Chapter Thirty-Five
THIRTY-FIVE
HEADMASTER MATSOUKAS’S OFFICE LOOKS TOTALLY different during the day. In the dark I hadn’t noticed the intricately woven brass cross centered between the two windows, a mirror of the one hanging around his neck.
Now light floats through the paned glass, watering my eyes as I sit in front of his desk. My fingers dig into the armrest, the black leather lined with steel studs. In the corner of my eye is the cabinet.
I let loose a shuddering breath.
“Harper?” Alastair asks, his fingers are steepled at his lips. “Where did you go?”
I flick my gaze to him. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay.” He leans back in his chair. “I’m sure you understand why I’ve called you into the office. After the incident the other night, I wanted to meet with the four of you individually, to see if there’s anything I could be doing to better support you during your time here.”
I don’t know what to say, so I say nothing.
“You know,” he says, “your DA, Kate, has come to me a couple times about you. She’s concerned. Says you seem to be struggling here. You’re becoming more withdrawn. You’re up all hours of the night pacing the halls…,” he trails off like I should deliver him an explanation for my actions.
“Okay.” I shrug.
He chuckles, leaning forward. “What’s with you, Harper? We’ve known each other a long time. I know what you’re normally like, screaming in the woods with the boys…” He puts his chin in his hand. “This isn’t you.”
I pick at my cuticle, wiping the ensuing bead of blood against the hem of my pleated skirt.
His eyes are round and sincere, and maybe a few months ago, I would have confessed. I would have opened up, desperate for any amount of parentalish attention. But today I jut out my chin.
“I don’t know what she’s talking about. I’m fine.”
He tsks. “You’re not fine. You’re grieving.”
“So?”
“So, I would expect some of this behavior from you. I can’t imagine what it must be like for you right now. Being on this campus, knowing that your grandmother went here as well.”
The saliva in my mouth sours.
“I’ve already talked to Ms. Chang about the candles in her room. She’s received a strike on her student record.”
It’s a punch to the gut.
We’ve been seen back to back today, and I haven’t had a chance to talk to the others yet. This is the first I’m hearing of what level of disciplinary action we’re in for.
“What—what does that mean?”
He wipes nonexistent fuzz from his lapel and straightens his tie.
“We have a three-strike system. The first strike is a warning. The second results in an action plan with staff on how to improve behavior. And a third strike earns the student a meeting in front of the disciplinary board to discuss potential expulsion.”
Expulsion. With the way Daisy’s mom pressures her academically, an expulsion could be the thing that officially destroys their relationship. I blink away the sting in my eyes.
“She—it wasn’t her idea. It was my idea. They told me not to do the candles, but I insisted because of the aesthetic. I figured it would look the best on my feed.”
He shakes his head. “Nice try, Harper, but she already confessed, and I believe her. Daisy isn’t known to tell lies.”
He says it like he can’t be too sure about me.
“I’d like to know, though, why you all were using the candles. So far no one has wanted to explain. I could go by what other students report seeing through Daisy’s open door on their way out of the building, but I’d like to give one of you the chance to tell me yourselves.”
Everything in my body is warning me to keep my mouth shut. But glancing over at the cabinet again, I can’t ignore the giant elephant in the room between us, and it’s crushing me.
“We were trying to contact Fiona.”
The words are past my lips before I can stop them.
His mouth goes slack. “Come again?”
“Like a séance? We needed the candles because we used a spirit board to try to contact her. Missy needed closure.” I shrug. “I thought it was worth a shot.”
He nods slowly, like it’s taking him a second to process everything I just said.
“A séance.”
I nod.
He drums his fingers against the desk. “Interesting.”
I’m itchy like I revealed too much. But now that I’ve started, the words keep flowing. A dam has been broken, and I don’t know how to fix it. Even though I know that the last person I need to be telling all this to is him.
“I was actually doing some research on the history of the school for Dr. Rogers’s class, and I realized Fiona’s last name matches one of the names of the one-room schoolhouse that used to be on this land—the Beaumont Clark School, I know you’re familiar.
” I was reading the plaques about the school here in Biltmore Hall when he approached me on move-in day.
“So I was curious whether Fiona had any relation to the original families, because Missy told me that Fiona’s mom went here as well when she was a teenager, and that felt like a big coincidence, so I figured maybe if we contacted her ghost or whatever—which I know sounds silly—I could get more information about it and I could use that as part of my project. ”
I’m out of breath by the time I finally stop talking, and his face is all screwed up.
Shit, I think. I’m fucked.
But then he dissolves into a hearty laugh.
“That sure is one way to process your grief.” He wipes a tear from his eye. “And there’s no right way to do it.”
Maybe I should feel relieved by his reaction, but I don’t. There’s an ever-increasing thrum in my chest.
“You know what, I actually might be able to help you with that,” he says, more seriously this time. “I can appreciate your interest in the history of the school. I’m somewhat of an amateur historian myself.”
He scoots back, opening a drawer and pulling out something that makes the breath catch in my throat.
It’s the peculiar leather-bound portfolio from the heist.
“I was cleaning out my cabinet the other day, and I found this. I’d forgotten all about it, but after the tragic news of Fiona’s passing, it felt right to start my research back up again. In her honor.”
His voice shakes a little as he speaks, and guilt locks my jaw.
I’d spent all this time assuming the worst about him. About this school. When maybe there hasn’t been some bigger plot all along, maybe this really is just my cross to bear.
Me and the traitorous witches.
He unfolds the portfolio and angles it up so we can both see.
“I don’t know if your grandmother ever told you this, but your family is connected to the Beaumont Clark School as well.
Look—” He turns it to face me, and I raise my eyebrows like this is the first time I’m seeing it.
“Prior to the tragic fire that destroyed the schoolhouse, there were four local families that had been living here long before anyone else.
“As I’m sure you know, some Southern states didn’t tell their slaves they were freed until years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued.
This meant that the Underground Railroad was still operational, at least through these parts, for a long while after.
It’s my understanding that our little town was once a connection of stops on the Railroad, hidden deep in the woods far from the white man.
At least, of course, until the Biltmores came to town. ”
It’s uncomfortably validating to hear it all laid out like this, exactly as I’d pieced together on my own.
“My grandfather was one in a long line of patrolmen that established an early policing system here in Earnest. He often recounted fond memories of these families. But toward the time of the fire, there was racial unrest. It’s unfortunate how people back then just couldn’t seem to get along.
Either way, when the school burned down, I’m happy to say that the Biltmores—and by that time, the Matsoukases—paid the families quite handsomely for the land left behind. ”
This information is new. An uneasiness unfurls in my gut. I look more closely at the names as he speaks.
“However, due to the unrest, most of them picked up and left, though they seemed to have a way of coming back. And of course, when we established Black Mountain Academy, we made, and continue to make”—he gestures at me—“an effort to bring in the descendants of those who attended the Beaumont Clark School. Our own form of doling out reparations, I suppose.”
I chew on the inside of my lip, trying to reconcile what he’s telling me with what I read in the old articles. The women accused of witchcraft. He said there was racial unrest…
“So then what actually happened to the old school?” I ask, curious if he’s admitting that the white people were at fault.
“It burned down,” he repeats like he’s not sure why I’m asking.
“Yeah, I know. But how?”
His eyebrows pinch together, and he sighs.
“It’s funny because I’ve asked myself that same question.
I was taught that it was a lightning storm, but personally, I’ve wondered if it was my ancestors.
I can acknowledge that white people in the South have a horrible reputation of violent racism.
I’m afraid that I do think it’s possible someone set the school on fire. ”
His eyes don’t waver from mine as he speaks. It’s refreshing, someone finally being honest with me. Not holding back the ugly truth of the world.
“Maybe that’s why I feel such an obligation to the descendants of these families. Why I want to find them. Why I’ve wanted to offer their kids a spot in this school, even when I was just a board member and not the headmaster. I want to make amends however I can, though I know it’ll never be enough.
“Actually, I meant to ask you—every year on the anniversary of the fire, people from town gather at the chapel to pay our respects to the lives that were lost that night. Typically students and faculty head down into the Village for the evening so they don’t disturb the Night of Remembrance.
But this year is the centennial. I’ve been planning something special, and I would love for you to join us considering your personal connection to it. ”