Dark Companion

by Marta Acosta

  “I have no idea. Why are you named Mary Violet?”

  “It was a grand-aunt’s name and you have to pay tribute or else you’re cut out of the will. When she died, all I got was her collection of Tom Jones memorabilia. She used to go to Las Vegas and throw her underwear at singers, but we only learned that after she passed away, which is tragic because I have so many questions.”

  “I noticed that about you.”

  “I’m intrigued by mystery and you’re so mysterious, Jane! You could be anything—even part Laplander.”

  “That’s everyone’s first guess,” I said, which sent Mary Violet giggling.

  We split up at the hot entrées counter. I got something called pasta primavera, warm bread, and an apricot bar. I looked around for a place to sit, and Mary Violet came back and jabbed me with an elbow. “Come on, slowpoke.” She headed to a table near the lounge area. “This is reserved for juniors, although a few underclassmen might be allowed if we decide they’re worthy. Naturally, I was invited to sit here last year because I’m so fabulous.”

  Hattie had a later lunch period, but Constance was already there. I sat at the end of the table, kept quiet, and observed the clusters of students. I’d been to enough schools to know that they all had the same cliques. Birch Grove was different, though, because geekishness was a common denominator, and no one seemed embarrassed by it.

  I must have looked puzzled at some of their slang, because Constance explained, “Everything here has a nickname. The main building, Birch Grove Hall, is B-Gro, and the other building, Founder’s Arts Building, is Flounder.”

  The other students told me that the nickname for the gymnasium was the Gin Nauseum, and the Founders Memorial sports fields were called Fo-Mem or Foaming at the Mouth.

  Mary Violet said, “Do you have a nickname, Jane?”

  “No, I’m just Jane.” Plain Jane.

  “We’ll have to get to know you better and we’ll give you one. My grandfather was Horrible Holiday because he was a terror of the football field.”

  Constance asked to look at my schedule and said to Mary Violet, “Jane’s got Ms. McSqueak for Trig!”

  “Oh, you’ll love her,” Mary Violet said. “Especially when she says ‘hypotenuse.’ You have to count how many times she says it before Thanksgiving break and then guesstimate the total number over the semester.”

  “We have a pool and it only costs a dollar to enter,” Constance said. “Whoever’s assigned the front right desk has to keep track, and then there’s a prize to whoever guesses the closest.”

  Mary Violet said, “My mother won when she had Ms. McSqueak. She guessed one hundred and sixty-seven and she was right. We’re all so proud of her.”

  I discovered what they meant when I went to Trigonometry. My teacher, Ms. McPeak, was a tiny ancient woman who gesticulated wildly and was covered with chalk dust. Her reedy voice broke upward on the last syllable of each word, especially hypotenuse. I counted four times and wrote it on the corner of my notebook cover.

  Then I had history, which was mind-numbing, but at least the tests didn’t ask for personal interpretation. When the bell rang at the end of the day, I went to the registrar’s office and waited behind other girls trying to fix their schedules. When it was my turn, I asked to change classes.

  “Hmm,” the registrar said. “Mr. Mason talked to me about that. Students reserve their spot in that seminar one or two years ahead of time.”

  “But I just transferred in, ma’am. If there’s a space…”

  “I can put you on the list for next year.”

  I was trying to judge what tactic would work with her, whether I should get whiny, friendly, or demanding, when a voice behind me asked, “Jane, how was your day?”

  I turned to see Mrs. Radcliffe. “Hello, ma’am. It was good, thank you.”

  “Can I help you with anything?”

  The registrar said fussily, “Miss Williams wanted to transfer into your class, and I explained that it was full and requires a reservation.”

  “You’re quite right, but I think we can make an exception for Jane. Would you please handle the paperwork, Mrs. Dodson? Thank you so much.”

  “Of course, Headmistress.”

  As the registrar printed out a new schedule for me, Mrs. Radcliffe said, “Jane, I’ll have Lucian call you soon to arrange his tutoring sessions.”

  “Okay.” I was amazed that she had both the desire and ability to help me—and I was excited at the thought of spending time alone with Lucky.

  My homework kept me busy all evening. I spread all my books and papers on the floor and worked there. When night fell, I went outside and gazed up toward the Radcliffes’ house, thinking that I might be able to see their lights through the grove. The black splotches on the white-barked trees looked like pale, amorphous faces. The more I stared at them, the more they seemed to be gazing back at me.

  I focused on the trunk of one tree and, when the clouds overhead moved, the shifting shadows seemed to reveal the face and body of an ethereally lovely woman. Her dress was made of the paper-thin bark and her eyes were as black and shining as anthracite. The scar on my shoulder suddenly burned as hot as fire.

  The branches thrashed in a gust, altering the pattern of moonlight on the bark. In that moment, I thought I saw the woman smile at me.

  I spun around and raced into the cottage.

  I slammed the door shut and locked it quickly. My heart pounded and I was trembling because, because …

  Because I thought I recognized her.

  I slid to the floor and clutched my left shoulder hard, pressing against the pain, and it faded away. When I stopped shaking, I stood and opened the door. All I saw were trees.

  Whilst he was petting the horses and trying to quiet them, dark clouds drifted rapidly across the sky. The sunshine passed away, and a breath of cold wind seemed to drift over us. It was only a breath, however, and more of a warning than a fact, for the sun came out brightly again.

  Bram Stoker, “Dracula’s Guest” (1914)

  Chapter 9

  I thought my morning would be manageable because I had Latin, but when I walked into the classroom Catalina was there arranging her books on a desk. Her luxurious amber hair hung in curls down her back and gold earrings gleamed on her earlobes.

  “Please sit at your assigned seat.” The teacher, Ms. Ingerson, was looking right at me. She was a sturdy woman with cropped hair the color of a dead lawn and brownish yellow eyes behind gold-rimmed glasses.

  To my dismay, I spotted Jane Williams on a piece of paper atop the desk beside Catalina’s. The stunning girl raised her eyebrows in disdain, and I rolled my eyes at her in response.

  The moment the bell sounded, Ms. Ingerson began class. “Salvete, discipulae. Latine colloquamur.” Hello, students. Let’s speak in Latin. She put us through a series of rapid drills. I could barely follow what she was saying, and I kept flipping through my dictionary, trying to translate. When the bell rang an hour later, I felt as if my brain had run a marathon.

  Catalina gathered her things and stood gracefully, watching me as I scribbled down what I could recall of our homework assignment. She waited until I shut my notebook and then said, “Maybe this isn’t the right place for you.”

  “Thanks for your condescension. Guess what? I don’t care.” I shoved my books in my tote and stood.

  “You should listen to someone who knows something.” She tossed her head dismissively. “So the headmistress has enrolled a new scholarship student, another poor little homeless thing.” Her accent was barely discernable, only evident in the full rounded vowels. “Harriet Tyler has adopted you, no?”

  “No one’s ‘adopted’ me. I can take care of myself.”

  “Hattie was friendly to the other scholarship girl, too. Another pobrecita like you.”

  If Wilde were here, she would shriek “Get the bitch!” and jump Catalina, hauling out hanks of her hair. I spent a moment enjoying that fantasy before saying, “The world has as many poor girls
as it does nasty snobs.”

  “The world may be full of poor girls, but not Birch Grove Academy. One poor girl vanishes, and another quickly replaces her. But why?”

  “The scholarship was available.”

  “Then why not a freshman, instead of someone who will always be behind? As for snobs, your so-called friends are among the worst at the school.”

  “I don’t need your concern.” I resisted the urge to swing my tote at her head, and I walked away.

  * * *

  When Constance invited me to go off campus, I told her I was going to eat in the cafeteria. She said, “Next time then. How was Latin?”

  “It would have been better without Catalina. She told me I shouldn’t be here.”

  Constance grinned. “Welcome to the club. Being insulted by Catalina is a rite of passage here. She called me Rotten Applewhaite for weeks. Once she told Mary Violet that if she didn’t stop sitting at the upperclassman table she would slap her like a maid who steals jewelry. Of course, Catalina said it in French because she thinks MV actually speaks French.”

  “I thought she did, too.”

  “No, she takes German, but she thinks French is more glamorous. MV made me translate and I told her Catalina thought she had the most beautiful hair at Birch Grove.”

  “At least Catalina didn’t jab me with a pin while her friends made a video.”

  “Did that happen at your old school?”

  “Frequently. I think it was offered for five units as a performing art.”

  * * *

  My last class of the day was Expository Writing. The classroom was in the Founder’s Arts Building, aka Flounder. I got lost in the hallways before finding the classroom in the basement, so I was five minutes late. The first thing I noticed was a row of computers on tables against the wall. Wooden file cabinets lined another wall.

  Ms. Chu reviewed editing symbols and the newspaper production schedule. “The file cabinets are our archives and they have every article Birch Grove Weekly has ever published. Always make a hard copy, no excuses, because we lose records whenever the technology changes. Your assignments will not be accepted as complete until they are filed in the archives.”

  Ms. Chu talked about the five w’s of reporting: who, what, where, when, and why. “Our first issue comes out in two weeks and your five-hundred-word story is due Wednesday. I want succinct prose. Quote at least two sources, and if any of your facts are incorrect, you will fail the assignment. I don’t have to tell you to proofread now, do I?”

  When a student asked about the computers, Ms. Chu said, “You’ll get access to the Weekly account, and your use is restricted to submitting articles and formatting the paper.”

  I stayed after class to ask her about a topic for the first assignment. She suggested a feature on the lacrosse team, and when I frowned, she said, “Or write a piece about the Birch Grove Foundation, which administers our scholarships. Twenty percent of the student body receives some form of financial aid. A student started a feature on it last year, but she got the flu and never finished it. You can ask Mr. Shaunessy in the administrative offices about the foundation.”

  * * *

  I forgot the frustrations of my day when I unlocked the door to my cottage and heard the phone ringing. I ran inside and grabbed it up. “Hello!”

  “Hey, Jane? It’s Lucky.”

  My throat constricted. “Oh, hi, Lucky!”

  “How’s it going?” His voice was lighter than Jack’s and didn’t have that annoying, sardonic edge. “School okay?”

  “It’s good. I’m taking Night Terrors with your mom.”

  “Everyone loves that class. Okay, you know that tutoring thing? Chemistry? My parents say I should start it right away and not fall behind. I can come over there on Saturday around noon if that’s okay.”

  “That would be great.” I spoke too fast in my eagerness. “I mean, I’m available then.”

  “Okay, see you then.”

  “See you.”

  I hung up and thought, Lucky and me and money for tutoring. I closed my eyes so I could imagine his face, his long body, the wink he’d given me, the smell of him, the feel of his breath against my cheek. I knew absolutely and without any doubt that girls like me never got guys like Lucky, but that night in my own bed, I imagined him and what it might feel like to kiss him and to have his hands exploring my lonely, unloved body.

  As the evening comes on, an incomprehensible feeling of disquietude seizes me, just as if night concealed some terrible menace toward me. I dine quickly, and then try to read, but I do not understand the words, and can scarcely distinguish the letters. Then I walk up and down my drawing-room, oppressed by a feeling of confused and irresistible fear …

  Guy de Maupassant, “The Horla” (1887)

  Chapter 10

  The next day, Constance and I had Mrs. Radcliffe’s Night Terrors. The headmistress stood in front of us holding a thick book with a maroon leather cover. “Let’s begin with a poem written in 1748 by Heinrich August Ossenfelder. It’s called ‘Der Vampire.’”

  She waited until the room was completely silent and then she recited the poem:

  “And as softly thou art sleeping

  To thee shall I come creeping

  And thy life’s blood drain away.

  And so shalt thou be trembling

  For thus shall I be kissing

  And death’s threshold thou’ it be crossing

  With fear, in my cold arms.

  And last shall I thee question

  Compared to such instruction

  What are a mother’s charms?”

  She opened her hands, letting go of the book, and it hit the floor with a loud slap. Many of the girls jumped in their seats and several laughed nervously. Mrs. Radcliffe smiled. She said, “Does everything that goes bump in the night have a nasty bite?” We laughed more comfortably.

  “Why does every society, every culture have stories about monsters, such as those that drink blood?” she asked. “The universality of these tales says something about our own humanity, but what? Are we afraid of what is outside lurking in the night, or do we dread the darkness of our own souls?”

  We went through the poem line by line, and I discovered it was about a man threatening to give a vampire’s kiss to a pure maiden. Mrs. Radcliffe caught my eye and I thought, No, please don’t call on me, but she did. “Jane, what are your thoughts?”

  “Well, he’s like, um … He’s like a pimp. He seduces the innocent girl and she thinks he loves her, but he’s only using her. He’s taunting her even at the end about her powerlessness to resist him and about everything she’s lost … a mother’s love.”

  “That’s a good analogy, Jane, but could the author have used the supernatural to represent a more real fear? What could blood symbolize?”

  I brooded on the poem through the discussion that followed. When someone mentioned menstrual blood, I expected giggling, but the students were serious as they made associations between fertility and blood, fear of death, and the penetration of a bite and coitus. They even used that word, coitus, and the only other time I’d heard another girl use it was Mary Violet, when we’d met.

  “Thus life, death, blood, sex, power, innocence, and corruption all come together in these two brief stanzas,” said Mrs. Radcliffe. “Please read Johann Ludwig Tieck’s ‘Wake Not the Dead’ for our next class.”

  The bell sounded and we began leaving the classroom. Mrs. Radcliffe stopped me as I passed her desk. “I’m glad you participated, Jane. Did you enjoy the class?”

  “It’s definitely more interesting than Western Classical Lit.” I paused. “The poem’s disturbing.”

  “It is, isn’t it, even after more than two centuries. I’ve always been fascinated by our perception of those things outside the norm.”

  “Jack told me you read fairy tales to them at night.”

  “Lucian wasn’t interested, but Jacob always loved hearing folktales from the Old World about goblins, elves, will-o�
�-the-wisps, magical kingdoms … Some kids have an imaginary best friend, but my son had a whole grove of make-believe creatures. He was less interested when I discussed fairy stories as a reaction to the Industrial Revolution.” Mrs. Radcliffe handed me a few pages. “Here’s the syllabus, and you can pick up your books for this course in the administrative offices.”

  “Thanks, Mrs. Radcliffe.” As I took the pages from her pale hand, I thought of the line “in my cold arms” and I also thought of Lucky’s warm hands as he bandaged my cut.

  After class, I went to the admin offices, got my books, and visited Mr. Shaunessy to interview him about the scholarship fund. The older bald man rattled boring facts and statistics before walking me to the door. “A pity that Bebe isn’t here for your story. She was on full scholarship, like you, but abandoned the school for a European jaunt with some unreliable relative.” He sniffed.

  I wanted to slap him, but I kept my voice calm. “Every foster kid I’ve ever known would give up anything, everything, to be with their family. I know I would.”

  “Birch Grove is family.” He shut the door before I could respond.

  I stormed into the hallway, where Mary Violet was using her reflection in the glass of a framed portrait to fluff up her silver-gold curls. “Why are you vexed? That’s what my mother always says. She says, ‘Why is my family determined to vex me?’” Mary Violet accompanied this statement by placing the back of her hand on her forehead, and I laughed.

  “I’m vexed because I’ve had to deal with vexatious people. Mary Violet, do you know that Catalina had the nerve to say that my ‘new friends’ were snobs?”

  “Oh, it’s absolutely true. If someone doesn’t think I’m fabulous, I’ll have nothing to do with her. Catalina’s not all bad, though. She thinks my hair is splendid. Why were you talking to Mr. Shaunessy?”