Fannie frowned at us, swallowing hard before speaking. “I heard the sound of water running, almost as though it were gushing—so much noise that I could not go back to sleep. Alice and Lelia slept on, so I got out of bed and checked the second-floor lavatory. But the sound was coming from below.”
“Why didn’t you come for me?” Miss Crenshaw’s eyes glittered angrily.
“Everyone was asleep. I couldn’t think properly. I just knew it was up to me to turn off the water before the first floor flooded. So I went downstairs. When I walked into the water closet, all the washbasin faucets were gushing, the water flooding the edges and rising like a wave on the floor.” She paused, closing her eyes with a shudder.
“And then?” asked Olivia gently.
Fannie sighed. “The wave was coming toward me, growing higher, so I ran for the staircase. I had to reach higher ground. The water was coming for me.” Her voice failed her for a moment, and as she paused to take a breath, we all leaned in a little closer. “As I reached the stairs above the landing,” she continued, “I saw the water was still rising—I was so afraid I couldn’t outrun it—and that’s when I slipped and fell.”
Everyone was silent. Miss Crenshaw stared at the wall, frowning. I risked a glance at Olivia and saw her brow was furrowed. Fannie looked at all our faces and turned haughty, speaking in a thunderous voice.
“You don’t believe me?”
“Child,” said Miss Crenshaw, her eyes once more on Fannie, “there was a leaking faucet, but no sign of flooding in the downstairs water closets. The rain outside worked its way into your imagination, for I’m certain you were dreaming. Sleepwalking, perhaps. We once had a student fall out of a window for the same reason. Her injuries were far worse than yours.”
“But I was wide awake,” growled Fannie. “It was the ghost, Miss Crenshaw—Ella’s ghost was coming after me. The water smelled so dank. It was muddy and dark, like the river. It was Ella!”
“There is no ghost, Fannie.” The principal’s voice was cold. “You were sleepwalking and dreaming at the same time. You must say nothing of this to the other girls.”
Fannie shook her head obstinately.
“Do you hear me, girl?”
“Yes, miss,” she gasped.
“All right, then. Let’s return to our beds. The morning will be here all too soon.”
Once we’d bid Miss Crenshaw good night, Olivia and I stood awkwardly in the corridor together. She did not meet my gaze, but neither did she turn away toward her room. I made a decision.
“Olivia?”
She flinched. “I should get to bed.”
“Oh, not yet. Come to my room before Crenshaw catches us whispering in the halls again.”
“If you wish,” she said after a moment.
I opened my door and gestured for her to step through. She seemed lost in thought as she placed her lamp on the desk and settled into my wooden chair. I sat on the bed across from her, inwardly rehearsing what to say.
“Olivia,” I finally said, “I know you were offended that day during our walk. You’ve barely said a word to me since.”
She looked thoughtful. “I’m certain it was disappointment rather than anger.”
“Disappointment that I don’t believe in ghosts? That’s what kept you from speaking to me?”
“No, it’s …” She paused, biting her lip. “Prior to your arrival, I was the youngest teacher here. In fact, the other teachers knew me first as a student. Two years have passed, and they still treat me like a student.” She broke off, staring at the hands clasped in her lap. When she finally continued, her words came slowly. “I don’t have a true friend at this school. I suppose I latched on to you, thinking you could be that friend. So when you laughed at my beliefs, it wounded me more than it should have.”
I blushed. “Oh dear. Mama used to say I was too brash, just like my papa. It’s an unfortunate fault, for it’s left me terribly lonely. I should have apologized long ago and brought an end to the coolness between us. But I’ve been overwhelmed.” I gathered the fabric of my nightgown and pleated it nervously. “I’m … not a very good teacher.”
“You’re still settling in,” she said softly. “It gets easier in time. And it helps to have a friend listen to your woes.”
I smiled, much lighter in spirits. We fell into a comfortable silence for a moment, but then her brow furrowed.
“Are you worrying about Fannie?” I asked.
“Well, I am concerned for the poor girl. Very concerned.” She paused, her cheeks flushing pink. “But just then I was thinking of Dr. Stewart. The sight of him always makes me heartsore.”
“You find him handsome?” I thought of him kneeling over Fannie’s body. “I suppose he is, with that fair, wavy hair. He’s tall too … but rather thin.”
“Oh, Willie! Of course he’s handsome, but seeing him makes me sad. He was married to Fannie’s older sister, you know. He’s from Illinois, and he came to Tahlequah straight from medical school as temporary replacement for poor old Dr. Ross. But he gladly settled into the community when he married Sarah. She was so beautiful and good, and they were very much in love.”
“She was beautiful?”
“Sarah died of cholera. And Dr. Stewart has grieved for so long. He’s grown quite thin and pale with his sadness.”
There was nothing like a tragedy to make a man more interesting. “My lord hath endured a grief,” I murmured.
“What?”
“Pericles, act five. Oh, never mind.” I rubbed my eyes, stifling a yawn. “That was quite a story Fannie cooked up, wasn’t it?”
Olivia looked thoughtful. “I was a student when that girl—the one Miss Crenshaw mentioned—fell out the window. It was terrible. Her injuries were more severe than Fannie’s. And it’s true she was sleepwalking. But she did not remember anything about the accident. She did not remember having a dream, nor did she remember leaving her bed and walking toward the window.”
“What are you saying?”
“I don’t believe Fannie was sleepwalking. Laugh all you like,” she said with a gleam in her eye, “but I think her visions came from the spirit world.”
Chapter 6
OVER THE NEXT SEVERAL DAYS, the students dragged themselves into the classroom with dark circles under their eyes. They struggled to concentrate during recitations. The seniors were grim and silent, but the younger students confided that their sleep was disturbed by bad dreams and strange noises.
“I hear a thumping sound, Miss McClure. It seems to come from below,” said one girl in the sophomore class. A few others nodded.
“For me, it’s whispering. It wakes me up and then fades to silence,” said another. “I thought I was going mad until Sally said she heard it too.”
“I’ve heard a rapping sound almost every night since Fannie fell.”
“Running water! I hear it, and that’s what Fannie Bell heard.”
So much for Fannie keeping mum.
I was still skeptical. But it was true that the tapping at my window had grown more urgent since Fannie’s accident. It always waited until I was nearly asleep before starting up, only to stop again when I was fully awake. I’d taken to stuffing my ears with cotton, but it only dulled the sound.
The seniors would not speak of strange noises and sleepless nights. They merely looked stricken. In August they’d gasped and giggled when Fannie taunted me about a ghost; now they seemed shaken to the core by her violent accident. Fannie was back in class, her arm still in its sling, but her once sparkling eyes were dull with fatigue.
I didn’t know what to make of it all. In truth, the dread of facing my classes each day far outweighed any concerns I might have over spooks haunting the night.
After two days of the seniors falling asleep over their compositions, I rose from my desk and asked them to open their copies of Studies in English Literature and find Coleridge’s poem entitled “Love.” If anything could distract them, surely such a subject would. But no one volunteered to re
ad. Finally, I called on Alice. She sighed before placing her finger on the text and reading.
All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
All are but ministers of Love,
And feed his sacred flame.
Her voice was flat. Several students yawned.
“Stop there, please.” I cleared my throat. “Can, um, anyone point out an example of personification in these first four lines?”
The question was met with silence. Hot with frustration, I scanned the questions in the footnotes for more inspiration.
“Perhaps someone can explain … how Coleridge uses the term ministers?”
Alice shifted uncomfortably in her seat. A few girls seemed to be straining for something to say, but the others stared blankly.
“For God’s sake,” I blurted, “someone in this room must have an answer to one of these questions!”
The girls gasped in unison at my blasphemy, each with eyes widened in horror. Only Fannie smiled. How I wished to dissolve into the floor! Or, better yet, disappear in a puff of smoke. I closed my eyes and willed myself to vanish. When I opened them again, the girls still stared. So I straightened my spine and tried again.
“Anyone have a thought to share?” I asked meekly.
Fannie raised her hand. I could have kissed her, so profound was my relief.
“Yes, Fannie?”
“Miss McClure, have you marked our compositions yet?”
I heard a scream. Did it come out of my mouth? No, it was only in my head. At that moment, I could have stormed out of the room, walked through the front door, and put my back to the seminary forever. Why work with such weak-minded fools, day in and day out? Why cope with their fears of ghosts and ghouls? For that matter, why would anyone ever dream of becoming a teacher? I finally understood why my old teachers were such lifeless automatons. It was the only way to cope with unrelenting indifference.
It would have felt like heaven to walk away from it all. Why didn’t I?
$450 per annum was why.
I took a deep breath and stared once more at the textbook. I thought of Papa sitting in his chair, reading Shakespeare and laughing to himself. More than once he’d said to me, “Poets may say differently, but I believe the words never soak into your bones until you’ve performed them.”
I smiled.
“Let’s try something different,” I announced, adopting a sweetly authoritative tone. “Alice, you will continue to read, but you must stand here by my desk.” The girl hesitated. “Come on up here—I’m not going to bite you. Now,” I said to the rest of the class, “we are going to act out this poem. Everyone in this room will play a part.”
Many of the girls looked up. A few eyes brightened, while others rolled. My smile did not falter.
“I need someone to play the role of Love.”
There was a pause as the girls looked at each other. Some of them simpered. My heart thudded in my chest, and yet I smiled on. Finally, Lelia raised her hand.
“I will!”
I silently blessed the girl. “Good for you, Lelia! Come up here—bring your book. Now I need someone to play an armed knight.”
Lucy raised her hand. After that, more hands shot in the air, and the girls began to grin and whisper. I cast the roles of the Lady of the Land and the murderous band that threatened her. I cast the role of the poem’s speaker. That left only Fannie.
I looked hard at her, and she stared back, her eyes defiant. I longed to cast her as the “wild and hoary ruin.” That would teach her to ask about compositions I’d put off marking for too long. But when I glanced at her arm in its sling, thought of her lying in pain upon the landing, I swallowed my resentment and smiled once more.
“Fannie, would you be so kind as to play Genevieve, the poet’s lady love?”
She narrowed her eyes. For a moment, I thought she might decline simply to vex me. But, as I’d hoped, her vanity won out and her frown softened into a smug smile.
“Yes, Miss McClure.”
Their performance was a disaster, riddled with false starts, missed cues, and laughter in all the wrong places. But the lively spirit in the room lifted us. No one thought of drowned girls, ghosts, or accidents in the dark of night. We were all caught up in the moment, living the poem instead of merely hearing it. Their indifference had vanished.
Afterward, when everyone was seated again, they shared their opinions on the poem. Good ones at that, and well expressed. Once they’d enacted the poem, lived within it, they also seemed to have something to say about it.
And I learned a very interesting thing about Fannie—a little tidbit to tuck away for later use. It was difficult to accept, but I had to admit Fannie was a natural actress.
• • •
That Friday night I went to bed early. It seemed I’d had my eyes closed only for a second when I woke to the faint strumming of a guitar. Were ghosts musical? I shook my head, dismissing it as another queer dream, but the whispers and squeals in the corridor brought me upright. Scrambling out of bed, I pulled my shawl around my shoulders before going out to see what new horror had upset the students.
But it wasn’t fear on the faces of the girls. They smiled and giggled as they made their way to the wide windows in the second-floor landing. Olivia followed them, holding a lamp to light the way. She must have sensed my confusion as she drew close, for she smiled knowingly.
“Don’t worry, Willie. It’s only the boys from the male seminary come to serenade us.”
“But won’t Miss Crenshaw disapprove?”
“As long as the girls keep well covered and don’t hang out the windows, she doesn’t mind. After all, there is quite a distance between them and the young men.”
The girls had already opened the windows and filled every available spot for viewing the scene below. It was impossible to see over them. So I stood and listened as the guitar strumming grew louder and the singing began. The young men’s voices were enthusiastic if not particularly sweet, and the girls laughed and clapped their appreciation.
“I have to see this,” I murmured to Olivia. “I’ll just dash to my room for a moment.”
She nodded. “It’s quite a sight.”
Once in my room, I pulled the curtain back and opened the window, propping a ruler under it to keep the heavy panel from crashing down again. There were seven boys lined up below, and the ones who did not hold guitars held lanterns. I searched the faces, ignoring the voice in my head warning me to keep out of sight. I recognized Larkin Bell holding a lantern, and, yes, there was Eli Sevenstar, strumming his guitar and singing at the top of his lungs. He was gazing intently at the girls looking through the central windows, and I turned to see that they were, perhaps, hanging a bit too far out the windows. At least they were properly wrapped in shawls. I would mention something to Olivia when I returned to the landing.
I looked down once more and allowed myself to wish, for a moment, that I were a student at the seminary and could smile and flirt with those handsome young men. Truly, there was only one with whom I wished to flirt.
As if hearing my thoughts, Eli Sevenstar turned to look in my direction. And, to my fanciful mind, it seemed he sang to me. He looked up at my window for so long—did he truly see me there? Or did he look because it was once Ella’s room? Sobered by that thought, I closed my window and withdrew.
I sat on my bed for a moment, trying to calm the pounding in my heart. How could I be such a fool? He was a student. Now every time I saw him, my heart would thud and my face would flush. Surely the girls would see right through it and despise me all the more. And Eli himself would smirk to know that a poor and lonely teacher, a lady doomed to eternal spinsterhood, had a pash for him.
I should have returned to the landing but instead reclined upon the bed with a groan. I may have thrashed about a bit too.
A thumping noise stilled me. I glanced at the window. Nothing but the strains of guitar music and singing could be heard from outside.
And then the thumping sounded again, followed by creaking and shuffling.
It came from above—the third floor.
The faint melodies of guitars and voices faded as I crept up the east staircase. I’d never heard noises above me before, and though I knew it must be the primaries, my heart skipped a few beats as I neared the third-floor landing. I had no idea who resided in the turret room above me.
I stepped softly from the landing into the corridor.
Several girls stood outside the doorway of the turret room, from which the light of more than one lamp glowed. Their faces were transfixed. I rudely pushed my way through so that I could see into the room.
Three lamps were lit on a table by the windows, which were opened wide to let in the music from below. In front of the lamps, four barefoot girls moved about the room, winding around each other in a stately dance. They took turns making elegant leaps that revealed their smooth brown legs. Their black hair gleamed in the flickering lamplight as it fell into their faces. I stood staring with the others, mesmerized by their slim, swaying bodies, until the song came to an end.
The girls looked up—and froze in place when they saw me.
“We’re not doing nothing wrong, miss,” said one. “We just like to dance when the boys come to sing.”
“I heard thumping from below,” I said. “I only wanted to know what it was.”
“Did you think it was the ghost, miss?” asked a girl nearer to me.
“Well, no …”
“You’ll not find ghosts up here,” said the first girl. “We never did nothing to Ella ’cause she was one of us. She’d never haunt us, miss.” The child looked down, no longer bold. “We don’t want demerits. Please don’t wake Miss Thompson.”
Though I hardly knew her, Lucinda Thompson was widely understood to be very strict. Her room must have been at the far end of the east wing if she’d not already been woken by the music below. I had no desire to wake her. I did wish, however, to know more about these primaries who danced by lamplight. More than anything I wished they’d go on dancing, but the music had stopped.
The Revenant Page 6
