That Friday night, Violet had put zero thought into whether or not she would be going to the Owl Halloween party. She certainly hadn’t contemplated a costume. The few hours of free time she’d had that week, after finishing up her homework and working for Madeline, were spent looking for books in the library about the different ways over the centuries mediums had allegedly communicated with the spiritual world. She’d taken over the coffee table in the common area with her books on ghosts, Victorian séances, and the history of the occult. Violet had been most intrigued by the Ouija-like reportings of spirits seizing a tablet and spelling out answers through alphabetized tiles. If she could askHarry specific questions, like what was the name of the woman he’d been in love with, perhaps he would spell it out for her.
One of her most fascinating discoveries centered on another ghost who was particularly close to home. She was amazed by several articles in theHarvard Crimsonreporting that students believed that Lowell House was haunted by the ghost of Amy Lowell, the famous poet and sister of the former Harvard president Abbott Lawrence Lowell, who was in charge of the college when Harry was there. Although she was an avid reader and passionate learner, her traditional parents forbade her from attending college. The paper claimed students and faculty over the years claimed they had seen apparitions of Amy floating through the hallways and even smelled the thin, hand-rolled cigars she liked to smoke.
Violet no longer felt she was hallucinating that Harry’s ghost might indeed be communicating to her now. Countless Harvard students and scholars before her had for years reported their own encounters with spirits from the other side. Digging through the stacks, she’d even found papers written by the nineteenth-century Harvard-educated philosopher and psychologist William James, who devoted much of his life to exploring the existence of the paranormal. Violet spent an hour reading about James’s experiences following the death of his son, Herman. The devastation of losing his child had propelled James to seek the guidance and comfort of a famous medium by the name of Leonora Piper.
Despite being initially skeptical, William James came to believe that Piper had a true gift for connecting with the dead. “She had knowledge that she couldn’t have known without some assistance from the other side,” he’d written.
When James founded the American Society for Psychical Research in 1910, the Harvard academic community did not simply write off his inquiries and curiosity in the occult. Instead, they remained open to his findings and supported him.
Violet only wished the current climate was so open. As Lara and Jenny’s skepticism had been revealed in the cafeteria, she knew most people would think she’d lost her mind.
She was just about to dig into another research book, when the door swung open and Lara and Jenny stepped inside. Violet was hardly surprised when she saw Lara was in a short French maid’s costume holding a feather duster, and Jenny was in a black spandex catsuit with little kitten ears attached to a headband, whiskers drawn on her cheeks, and a tail attached to her backside.
“Aren’t you coming tonight?” Lara’s voice was impatient.
“No. I’m really not in the mood. Going to just stay in and read.”
“Come on,” Jenny whined. “Halloween’s the perfect night to come out. Maybe you’ll get lucky and even see your ghost from the library…”
Violet was still in her sweatpants reading when Sylvia walked into the common area. It was nearly 10 p.m. and Violet had assumed she would not see her suitemates for several more hours. It wasn’t uncommon for parties at the Owl to end close to 1 a.m.
“I came back to check on you.” Sylvia flopped down on one of the living room chairs.
“Thanks, I’m good.” Violet looked up from her book. Sylvia was dressed in a trench coat over pajamas.
“Just come out for a little bit. It’s not good for you to be holed up inside all the time. You’re either in class or at the library.” She eyed Violet’s reading material. “What’s this?” She reached over and picked up one of the articles James had written in 1910 for the American Society for Psychical Research that Violet had photocopied.
Another book lay next to it, calledSpiritualism and Psychical Research in England.
“I’m just doing a little digging,” Violet said. She was intentionally being vague.
“For a paper?”
“I’m not sure yet. Maybe.”
Sylvia switched gears. She hopped back up and did a little shake so the folds in her trench coat relaxed.
“Throw something on, Vi. Come on.”
“All right, fine.” Violet shut her book. “But just for an hour or so, and I’m not doing a big costume or anything.”
“You won’t get any objections from me.” Sylvia opened her jacket and pointed to her pink pajamas. “If anyone asks about mine, I’m a cross between a flasher, a detective, and an exhausted mother at daycare drop-off.”
Violet laughed. Sylvia had made the bar so incredibly low for a costume, she couldn’t protest.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
A string of bright orange colored lights adorned the Georgian brick facade of the Owl House. Outside on its steps, two carved jack-o’-lanterns flanked the jet-black door.
Violet caught a side-glance of Sylvia’s profile as they approached the building. Even in her sloppy costume, Sylvia’s good looks were undeniable. She had thick brown hair and the tall, slender build of an equestrian. Her skin was flawless, her smile a dazzling set of perfect white teeth. When she smiled, she lit up the whole room.
Hugo had once made an offhand remark that with the strict invite code of one female guest to each male Owl Club member, you rarely saw an unattractive girl on the premises. Getting an invitation to one of their parties was considered a special kind of social victory for most girls on campus. Even when she was with Hugo and he’d brought her to the club after he’d been officially “punched,” as they liked to say of the initiation process that preferred the boys of the best WASP families, the athletes, and those whose fathers and grandfathers had been members themselves, her imposter syndrome flared. There was nothing she shared with any of Hugo’s fellow members except having been accepted to the same college as them. Otherwise, it was as if she had come from Mars.
Violet knew that Jenny and Lara would never turn down an Owl invite. It was a source of pride for them to be asked and they would do everything to ensure they remained on the highly selective guest list. Sylvia seemed less concerned, but Violet tended to believe it was more because Sylvia had other aspirations than dating popular young men oncampus or the most socially connected. She was going to be a doctor like both of her parents, and the rigor of her pre-med classes would never allow her to have the time or mental space that occupied Jenny and Lara’s opportunistic and social-climbing endeavors.
As Violet and Sylvia approached the club’s entrance, Theo was just stepping outside.
“Hey.” He gave a once-over glance at their costumes. “Are you guys supposed to be lazy bank robbers or something?”
