by Stina
She parked her car in the visitors’ building parking lot and got out. She stretched her body and took in her surroundings. The campus was more beautiful than she had imagined. Majestic trees, green grass, students milling about, smiling. A far cry from New York City. Her legs literally shook with anticipation and excitement. There would be no stopping Adirah—the daughter of Nigerian immigrants, whose father had committed suicide and whose mother had gone insane. She would not accept her fate as a forgotten orphan in the world. Adirah didn’t want anyone to feel sorry for her. She never had. She wanted to make her own way. She’d already proven how resilient she was to everyone else; now she wanted to show herself.
She inhaled and smiled. The scent of old earth and red clay settled in the back of her throat until she could taste it. Even the air on the campus felt different . . . in some ways almost magical. The campus was more majestic than it was in the pictures she’d looked at over and over again in the brochure. The old Gothic-style buildings ringed by gargoyle protectors—perfectly lined up and perched along the roofs, with their mouths open in a battle cry—spoke of the school’s old-world history. The one-hundred-year-old weeping willow trees that formed an archway down the center of the campus invited everyone in. And the faded gray statues of the school’s brave founders sent a chill down Adirah’s spine. She couldn’t help but feel she had stepped back in time.
She’d read that the school had worked tirelessly to preserve all its old structures and spaces—even the sacred grounds where many had died during the race war. There were spirits on the campus, and Adirah could feel and hear them. For years Adirah had been connected to spirits. They had been reaching out to her and making contact since she was a little girl. Not wanting to believe that it was happening, Adirah would ignore the signs. It was her secret. Something about the aura of these spirits made Adirah uncomfortable. It sent a shiver down her spine. “Ignore them, Adirah,” she whispered to herself.
Adirah went inside the building, got her dorm assignment, and drove around to Rothschild, the building she would be living in. She looked out of her windshield at the building’s facade. The gargoyles seemed to be staring at Adirah, daring her to enter. It made her uneasy. Adirah ignored the lifelike gargoyles and focused on the building’s history. Rothschild was one of the oldest dorms on campus and had housed only black women in the 1800s. This fact made Adirah more determined to live up to the history created by her ancestors, who’d fought so hard for equality.
“Well, baby girl, we made it all the way here.” Adirah rubbed the surface of her car’s cracked dashboard as she spoke. “Now we just have to stay focused and win at this. I promise you I will walk out of here a new person—a better, wiser person.” She smiled and exited the car.
There was so much going on around her. Music played in the distance. It wasn’t coming from a radio; it sounded more like an impromptu gathering of musicians on campus somewhere. Adirah pictured students gathered in a circle, each with their respective instrument, singing along to the chosen song. Sororities and fraternities had tables set out in different spots, with members standing and passing out fliers advertising their parties. Even from where she stood, Adirah noticed one particular fraternity’s table. It had the biggest crowd, and all its members seemed to be gorgeous . . . almost perfect. She’d heard about sororities and fraternities choosing people based on certain beauty standards. She’d already decided she wasn’t going to fall into that. There would be no time for frivolous activities. Schoolwork was all Adirah would be focused on.
The members of that popular fraternity were mesmerizing. Even though Adirah wasn’t planning on joining a sorority, she still felt an urge to stare at all the tables. Adirah blinked a few times. “You can’t be staring at people,” she said under her breath. She turned her attention back to her surroundings. The Billet campus seemed to have a pulse of its own. People hustled up and down the green grounds around the Rothschild building, some alone, some in groups. Even the birds—tiny gray ones, whistling blue jays, and a murder of circling black crows—seemed to be buzzing around with move-in-day excitement.
Adirah went over to her trunk, opened it, and looked down into the stuffed crater. Bags of clothes, boxes of her most cherished belongings, and numerous trinkets filled the trunk, as well as the backseat of her car. It was a wonder that her car had been able to drive on all four wheels with all the extra weight crammed into the back of it. She put her hands on her hips and sighed. She had her work cut out for her. Reluctantly, she reached into the trunk and hefted the first of many boxes she’d have to unload. As she leaned up from digging in her trunk, she let out a long exasperated breath. It wasn’t lost on her that she was alone. Her stomach clenched as she watched all the gushing parents proudly helping their college freshmen move into their new homes, lifting boxes of brand-new matching houseware items with smiles on their faces. She listened to parents and students share joyous laughter and watched each long embrace when it was time to part ways.
Adirah sat one of her bags down for a moment and placed her hand over her aching heart. She thought about her mother, something that always brought tears to her eyes. Her mother had once been so vibrant and happy. She’d sing Adirah and her brothers songs that she’d learned as a child in Nigeria. She’d dance and grab their hands to make them dance too. Her mother would cook meals, and they’d all sit around the pot and share from it—another tradition. Adirah missed that. She missed the sparkle that had faded from her mother’s eyes over the years.
All her life, Adirah could see the yellow glow around her mother. As a child, Adirah hadn’t understood why her father had a dark, almost black, shadow around him. As she got older, Adirah realized the glow she saw around people was the reading of their spirit. She couldn’t always see a glow around everyone she met, but when she did, Adirah paid attention.
“Not now, Adirah,” she whispered to herself, swiping roughly at the tears rimming her eyes. She wasn’t going to allow herself to wallow in the suffering of her past. She’d promised her mother she would study hard and become the best psychotherapist alive so she could save families like her own. She had vowed not to dwell in the past but to learn from it.
After Adolphis’s death, her mother had never recovered. “Mommy, do you like these flowers?” Adirah would say, holding up a bunch of yellow weeds she’d picked from the lot outside of their building. Her mother would just stare, her mouth slack. “Smell them, Mommy. That will help,” Adirah would urge, her voice cracking with emotion. “Please.” When Adirah didn’t get any reaction from her mother, she would throw the flowers to the floor and crush them under her feet.
Weeks would pass, and her mother wouldn’t speak or eat or bathe. Instead, she would stare ahead at nothing, barely blinking. Addis would cry and tug on his mother’s arms, but all to no avail. Over the course of months, Adirah had fought to take care of her mother, herself, and her little brother. She’d forced soft food between her mother’s lips, unsure if any was making it down to her stomach. Adirah had watched her mother begin to shrink, both physically and mentally. Some days Adirah couldn’t stand to look at the bones jutting out of her mother’s face, as if sharp objects had been inserted under her skin. Her mother’s dark, sunken eyes made Adirah depressed.
Eventually, on the urging of Adirah’s school, the city’s child protective services showed up. Adirah tried desperately to pretend things were fine, but her efforts were of no use. Addis wouldn’t stop screaming, and her mother was a complete zombie the entire time the caseworker was there. It wasn’t a difficult decision for the caseworker: she had her mother committed to a mental institution, and Adirah and Addis were sent to foster care.
The foster-care experience proved devastating for her younger brother. He didn’t have the mental strength that Adirah had. She did everything she could to comfort Addis and protect him, but he couldn’t handle the upheaval in his life. He began fighting, stealing, and acting violently. Over time, Addis became a miniature version of their father.
* * *
Balancing two boxes out in front of her, Adirah used her foot to push open the door to her dorm room. Her entire body was slick with sweat, and her muscles screamed under the weight of her load.
“Aye, let me help you with all of that,” a female voice called from somewhere behind the stack. Adirah couldn’t see the source of the voice, but she was sure glad when one of the boxes was eased out of her hands.
“Thank you,” Adirah huffed. “Those stairs are . . .”
“Something else,” said the young woman who belonged to the voice, finishing Adirah’s sentence. “I know. This is one of the oldest buildings on campus, and those are the original stairs. Tiny, winding, and impossible with boxes. I guess back then they weren’t as needy as we are, with all our gadgets and fancy trappings,” she noted. “I’m Lina. Glad you’re here.” She moved Adirah’s box to her right hip and extended her free left hand toward Adirah.
“Adirah. Adirah Messa.”
Lina laughed. “Okay, Adirah Messa, since we are giving out our entire government name, I am Lina Boyd. Your official college dorm mate. And soon I will probably be your resident pain in the ass too.”
Adirah blushed, realizing she didn’t know anything about introduction etiquette. “Sorry. I’m used to having to say my whole name when I first meet people.”
“Why is that?” Lina asked.
“I’m a product of the foster system. That’s just how they wanted it.”
“Well, you’ve made it through, and now you’re in college. Good for you. That tells me you’ve got drive.”
Adirah smiled. “Thanks.” She couldn’t remember the last time someone had genuinely complimented her like that.
Adirah took in an eyeful of her new roommate. She thought Lina had a simple beauty about her—round doe eyes, tiny button nose, and full lips. But most importantly, Lina had a yellow glow around her. It set Adirah at ease, although she could already tell from the chunky silver jewelry layered around Lina’s neck, and from her head-to-toe black clothes, that Lina was different, maybe even eccentric.
Adirah took note of how Lina’s honey-colored skin showed up against her dark lipstick and how her glowing green eyes were like shiny jewels in the light. Adirah felt that this meeting was getting off to a good start. Lina seemed nice. But, as always, Adirah was wary of strangers. No matter how friendly they seemed.
“Ah, no worries,” Lina said. “This is your side over here. Nice and quaint. I hate sleeping near windows, so”—Lina turned to the right and pointed—“she’s all yours.”
Adirah sat her box down and looked at the twin-size bed, the tiny desk, and the empty corner. She smiled. “At least it is all mine,” she mumbled. No more sharing spaces with girls she was forced to call sister or with group-home girls who stole her belongings and terrorized her daily.
Adirah appreciated Lina’s help with carrying the rest of her things up from the car, but she quickly noticed how much her roommate could talk. Nonstop was probably the best way to describe Lina’s banter. She jumped from topic to topic like a frog in a lily pond. Adirah could barely keep up.
“So, you know all the history of Billet University?” Lina asked in the middle of her blabbing.
“I think I did a fair amount of research,” Adirah replied, sticking her chest out a bit. “I know it is one of the best schools in North Carolina . . . or one of the best for us, anyways.”
“That’s all true, but do you know about the other history?” Lina asked, looking at Adirah with wide eyes. “The real history of everything that happened here?”
Adirah dropped her last trash bag full of clothes at the foot of her bed and flopped down, exhausted. “Other history? Real history?” Adirah repeated, her brows furrowed.
“You know . . . the school’s dark side. The things that are unseen but that have happened and still happen to this day,” Lina replied, dropping her voice to a mysterious whisper. “‘Things that go bump in the night’ type of stuff.”
Adirah chuckled. “You look like a scary-movie narrator right now, girl. What in the world are you talking about?” Adirah was starting to have second thoughts about liking Lina. Was she going to turn out to be some conspiracy theory nut job? If there was one thing that Adirah did not go for, it was all this conspiracy theory mumbo jumbo.
“I’m telling you, Adirah, I did a lot of digging,” Lina said. “I’ve been waiting to show this to somebody. C’mere. Look.” Lina leaned over and pointed out of Adirah’s window. “You see that spot over there at the side of the Freeman building?” Lina was pointing to a patch of discolored grass about the size of a basketball court.
Adirah climbed off the bed, glanced out the window, and shrugged. “Yeah. Okay?”
“Look at the ground there. Now look at the ground everywhere else. Do you see how different that spot is compared to all the plush green lawns and rich grassy spots around?” Lina pointed, moving her right pointer finger from side to side.
“Yeah, I see it. That spot looks kind of gray and dried up,” Adirah answered, squinting and contemplating what she was being shown. “What about it?”
“Well, it has been said that that is where the fights happened . . . the killings back in the 1800s, at the end of slavery. You know, the war between black and white, good and evil. I’ve heard it was a freed slave revolt, but unlike others you’ve heard about, the slaves prevailed here. They fought to keep a school they had secretly erected to educate themselves. It stood right where the Freeman building stands now. Of course, the white masters back then didn’t like it. School was supposed to be only for the whites,” Lina lectured.
Adirah stared at the patch of dried grass. A vision appeared. She could see black men, women, and children—descendants from Africa—standing up for their right to learn. She could see blood on the ground and bodies. She could see a younger woman, no older than herself, stumbling and tripping over the long material of her tattered skirt as she tried to escape a white man’s ax. Adirah let out a small gasp, and the vision disappeared. Adirah wasn’t sure if she had imagined it or if she had really witnessed the historical battle.
“People say that the souls that died there never really died. That they still walk the campus at night, but by day they rest underground over there, so that is why nothing ever grows there. No life form can flourish in that spot because the undead inhabit that patch of earth. They live under the ground there during the day and come up from it at night, leaving the land too disturbed to grow anything on,” Lina said spookily.
Adirah shook off the images and sucked her teeth. “Who believes in ghosts at our age?” Adirah replied. “That’s got to be the silliest thing I’ve ever heard.” But still, she stared out at the parched gray ground near the Freeman building, her eyes darting from that spot to the green earth of the rest of the campus. Lina was right. That spot was the only place on campus that didn’t have healthy grass growing. It was, in fact, an eyesore. Suddenly goose bumps cropped up on Adirah’s arms.
“Not ghosts . . . the undead,” Lina replied almost breathlessly. She moved closer to Adirah, until she was almost right in her ear. “Ghosts can’t be seen, just felt. The undead are like real people, except they live for hundreds of years, feasting on humans and expanding their groups.”
Adirah laughed and took a few steps away from Lina. “Listen, if I never believed my mother when she talked about seeing spirits back in Nigeria, I will never believe that this campus is inhabited by the undead at night. What are the undead, anyway? You mean, like, vampires?” Adirah said.
Lina only raised her eyebrows in response.
“Vampires?” Adirah shook her head at her roommate. “You sure your major isn’t fiction storytelling?”
Chapter 2
Adirah looked at herself one last time. The mirror standing in the corner of her dorm room reflected the image of a woman about to begin a new chapter in her journey. She had been fussing with her outfit and had changed several times already. She adjusted her head wrap and made sure her cardigan didn’t have any lint on it. It was the first day of class; she had to look her best. Her mother would’ve been proud of how she looked—like a regal Nigerian girl, one focused on her studies. Adirah smiled at the thought. What the heck was a regal Nigerian, anyway? She’d always thought her mother’s stories of living like a princess back in Nigeria were far-fetched.
In Brooklyn, her father had struggled as an underpaid cabdriver, his pride always getting the best of him. He had turned bitter and hadn’t admitted to being helpless when he had to drag his family into public housing. Her mother had stayed at home, raising Adirah and her brothers, but she’d occasionally taken sewing jobs for a neighborhood African clothing shop to help out. She’d give all the money she made to Adirah’s father, but nothing had ever seemed to be enough. Adirah didn’t see anything regal about her childhood and the nights she’d gone hungry or the days she’d been teased about her homemade clothes.
Now Adirah contemplated snatching off her head wrap, but then she remembered that she hadn’t twisted her natural hair, so it was a big, puffy mess underneath.
“Your outfit screams newbie,” Lina said with a chuckle from her side of the room.
