Grey Expectations

by Clea Simon

  Cambridge prided itself on being pedestrian friendly. And while Dulcie had joined her colleagues in cursing the brick sidewalks each February, when they seemed particularly slick with ice, in these last days of May they were as picturesque as a postcard, glowing red against the explosion of spring green. Above her, the sky was a soft, full blue, the color broken only by the kind of clouds that children draw, white puffy things gamboling across the sky. The lilacs were already fading, dropping their tired blossoms on the ground, but the sweet scent lingered, and Dulcie was almost skipping as she passed by the Common and headed up to the Quad.

  Then she saw it: brick, but not friendly. Not warm at all. How could she have forgotten that a walk up to the Quad, where the science library was located, would bring her right past the main university police headquarters? Dulcie mentally kicked herself and looked around. If she darted across the street, she could avoid passing right in front of the building. But wouldn’t she then be more visible from those upper windows? The ones that looked out like so many unblinking eyes? What if she put her head down and hurried past. She could pretend she was late for a section or, better yet, an exam. An exam that – she looked at her watch – started at three p.m.? Well, maybe the university police weren’t as conversant with the exam schedule. Maybe they didn’t have all their forces out looking for one particular curly-haired grad student. And maybe she should give up her search for Trista. Wait for her friend to surface and explain herself. Go back to her own academic bolt hole and make her way through those essays. If she could glean one kernel from them, well, maybe she could have that part of her thesis done within the week.

  The thought was enough to almost turn her around. Then she stopped. What had Mr Grey said, about friendship? If Trista was in some kind of a jam, Dulcie owed it to her to help – even if her friend didn’t think she needed help. And even – Suze’s words rang in her head – if Trista seemed to be afraid of shadows.

  Besides, that was all she was afraid of, wasn’t she? So the cops wanted to talk to her. She should have expected that after Professor Coffin’s bombshell at the morning meeting. And the science library was only two blocks away. Two very long blocks.

  In front of her, a garage door began to groan and creak open. A university cruiser pulled out and paused, and Dulcie found herself cringing, taking one step back and then another. But the car had only paused for traffic, and then pulled out, driving up the street without any sirens or any apparent hurry. As Dulcie watched, the door cranked close, shuddering a bit as it hit the driveway, and she shuddered with it. A breeze had picked up, and one of those fluffy clouds had passed over the sun. She closed her eyes and felt her curls blow around her face. Almost as if she were on a ship’s deck, facing a dreaded future.

  The key, Dulcie repeated, was that she had done it. Whatever fear she had felt, whatever dread had caused her those horrible sleepless nights – and no matter what Dulcie may have told Lloyd, she did believe that those dreams were psychic gifts – the nameless author had gone through with her plan. Dulcie might not know how yet, but she had the textual proof. The author of The Ravages, the woman in her dreams, had made the long and arduous journey from London to the New World and had lived to write again.

  So, too, would Dulcie. So what if Dulcie had been temporarily derailed, stuck searching for that final essay – that last bit of political writing that would prove her point. She’d been throwing herself into The Ravages for more than three years now. She still loved the book, what there was of it. It was only now, when she was stuck reading these later works, these possibly – no, probably – peripheral essays, that she was beginning to feel the drag that all her colleagues talked about. Not yet four years in, she finally had thesis fatigue.

  And only today she might have broken through. That one phrase, surfacing from the blue volume, might be the key to everything. Dulcie paused on the sidewalk: what she’d give to just be able to dive back into that collection, to find that sentence, that essay. But, how could she concentrate with what was going on? No, she decided, better to talk to Trista. Clear things up. Then she could get back to work with a clear conscience and nothing hanging over her. And without further ado, she marched right by the police station.

  As soon as Dulcie entered the science library, she understood why Trista had chosen it. When last she’d dropped by, it had been winter, and not only had the Quad seemed horribly distant from everything in the Square, but the modern library had also looked – and felt – cold. Now, with the sun shining, it was an entirely different building. Its translucent stone walls glowed, lending a soft ivory light to the interior. And its modern fixtures – recessed lighting, spotless carpeting – made Widener look, well, shabby. Plus, Dulcie noticed with a touch of satisfaction, the science library was empty, or almost. A work-study student seemed to be catching up on his own reading at the checkout desk, while a uniformed guard stared out the glass door. The result was almost pure silence.

  ‘Hi.’ Dulcie found herself whispering as she presented her ID to the guard. He nodded, and she swiped through, marveling at the lack of bluster. Maybe she should start coming up here, too. Once she was done with her research and had started writing for real. The reading room, off to her left, looked cool and calm, its blue-grey carpet muffling any sound from the array of computer terminals.

  Dulcie paused to check it out, when a slight sound – barely a whisper – disturbed her reverie. Dulcie! She started and looked around. But, no, either her imagination was getting the better of her, or Mr Grey was urging her on. Either way, she had come here with a purpose. Two minutes later, she was in the elevator, ascending to the modern building’s top floor. And three minutes later, she was staring out at a view of Cambridge she had never seen.

  ‘Wow.’ Her voice was the only sound, but even it was hushed in wonder. She was facing, she quickly figured, east: a quilt of green foliage and red-brick was broken by a small tower, the ‘castle’ of Mt Auburn cemetery that served as much as a park as a memorial. Built of granite on a man-made hill in the middle of the cemetery, its oversized grey blocks made it stand out in style as much as height. She and Chris had taken their bikes up there a few times and hiked around, looking for famous names, and once they had climbed the tower, enjoying the view over what essentially served as the city’s own arboretum. Not until now, however, had she noticed how much the tower looked like something from one of her novels. She could almost imagine Hermetria, the heroine of The Ravages, imprisoned there. The well-manicured grounds of the cemetery were hardly rocky crags. But the idea was right.

  And suddenly the modern library seemed sterile. Time to find Trista and get back to work. With a certain reluctance, Dulcie turned from the window. As she remembered, Trista’s hideaway was a cubicle over behind the stacks.

  ‘It’s all COBOL texts. Ancient history,’ her friend had told her. ‘Nobody even uses it any more.’

  Dulcie had smiled and nodded. Clearly, Trista picked up more computer lingo from her boyfriend Jerry than Dulcie did from Chris. She’d been worried, briefly, that this meant she didn’t listen to her boyfriend, and had brought it up to him that evening.

  He’d only laughed. ‘Sweetie, if I wanted to talk code, I’d go hang out with Jerry.’ He’d hugged her, then. ‘Really, Dulce. With you I can get away from all of that.’

  She hadn’t felt entirely easy at his explanation. After all, by now he was thoroughly versed in the uses of metaphor and simile in the late-eighteenth-century novel. Shouldn’t she reciprocate? But the incident had stuck in her mind, and finding the bookshelf was easy.

  ‘Knock, knock!’ Dulcie felt a twinge of guilt. A secret study place should not be disturbed. But when nobody answered, she peeked around the shelf to Trista’s hideaway. Tucked between the shelves and what appeared to be a utility cabinet, the niche had a chair, a small table that would do for a desk, and enough natural light to make one forget one was indoors. What it did not have was Dulcie’s blonde-haired friend.

  ‘Tris?’ It was po
intless. Dulcie could see that nobody was there. The desk held no books, and the chair was neatly tucked in. On a whim, Dulcie pulled it out. No, the seat felt as cool as the rest of the climate-controlled building. Trista had her phone turned off, but not because she was in the library.

  Dulcie turned to leave, when a thought stopped her. Mr Grey. He’d prompted her when she’d hesitated. His voice had gotten her past the police station. Although her spectral pet could be enigmatic, he didn’t do anything without a reason. Surely, he’d known that Trista hadn’t been here. Maybe, Dulcie thought, she was on her way right now. Besides, the walk had been a little tiring, especially as she’d hurried those last few blocks. And the library was cool and quiet.

  Dulcie pulled the chair out further and sat, facing the blank wall. This little niche certainly had no distractions. Then again, it just might be too out of the way. Dulcie ran her hand over the table; a thin layer of fine dust came up, white, on her fingers. Almost like talcum powder.

  She rubbed her fingers together, the sight of it on her fingertips sparking a memory. Powder, on her hands . . . fine, white powder. Dulcie found herself thinking about the Mildon, trying to recall the last time she had been in the rare book library – and why. It had to have been about The Wetherly Ghost, she decided, and it all came back.

  She remembered donning the special cotton gloves the collection required. Coated with some kind of non-corrosive powder that made slipping them on and off easier, more sterile, they were supposedly expensive – and expensive to clean. That powder alone was rumored to cost as much as gold dust, and though Dulcie had serious doubts about that, she’d heard that they were the real reason scholars were required to leave their bags up front when they entered the collection. Whatever the powder was made of, she had noticed how it lingered as she’d left, wiping one hand on the other to cleanse her hands of the fine grains.

  Could this be what Mr Grey had wanted to show her? It seemed awfully thin. More likely, the white powder was ordinary dust. Perhaps – she looked up at the utility closet – someone had been drilling. If the walls were plaster, this dust could come from them. But the wall in front of her looked pristine. Above her, the lighting fixture appeared untouched, its light clear and warm. Perfect for reading.

  She couldn’t resist, she really couldn’t. She had done what she could to find Trista, and now she was here and, well, maybe this was what Mr Grey had in mind. Dulcie brushed the remaining white powder from her hand, reached into her bag, and pulled out the blue volume, Early American Dissenters. Somewhere, a machine started a low hum, and Dulcie was aware of the slightest shift in air currents. A bit of a chill in the air, perhaps. Well, that would keep her from dozing as she read through the rest of the essays.

  It took a while, and Dulcie was grateful for Lucy’s sweater by the time she found it. Since so many of the essays were not signed – or were signed by such obvious pen names as ‘A Gentleman of Sound Mind’ or ‘A Partisan Party-Goer’ – she had felt it necessary to at least skim each one. By the time she found the most promising – ‘On Reading’ by ‘A Lady of Letters’ – her fingers were getting cold.

  But it wasn’t the air-conditioning that sent goosebumps up her arms. It was the opening phrase: ‘The education of young ladies, of virtue undimm’d, must be of concern to all . . .’ That was it – the very phrase that she had found in an article from London, published in 1792. ‘The bookish mind, far from challenging the finer qualities, shall enhance them . . .’ That exact passage had been in The Ravages, one of the arguments that the heroine, Hermetria, had made to her much more traditionally feminine nemesis, Demetria. ‘Learning shall be the setting for her jewel’d countenance . . .’ The missing link! She’d found it.

  She rummaged in her bag for her notebook, dropping her pen in the process. Pushing the chair back, she got down on her knees. From this vantage point, the housekeeping in the science library left something to be desired. One gum wrapper – Juicy Fruit – had been kicked over in the corner, its foil balled up against the wall. Dulcie had to smile. If Mr Grey had been here, that bit of junk would have metamorphosed into a toy, and instead of picking it up, she’d have batted it out to him, starting an impromptu soccer match. On a whim, she flicked the little ball and watched as it bounced unevenly on the carpet, stopping over by the wall.

  And that’s when she saw it, tucked into the edge of the carpet, up against the wall, where the neat installation had left only the slightest gully between the deep pile and the wall. A tiny slip, its faded hue almost camouflaged against the industrial weave. If it hadn’t been for the white powder on the table top, she might not even have noticed. But that – and the thought of Mr Grey – had made her think about the special collections. About the missing Dunster Codex. What she saw, half hidden against the wall, was most definitely a blue ticket.

  ‘Oh, Trista.’ She sat back, pausing a moment before reaching for it. In reality, it could be anyone’s. Many scholars used this library, not all of them science majors. But, realistically, the odds were slim. How many scholars would have had reason to access both the Widener special collections and the science library? How many of them had made a habit of coming to just this secluded corner?

  There would be an explanation. There had to be. And with that thought, Dulcie reached over to pluck the ticket from where it was lodged. ‘Trista, what are you involved in?’ She turned it over, dreading the name she expected to see there. And sat up so fast, she smacked her head on the bottom of the table.

  The blue ticket – the one that allowed access to the rare book collection – didn’t bear the name of her friend. Instead, in block letters, it bore another’s. Spelled out, clear despite the usual carbon fuzziness, was a different name. Her own.

  FIFTEEN

  Her head no longer hurt where she’d smacked it against the table. In fact, she couldn’t feel it at all. But somehow, her legs weren’t functioning, and it took forever for Dulcie to scramble out from under the corner desktop, grab her bag, and head for the elevator. This must have been what Mr Grey had wanted her to see. The question was, what did it mean?

  As she waited for the elevator to appear, Dulcie tried taking some deep breaths. There was no point in panicking. Only when spots began to appear before her eyes did she realize that hyperventilating was a possibility, too, and so she leaned back against the wall to wait – and to try to calm down.

  That ticket: when was it from? Dulcie opened her clenched fist just as the sliding metal doors parted in front of her. The elevator was as deserted as the rest of the library, but she still did not dare to do more than peek at the blue paper as she descended toward the first floor. The line where the date should have been was, of course, smudged. If this were something from a novel, she might suspect foul play. In reality, she suspected the failings of outdated technology. Considering that this was a carbon copy, it was a wonder she could read the name on it.

  Maybe . . . She opened her fist for one more peek. No luck. That was, in fact, her name written on the dotted line.

  The doors slid open as she was peering at the crumpled blue slip, and Dulcie jumped. Over at the checkout desk, the reader looked up and smiled. Dulcie did her best to smile back. Making eye contact with a fellow student helped her ignore the guard, who had turned in her direction. If she could just keep walking . . .

  ‘Miss?’

  Dulcie froze, halfway past the guard. If she ran, could she make it to the doors before him?

  ‘Miss?’

  Probably not. She turned, that smile turning stiff on her face.

  ‘I have to check your bag.’ He looked almost apologetic.

  ‘Of course.’ She hadn’t even been aware that she was holding her breath till then. Still, it was difficult to open her bag with one hand clenched tight. The guard didn’t seem to notice, though, and after a cursory poke through her things, looked up with an answering grin of his own.

  ‘Thanks, miss. Have a nice day.’

  She nodded, unable to respond in any more
articulate sense, and was out the door.

  Five minutes later, Dulcie found herself sitting on a bench in the Radcliffe Quad, trying to figure out what to do next. The police were looking for her, and now she knew why. Or thought she did. Carefully, her hands trembling, Dulcie spread out the little slip to examine it more closely. DULCINEA SCHWARTZ, it said, clear as day. That made sense: on anything official, Dulcie would use her full name. By now, she’d even become inured to the smiles her mismatched monikers produced. The date, however, defied her closest examination; the sweat of her nervous hand hadn’t made it any clearer. The only thing she could make out, she thought, was a ‘5’.

  Dulcie wracked her brain. Had she visited the Mildon collection in May? On the fifth of a month prior? In truth, she couldn’t quite remember when she’d last used her access. The segregated area – a specially secured library within a library, tucked into the corner of one of the lower floors of Widener – kind of creeped her out. The rumors that its state of the art fire-protection features involved a special vacuum to suck out all the oxygen in the room didn’t help.

  She looked back at her name, written out large in block letters. Would she even write her name like that? For a moment, she felt a flood of relief. Maybe this was a forgery. After all, she really did have no memory of visiting in the previous month. Maybe she was being framed, an innocent patsy for an international ring of thieves.

  No. Dulcie shook her head. As much as she’d like this all to be a story, that theory was as fantastic as any in her novels. She was merely one graduate student among many. Even if she couldn’t remember the last time she’d gone into the rare book room, she had visited it, several times. And even if she couldn’t recall her most recent visit, she hadn’t forgotten the instructions, repeated every time, to press down hard enough to make all the copies legible. All of which probably accounted for the smudged date – and for the thick block letters in which her name had been recorded for all time, like a guilty secret. If she was going to question something, she should be asking about this ticket: how did this little blue tag get from the Mildon – or more likely, from Dulcie’s own bag – to Trista’s secret hideaway in a secluded corner of the science library? Had Trista been holding on to it for some reason? Had she – Dulcie paused – taken it?