Page 4 of The Witches of Cambridge

CHAPTER THREE

Before Lauren left for Radcliffe, she searched for her grandmother’s scissors, kept in a desk drawer in the library. They were antique, made of tarnished silver. Without another thought, Lauren chopped off her long, pale hair, which had reached to her waist. She didn’t care about being pretty. She wanted to be true to herself. After her hair was shorn, she gathered the plaits to burn in a brass bowl, watching as the smoke arose in clouds of crimson before it turned black. She closed her eyes and recited a chant that would invoke the witch inside her, the darkest, deepest core of her psyche, a solitary being, as defiant as Adam’s first wife, Lilith, the one who had come before Eve and had refused to do as she was told.

Courage at any cost.

May I face what I fear. May I be my own hero. May I walk through darkness and light.

Lauren gazed at her reflection in the silvered mirror on the wall, hunching closer to examine her pixie cut. That’s what her mother had called her when she was young. My pixie, my treasure, my only daughter. She was once again a pixie, but one who was fiercer than ever. Let Radcliffe girls curl their hair and visit beauty parlors. Let the daughters of lawyers and senators paint their nails pink, and hide how smart they were. Not a single one would look like her. They wouldn’t dare.

Lionel was passing by in the hallway. As soon as he spied Lauren’s new short hairdo, he came into the library, intrigued. Lionel would remain in the family house while attending Harvard Medical School on Longwood Avenue in Boston.

“Are you trying to make yourself look terrible?” he joked. There were strands of hair scattered everywhere, on the blue silk rug and the velvet curtains and spiraling through the air.

“I’m more me this way,” Lauren told her brother as she ran a hand through her clipped hair. It hadn’t been this short since the summer she was nine, the season of loss and rain and heat when she felt faint every time she walked outside, when she sat in the branches of the trees for so long in her black mourning dress their neighbors mistook her for a crow and rattled tin cans to chase her away, for where you find crows, you’ll likely find trouble as well.

Lionel had assumed he’d accompany his sister to school, but Lauren informed him that she’d already had her trunks delivered. The Radcliffe Quad was only half a mile away, and she was happy to walk. This was her new life, and she would no longer be the girl sitting in the tree, terrified of the world below. Instead, she would be the poison in the apple, the fairy queen who was unbreakable. Those who studied black magic followed the path of Hecate, the Greek goddess. They were fearless, they walked in moonlight, they had power flowing through their veins.

Lauren understood from the stories her grandmother had told her that she would be in the dormitory for only a short time before she was accepted into the secret society the women of their family always joined and would live in the society’s house.

“What if I’m not accepted?” Lauren asked her brother. The girls at her private school had always avoided her, and behind her back she knew they discussed her as the weird one among them.

“You’ve learned more from our library than most of the other girls will learn in a lifetime. They’ll be lucky to have you,” Lionel said. “And didn’t our family begin that house? You belong there, Lauren.”

A child who felt abandoned could easily create a world in which the only safe place to be was alone. For years after their parents’ deaths, Lionel had seen a psychiatrist who assured him he’d be much happier as an adult than he was as a child. Lionel now planned to be a psychiatrist himself, to help others as he had been helped, for as it turned out, his therapist had been correct, he much preferred being an adult. Lauren, on the other hand, had refused counseling of any sort and had often locked herself in her room instead. Come out, their grandmother Lillian had begged, but Lauren had found a hammer and nails so that she could barricade herself in her bedroom, content with her books, until the idea of a therapist was taken off the table.

“I’m perfectly fine,” Lauren told her grandmother.

She always said that, and she always was.

At least on the outside.

Arriving at South Hall, Lauren was annoyed to find that the other girl assigned to the room was already there. This was the room always given to Lilith Society pledges. But once Lauren was tapped to join the society she would move into their house on Walker Street. She’d no longer have to deal with this stranger who was sitting on the bed by the window, her red hair pinned up messily, wearing clothes that were out of fashion. All the same, Lauren could see this girl was a true beauty, and that was annoying as well. The one good thing was that she seemed to be a reader, for there were several books on the window ledge that Ava had bought when her local library sold old volumes, books she had hidden away in her room at home. Lauren supposed this roommate of hers was the other inductee, otherwise they never would have been put together. She looked more closely. If there was magic in this girl’s blood, it was likely watered down.

Lauren hauled her suitcase onto the bed by the window, the one her roommate was sitting on. “This bed’s mine,” she announced, clearly used to having her own way.

Ava moved to the bed under the eaves, the one that meant you would hit your head if you sat up too quickly. “If it means that much to you, have it,” she said. “By the way, I’m Ava Abbot.”

“Well, good for you.” Lauren believed she was a good judge of people, and when she looked at Ava, all she saw was a boring farm girl who’d always followed the rules. “Let me guess,” Lauren said pointedly, a grim expression on her face. “You come from a small town in Iowa where there are more cows than people. You were homecoming queen and always got the best grades in your class and practiced love spells.”

“It’s Maine, not Iowa, and there were more apple trees than people, and I’ve never been the queen of anything,” Ava corrected. “And I don’t know a single spell.” She was flustered but did her best not to show it. She was used to bossy girls trying to put her down, what harm could one more do?

“But I’ll bet you always got the best grades.” Lauren gave Ava a quick look. “Yep.” She nodded when Ava’s expression couldn’t hide the truth. “An A student all the way.”

“Isn’t that true of everyone at Radcliffe? We all worked hard to be here.”

“Don’t think we’re all the same. If you’re as smart as you think you are, you’d better learn how to play the game.”

“What game is that?” Ava asked.

“The game of appearing normal.”

“If you know so much, maybe you know why they want to photograph us.”

Ever since 1880 the department of physical education at Harvard and Radcliffe had taken photographs of all students, naked, with pins in their spines, said to check posture, although it was whispered the photos had something to do with eugenics or a study on sex and race, and many girls felt they had been violated after being photographed.

“We are not getting photographed,” Lauren informed her new roommate. “You can check that off your list.”

“It’s required.”