Grey Expectations

by Clea Simon

  Dulcie punched in Trista’s number and again heard it go to voicemail. ‘Trista, call me.’ She was getting angry now, which at least beat being afraid. Where was her friend? On a whim, she tried Lloyd.

  ‘Hey, Dulcie, are you coming in?’ Of course, he was back at their basement office.

  ‘No. I mean, I don’t think so.’ Somehow office hours seemed like a foreign concept. ‘I was wondering – Trista didn’t come by, did she? Or call?’

  ‘Funny you should ask.’ Lloyd sounded as distracted as always, so Dulcie waited. ‘No, she didn’t. One of your students did.’

  ‘And that was it?’ She didn’t even want to mention the police.

  ‘Yup, nobody else. I guess the term really is winding down.’

  ‘About time.’ Dulcie suspected her sigh was audible over the phone. That was fine; Lloyd would assume she was grateful not to have a dozen calls to make. Only a week or so ago, when exams were in full force, Dulcie had found it necessary to turn her phone off even when she wasn’t in the library. Students were a necessity – teaching paid the bills – but when they panicked, as they seemed to do every exam period, they were truly the bane of a grad student’s existence.

  Still, she felt a little bad for leaving one of her charges in the lurch.

  ‘Which one?’ She ran through her current crop. ‘Lisa C.? The one with the purple hair and no concept of sentence structure? Tom the procrastinator?’

  She heard a chuckle. ‘I’d swear those were my students, Dulcie, but no. This one didn’t leave her name.’

  ‘And she wants me to call her back, right?’ Undergrads. They thought they were the center of the universe. Or at least of their section leaders’ lives.

  ‘Probably. I’m sorry, I should have pressed, but she seemed upset and just kind of turned on her heel. And I’ve been trying to get through the notes for the Gryzinski paper.’

  ‘That’s OK.’ Dulcie hoped the irritation in her voice didn’t come through. ‘I really appreciate you covering for me.’

  She prepared to hang up, when Lloyd came back. ‘That’s fine. It was useful to have the office for another hour, especially after the kerfuffle this morning.’ He paused, and Dulcie could almost see him blushing. ‘I was a little flustered, I know. But I have gotten a lot done and, well, I know you’re in writing mode. So if you want to come in, I’ll get lost. Just let me know.’

  She considered. It wasn’t like she was going to get anything else done, and if she had just a few minutes of quiet, she could finish that essay. Still, if the police were looking for her . . . ‘No, thanks. I mean, enjoy.’

  ‘Cool. Oh, Dulcie? I don’t know if it helps at all, but that student? The one who came looking for you? I thought she was Trista at first. Could be her younger sister, right down to the nose stud.’

  SIXTEEN

  It was a coincidence. It had to be. Still, Dulcie was wondering about the mysterious visitor as she walked, the long way, back to the Square. None of her tutees looked like Trista, not even remotely. An image came to her of a girl, blonde and slim as Trista, whom she had seen in passing. The girl had been upset, maybe over finals. But she wasn’t anyone Dulcie had known.

  Had the girl been interested in Dulcie – or in one of Dulcie’s classes? Dulcie knew she was clutching at straws. Undergrads popped up for a million reasons. Maybe this one was considering concentrating in eighteenth-century British fiction. Maybe she had heard that Dulcie would be offering a junior tutorial in the fall. Maybe she was hoping to get a head start with some summer tutoring. Actually, that last option might not be so bad. Chris had taken on some private tutoring students, and the money had come in handy. If Dulcie could scrape a few hours out of her week, maybe they could go on that vacation they’d been talking about.

  As much as she usually loved Cambridge, right now the idea of getting out of the city was appealing. A car whooshed by, and for a moment, she substituted the sound of a wave. She and Chris, on the Cape, reading on the beach . . . Now that would be a vacation. Of course, they’d have to find a place to stay, and it was a little late to get in on anyone’s group rental. That wouldn’t be a problem if they went cross-country for a change of scene. They could take the bus and spend a week or so at the arts colony. No; she shook her head. That would never work. While Lucy would love to have them both there, Dulcie knew that bringing Chris into that environment would be akin to animal cruelty. The very idea of Chris participating in a moon circle made her laugh – and the ritual sharing? Not a good idea. Besides, who would watch over Esmé?

  Thoughts of the rambunctious young cat made Dulcie pause. Usually, she managed to get back home during the day. Not that the kitten needed her to be present, but Dulcie liked to be. The sociable little cat certainly never minded the company or a little extra playtime. Today, though, had just gotten away from her, and she found she’d been walking with the most direct route to the apartment on her mind.

  That’s what had tripped her up. She’d meant to walk around this area – take one of the old streets with its brick sidewalks and discover another part of the city. Somehow, she had ended up back on Mass Ave – and once again, ahead of her, the police station loomed. In this light, with the late-afternoon shadows darkening its modern front, it really did loom like some forbidding mountain keep. She thought of the blue ticket in her bag, about the Dunster Codex and the rumors surrounding it. Then she thought of her kitten. It had been a tiring day – and a long one. Esmé would be waiting. It was time to go home.

  Head up, as if she truly had nothing to fear, Dulcie strode right past the police station. Halfway past its brick front, she heard a grinding noise, like some giant machine, behind her. The garage door was reeling up, the nose of a cruiser already visible. That was it. Her courage was shot. Tucking her bag under her arm, Dulcie ran.

  ‘Honey, I’m home!’ Twenty minutes later, Dulcie pushed open the apartment door to be greeted by the excited chirps of the cat. ‘Kitty!’ Dropping her bag, she scooped the round feline up in her arms. A wet nose pushed up against her face, the chorus of mews replaced by a hearty purr.

  ‘I know. I’ve missed you, too.’ Dulcie leaned her face into the soft fur. Mr Grey had always greeted her, although his statelier manner usually meant something a little quieter and more refined. ‘Maybe this isn’t all bad,’ she told the kitten’s black back, only to find those round green eyes suddenly staring up at her.

  ‘What?’ Dulcie felt a stab of disloyalty, but she’d been complimenting the kitten, hadn’t she? ‘You’re both very different kinds of cats. That’s all.’ It didn’t matter. The little animal squirmed to be put down, and Dulcie obliged. As she watched the tuxedo march off, though, she was almost sure she heard the ghost of a chuckle.

  ‘Mr Grey?’ No, there was nothing more, and Dulcie went into the kitchen, where a cereal bowl and mug rested in the drying rack. At least Chris was making the effort to clean up after himself, she thought as she reached for the bowl. He hadn’t left a note, though, and for a moment, Dulcie wondered why. Was he afraid the police would see it? Had Mr Grey advised him against it?

  The idea of her boyfriend and her former pet having private conversations was still unsettling and disturbing, even if Dulcie knew she was being silly. The whole incident with the blue ticket had freaked her out, but she would get an answer to it tomorrow. At the very least, she’d be able to talk it over with her boyfriend soon enough.

  ‘Maybe it is just a girls’ night, Esmé,’ she called over to the cat. ‘Just the two of us, on our own. So what will it be: pizza or Chinese?’

  In response, the cat started to wash.

  SEVENTEEN

  The wind howled, and the ship, storm-toss’d, pitched as if a wild thing, its deck slick with the ocean’s spray. Her hand was icy, pale and wet, as she pushed a long curl back. Chill’d to the bone, she wrapped her shawl around her, its thick wool a scarce cover ’gainst the storm. She should retreat, take cover in the cabin that awaited. And yet beneath the deck, she sensed the oppression of
all above her. Of all that awaited her at journey’s end. Of what she must do . . . She should be writing, laying down these last thoughts before her perils o’ertook her, stole her dreams as they had her life, her home behind. She should take up pen and ink, capture on the paper the thoughts that flew before her, driven on petrel’s wings, cloud-driven and furious. She turned, to her cabin, to the travel desk that ever accompanied her. To write into the night, as bells began chiming, furious and loud.

  ‘The reef!’ Beyond the mast, lost in the inky black, a lone seaman cried. ‘The reef!’ His voice battl’d with the wind, a wail both mournful and fierce. ‘Beware, lest we be dashed upon the rocks!’

  The bells, the bells. Their chiming, fierce and desperate, woke Dulcie, who sat up, gasping with fear. But as she blinked, the sound changed from that wild, tinny alarm to the ordinary ring of her phone. She checked her clock: it was early, too early for anyone to be calling unless it was an emergency. And so she dragged herself over to her desk.

  ‘If this is Lucy, calling about a vision,’ she mumbled into the predawn dark. She reached for the phone, blinking, but she was too late. Whoever had called had hung up again, and when she checked voicemail, there was no message. She was tempted to leave it at that – maybe someone had dialed a wrong number. Maybe it was Lucy, and her poor mother had, too late, figured out the East Coast time difference. There had been too much going on, however, and so she checked the incoming calls, hoping for Lucy – or even Trista. No such luck; the number came up ‘restricted’, and she was left to lie there, wondering.

  It wasn’t like she’d been having a restful sleep. Still, the idea of getting up seemed painful, and the inky black outside was far from inviting. She checked the clock again. It shouldn’t be this dark, not at this time of year. A storm was brewing, maybe the first thunderstorm of the season. That would explain her dream. She closed her eyes, waiting for the sound of rain to lull her back to sleep.

  Dulcie hadn’t meant to stay up so late. She’d known Chris was working and had figured she’d make an early night of it, in the hope that a good eight hours of sleep would leave her better prepared to figure out the tangle of the last two days. She’d toyed with finishing that essay, the one by ‘A Lady of Letters’. After all, it might be the last piece in her thesis puzzle. But despite her excitement over her discovery, by the time she got home, Dulcie just didn’t feel up to working on something new. Things had been so crazy lately, she couldn’t shake the feeling that anything new might not necessarily be good. That was silly, she knew, but knowing didn’t help. Instead, she told herself that she would be better able to appreciate her new find in the morning, when she was fresh.

  Besides, she didn’t feel like taking notes. Didn’t even, really, feel like thinking, and so, on the grounds that she really needed to refresh her sense of The Ravages, particularly the second of the two extant sections, which she didn’t have quite by heart, she’d allowed herself a night of reading. Esmé hadn’t disagreed, exactly, though Dulcie noticed the little cat prowling around more than usual.

  It should have been a relaxing night. She should have slept, though the three-meat pizza – pepperoni, sausage, and meatballs – had probably been a bad idea, arriving as it did after she had scarfed a bowl of Raisin Bran for an appetizer. And just when she’d found her eyes closing, Chris had finally returned her dinner-time call. He’d been swamped, she knew that. But going over the events of the day after midnight had not been conducive to sleep. Especially when he started questioning her memory of the blue ticket – was she sure that was her handwriting? – and wondering out loud what Trista’s motives could have been to hang on to it.

  ‘Maybe she wasn’t the one who dropped it, Chris.’ Dulcie had found herself making excuses for her absent friend. ‘Maybe it was just some strange fluke, like it stuck to something that I lent to Tris.’

  ‘Which would be what?’ Chris’s question left her open-mouthed. He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘You two never even read the same books. And you don’t go up to the Quad, I know you, Dulcie. You’re always in Widener – or your office. No, I want to know why Trista had that ticket – and when it is from. When did you last go into the Muldoon or Milltown, or whatever it is – the rare book area – anyway?

  To her frustration, and his, she couldn’t answer. Not definitively. The Mildon wasn’t on her normal rounds. Still, she knew she had been in at some point that year. And she had access.

  Chris wasn’t happy with that, but there wasn’t anything she could do. Besides, she couldn’t argue with him when she was exhausted and he was wide awake. She didn’t want to. After a day like this, all she wanted was to be held. And he wasn’t there.

  ‘I’m sorry, honey.’ He must have heard something in her tone. ‘I know you don’t want to think this way about your friend. But face it, she’s acting strange. And you know you didn’t steal the Dunster Codex.’ He paused. ‘You didn’t, did you?’

  ‘Chris!’

  ‘Sorry, sorry. Bad joke.’

  ‘No, it’s OK.’ She sniffed, more for effect than anything. ‘Truth is, I don’t think I’ve ever even seen the Codex. And it’s not the first thing I’d have taken, I mean, if I were going to steal anything.’

  ‘Oh?’ His voice was softer now, conspiratorial, but Dulcie knew they were both trying to make light of the day.

  ‘Definitely. If I were going to take anything . . .’ She stopped to think. ‘I’d take The Wetherly Ghost.’ The silence that greeted her confession showed her she’d lost him. ‘It’s my period,’ she explained. ‘A Gothic. I mean, it’s not a great book or anything. In fact, it’s definitely inferior to The Ravages, but it’s worth a lot.’

  ‘A Gothic novel worth something?’ She heard his joking tone. At that time of night, it was hard to laugh along.

  ‘It’s a first edition in very fine condition. And –’ with a reluctant sigh she gave up the secret – ‘it comes from the personal library of Thomas Paine.’

  ‘Wow, well, that’s something.’ Chris was trying. ‘I mean, he was one of the leaders of the Revolution, right?’

  Dulcie didn’t respond. When would people recognize it was the writing, not the book’s owner, that mattered? Even if the owner had made history with his own prose.

  ‘So if the cops start asking about that—’

  ‘Chris!’ She’d had it, but he laughed, and when she didn’t, he apologized. The rest of the conversation passed without any more teasing. But the strange mood hadn’t been completely dispelled, and it thickened like a fog as she read into the night. It didn’t help that Esmé continued to act odd. After that first affectionate greeting, the little cat had been restless, roaming around the little apartment and chirping to herself. Sometime after one, Dulcie found her in the kitchen, staring at the corner of the refrigerator.

  ‘What is it, Esmé?’

  The cat didn’t move.

  ‘Esmé?’

  Not even a tail flick. If it had been Mr Grey sitting there, Dulcie liked to think she’d have gotten an answer. Her former companion would have given her a clue – or explained why he was staring like that. He might even have incorporated a lesson into his vigilance: maybe he was on guard to show her that she should be, too. The longer she watched the young cat, however, the more convinced she became that Esmé was simply exercising her animal instincts. And that brought up a whole other issue.

  Dulcie didn’t like to think of herself as squeamish. Ghouls, mad monks, and haunted castles didn’t faze her. But a mouse? What place did a mouse have in their apartment? In her life? Better not to dwell on it, Dulcie decided, and, leaving Esmé to her studies, she had gone to bed.

  EIGHTEEN

  Opposing forces then met, with violence profound. Above heaven itself crack’d and opened, flinging its last battery o’er the ship as the heaving sea flung itself o’erhead to meet the tumultuous sky. She, beleaguered lady, toss’d and beaten, would be dashed between Scylla and Charybdis. Staring into the void, she considered such a fate and shiver
ed. Not for her, though ’twere her very soul lost – but for that which awaited: a life washed away as ink, not yet dry, doused by the frigid waters. A life, unfulfilled. A story unfinished, its words unwritten, haunting her. Soaked by frigid salt, as well by pelting rain, she raised her face to the blackness, unwilling to bend, to beg mercy, to . . .

  When Dulcie woke for the second time, the rain beating against the window almost made her believe she was still on-board the ship, soaked and freezing. It must have been the thunder that had woken her, she realized, checking the clock. And even as the wind whistled through the slight opening she had left, causing the shade to rattle and thrash, she lay still. She didn’t have to get up for a few hours yet; the storm had come at the right time.

  ‘What a dream.’ She shook her head. ‘Now, that was a storm.’ Her dreams were often vivid, springing as they seemed to from what her subject had lived through. Recently, however, they had ratcheted up in intensity. Before, Dulcie had felt like a witness, spying on the author. Dreams like this one, though, were more terrifying. This dream set her on the lonely ship. She closed her eyes and, instead of the warm wind, felt the salt spray and the icy rain. Felt, as well, the despair that threatened to sink the woman’s spirit, if not her ship – that threatened the promise of . . . what? Sitting up in bed, Dulcie covered her face with her hands. Right now, alone in the dark, she could not find any answers. Could not see how the woman could survive, could fight back against the forces allied against her. Could not conceive of how she would continue, how she would—