The Professor

by Alexandria Clarke

  The issue of The Daily Bird was dated August 1910, and beneath the article was a note of gratitude to the committee of Waverly alumni that had funded the construction of the new wing. Lockwood, Davenport, Schwartz, Buchanan, St. Claire, Hastings, et cetera. Every single one of the committee members had been included in O’Connor’s research.

  “Nicole, seriously,” said Wes, emerging from the bathroom with his toothbrush wedged between his lips. “Put that stuff down. It can at least wait until the sun comes up.”

  “Look at this.” I brandished the paper at him. “Nec plus ultra rears its ugly head yet again.”

  “So?”

  “The Rapere Wing of the library opened in 1910, the same year The Daily Bird mysteriously stopped publishing new issues,” I explained, since Wes clearly had no intention of reading the article. “Theodore Lockwood had been an editor for the newspaper and helped fund the construction of the library’s new wing. And it’s not just him.” I flipped to the page of the paper that listed its staff at the time of that issue’s publication. “All the people that keep popping up in O’Connor’s research had grandfathers or whatever who worked at the Bird that year. Now that I think about it, I haven’t found any earlier records of those families at Waverly.”

  Wes pulled back the quilt and crawled into bed, turning out his desk lamp in the process. “Baby, you kind of lost me,” he said, his voice husky with exhaustion. “Why does any of this matter?”

  “Don’t you see?” I said, scattering other issues of the Bird across the floor in a frenzied attempt to confirm my hunch. The dim light of the moon was just enough to make out the familiar names. “This was the start of it all. These people met each other when they worked together on the paper. They all came from wealthy, respected families. They were all major players in the business world beyond the university. They all had something to contribute to each other. It’s a giant club, Wes. I mean, that has to be why the following generations keep turning up at Waverly. They know that going to Waverly means connecting with other students from those families and—”

  “Nicole.” Wes groaned and turned over, snaking an arm around my waist and pulling me deeper into the tempting comfort of our queen-sized mattress. “Please. Save it for the morning.”

  “I can’t,” I said. I escaped from Wes’s grasp and tiptoed out into the hallway again. The floor was stone cold, so I hurried into the living room, grabbed the puzzle box off of the coffee table, and jogged back to the bedroom. I curled up beneath the blankets, lying on my stomach with a small flashlight between my teeth, and opened the box to shine the light on the poem inside. “Our hidden room,” I murmured, running the tips of my fingers over the words. “‘Amidst the pillars.’ Wes?”

  “Hm.”

  “It’s in the library.”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  “Wes!” I prodded his side, ignoring his grumble of protest. “The secret room that the riddle talks about is in the library.”

  He opened one heavily lidded eye. “How do you know?”

  “The pillars outside the Rapere Wing are modeled after the Pillars of Hercules,” I explained. My pulse quickened as I realized the significance of this breakthrough. “And this group, whatever they are, their motto is nec plus ultra. Wes, I’ll bet you anything that this secret room is under the Rapere Wing.”

  “Good job, Nic,” he muttered. He patted my butt, unaware of where he was placing his congratulatory gesture. “You can check it out tomorrow.”

  “I want to go tonight.”

  Wes perched himself up on his elbows to address me. “Nicole. It is two o’clock in the morning. I haven’t stayed up this late since your twenty-first birthday bender. Please, I beg of you, do not make me get up and follow you out into the frozen tundra of Waverly’s wasteland to unearth a secret, underground room like I’m Tracer Bullet, private eye.”

  “For the record, I’m the clever detective in this situation.”

  “I’ll entertain any of your chosen alter egos,” conceded Wes, “as long as you stay in tonight. Don’t go overboard with this, Nic. We still don’t know what happened to O’Connor, and I’d sure as hell hate to wake up tomorrow morning and find you missing like him.”

  I considered his heavy eyelids and the faint imprint of the quilt pattern across his left cheek. “Fine,” I said at last. “I’ll go tomorrow.”

  “Thank you.”

  He kissed my forehead before sinking beneath the blankets once more. I flipped over, staring at the ceiling where the moonlight painted shadows across the stucco, wide awake. Within minutes, a light snore emanated from Wes’s side of the bed. I waited a moment longer, listening to Wes’s long, even breaths. Then, when I was sure that he was a goner, I inched out from under the quilt, puzzle box in hand, and went to fetch my snow jacket.

  6

  Much to my bewilderment, the main doors to the library were unlocked. Though Waverly didn’t boast any state-of-the-art security measures, I’d at least expected the night guards to lock up the buildings after the last of the students had gone home. The open door was a godsend really. I slipped inside, grateful to escape the frigid flurries that flirted with the black night. My footsteps echoed across the marble floor as I crossed the lobby and passed through the second set of doors. The library was a curious place to be so late at night. There were no students bent over the desks, religiously studying the classics. No hawk-eyed librarians organized the shelves or scolded those who were being too noisy. Even the whirring of the computers behind the checkout desk was absent. Without the bustle of daytime, the building felt vastly bigger. Colder, even. I ignored the prickling at the back of my neck. If Waverly had ghosts, they would certainly feel at home in the old library, and though I didn’t believe in the supernatural, I crept through the towering shelves with the foreboding sense that someone was watching me.

  The Rapere Wing was at the back of the main building. As I approached it, I craned my neck to fully appreciate the sight of the soaring stone pillars. How many times had I passed by that archway and never challenged its existence at all? Now, as I pressed my palms to the burnished mahogany doors and coaxed them open, my heart thundered in my chest.

  It had been several months since I’d had to enter the Rapere Wing for O’Connor, and since then, I’d forgotten how extensive it was. Even the shelves were arranged to reflect the pretentious minds of those who had constructed this part of the library. They coiled inward, and when viewed from above, the layout of the shelves was meant to mimic a Fibonacci spiral within the rectangular room. With the wooden puzzle box in one gloved hand and a flashlight in the other, I followed along the outer edge of the spiral, keeping away from the faded spines of the books lest I accidentally damage something. No part of the brick walls had been left exposed. Even the far corners were obscured by the statuesque shelves. If there really was a secret trapdoor that led to an underground clubhouse, its creators had concealed it well. I shined the flashlight over every inch of the floor, but there were no hints of interruptions in the burgundy carpet. The whorled shelves wound tighter and tighter, leading me farther into the depths of the library until I reached the center of the spiral. Here, it was hard to believe that the rest of the university even existed, ensconced as I was within the illusory citadel of books. I glanced up at the stained-glass dome above me. Dark as its artwork was without the sunlight to illuminate the glass, it reminded me that there was a sleeping world beyond the labyrinthine shelves. I returned my attention to the task at hand, sweeping the flashlight back and forth in a pattern of wide arcs. Even here, at the epicenter of the room, there was no indication that the books had ever been disturbed by members of an elite society.

  I huffed. At a dead end, my weariness had finally caught up with me. I closed my eyes for a moment, mentally preparing myself for the long walk out of the library and back to the apartment. As I pivoted away from the inner coil of shelves, the blue glow of my LED light reflected off the spine of a book and into my eyes. Squinting, I leaned forward to examin
e a silver crest stamped into the leather binding of the book in question, and to my ultimate delight, the crest’s design matched the one that decorated the inside of the puzzle box. Carefully, I removed the book from the shelf and flicked through its pages. Every word was in Latin, including the title, and my meager background in the subject was far too insignificant to tackle the daunting task of decoding it. The blaze of triumph that had flickered within me faded as quickly as it had come. I would have to revisit the Rapere Wing, armed with a Latin-English dictionary, at a later date.

  I hoisted the book up, but before I could return it to its proper place, another odd detail caught my eye. In the wall behind the shelf, a space which the book so cleverly camouflaged, a small indentation marred the red brick. I aimed the flashlight between the two volumes on either side of the empty slot. The depression in the brick, though miniscule, was incontestably intentional. It was octagonal in shape and looked as though something was meant to fit neatly into it.

  I removed the puzzle box from where it was tucked beneath my armpit, popped the lid open once again, and drew the silver ring from its velvet pillow. The ring’s black stone was roughly the same size as the notch in the wall. The odd cut of the onyx suddenly made sense. With a deep breath, I reached between the books and fit the stone into the brick. It clicked into place, and with a low groan, the entire shelf began to shift forward. I stumbled out of the way as the shelf swung open, as if on a hinge, to reveal a dark passageway and a series of weathered, red brick steps leading steeply downward. The reach of the flashlight only illuminated so far, and the bottom of the passageway was nowhere in sight.

  I chewed on my bottom lip, lingering on the top step. If Wes had been with me, armed with his officially issued sidearm and shiny police badge, I wouldn’t have hesitated to march down those stairs. Alone and without my partner in crime—however ironic that was—the dark corridor unnerved me, but instinct told me that it wouldn’t be as easy to access the secret portal during the daytime, so I gathered the scattered bits of my bravery and headed down.

  The air grew cold and damp as I descended. I kept an eye on my boots. The brick steps were cracked and slippery, and one misstep would send me tumbling down to an uncertain landing. I trailed one hand along the dewy wall for guidance, glad that my thick gloves kept the stone from relieving my fingers of their warmth. After what felt like ten minutes, I lost count of how many steps I’d taken, and when I looked back to the top of the stairs, the doorway to the library was more of an abstraction than a concrete reality. I kept going.

  Ages later, the flashlight revealed a level floor again. I reached it gratefully, noting that the brick had given way to marble once more. The air had warmed again too, as if this section of the library sported some kind of heating unit. I ran my hand along the wall, and to my surprise, my fingers connected with a light switch. I flipped it on.

  I stood in a small stone entryway. A series of ornate sconces set into the wall cast a golden glow throughout the room. To the right side of the staircase, a lofty corridor branched out, but before I could be bothered to explore it, the grand mantle set into the stone directly across from the stairway demanded my attention. Emblazoned on the wall was the bird crest, but this one was intricately detailed. The meticulous feathers of the raptor had been painted by hand, its beak seemed to turn derisively toward those who entered the room, and the eyes, two glowing rubies set into the stone, gave off the impression that the two-dimensional bird was sentient. If that wasn’t enough, the motto nec plus ultra had been painted in swirling, elegant script beneath the bird, and above it, in a golden banner, lay the name of the group whose clubhouse I’d infiltrated: the Black Raptor Society.

  “BRS,” I muttered, remembering the label on the files in Catherine Flynn’s office. So far, I hadn’t found a record of any members of the Flynn family that had worked at The Daily Bird, and from the looks of O’Connor’s research, he hadn’t either. That certainly didn’t mean she wasn’t a key player for this so-called Black Raptor Society. For all I knew, she’d simply married and changed her last name.

  I ventured into the hallway to my right, shining the flashlight through a few doorways. The first significant room I came across appeared to be where the Black Raptor Society held whatever meetings they might conduct. A regal dining table stretched from one end of the room to the other. There were enough plush, straight-backed chairs to seat at least twenty, though I knew BRS must have several more members than that. There was no dust on any of the surfaces, and the polished wood of the tables glinted in the light of an overhead chandelier. The room was clean and maintained, which confirmed more of my theory. The Black Raptor Society was still active.

  Farther down the hallway, I discovered a decently sized library. From the looks of it, BRS had borrowed their furniture from Waverly University, as the shelves were of the same design as those in the Rapere Wing, and the few desks bore a remarkable resemblance to the ones in the main library. In the middle of the library was a long, low table upon which lay a leather bound volume the size of an encyclopedia. Gingerly, I opened the front flap, revealing yet another copy of BRS’s logo on the first page. The second page displayed a dense block of text with which began:

  Our Illustrious Charter

  We, the inaugural members of the Black Raptor Society, hereby present the charter of our esteemed organization. Let it be known to all who follow in our footsteps that each member of the Black Raptor Society shall epitomize the qualities thus defined by our fraternity: Loyalty. Integrity. Passion. Wisdom. Strength.

  The charter went on to address each of the aforementioned qualities in an alarming amount of detail. The gist of it was clear. To be awarded membership with the Black Raptor Society was a high honor at Waverly, despite its disreputable methods of bolstering its “brothers” through the university’s ranks. Those involved considered themselves above the honor code and above the law. If this were not apparent in the body of the charter, the last disclaimer at the bottom of the page cleared up any doubts for the reader:

  Our society exists to benefit those within our brotherhood. That which one brother achieves, we all achieve. That which one brother accomplishes, we all accomplish. That which is given to one brother is given to all brothers. That which is not given to our brothers, we must seize by force.

  Beneath the morally ambiguous closing statement, the original members of BRS had all printed and signed their names in loopy, ostentatious chirography, as though each of them were a Founding Father and believed their document as righteous as the Declaration. I took out my smartphone, which had no service underground, and snapped a picture of the charter and the names of the original members. Then I flipped through the rest of the volume. For every year since the Black Raptor Society’s conception, its new members had signed their name in the book. Some of them had etched the words “council member” next to their signatures, and every few pages, one name boasted the title “Chief of Council.” I took note of the pattern of surnames, especially when a new Lockwood or Davenport joined BRS’s noble ranks, then skipped a few generations to reach the latest list of members. Orson Lockwood was the current Chief of Council, and Donovan Davenport was a council member. I took several photos of the most recent signatures then closed the book and laid it to rest in its original position on the table.

  I browsed through the rest of the library, checking my watch every few minutes to make sure that I wasn’t spending too much time in BRS’s clubhouse. It was unlikely that their business hours were the regular nine-to-five, and the last thing I needed was for one of its members to clock in and discover me rifling through their private business. Swiftly, I combed the other material within the room, pausing here and there to investigate anything of interest. It was more of what O’Connor had already discovered. The Black Raptor Society kept tabs on all of their activity. They had catalogued newspaper articles, bank logs, student records, spreadsheets, and even personal journal entries written by the members themselves. These in particular attract
ed my attention, as they often explained the necessity of some sordid plot or another in order to further BRS’s impact on the local society. Again, I located the more recent entries and skimmed through them. When Jo Mitchell’s name appeared in hastily scrawled handwriting, I paused and backtracked to decipher the journalist’s notes. Unlike the others’ entries, this member of BRS wrote in short spurts of bullet notes rather than long, detailed paragraphs.

  -Applied for job in student record office in order to access Jo Mitchell’s files. Waiting to hear back. Dean Hastings to encourage office to accept my employment.

  -Secured position in record office. Starting Monday.

  -First day. Trainees not permitted to access current records. Must find work-around.

  -Second week in record office. Still no luck. Dean Hastings promised to look into it.

  -Phished the secretary’s login information. Too easy.

  -Dean Hastings “dropped” record office key; returning tonight to assess situation.

  -Caper successful. Accessed records no problem. Security interrupted. Will complete task tomorrow.

  -Altered Jo Mitchell’s grades. Donovan’s to follow. Inform Dr. Thornton to remain on call for Mitchell’s reaction.

  The frown on my face intensified as I realized what I was reading. This was the beginning of the end for Jo Mitchell’s college career. The Black Raptor Society had engineered her breakdown from the very beginning, and from the looks of it, Dean Hastings and Dr. Thornton, the school psychiatrist, were both in on it. The entry went on to log Jo’s reactions to her inexplicable accelerated failure and the decline of her mental health, until finally the journalist concluded with: