The Oxford Inheritance

by Ann A. McDonald

After ten straight sleepless nights, the gray winter weather finally broke. Trees unfurled with cherry blossoms on the hills above town, and Cassie retrieved the package from its dark hiding place and began her quest for answers.

  A noise broke Cassie from her memories. Another runner was approaching from the opposite direction on the path in the Raleigh woodlands. He was in his late twenties, with fair hair peeking out from under a knit cap, and dressed in dark sweats with earbuds snaking up from under his shirt.

  Cassie moved to the far side of the dirt track to let him pass, but instead the man slowed and pulled out one of his earphones. “Careful up ahead,” he told her, with a friendly smile. “There’s still ice on the path.”

  She nodded her thanks, but then waited until he’d disappeared behind the next bend before slowing to a stop. She caught her breath, feeling her heart beat fast. In the distance, church bells began to ring out across the meadows: five, six, seven. Cassie looked ahead to the inviting curve of the path; she would happily run for another hour, out, away from the confines of the libraries and first tutorials that awaited her, but she had work to do.

  The mysterious package had sent her here for a reason, and there was no time to waste.

  4

  HER NEW ROOMS WERE IN CARLTON HALL, A STATELY BUILDING at the back of the college more like a country mansion than a student dorm. Cassie let herself in and climbed a flight of wide, creaking stairs to the second floor. The rest of the world was waking up now, and the building clattered with distant chatter as her fellow students set about their days. The noise filtered under doorways and down the hallway as she passed. It would be an adjustment, sharing space, and a bathroom, with other people; she had been on her own a long time.

  She reached the second floor and turned down the hallway, then stopped dead. Her door was ajar, and her suitcase was tossed haphazardly in the hallway outside with a couple of boxes; her books and winter coat were draped carelessly to the side.

  Cassie quickly stepped inside the room. It was three times the size of her old studio apartment back in Providence: a sitting room and a separate bedroom with bare floorboards and pale blue walls edged with white corniced trim—and a neat stack of matching luggage in the middle of the polished floors where only an hour ago Cassie’s own case had been. A butter-soft leather jacket hung over the back of a desk chair, and in the bedroom, a pile of linens sat waiting to replace the bedding the college had provided. Cassie ran her fingers over the soft cotton, smooth and soft. Expensive.

  There was a noise from the hallway, and moments later, a young woman backed into the room, her arms laden with bags. “Careful with that box, Hugo,” she was calling. “Those are antique lamps in there.” She turned and stopped, seeing Cassie beside the bed.

  “Excuse me.” She arched an eyebrow, sweeping Cassie with an icy stare. “Who are you?”

  Cassie tensed. She’d met her share of wealthy people; life in Cambridge, and New Haven, and Providence made sure of that. There were a dozen breeds—oblivious old money, brash immigrant fortunes, younger, disheveled kids who thought they could mask the family name with thrift-store denim and clove cigarettes. But what gave them away every time was the confident tone to every syllable, an innate superiority that was born and nurtured through prep schools and summer trips, an entire life spent cocooned in a marvelous certainty that they belonged, that this—grades, or jobs, or lovers, whatever it was that took their liking—was theirs by rights.

  This girl was one of them. Beautiful in an angular, aristocratic way, she had piercing blue eyes and a sweep of glossy blond hair. She wore tight black jeans and an aged suede jacket, and had smudged eyeliner, but there were pearl studs at her ears and the bags looped over each arm were crafted leather and clearly designer.

  Cassie knew she was sweaty and disheveled in her sweatshirt and leggings, but she held her ground. “I think you’ve got the wrong room. This is mine.”

  The girl glanced at the heavy wooden door, marked with dull bronze numbers. “Five eighty. Sorry, you’re the one who’s mistaken.” She dropped her bags to the floor. “We’ll need the rugs,” she called outside the door. “And tell Parker to bring up that cabinet, the one . . .” She stopped impatiently. “Hugo? Hugo!”

  There was no reply, and the girl gave an exasperated sigh. “I can help get the rest of your things together,” she offered Cassie. “The office will sort out a new room.”

  “No thanks,” Cassie replied stubbornly. “I’m good here.” She sauntered over to the window seat and sat down, lounging back in the narrow seat. Beside her, the view stretched all the way to the riverbanks, grassy and bright in the afternoon sun.

  She shouldn’t be causing a scene, but Cassie couldn’t help it. She had learned the importance of territory in her first group home, where the kids had squabbled over a few feet of bedroom space. She certainly wasn’t about to give up her claim to this vast spread of gleaming honeyed floorboards and smooth, cool walls.

  The girl looked at Cassie again, as if sensing her steely determination. Her frown smoothed into a wide smile, and suddenly, her face was transformed to something warm, even friendly. “I’m so sorry,” she exclaimed. “Where are my manners? I’ve been lugging boxes all day for the move. I didn’t even ask your name.”

  Cassie introduced herself, cautious.

  “Lovely to meet you.” The girl smiled. “I’m Olivia, Olivia Mandeville. I’m sorry to cause you all this bother.”

  “Like you said, it’s probably a mix-up.” Cassie stood her ground. “I’m sure the office will be able to sort you out another room.”

  Olivia laughed, a musical sound. “You’re a transfer?” she asked.

  Cassie frowned. “What does that matter?”

  “It matters because these are the finalist rooms. Third years.” Olivia gave an apologetic shrug. “We drew a ballot last year for rooms; my friends and I all picked Carlton. Foreign students are over with the freshers in Hartwell, round the back, by the kitchens.” She turned away to bellow out of the door. “Hugo!” Her voice rang, strong and arch, and then she was gone, back out into the maze of creaking hallways and dusty stairs, the air above her baggage drifting with golden particles of dust, as if even the ripples she left in her wake were gleaming with some certain touch of wealth.

  Cassie’s territorial instincts proved to be no match for Raleigh’s official dorm policy; back in the porters’ lodge, Rutledge confirmed that Olivia was right: Carlton Hall was for upperclassmen only. “Let’s see what’s left . . .” He hummed, clicking through his records on the old computer. “I could put you with the rest of the freshers if you want, but they can get rowdy. First time they’ve been away from home,” he added, with a weary look on his well-lined face.

  Cassie grimaced at the thought of all-night dorm parties and freshmen running wild. “Is there anything else?”

  “I’ve got it.” Rutledge turned behind him and plucked a new key down from the board. “Up in the attics. You’ll be sharing, but it’s a cozy little flat. The other girl’s a grad student, seems a sweet girl.”

  “I’ll take it,” Cassie said gratefully, eager to just be done with the whole mix-up.

  “I can help you with your bags, if you want—” Rutledge offered, but Cassie cut him off.

  “I’m fine, thanks.” She was almost out the door again when she paused, turning back. “If I wanted to do some research about Raleigh, where should I start?”

  Rutledge paused. “What kind of research?”

  “Just general stuff.” Cassie shrugged casually. “College history, old students, that kind of thing.”

  Rutledge narrowed his eyes at her for a moment, and Cassie felt a flutter of unease. Then his expression cleared. “Well, there’s the library, that’s a good place to start. But if you want the real stuff, you’d be best off trying the vaults.”

  “The vaults?” Cassie repeated.

  “Down below the cloisters.” Rutledge nodded. “Everything gets filed away down there sooner or later. They keep
talking about getting an archivist, sorting out a proper filing system, but for now, if it happened here in the last hundred years, it’s in there somewhere.”

  “Thanks.” Cassie smiled. “I’ll check it out.”

  Her new—and she hoped, final—room was over in the East Wing, a corner of the college filled with wood-paneled study rooms and more of those wide, creaking stairs. There were no other residence rooms in the building, and the place was silent and still as Cassie dragged her case up two flights. In the top corridor she found a square-set, iron-barred door.

  “Hello?” Cassie unlocked the door cautiously, peeking her head around to peer in. “Anyone here?”

  According to Rutledge, Cassie would be sharing with another older girl named Genevieve DuLongpre, a grad student. There was no sign of life, so Cassie pulled her things inside and let her load fall on the table with a sigh of relief before she took a proper look around.

  It was nowhere near as grand as Carlton Hall, that much was clear. Cassie was standing in a large, hexagonal-shaped living room, furnished with a long dining room table and mismatched chairs. Two musty, worn couches sat on the other end of the room in front of a bare-brick fireplace; threadbare rugs lay on the wooden floor. A short, narrow hallway led off to a galley kitchen in one direction and a bathroom in the other, both tiled in old-fashioned shades of mustard and green. The ceilings were low, slanted into the attic eaves, and although one side of the living area was lined with deep windows cut into the stone walls, the effect was hemmed in, almost claustrophobic, some might think.

  Cozy, Cassie decided.

  The door was open to one of the bedrooms, showing it strewn with a carpet of loose notes and discarded sweaters, so Cassie took her things into the other room. Again it was small, with the slanted ceilings and wooden built-in shelves lining one wall, the other set with her bed and desk. She went to the window and opened it wide to air out the room, glimpsing afternoon light filtering through spaces between the carved stone gargoyles that perched atop the edge of the walls. The faint sound of laughter and passing traffic hummed in the street below, but here Cassie was high above the city, and completely alone.

  She quickly unpacked and retrieved a thick file from the bottom of her suitcase. She brewed herself a cup of tea, found a pack of stale biscuits in the cupboard, and finally settled at the wide dining table in a pool of midday sun. Opening the folder, she laid out the familiar contents in front of her like a fortune-teller setting out the tarot.

  First, the note. You can’t hide the truth forever. Please come back and end this for good.

  Then the rest of the contents of that mysterious package.

  A ticket stub. Plymouth to New York, by boat, in the spring of 1995.

  A rose quartz pendant, just like the one she always wore.

  And a photo. Her mother, looking impossibly young. Dressed in a white blouse and long black skirt, a black ribbon tied at her neck. She was smiling, her teenage face alive with laughter, sandwiched with another girl between two boys in matching formal costume, the three-quarter-length robes around their shoulders trailing wide bands of material in the breeze.

  Cassie had spent the previous afternoon in an identical outfit, surrounded by such boys. She would know the setting for the photo even without the unfamiliar scrawl on the back.

  Raleigh College. 1994.

  She stared at the evidence, as she had a hundred times over since opening that package. Taken separately, they were fragments, a mystery. But together . . . ?

  Cassie had tried, and failed, to make these new facts somehow fit the story of her life. Her mother, Joanna, who had never talked of college, not once even mentioned leaving America, had come to England to study, had been a student here at Raleigh, one of the most prestigious and elite schools in the world. She had walked these same stone pathways, perhaps even clambered the stairs in this very building, and she had not uttered a single word to Cassie about it.

  Cassie remembered every cruel, furious taunt, and every sobbing entreaty. She’d been on the receiving end of her mother’s wrath for fourteen years, blamed for every missed opportunity and sacrificed dream. If her mother had even once hinted at this previous life of hers, Cassie would have known. It had been a secret Joanna took to her grave.

  Special, they had called her mother. Fragile. As if Joanna was a rare butterfly or exquisite vase. But for Cassie there had been nothing fragile about the fits of rage that blazed through her childhood, leaving her mother weeping on the kitchen floor in a pool of exhausted tears. Cassie had been born when Joanna was only twenty, and there had been no family around; her mother never spoke of Cassie’s father except to say he had gone, that we were better off without him, so Cassie was left tiptoeing alone through her childhood in a constant state of alert, doing her best to keep the peace.

  But there was always something that slipped past her watch. Sour milk turning in the fridge, a button fraying on Cassie’s grade-school blouse—her mother would ignite at the smallest tinder, a wildfire of inexplicable anguish that would sweep through the house, raging for hours about the sacrifices she’d made, the great poet she could have been without the drudge and toil of domesticity dragging her down. Cassie soon learned to hide from her wrath, racing for the one lockable room in the house at the first sign of temper, crouching, hidden, behind the bathroom door in a tight ball of fear as she counted under her breath. Five hundred. Six hundred. Sometimes she would clear a thousand before the house would fall silent. Eventually, often hours later, Cassie would emerge with an aching head and empty stomach, to find nobody there—or, worse, a plate of grilled cheese waiting on the kitchen counter and that terrible look of shame and guilt in her mother’s eyes.

  Still, for all the ragged-nail anxiety of the fever dreams, Cassie preferred them to what came after: long months of lethargy, when her mother seemed to forget she was a person at all, and all Cassie could do was bring her slices of dry white toast, cover her with blankets where she lay unmoving on the couch. They moved around so much that nobody noticed her permission slips were signed with a vague scrawl, and that her mother’s attendance at parent-teacher events was only at best sporadic.

  Eventually, a mix of medication and maturity evened out her mother’s more extreme attacks, until Joanna’s dark days—as she called them with a nervous laugh—only came once or twice a year. They moved for the fifth and final time, settling on a tree-lined street in a city in the middle of Indiana. Her mother kept her poetry volumes packed away, found a job, and even married. Cassie had almost begun to believe things would be normal again when the fever dreams returned, and her mother opened her wrists one afternoon in the cracked enamel bathtub, bleeding to death with a half-empty bottle of pills beside her to underscore her final act.

  Cassie’s brief glimpse of stability was gone for good. The husband lasted another few months before dying, drunk, with the house burning to ash around him. Social services took Cassie into care, but after bouncing around the foster system until she turned sixteen, she took herself off the grid. After that came years of cheap motels and diner coffee as Cassie drifted, skittish, from one town to the next: dealing fake IDs and prescription pills to get by, and circling ever closer to her mother’s fate until she found a currency more lucrative than most.

  Knowledge.

  It was simple, far easier than any of her other crimes. Her mind had always been voracious, devouring new ideas and systems the way her grade-school classmates had absorbed Sunday morning cartoons. A few hours of work on her computer cloning a student ID card, and she was free: slipping into the stream of undergrads passing through the campus gates, working at the back table of the local coffeehouse, camped out in the fifth row of a lecture auditorium, listening to the professor ramble on about esoteric theories in astronomy, physics, mathematics. She sold term papers to the lazy, privileged college kids who were content to outsource their hundred-thousand-dollar education to someone with an actual passion for learning, sometimes even sitting tests in their place if
the security was lax enough. All the benefits of college without the rules, the grades, the arbitrary authority. Cassie was just another face, anonymous, in a crowd of thousands.

  Until she opened that package and found that the few, painful truths she’d built her life upon weren’t really true at all, but a fiction dreamed up by a woman who, it turned out, she’d never really known at all.

  Now, Cassie stared at the pieces of the puzzle, as if this time they would rearrange themselves into a clear picture.

  Oxford. A boat trip. Then, five months later, Cassie was born.

  She’d looked at the photo a thousand times, but even now, it felt like the first. The Joanna in the photograph appeared light, youthful, innocent. Cassie’s mother had been none of those things. By the time Cassie was old enough to register the expression in her mother’s eyes, that joy had been drained away, leaving only flashes of bitterness and ill-concealed resentment in its place; frustration where there had once been promise, defeat where hope had once shone.

  Cassie stared, lost in her mother’s unfamiliar smile, until the sound of a key in the door broke her from her reverie. She quickly swept her papers back into the file as the door swung open, revealing a slim sprite of a woman with blond hair twisted into a crown of braids and a vivid print scarf wound loosely around her pale throat. She was weighed down under a shoulder bag, books, and a take-out container. Cassie leaped up to help.

  “Hi,” the woman said breathlessly, her eyes bright. “You must be my new roommate! Rutledge said there’d been a mix-up. Welcome to the garret. I’m Genevieve; call me Evie.”

  “Cassie,” she replied, helping unload Evie’s bags.

  “First week back, I swear we should all be walking around with back braces,” Evie said, setting down her mountains of books. She kicked her heels off into a heap in the corner. “Part of me is tempted to get one of those old lady shopping trolleys and just wheel it along behind me to the library and back!” She collapsed into a seat at the table and opened the take-out container with a contented sigh. Steam rose from a pile of limp fries smothered with cheese and some kind of curry-scented sauce. “Ahmed’s,” Evie explained, using a plastic fork to spear a clump. “I shouldn’t, but then every night I’m back in line, waiting for my fix.”