“Again, I ask, why?” Chessa folds her arms over her chest.
I shake my head, denying her a response. “You are in danger here. That’s the whole reason I told you the truth. I wanted to—”
“You wanted to lie about who you are until you absolutely had to come clean,” Chessa says. “Good to know where your priorities are.”
Stung, I rear back. “Hey, I didn’t have to say anything at all. It’s actually forbidden to tell anyone outside of the—”
“Is anyone the least bit interested in knowing what I’ve discovered?” Devon asks languidly, but his body holds a tension that belies his tone.
“Yes,” Carter says. “Please.”
Chessa straightens on her barstool, turning her attention awayfrom me and focusing on Devon. “Yes, go ahead. I’m done with this conversation.”
Excuse me?
Devon steps between us, into the center of our little crooked circle in the small walkway between the living room and the corridor. “As it turns out, the union display held quite a bit of information about the cemetery.”
“The cemetery on Old Campus?” Chessa asks, confusion wrinkling her brow. “What about it?”
“Jocasta andDevonseem to feel that might be the locus of what’s happening here,” Carter says.
Wow, I didn’t know it was possible for two syllables of a name to hold so much disdain.
“To clarify, Jo is the one who senses the power emanating from the cemetery. I just feel… something,” Devon adds, smiling at Carter.
You hear people described as smiling without it reaching their eyes—I’ve never really been able to picture that. Until now. Despite the crinkles of humor at the edges, Devon’s eyes are flat green stones, full of loathing.
“Something I didn’t sense originally on my arrival,” Devon says to Chessa.
I nod. “Yeah, this is new.”
“And you think it’s something in the cemetery,” she says, not bothering to hide her skepticism. “It’s been there forever. Like, even before the school. My architecture elective took a walk through there junior year.” She shudders.
“That’s why Jo sent me to the union to gather more information. Of which there was plenty, because, as rumor has it, your campus development committee has been privately pitching the idea ofrelocating the cemetery off campus to build some new… something.” He shrugs. “I don’t know, I wasn’t listening as closely to that part.”
“How do you…”Listening. Oh, shit.“Who did you talk to?”
“I ran into a lovely woman named Beverly Grabor.”
“The dean,” Carter says in a strangled voice. “That’s the dean of the Arts and Sciences college.”
I squeeze my eyes shut.
“Right,” Devon says. “That was her. In any case, she was very accommodating.”
Fuck.I open my eyes. “Devon, please tell me you did not seduce or humiliate the very kind, very dignified, and very elderly Dean Grabor. The one who, in fact, helped me get and maintain scholarships here.”
He stiffens, offended. “No. I did not.” He bites off the words. “She was overseeing the students who were sheltering in place, and I simply asked for some help. I imagine she assumed I was one of them.”
Crap.I am just messing things up left and right. “Okay, sorry, that was shitty of me,” I say awkwardly.
Devon ignores my apology, turning to address Chessa and Carter.
“If there were such a thing as curses, I would suggest that this cemetery might be the center of one,” Devon says. “The church associated with that graveyard burned down in the early 1800s after a lightning strike, which I would imagine was a great shock to the true believers who were inside at the time.” He holds up his phone with a photo of a black and white sketch depicting the event.
I wince.
“Also, apparently, the college, back when it was still exclusivelyan institution for women, hosted a popular spiritualist group in the early 1900s and they held seances in the cemetery.”
