t think it would be difficult: Lala’s three-bean burgers were justly famous, and if Trista joined her they could chew over the latest revelations together.
The light was with her – and she was famished – so she was already in line by the time she checked her messages. Rather to her surprise, the missed call had come from Chris.
He answered on the first ring, and she yelled over the din, ‘Hey there! I’m waiting for a seat at Lala’s. Want to join me?’
‘Dulce, did you listen to my message?’ Her boyfriend sounded unusually serious.
‘No, I just saw that you’d called.’ With a nod to the person behind her, she stepped aside. Up against the wall, it was easier to hear. ‘I was in Widener. I’d thought it was going to be Trista.’
‘So, you haven’t spoken to her today?’
A place at the bar opened up and Dulcie went for it, ignoring the pointed look from the customer behind her. ‘Not really.’ She pointed to the menu to order and kept on talking. ‘She was at the departmental meeting, but then she ran out. We were going to have coffee.’
Chris exhaled audibly, and Dulcie realized her boyfriend had been holding his breath. She leaned forward, as if she could get closer to him through the phone. ‘Chris, what’s up?’
His voice was soft, and the restaurant loud. ‘Look, I’m just glad you’re not involved in this. Not really.’ That much she got. ‘No matter what Mr Grey says.’
‘Mr Grey?’ The waitress put a burger down in front of her, but for once Dulcie hesitated and didn’t automatically reach for the house-made hot sauce. ‘Did you say Mr Grey, Chris? Mr Grey spoke to you? About me?’ She couldn’t help the tone of her voice. She just couldn’t.
Chris seemed to understand. ‘Yeah, he – uh – he came to me this morning,’ he said, a little abashed. ‘I mean, I think he did. I was sleeping. But I thought I felt him jump on to the bed, you know?’
Dulcie nodded, momentarily unaware that her boyfriend couldn’t see her reaction.
It didn’t seem to matter. He kept talking. ‘So, I may have been dreaming. But then I heard this voice, deep and low, telling me to watch out for you. That you were going to be dragged into something. That it wasn’t safe to be too trusting.’
Dulcie swallowed, her appetite gone. ‘He said that?’
‘I think he did. Like I said, I might have been dreaming. And I’m not entirely sure that he meant you were too
trusting. Just that there was danger in being too trusting, and that I should watch out for you.’
‘Oh.’ Dulcie didn’t know what else to say. Mr Grey was talking to Chris. Not to her. About her. It was only when she heard Chris say her name that she realized he had something more to add.
‘Dulcie?’
‘Yeah?’ This was going to take a while to digest.
‘Um, sweetie, that’s not why I called. I mean, not entirely. In fact, I might have thought it was all a dream, but before I could go back to sleep – or maybe because the dream woke me up – the doorbell rang.’
She made some noise. She must have, because he kept on talking.
‘It was the cops. Dulcie. They had come to the apartment. That’s what I was calling about. They want to know what’s going on.’
Dulcie roused herself. This was something she could handle. ‘They came to the apartment and woke you up? How rude. I’m sorry, honey. Do they want me to call them back?’
‘Worse than that, Dulcie. I wanted to warn you. I mean, I’m sure it’s nothing, but I thought you should know. They’ve looked up your schedule. They’re coming to campus to find you.’
For a moment, Dulcie considered flight. Not back to Chris – the cops knew where they lived. Besides, the idea that Mr Grey had spoken to her boyfriend, instead of coming to her directly, was something she didn’t want to think about. Not now.
Dulcie’s dream came back to her, crashing over her like an ocean wave, with its feeling of hopelessness. Is this how the nameless dream figure had felt? Had the dream woman – Dulcie just knew it was her anonymous author – been hounded by authorities, forced to flee her home – even her country?
She slumped on the counter stool, letting the weight of the day drag her down. The burger no longer looked appealing, and she pushed it away. But just as she was about to put her head in her hands, maybe even let some of those tears loose, she felt something. A swipe, a sting, like the rake of claws across her face. The shock made her sit up straight, and when she realized what was happening, she took a deep breath.
