Violet
I had never gone to college—that went without saying—and neither had Bradley. We both felt out of place on the campus of the Fell College of Classical Education, with its air of quiet contemplation, its dedication to the study of topics no one used in everyday life. A noticeboard in a hallway of the administrative building featured information about the Marcus Aurelius Society (notthe Marcus Aurelius Study Group, which was entirely different, according to the note’s writer). Another note stated that a debate about the relative merits of fourteenth-century popes would be held on Tuesday night. The attendees, the note warned, were to be civil this time.
Bradley’s muscles were of no use to us here, even if he’d had them on display. It was up to me to approach a bespectacled student and ask if there might be a history of Fell anywhere on campus. The kid sent us to the library, across the quadrangle. We only saw three other students as we walked, all of whom gave us a wide berth. Fell College wasn’t known for its large number of attendees.
The library was small, dusty, and dim. The librarian gave us a glare that could have singed metal, but when she heard our request,she called over another bespectacled student, this one a blond boy with too-big metal-framed glasses and a fading pimple on his chin. The kid, who was probably eighteen and would have been crushed immediately under my ass if I sat on him, gave us a haughty look. “Yes?” he asked, his voice as icy as a nobleman’s.
“Take them to the Local Literature room, Farley,” the librarian said.
Farley gave her a shocked look. “The Local Lit room is for students only.”
“The library is for students only,” the librarian corrected him. “The Local Lit room is supposed to be for local residents who ask to use it. No one has ever asked.”
“You have a records room that no one ever uses?” I asked.
The librarian gave me her glare again, and I flinched. “Just because it isn’tuseddoesn’t mean it has nopurpose.Farley, please let them in.” She handed Farley a key. “You have one hour,” she said to us.
Farley led us in annoyed silence down one hall, then another. He stopped at a door that saidfell local literature—residents onlyand inserted the key. “In here,” he said.
The room was the size of a large closet, with a single stuffed bookshelf and a wooden chair in the corner. Placed beside the chair was a floor lamp. The whole atmosphere was that of a disused attic, crossed with a police interrogation room.
“I can tell you don’t teach interior decorating at this college,” I said.
That made Farley mad, which was satisfying. “What are you even doing here?” he asked us. “You can’t possibly need research because you’re writing something.”
“Hey,” Bradley interjected. “I can write.”
Farley looked him up and down. “When was the last time you tried it?”
“You guys don’t write so great yourselves.” Bradley pointed to the motto engraved on a plaque above the door. “That’s not even in English.”
Farley looked at the plaque and his cheeks went red. “That’s Latin.Vincit qui se vincit.It’s the college’s motto.”
“Yeah, well, you canvincityour way out of here, Pimple Face,” Bradley said. “Get lost.”
The kid hesitated. “You’re my responsibility. I should probably stay.”
Bradley crowded him until he stepped back, out of the doorway. “Bye,” Bradley said, then swung the door shut, turning the lock. “God, I hate nerds.”
“How many nerds did you bully in high school?” I asked him.
“All of ’em,” was the reply.
“That’s what I thought.” Since I didn’t see a light switch, I turned on the lamp. It had a hundred-watt bulb that made the room brighter than the surface of the sun. I squinted and tilted the bulb toward the wall, which made it flicker before it settled down again. “Let’s get this over with.” I walked to the bookshelf and began studying the titles.
“I’ll supervise,” Bradley said, dropping into the room’s only chair. He leaned back, tilted his head against the wall behind him, and closed his eyes.
The books were a collection of pamphlets, essays, and maps about the city of Fell. All of them were originals, and some dated as far back as the 1850s. There was a musty old memoir by a long-dead, long-forgotten city councillor, published—seemingly by himself—in 1912 and bound so cheaply it was falling apart. I turned the loosening pages carefully, hoping for something juicy, but the book seemed to be a collection of the man’s complaints and grievances about other city councillors and everyone else in town, especially anyone who had crossed him. I couldn’t help but aspire to achieve that level of pettiness by the end of my life. Robert R. McCannon was my new role model.
“You don’t have to stay,” I said to Bradley when I realized I’d spent twenty minutes perusing the weird collection on the bookshelf. Bradley’s eyes were still closed, and he seemed to be napping. “I’ll come out when I’m done.”
“Nope,” he replied without opening his eyes. He must be bored, but I realized he was staying in case Sister sent another one of her otherworldly messengers after me. It was strangely chivalrous. I wondered how many dead people I might see wandering around the FCCE. Did people die here often?
“Make yourself useful, then,” I said to Bradley, handing him an old map. “Hold this open under the light.”
He unfolded it and angled the lamp, and we both stared at it. The map seemed to date from around 1900, which predated even the FCCE. Some of the ink was sun faded, and the edges were worn.
The spot where the FCCE campus now stood was only farmland on the map. I oriented myself by finding the main road in and out of town, which now led to the interstate. I traced my finger along the main streets, trying to picture what Fell might have looked like in 1900.
