Page 18 of The Witches of Cambridge

CHAPTER SEVEN

In the time when the wisteria bloomed, the government handed down the death penalty to suspected Russian spies Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, for the witch hunt in Washington was blooming as well. People in New York and Los Angeles in the worlds of art and politics and film were so afraid of reprisals they kept quiet, fearing those who gave evidence against their friends and coworkers. The same sort of spectral evidence that been allowed into court in Salem—gossip without proof, lies cloaked so that they might appear to be the truth—was being used now in an ongoing political witch hunt.

Spring passed so quickly it was as if a spell had been cast in libraries and classrooms. The end of the semester was upon them before they knew it, all-consuming, and jam-packed with papers due and exams. The Lilith girls studied together and went over one another’s work, editing and demanding revisions. They worked past midnight, by moonlight and candlelight, and then, all at once, the academic year was over. In May there was a farewell dinner, held in the garden beside the roses. Black Magic, Black Ice, Black Jade, Black Beauty, Black Velvet. All eight members of the society wore floaty white dresses, and no one bothered with shoes. Some girls threaded daisies through their hair, and they kept up the tradition for the two graduating seniors, Stella and Claire, to wear wreaths of brambles, for they were about to enter a world that was often cruel to women and witches alike.

There were platters of finger sandwiches filled with cream cheese and cucumber and tomato, along with scones with clotted cream and jam, and éclairs and sticky toffee pudding. For every graduation Lilith House held a celebration of the future, but this year something had gone wrong. When Claire failed to show up, they set a locator spell, which led them to her bedroom. But there was no sign of Claire, and a truth finder’s spell fizzled; it wouldn’t allow them to know where she’d gone. When her parents were called they wept and accused Lilith House of causing bad fortune to those who lived there.

That night candles were set in the windows, in case Claire needed help finding her way back, but she never appeared, and in the morning, all of the party food they’d left out on the table had been devoured by raccoons, with only the dishes and silverware left behind.

One hot and muggy day, when the city already seemed deserted by students and turkeys walked down the all but abandoned streets, Lauren packed up for another summer in Provincetown. The shabby seaside town at the tip of Cape Cod seemed perched at the end of the world. It was Lauren’s idea of heaven, a place where people did as they pleased and the artistic community always welcomed outsiders. The Bell family had a shack in the dunes, hidden from view unless you were a bird or a hiker. At night the stars seemed within reach and there were bonfires on the beach, sparks flying into the dense air.

“You should come with me,” Lauren told Ava.

“Maybe another time. Not this year.”

“Because your parents would have a fit if you did as you pleased.” True enough. Ava’s mother had written several letters berating her after she was a no-show at Christmas. “You’re letting them run your life,” Lauren said.

“They’d probably have the police come after me if I went to the Cape, and we’d both be arrested.”

“If you change your mind, just get on a bus. You can be who you are in P-town and no one cares since they’re too busy being who they are.”

They embraced, which Lauren allowed even though she wasn’t the type to hug, and then Lauren was gone, her luggage loaded into the Jeep with Lionel driving, honking as they sped away. For Ava, going back to Maine would be like going backward in time. Apple trees, gardens, locked windows and doors, sneaking into the library, sitting at the dusty farm stand waiting for customers. She’d spent every summer doing the very same thing as if she were a windup doll rather than a grown woman with a mind of her own. She grabbed her suitcase, and she and Jack set off for Harvard Square. She cashed out at the café, picked up her last paycheck, then hugged the other waitresses goodbye before grabbing a quick coffee with Maureen, who would be going into her second year of nursing school in the fall.

“Don’t go home. You could stay at our house for the summer,” Maureen said. “My mother wouldn’t mind.”

“Mine would,” Ava said. “Lauren invited me to Provincetown, but what would I tell my parents?”

“Whatever Lauren does is done to suit herself,” Maureen said, for she hadn’t trusted Ava’s friend since their first meeting, when Lauren looked down her nose at Maureen.

“She has a good heart,” Ava insisted.

“She’s selfish and she’ll cause you trouble.” Maureen took Ava’s hand and peered at her palm. “I predict that by next year you won’t care what your mother thinks. And you won’t care what Lauren thinks either.”

Jamie Mather went down to the Charles River to sit on the muddy bank. His family spent every summer at their ranch in Wyoming, and although he couldn’t stand to be with his relatives, he loved working with horses, riding under the huge, vivid sky. Unfortunately, in the nearby town everyone knew who he was, and most people avoided him. He was a Mather, and they didn’t look beyond the name. He often found himself hiding, having nothing to do with his brothers, sprawled out in the pastures late at night, looking at the stars and getting drunk on cheap wine. A man who gets drunk by himself is one who doesn’t really care where he is, as long as there’s no one around to challenge him or give him advice or tell him that he’s ruining his life.

On his last day in Cambridge he went down to the Charles River, where the cold brown water was filthy. Locals affectionately called it the Dirty River, but what could they expect when they threw their trash into the water on a regular basis, bags of house-hold garbage along with old lawn mowers and bicycles and cans of chemicals, some of which floated downriver while the heavier items sank and became entwined in the water weeds.

Jamie tore off his T-shirt and pulled his hair back with a rubber band; it was that long, and he knew he’d have to cut it before going off with his family for the summer or his brothers would tie him up and cut it themselves to teach him a lesson. He’d stop at the barbershop on Mass Ave before he took off, but for now he had an afternoon to be himself without worrying about what his family’s reaction would be. Once he got to Wyoming, Jamie would do his best to avoid his family; he’d fool around with local girls and get drunk and let everyone else at their ranch live their confined, pathetic lives doing exactly what was expected of them.

Jamie was just getting by in his classes, sticking with those he thought might be easiest, the History of Art and the History of Architecture, but even those were too much. He hired a tutor to take his final exam, something that could get them both expelled if anyone found out. Jamie certainly wasn’t thinking of architecture, even though it was the topic of his senior thesis, which he planned to have his tutor write, for a price. He was doing his best not to think of Ava, certain he’d never measure up in her eyes and it would just be a repetition of the disappointment he’d caused his family, only this time with someone he actually cared about.

Jamie had rented a place off campus for the following September, an out-of-the-way location where no one would bother him and no one would find him, a one-bedroom basement apartment in a three-family house in North Cambridge, off Rindge Avenue near the bar he frequented. He had learned to behave himself since being tossed out on his butt; he’d even gone so far as to order a platter of fried chicken to share as a way of making amends. The other regular customers seemed to have forgiven him, and Jamie had come to understand that he was accepted there as long as he kept his big mouth shut.

On his last afternoon in Cambridge, Jamie’s eyes were half-closed as he sat on the deck of the Newell Boathouse, where the racing sculls were stored. He was seeing how much magic he could actually access. He’d tried with no success to hold a flower in the palm of his hand and force it to bloom, but when he was drunk and angry, he could rattle windows and doors. Emotions were the key, he realized that now, and he’d kept them in check for so long, he feared what might happen if he ever let go.

Now he imagined he saw the shadow of a wolf. It made him think about the cemetery and the statue of the faithful dog and his foolish quarrel with Ava. He recalled the way he’d felt when he first spied her in the dining hall. She was almost too beautiful to be real. She was his dream girl, but when she talked back to him, he saw she was something more. If he wasn’t careful she would be the love of his life, and he doubted such feelings would be reciprocated. He wasn’t worth it, and he knew it. He was a Mather, after all. He recalled the night he’d gone to stand in the snow when she was at Brattle Street, not wanting to be there but there all the same, and how reckless he’d felt when he ran away as soon as she’d called out.

He sat up and squinted. There she was on the dock. He wondered if he’d conjured her up, for the truth was he was thinking of her at that very moment.

Ava had put off going home, just as Jamie had, opting for a few more hours of freedom. Crows were perched in a sycamore tree whose branches scraped against the roof of the boathouse. Ava knew that once she was home, she would have to pretend to be someone she wasn’t. She would have to listen to her parents go on and on about all there was to fear in the world: Russian spies, radicals, criminals, and women who didn’t know how to behave, who did as they pleased and slipped through the woods, plucking black apples. They would skim through the books she’d brought home, botany and history textbooks, searching for dangerous messages concealed within the pages, crazy progressive ideas that would steal her heart and soul.

Seeing some canoes set out, Ava climbed into one. Oh, how she wished she could float off and find her way to the underground land where every day lasted for seven years, and humans with their wicked ways could never find you. The sunlight was dazzling, but the thought of going home made her feel like crying. That was when she spied Jamie Mather.

“Are you following me?” he called.

“You’re following me,” Ava called back. Her foolish heart had begun to race.

Jamie stood up, insulted. He looked like a wild man, like someone who would have camped out by the river three hundred years earlier, when the banks were filled with brambles and marsh grass and the river was twice the size it was now, so clean that thousands of bass and shad and alewives were caught in nets.