The Revenant

by Sonia Gensler

“Can you manage the stairs to the infirmary, child?” Crenshaw’s voice was unusually tender.

  I nodded.

  “Good. I’ll get Jimmy to move your furnishings away from the window. We’ll get that glass replaced as soon as possible. In the meantime, you may stay on the third floor.”

  Olivia tucked her arm under my left elbow and helped me to my feet. Then she pulled the shawl around my shoulders and, with a smile, told me to lean against her as we made our way upstairs.

  None of the cuts on my arm was terribly deep. Nurse Gott applied a salve to all but one, which she quickly stitched herself. She then gave me a sleeping draught, but before it took hold, Miss Crenshaw prompted me to confirm what happened.

  “I’d been looking out at the storm.” I swallowed, avoiding the principal’s penetrating gaze. “I … had just pulled away—the lightning flashed so brightly—when the window shattered inward.”

  “The chiffonier provided some protection, it seems,” Olivia murmured.

  “I’m still perplexed that such a thing could happen,” said Miss Crenshaw. “Jimmy found no evidence of anything having been thrown through the window. And why only your right window, Miss McClure? It’s downright odd.”

  I ignored the meaningful look Olivia directed at me.

  “I can’t begin to explain it, miss,” I said with a yawn. “Perhaps it was cracked already? All I know is that I’m powerfully sleepy.”

  “Of course you are,” Miss Crenshaw said briskly. “Miss Adair and I will leave you to rest, shan’t we?”

  Olivia glanced back at me almost longingly. I knew she wanted to stay, to glean more details that would flesh out her understanding of the ghost. But sleep weighed heavily on my eyelids, and I could hardly move my mouth to speak. Seeming to understand, she smiled and followed Miss Crenshaw from the room.

  I did not dream that night, most likely an effect of the drug. All I remember is sinking gratefully into velvet darkness and then, a moment later, opening my eyes to find Mae sitting next to my bed. The curtains had been pulled back to allow the morning light to illuminate the room. I blinked at the grittiness in my eyes.

  Mae’s look was grave. “You’ve slept a long time. Miss Crenshaw asked me to watch you.”

  I rubbed my eyes. “What time is it?”

  “After eleven o’clock.”

  I sat up quickly, then grimaced at the pain in my right arm. “I slept that long? Why did no one come wake me? Am I missing classes?”

  “It’s Sunday, miss.”

  “Oh yes, of course.” I grinned at Mae in relief. She did not smile in return, nor did she speak. Her eyes were red-rimmed, but I couldn’t tell if it was from sorrow or fatigue. “Is something wrong, Mae?”

  She shrugged. “Didn’t get much sleep. That storm kept me up half the night.”

  I leaned toward her, searching her face. “Are you sure that’s all? Did you … see anything out the window last night?”

  A knock came at the door, making us both start.

  The door opened and Olivia walked through. She nodded at Mae, who stood without saying a word and left the room. Olivia gathered her skirts and sat upon the now vacant chair next to me. Ordinarily, she would have been at church, but that morning she must have stayed at school out of concern for me. I smiled at her, my heart swelling with gratitude.

  “How’s the patient feeling?”

  “Sore,” I said.

  “I’ve come to coax you downstairs. The rain has washed away the humidity and the sun is shining gloriously. We could sit outside under the awning and watch the girls return from their church services.”

  “I would love to. Just allow me a moment to make myself presentable.”

  It was nearly noon by the time we were settled on the front porch. The vast blue sky and cool breeze pushed the horrors of the previous night to the back of my mind. My thoughts turned instead to Eli Sevenstar. It was impossible to harbor any feelings of resentment toward him on such a fine day. He’d been perfectly correct in speaking so directly to me that day at the opera house—he’d intended to protect the primaries, not hurt my feelings. The next time I saw him, I would somehow communicate my understanding. Perhaps we would have an opportunity to speak again after the performance of As You Like It—he would look kindly upon the dance now that I’d put the matter in Mae’s hands, wouldn’t he? I imagined his smile, his eyes shining with pride, and felt a pleasant tingle down my spine.

  I’d just started to drowse in my chair when our peace was interrupted. Three girls in fine hats trudged up the boardwalk toward the school.

  “Here come the Bells,” murmured Olivia.

  I straightened in the chair and pulled my shawl tight as though to shield myself from Fannie’s disdainful gaze.

  But as Fannie drew near, her eyes didn’t meet mine. She stared into the distance, her expression grim, but at the same time … triumphant? Lelia and Alice whispered together behind her.

  I glanced at Olivia, who stared at the girls with raised eyebrows. “Is everything all right, ladies?”

  “No, Miss Adair,” said Alice flatly.

  Her blunt response set the flesh on my arms to prickling.

  “Come sit down,” said Olivia. “If something is wrong, we want to hear about it.”

  The girls hesitated, then slowly approached and took seats near us.

  “Well?”

  They were quiet a moment, each looking anywhere but at Olivia. Finally, Alice nudged Fannie. “You’d better tell it, Fannie. It was your brother who told us the worst of it.”

  Fannie clasped her hands in her lap and looked directly at Olivia. “There was a lot of whispering in church today. After the service, Larkin took us aside and explained.” She paused, glancing sidelong at me before returning her gaze to Olivia.

  “Please go on, Fannie,” Olivia prompted.

  The girl took a breath. “Last night, a body washed up on the bank of the river. Larkin said that a fisherman found it early this morning.”

  Olivia gasped. “How horrible!”

  “The body had been weighed down with rocks,” Fannie continued, “but the violence of the storm broke it free from its constraints, and … it washed ashore.”

  “Who was it?” I asked. “Does anyone know? Not another student, surely?”

  “Oh yes,” Fannie said, nodding, “a student. But not a female seminary student.” She could not meet my eyes. “It was Cale Hawkins.”

  The words echoed in my head. “What?”

  “Larkin talked to the man who found him,” said Alice. “He told us the body was much decayed, but they identified him from an engraved locket Ella gave him.” She shuddered. “He’d been in the river for many months. You know what this means, don’t you?”

  I shook my head, trying to dislodge the fog that had settled over my brain.

  Alice’s eyes were wide. “Cale has been dead all this time. He never went to Texas, like Eli said.”

  “But … what about Eli’s telegram?”

  Fannie turned her eerie gaze to me. “It must have been a lie, Miss McClure. I bet that Hawkins boy was already dead when Eli claimed he got the telegram.”

  “Has anyone talked to Eli? What does he have to say?” I couldn’t contain the flood of questions. “How did he explain himself?”

  They were all staring at me now.

  “We didn’t see Eli Sevenstar,” Fannie said, assessing me with knowing eyes. “But when my brother talked to the fisherman, Eli was with him. Larkin told us Eli turned pale as a ghost when he heard the news, and afterward he said he wasn’t going to church.” She leaned forward, her eyes locked with mine. “He told Larkin he had to get out of town for a while.”

  I stood up then, banging the backs of my legs so hard against the chair that it flipped over. Immediately, I regretted the sudden movement, for my head was spinning.

  “Sit down, Willie,” gasped Olivia, standing up to take my arm. “You’re not well.”

  “I just can’t—”

  The last thing
I saw as I sank against Olivia was Fannie’s smug little smile.

  When I came to my senses, I found myself back in the infirmary bed. My first thought was one of sympathy for poor old Jimmy, who must have carried me up two flights of stairs. I sat up to find Olivia sitting on the chair next to the bed. When my eyes met hers, I remembered.

  He lied.

  I thought of Eli’s letter to Ella, of Lucy’s confession to Cale that Ella was meeting someone else, and I nearly choked at the sudden drought in my throat. Three people had been at the river that night, and two were dead.

  “There was no telegram from Cale,” I croaked. “Eli lied about it.”

  She nodded sadly.

  “Do you think Eli … that he …” I trailed off with a sob.

  “You showed me the note, Willie. Eli loved Ella quite passionately at one time. Perhaps he never stopped loving her. But she never stopped loving Cale. Something horrific happened at the river that night. Fannie said …” She gulped before continuing. “After you fainted, Fannie said the body showed signs of violence—a deep wound to the head.”

  I thought of Eli’s arms around me, his lips on mine. “Oh God,” I cried, the bile rising in my throat. “How could he do it, Olivia? How could he … hurt them … and act so innocent?”

  “I’m as shocked as you.”

  “How could he lie to everyone? To me?”

  “Willie?” She leaned in and took my hand.

  The sobs racked my body so violently I could barely breathe. I tried to compose myself, but when I lifted my face to Olivia, I saw her eyes widen and it choked me once again.

  “Were you …?” Her brow furrowed. “Did you … have feelings for him?”

  I stared back at her without speaking.

  Her brow furrowed. “Oh, Willie.”

  Unable to face her dismay, I pulled the covers over my head.

  The chair creaked as Olivia stood. I knew she had no choice but to go straight to Crenshaw, for I’d just confessed the unspeakable. Soon I would be riding the coach back to the train station. I’d been a fool to think a few stolen moments meant Eli Sevenstar cared for me—and was worth caring for.

  I waited for the door to shut behind her but instead felt the mattress sag as Olivia sat on the edge of the bed. Her hand went to my face, pulling the coverlet aside. Gentle fingers pushed the tear-soaked hair from my eyes.

  “I’m sorry, Willie,” she murmured. “I didn’t know for certain. I’m so very sorry.”

  Chapter 19

  MISS CRENSHAW SUSPENDED UPPER-SCHOOL CLASSES during the week following the discovery of Cale’s body, announcing to a chapel full of pale and weepy girls that preparations for the play must move into full swing. Inwardly, I blessed her for providing this distraction, for I could not imagine holding class after such a shock. In any case, there was much to do before the big event. Drama and music rehearsals filled each day, along with scenery and costume adjustments. Soon the girls would crowd into the kitchen to prepare treats and plan every last detail for the reception to be held on the capitol building lawn after the play.

  With so much to do, there was little time for any of us to contemplate the horror of Cale’s death or Eli’s betrayal.

  After all my undignified sobbing in the infirmary, I turned numb. During the day I kept busy with the students, running lines and blocking scenes again and again. The repetition was soothing. I knew the girls were being pushed to the breaking point, but I didn’t care. For the first time, I was an efficient teacher—ruthless, even. The power I wielded over my students distracted me from truths I couldn’t face.

  At night I listened for the tapping sound, but it never came. Strangely enough, I missed the steady noise that had been my companion during long nights of agonizing over Eli. If Ella had been trying to contact me, why was she silent now? Because Cale’s body had finally been found? I thought back to the night of the storm, cringing at the memory of shattering glass, and wondered who had stood below my window. A man? Or a phantom?

  No funeral was held for Cale. According to Olivia, his parents drove up in their wagon and took the body away. He would be buried on their own land. A few words of commemoration were spoken at the following Sunday’s seminary chapel service, but only a fraction of the girls were in attendance. Perhaps the churches in town took more time to remember him. For so long he’d been the wild boy who left town when Ella died—a boy many had thought responsible for her death. I hoped someone took the time to eulogize him properly. But were there enough words to wipe the dark smear from his memory?

  I knew the students whispered of Eli Sevenstar, but I didn’t listen for the details. Just hearing his name was like a knife in my heart. Olivia shared the tidbits of information she came across, conveying the specifics in a detached manner so as not to upset me. From her I learned that the sheriff and his men had searched the town and surrounding countryside but could find no trace of Eli. As far as they could determine, he’d packed a small bag and left the same day Cale’s body was discovered. He’d not taken the stage to Gibson Station, nor had he boarded the train. His parents claimed not to have seen him, and Larkin Bell knew nothing.

  Eli had simply vanished.

  If I’d had my way, I would have operated in my unfeeling manner until the end of term—pushing the girls through the spring play and then pushing them through final examinations. That way I’d be too busy to think overmuch … or feel. But Olivia wouldn’t allow it. True to form, she had to talk about everything, and I could no longer rely on Crenshaw to forestall our late-night visits.

  “You still haven’t told me exactly what happened that night of the storm,” Olivia said one evening, after inviting herself to my room. “You were screaming in terror. Was it just the window shattering? Or was it more?”

  I moaned pitifully.

  “Willie?”

  “The tapping came again that night. I hadn’t heard it for a while.”

  “Ella’s tapping.” She glanced at the window, her expression thoughtful. “Are you certain it wasn’t just the storm?”

  “Something hit my window, Olivia. A pebble was thrown, and it cracked the glass.”

  She blinked. “Who? Did you see someone?”

  I thought back, trying to remember the sequence of events. “I stood by the window, waiting for the lightning so I could see. In the first flash, I saw nothing. Not a soul near the school. But in the next flash …” I trailed off, my pulse thumping at the memory.

  “You saw someone.” Olivia leaned in, her eyes gleaming.

  I shook my head, recoiling from the memory. “I hardly know how to put this, but it didn’t seem like a person. It was a shadow, shaped like a man, but somehow not human.” I met her gaze. “I know it makes no sense. I’ve told myself the rain was playing tricks with my vision. But, really, it had nothing to do with my eyes. Some deeper sense, something in my blood, told me it wasn’t a man that stood below my window. And you know what? I think Mae saw it too.”

  “You don’t think it was Eli?”

  “I can’t imagine why Eli would be standing underneath my window on the very night that Cale’s body washed up on the bank of the river.”

  “Cale …,” Olivia murmured. Then she gasped, and my heart pounded to see the color drain from her cheeks.

  “What about him?”

  “It was Cale,” she said in a whisper.

  I flinched. “Oh my God.”

  “We’ve had it all wrong,” she said. “The tapping on the window—it has been Cale all along!”

  I considered this. “But the accidents in the school—that must have been Ella, right? She was angry with Fannie and Lucy, so her spirit turned vengeful.”

  Olivia raised an eyebrow. “Did it? I confess that notion always troubled me. You never knew Ella. She was so good-natured. Flighty, yes, and far too starry-eyed about romance—I think she drove the boys quite mad at times. But she was not one to hold grudges.”

  “Dr. Stewart said something similar once,” I murmured. “But that
still doesn’t explain the hauntings in the school.”

  “Actually, it’s starting to make sense to me.” She took a breath. “I must calm down, so I can explain.” She lowered her voice, speaking slowly. “You’ve been plagued by that tapping noise on your window for so long—perhaps that’s what drove the students from the room in the first place. With so much spirit activity, one would think we could have contacted Ella in her own room. But we couldn’t, and it’s because the spirit has always been Cale, and he couldn’t actually be in a girl’s room at the seminary—”

  “Wait,” I broke in. “Can’t a ghost go wherever it wishes?”

  She frowned. “I can’t say for certain, but according to my grandmother, revenants return to familiar places, and they often follow the same paths—the same rules, even—that they followed when alive. Cale never would have been allowed upstairs at the seminary; therefore, he could only communicate from the outside. Didn’t you say that Ella often left the school at night? What if Cale came to her window and threw pebbles, much like what happened the night of the storm? That would explain the tapping, wouldn’t it?”

  “And the encounters downstairs?”

  Olivia held up her hand. “Let me think a minute.” She frowned in concentration. “If we catalog all the accidents, you’ll see they occurred in places where male students had free access—the lower landing of the staircase, the first-floor water closet, the chapel …”

  “And the parlor,” I said, shivering at the memory of ghostly hands on my neck.

  “It all makes sense. Except …” She paused, her frown deepening. “Why would Cale hurt Lucy? They grew up together—I think they may have been cousins.”

  A shiver snaked down my spine. “I know why,” I murmured. “Lucy told him Ella was meeting another boy at the river, but by that point the dalliance had been going on for months. Cale was furious.”

  Olivia nodded. “He felt betrayed. The three of them were very close.”

  “Lucy feared he’d hurt her for keeping the secret.”

  “And so he did, but not in the way she expected.”

  I sat still, considering her theory. “All along, the ghost has been trying to tell us that two people died that night?”