Page 46 of The Witches of Cambridge

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

There were times when it seemed that Lauren was merely a subject for Professor Sharpe to study, a beetle trapped under glass or a butterfly pinned to a mat, an artifact the professor cupped in his hand, red-stained from ocher, blue and black with ink. The professor liked her to sit on his bed without any clothes on, as if her nakedness revealed her to be a relic, a living piece of art stamped with black letters, an object that belonged to him. It wasn’t love, they both knew that, but it was something, desire mixed with magic. He wanted her body and she wanted his knowledge. It was a trade-off, and it should have been equal, yet Lauren felt as if she were a creature in a sideshow, an unholy zoo, where long ago many of the museum’s living exhibits had found themselves when they were no longer of use to the academics. Men from other cultures were placed into human zoos, kept behind bars, or trapped in glass enclosures. One of the men who had been enslaved in the museum’s zoo had killed himself when he could no longer abide being classified as less than human.

“Tell me everything,” Sharpe said.

Clearly he had his suspicions, for he wanted to know if she ever woke to find there was blood in her mouth. What happened when she pricked her finger or when she was dunked underwater? Lauren skirted the professor’s inquiries and did her best to ignore his prying. Although she had no desire to be emotionally open, she continued to find Sharpe fascinating. He confided that although anthropology was the study of humanity, he believed it was possible for men to become more than mortal. The Greeks and Romans had believed that men and women could become gods by chance or by luck, their fates changed by marriage or by the consequences of their own deeds. Perhaps they could transcend human nature and become divine. Perhaps black magic could triumph over science and medicine and elevate humans to the next step of consciousness. That was what Lauren wanted, a man who wasn’t afraid of the Crooked Path. Still, when he asked if she might like to accompany him on his summer research trip, she said it would be impossible.

“You wouldn’t only be a cook and a note-taker,” Sharpe promised, but Lauren feared she would become a version of the Shakespeare professor’s wife, hovering in the kitchen, fixing snacks and laughing at her husband’s hapless jokes, taking notes for him and hiding her own brilliance. “You’ll always be more.” He grinned and looked her up and down, then shocked her when he said, “I can always tell who’s a witch. It’s obvious, really, if you know what to look for.”

“Don’t be silly,” Lauren was quick to say.

“Did you think I didn’t know?”

“Are you trying to insult me or give me a compliment?” Lauren asked in what she hoped was a lighthearted tone.

“I’m your teacher, not the other way around,” Sharpe said. “Don’t treat me like a fool.”

“I would never do that.” Lauren spoke calmly, but her heart was pounding.

Sharpe seized her around the waist and reached to put one finger in her mouth. “There they are,” he said when he felt her sharp teeth. “There’s some proof.”

Lauren wrenched away. “It’s only proof that I needed braces and never had them.” She hadn’t wanted love, but this was more than she’d bargained for. “Anything else is your fantasy.”

“Is it?”

Sharpe laughed as he reached for a ritual knife. That was when Lauren backed away. No one knows where I am. No one will find me. But he wasn’t after her. Instead, he slashed his own hand. And there it was. His blood was black. The same blood all witches shared.

“Now do you believe me?” Sharpe asked.

“You can’t be one of us,” Lauren said. She’d said too much, and she knew it. They were to tell no one. Fly together, she told herself.

“I’m something more. Something I’ve created.”

“But how?”

“Does it matter? I have what you have three times over.”

Sharpe didn’t look as handsome as usual. He looked drawn and cold and distant. He certainly didn’t look young. He had the skill to do the impossible, a skill he wasn’t about to share. On a shelf above the bed there was an ancient sculpture featuring a creature with a lion’s body, a snakelike tail, and wings, meant to keep curses away. There were also two clay dolls locked in an embrace, and now, when she looked closely, Lauren realized that the man resembled Sharpe and the woman had pale hair, like hers. They were spite dolls used to place a hex. No wonder Lauren had been drawn to come here every night, even when she would rather have stayed home in her own bed. It was a mistake to be here, one she would likely regret, for as she stood there she wished that she were in Central Square, knocking at another man’s door.

“I’m serious about you,” Sharpe said.

“Don’t be,” she said.

“I want you to be mine.”

He looked at her as if he owned her, as if she belonged in a glass case, there for him alone. When he went to the kitchen for some scotch, Lauren pulled on her undergarments and sweater, nearly falling as she stepped into her skirt. She certainly didn’t wish to belong to someone, to write their notes or edit their papers, to be tied up in knots and pretend she was weak. He couldn’t be one of them, for it was clear he placed himself above them.

Lauren ran all the way to Lilith House. She wished she could walk through the closet door and slip into Ava’s room and ask her what to do next. She wished she had a friend who would stand by her no matter what mistakes she might have made. Since that wasn’t an option, Lauren quickly prepared a mixture of salt and vinegar, which she downed to expel any evil that might have entered her through Sharpe. Afterward, she went to the garden to collect brambles and bird bones, to which she added dirt from the cemetery, hawthorn leaves, and nail clippings. She took out a brass incantation bowl she’d borrowed from the museum, one that a priestess had used a thousand years earlier. She recited the incantation that was written around the edge of the bowl, meant to drive out evil spirits.

Awaken, demons who lie here, and seek him out.

The smoke that rose was acrid and black, and after she opened the window, the spell moved across yards throughout Cambridge, and women who had been in love with the wrong men packed their suitcases and loaded up their cars. They didn’t bother to say goodbye. They ran through the streets, knowing if they wished to leave, it was now or never. It was the night of their release, and they sat in coffee shops and diners, and in the morning they bought bus tickets, they called old boyfriends or brothers to help them, or they simply left town, because Cambridge no longer seemed safe.

Every night thereafter, Lauren spilled salt on her window ledge and wore amethysts for protection. She stayed in, avoiding the professor, borrowing notes for his class from other students. Still, Lauren sensed his presence nearby. She found black stones in odd places, on the porch and on her windowsill, and along the paths of the Radcliffe Quad. Dead birds were left on the porch, and leaves fell in clumps and shriveled into black dust as if they had never been alive. One evening when she wasn’t paying attention as she walked home from the square, Lauren looked up, and there he was, waiting for her on the lawn of Lilith House. She whispered the words of a banishing spell, but it didn’t drive him away. When she tried to walk past him, he blocked her way.

“I thought you might invite me in. I’ve always wanted to see the house. My research revealed it once belonged to an old witch. If we dig up the yard, I’m sure we would find her treasures.”

“Unlikely.” Lauren was doing her best to sound like her usual fearless self, but it wasn’t working. She felt cold right through, as if she’d been frozen by his glance. “There’s only mud in the garden with roots underneath. And just so you know, we’re not allowed to have male guests. Only women.”