September 7, 1968
Massachusetts greeted me with a riot of autumn color. Gold, ochre, and russet were my welcoming committee as I stepped off the plane and loaded my two suitcases into the car that would take me deeper into the state, and on to the next four years of my life. Mississippi was a study in green, crawling with Spanish moss and bedecked with heavy-laden magnolia trees, but I never realized how many colors there were to be found in nature until that first fall in New England.
As beautiful as Massachusetts was, the memory of Mississippi sat inside me like a stone. I missed the electrical buzz of cicadas; the muggy twilight; the slow, easy greetings between strangers on the street. I missed sitting in the creaking rocking chair on the porch each morning, reading selections from the newspaper and sipping coffee. I missed the solitude of my attic room in our farmhouse, the way thunderstorms lashed against my windowpane in summer. I even missed my dull old teacher and her French and Latin drills, the silent camaraderie of the other girls grinding away at their translations in the schoolhouse.
Most of all I missed my father, his booming laugh, his quick wit, the hugs he gave that nearly squeezed the breath from my lungs.
My father had always nurtured my interest in writing, which burned brightly from a young age and sometimes bordered on the obsessive. I was perfectly happy to shut myself away in my room for hours at a time, reading W. H. Auden and Gertrude Stein and scribbling nonsense in my notebooks. I never thought my work was strong enough to share with anyone, but at my father’s insistence I sometimes let him read little snippets. I had a great talent, he said, and that talent should be nurtured somewhere capable professors could coax it out of me.
Somewhere, my father had decided, like Saint Perpetua’s.
Saint Perpetua was affectionately referred to as the forgotten youngest sibling of the Seven Sisters, and the school that bore her name, Saint Perpetua’s Women’s College, was tucked away in a remote corner of the state. Just far enough from Boston that weekend trips were impractical. The school was Episcopal in charter, which suited me just fine. My nervous temperament was soothed by the rote prayers of organized religion, even if I developed a reputation back home for questioning the priest at every turn. I had spent much of the year after graduating high school reading, writing, going to church, and taking long walks through the woods behind our house, but, as my father gently reminded me, my intellectual meandering couldn’t last forever. Even if I followed my well-laid plans to become a small-town parish priest, I would need a degree. Moreover, I needed the structure of higher education to sharpen my mind, and I needed the companionship of other girls to prevent me from growing into eccentricity.
I had walked over every contingency, good and bad, in my head a thousand times before arriving at Saint Perpetua’s. I imagined crushing failure and soaring success and everything in-between. But nothing could have prepared me for turning the tree-lined corner and entering the campus.
I saw the chapel first, rising proudly from the tallest hill to pierce the cloudy sky with its steeple. Then the academic buildings, all gray Gothic stone in the Princeton style, with their carved wooden doors open to the grassy quadrangle. The green was littered with girls, many dressed in Mary Janes and practical calf-skimming tweed skirts, but others sporting skinny ankle pants and berets, or tiny mini-dresses worn over jewel-tone tights. They were walking in tight formations of three or four, or laying on their stomachs eating brown-bag lunches while reading from textbooks, or giggling while spinning hula hoops around their waists. I had been educated at a tiny school and had never seen so many young people in one place, much less so many girls of my same age.
The car that picked me up from the airport circled the quad, then stopped in front of a stately four-story building with gargoyles leering from the parapets. Upon thanking and paying the driver, I found myself standing on the stoop of the dormitory with a suitcase in each hand, the cool September breeze rippling the tartan of my skirt. It was one of my favorite pieces of clothing, as it cinched at the waist and flattered my ample hips.
“Watch your head!” someone called from behind me. I swiveled around just in time to dodge a Frisbee, which pinged off the side of the dormitory. A pretty, sturdily built white girl in a varsity sweater jogged over, her brown curls bouncing merrily.
“Nice reflexes,” she said with a broad smile. Gloss the color of cherry juice gleamed on her lips. Her skin was spattered generously with freckles. “Say, you aren’t Laura Sheridan, are you?”
“That’s me,” I said, adjusting my grip on my suitcase so I could shake her hand. She had the enthusiastic grip of an athlete.
“Maisy Cohen. I was waiting for you to show up. I’m your senior sister.”
Saint Perpetua’s assigned all rising freshmen to a graduating senior, hoping to nurture a sense of mentorship. I had filled out some sort of questionnaire months ago that was supposed to match me with the perfect senior, and while I was leery at the prospect of forced friendship with anybody, Maisy’s warmth put me at ease.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” I said, shifting from foot to foot. I wasn’t great with first impressions, and I defaulted to an almost chilly courtesy in order to cover up the butterflies that hatched in my stomach at the prospect of meeting new people. Maisy didn’t seem to mind.
“Well, let’s get you moved in. Is that all you brought with you?”
I looked helplessly at my pair of suitcases.
“I suppose so.”
“Fine by me,” Maisy said, taking one of the stuffed suitcases as though it weighed nothing. “Less to lug around. Come on. You’re in 412. Swell view, by the way. You really lucked out.”
I followed her though the doors and up the stairs to the fourth floor. The halls were strewn with furniture and cardboard boxes, and there were girls drifting in and out of the rooms, calling down the hall to each other while propping open doors with heavy textbooks. Someone played Motown loudly from one room, and the scent of nag champa incense drifted out of another. Giving me a grin, Maisy shouldered open the door to my new home.
My father had secured me a private room, for which I was grateful. The single window looked out through the branches of an elm tree to the quad beyond, affording me a perfect view of the comings and goings of my classmates. Maisy plopped my suitcase down on the bare bed and took me in with an enterprising air, her hands on her hips.
“All the way from Mississippi, huh?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, Massachusetts welcomes you. I’m Boston born, myself. Have you got your classes all sorted out? If you haven’t, I can help with that. I’m friendly with the registrar.”
“That shouldn’t be necessary,” I said, grasping my hands together in front of me. I had no idea what to do with them. “I’m enrolled in all my prerequisites, and the poetry seminary for the writing program.”
“Ah,” Maisy said. “You’re one of De Lafontaine’s.”
“I think that’s the professor’s name, yes,” I said carefully, not catching her drift. This wasn’t entirely unusual for me, as I often felt on the outside of conversations I was involved in.
“You haven’t heard any rumors about her, have you?”
I shook my head dutifully. I did virtually no research into my declared major; I only knew that the writing program at Saint Perpetua’s was well regarded, and that writing was the only thing I could imagine myself doing for four years.
“Good. She’s demanding, but absolutely electric in the classroom. You’ll see. You’re coming to the bonfire tonight, aren’t you?”
“I was thinking of an early night, actually.”
“Oh, come on,” Maisy said, clapping me on the shoulder like we were chums already. “You can’t miss the bonfire! It’s how we ring in every new school year. Absolutely everybody will be there, and they’ll want to meet you. You know how it is: everyone’s gotta scope everybody else out before classes start on Monday. Take it from me, cliques form fast.”
This watering-hole ritual sounded absolutely harrowing to me, but I found myself nodding, mostly because Maisy didn’t seem like the kind of person who took no for an answer.
“Perfect. I’ll pick you up at your room at eight sharp and play escort, at least until you get your bearings. Don’t worry,” she said with a wink, “I won’t throw you to the wolves right away.”
“Thanks,” I said, my voice thin.
Before I could protest further, a slender Black girl appeared in my doorway. She looked devastatingly chic in her cigarette pants and sailor shirt, and she wore her dark hair in a Brigitte Bardot bouffant.
“Maisy! I was scouring the quad for you. The rest of the team said you were in here with a frosh. Hey, new girl,” she said in a not unfriendly way, then turned her attention back to Maisy. “Listen, word on the street is Siobhan’s roommate somehow got her hands on the new Jimi Hendrix album – you know her dad’s in the music industry – and if I don’t listen to it right now I’m going to keel over.”
“Elenore, Laura; Laura, Elenore,” Maisy said by way of an introduction. “Elenore’s in the writing cohort, you’ll probably be seeing a lot of her.”
“Maisy, this is life and death,” Elenore said seriously. She had the slightly haughty air of someone who enjoyed experimental French cinema, which I found charming despite my better judgment. “You know how that girl gets; if too many people start buzzing around she won’t share her goods. You coming or what?”
“I’ll let you get situated,” Maisy said, already drifting out of my room. “So nice to have you at Saint P’s, Laura.”
And with that, she was gone, the sound of her and Elenore chattering disappearing down the hallway. And I was left with my own nerves and the wisps of hope about what the night might hold.
Bonfire Night was a Saint Perpetua’s institution, one I had read about in the glossy college brochure my father proffered. It was part alma mater tradition, part social mixer. The senior girls were in charge of welcoming the new years with a roaring fire, crowns of laurels, and cups of bracing spiced punch. It was the place to make one’s debut on the Saint Perpetua scene, to establish with clothes and hairstyle and turn-of-phrase what sort of clique one might fit into.
I agonized over my outfit for an hour as dark fell outside, cycling between half a dozen get-ups until I settled on a suede skirt and a cream-colored cashmere sweater with practical brown loafers. It was polished but invisible, and I hoped it would raise no eyebrows.
Maisy arrived at my room as promised at 8 p.m. sharp, with Elenore in tow. They were in high spirits, probably because of the flask of whiskey they were passing between them. I declined a drink but allowed them to link their arms through mine and walk me proudly, one on either side, to the bonfire.
The quad was swimming with girls when we arrived, and I was quickly swept up into the milieu. Maisy made a number of booming introductions to people whose names fell right out of my head, including half the rowing team. The fire had been stoked high and hot despite the tepid night, and I was soon sweating in my cashmere. I accepted a plastic cup of punch out of desperation more than anything, and put away enough deep swallows to file the harsh edges off the evening. I’m not sure how long I drifted around, as silent and unsmiling as a chaperone, but at some point, Maisy squeezed my elbow and disappeared to pass her flask around her team. Just about the time I was about to make an Irish exit, our senior hosts arrived.
A cheer went up from the rest of the girls, and I found myself clapping awkwardly, straining to see over the jostling shoulders of the partygoers. We had waited by the bonfire for an hour or so, and anticipation was coiled tight in the air. Through the sea of bodies, I caught a glimpse of white, and then another, and I carefully pressed my way to the front of the crowd.
Twenty-five girls in long white dresses strode solemnly towards the crowd, their arms strung with crowns of greenery and their feet bare. As they got closer I could see their dresses were really robes, belted in the front with a sash. They looked like vestal virgins processing towards the offertory flame. I harbored a suspicion that most collegiate traditions were bunk, an excuse to see and be seen, but in that moment I understood the strange power of ritual. I felt as though I was being transported back to a wilder era.
One of the girls raised her voice in Saint Perpetua’s school song, and all the other partygoers quickly joined in. It was strangely dour, more hymn than pep rally cheer, and I didn’t know the words, but it still gave me goosebumps.
The young women in white began to circulate, picking out the freshman girls and crowning them with laurels. We were a small incoming class of less than three hundred, but I was impressed that the seniors knew everyone else so well they were easily able to identify strange faces. I considered shrinking to the back of the crowd, never having been much for the spotlight, but before I could make my retreat, someone touched my wrist.
She wore her dark hair long and it fell over her shoulders in waves. Her lips spread into a smile as she silently took me in with warm caramel eyes, and I thought, for a shining moment, that she was seeing me as I was seeing her:
As absolutely perfect.
“What’s your name?” the girl asked. Her voice was rich and low.
“Laura.”
“Well, Laura,” she said, lifting the crown high above my head, as though this was some sort of coronation, “Saint Perpetua’s welcomes you.”
She settled the laurels in my blonde curls and then stepped back to admire her work. Her eyes flicked over my body just once, so quickly it’s possible I was imagining it, but I flushed all the same.
For one white-hot instant, that dark instinct to overcome and overpower, to kiss and bruise, flared to life in my stomach. I imagined myself slotting my fingers into all that black hair and tugging until her mouth was hovering over mine. I imagined the soft, surprised sound she might make, the sweetness of her breath ghosting across my lips.
And then she was gone, disappeared into the crowd to treat another girl to her undivided attention. I swayed a little, because of either the punch or the brief but electric encounter.
Pressing the cool back of my hand to my flushed cheek, I squeezed my eyes shut and took a deep breath, quieting the beast circling restlessly inside me.
“Ah,” Maisy said, sidling up beside me with a knowing smile. “I see you’ve met Carmilla.”
The first day of classes started at 8 a.m. on the dot, with a mandatory church history survey course taught by a professor who had probably been alive during the reign of Charlemagne. I’d always been precocious about religion, and already knew all about the desert fathers he was droning on about, so I tuned out most of what he had to say. Instead of taking notes, I sipped some hot tea with honey out of my thermos as I scribbled in my day planner. New starts made me exceptionally nervous, but my day planner helped. It laid out my whole life in neat little time blocks, with tasks listed off to the side, ready to be checked off. After church history came typing, also mandatory, then a break for lunch, then astronomy, which seemed like the least offensive science I could choose to satisfy the prerequisite.
Then, after nightfall, my academic life really began.
From seven to nine I had poetry composition with Ms. De Lafontaine, a course I was personally invited to after submitting a few writing samples along with my application essays. It was supposed to be off-limits to freshmen, but I pleaded my case, citing my gap year, my publication in a few small-time journals down South, my devotion to the written word, and the professor granted me an exception. I was so excited for the class I was barely able to eat any dinner.
Ms. De Lafontaine’s classroom was a third-floor oratory in the main academic building, Seward Hall. I arrived ten minutes early, a habit brought on by my anxiety, and took in the chairs dragged into a tight circle in the middle of the room. There were only a dozen girls registered for the class, all upperclassmen who were writing in notebooks or reapplying lipstick in compact mirrors or otherwise ignoring me. Luckily, I recognized one of them.
“Hello,” I said, setting my bag down next to Elenore. She looked up at me with eyes that had been carefully lined in black, and smiled warmly.
“Hey, new girl,” she said, pulling out my chair for me. I sat down gingerly, holding my day planner in my lap. “That’s a pretty dress.”
I smoothed my corduroy pinafore and smiled back at her, grateful for the olive branch of trading compliments.
“Thank you. I love your eye makeup.”
“Thanks yourself,” she said, batting her heavily mascaraed lashes. She flipped the leather-bound notebook she was writing in closed, then leaned in close and conspiratorial. “How are you holding up after the bonfire? I had a splitting headache for the whole day afterwards. No more mixing brown liquor with punch, that’s for sure.”
“I felt fine. I’m not a big drinker.”
“Lucky you. You know, not many first years can get an audience with De Lafontaine, much less a spot in her class. Who’d you kill to get in?”
“Nobody. I just sent her over some of my poetry, and she enrolled me.”
“You must be something special, then. I applied three times before she let me in and not to toot my own horn, but I’m very good. If you ask me I think she just dislikes non-fiction writers. I’m going to work for the New Yorker someday, write investigative pieces that really matter and shine light on the way the world works, you know? But De Lafontaine requires that all students in the writing cohort study poetry; she says it’s the foundation of language. She brings out the best in all of us, though. You’ll have to give me your take on her after class.” Elenore patted her bouffant hairdo. “Say, did you do the reading? I skimmed it.”
“Reading?” I echoed, suddenly terrified. I hadn’t seen anything about reading in the syllabus.
Elenore snickered, jostling her shoulder against mine.
“Just kidding. Man, you went white as a sheet. Loosen up a little, okay? De Lafontaine can smell fear.”
“Where is she, anyway?” I asked, craning my neck to look around the shadowy oratory. The room was lit with standing lamps, not overhead lights, and the resulting glow was warm and dim.
“Oh, she’s always a little late. Not to worry.”
Before I had the chance to ask anything more, the door opened and a tall and brutally lovely white woman strode into the room. She wore breezy green satin trousers that matched the scarf tied around her bobbed brown curls, a billowing white blouse, and chunky heels that increased her already formidable height. She was probably in her mid-forties, and she had a stately Romanesque nose that grounded her otherwise delicate features.
“Hello, class,” she said, in a throaty voice that dropped right into the pit of my stomach. She stood ramrod straight in the middle of the circled chairs and took us in one by one, ponderously smoking a lipstick-stained Virginia Slim. “You’re a sorry-looking lot this morning. Too much revelry at the bonfire on Saturday?”
“Yes, Ms. De Lafontaine,” one of the senior girls said, laughter in her voice.
“I hope you celebrated so ferociously you called down the old gods, my bacchantes,” the professor said with a mischievous smile. My heart skipped a beat when her green eyes fell on me, pinning me in place. “And it looks like we have some new additions to our little cultus. Wonderful.”
I swallowed hard and nodded.
One by one, she counted us off on her tapered fingers. “But there’s only eleven of you. Where’s Carmilla?”
“Probably keeping the party going,” Elenore muttered, too low for the professor to hear.
“I won’t start without her,” Ms. De Lafontaine went on, tapping her foot.
As if on cue, the girl from the bonfire burst into the room. I had pressed Maisy for details about her that first night, but all my senior sister had to say about Carmilla was that she was “a genius” and “quite the bitch”. Naturally, I had spent the next two days looking for her face on the quad or in the lunch line, spurred forward by my pet fixation.
I wasn’t obsessed, I assured myself. I was only curious.
Carmilla was dressed strangely, in short ruffled bloomers over dark tights, and a men’s vest worn buttoned over a white shirt with puffed sleeves. She looked like she was getting ready to go on stage as Romeo; all she was missing was the short sword and maybe a hat to cover up her long hair. S. . .
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