Chapter Nineteen All ways do lie open
CHAPTER NINETEEN
All ways do lie open
KASEM LED US FROM THE courtyard to two buildings over, where the School of Business was located. Covered in wood dust and recovering from a near-death encounter, the two of us were a sore sight.
He stayed close, leading us through the crowded halls, holding my wrist at times when we nearly separated in the shuffle between classes.
Some of his peers in the Graduate Department greeted us as we made our way down the hallway of the fourth floor.
They looked happy to see him, stopping him to ask about the stabbing and how he’d recovered.
One of them was a girl named Lena, captain of the fencing club, and she was accompanied by her tennis player boyfriend, Chauncey.
From what I could pick up, he was a future stockbroker, and Lena a likely candidate to join an energy efficiency NGO.
“We thought we’d lost you, Saint James,” she said, kissing Kasem on the cheek and hugging him. “Where were you all summer? In the hospital?”
Kasem laughed, gently moving her off him and shooting a regretful smile to Chauncey.
“I was at our summerhouse, recovering there. I wasn’t sure if I’d come back this semester. But we only have a few months left until graduation, and I can’t let you guys walk without me.”
“Good to have you back, man,” Chauncey said. He gave Kasem and me a once-over. “But maybe slow down on those art electives? I thought they retired woodshop after what happened last year.”
I raised an eyebrow, but Kasem brushed away the comment.
“Yeah, I only have a few electives left this year.”
Kasem briefly introduced me and we parted ways, but not before stopping at a vending machine.
When finally we arrived at a terrace that was otherwise empty except for a few students chatting over their class break, Kasem pulled out a chair for me, placing the three bags of chips and two water bottles he’d bought at the center of our table.
“So, who’s Lena?”
“An ex,” Kasem said.
“You broke up with her, I’m guessing?”
“She cheated on me with Chauncey.”
I laughed. I guess I’d been wrong in assuming he and Honey had been a thing. “So she’s the one you wanted to buy my dress for?”
“My heartbreak persists and yet you mock it,” he said, deadpan. “And no, it wasn’t for her. I was buying time to keep you from throwing me out.”
I fidgeted with my hair, tucking a stray curl behind my ear.
“I was pretty hostile,” I admitted. “But I’m here now. We both are. So, where do we start?”
The mood shifted as both of us grew pensive, the moments in the woodshop fresh on our minds.
“What are your theories about your curse and how to break it? Has it always been like this, or were things getting worse? Is that why you came to find me at Gus’s?”
“The accidents have always been here at Westfield,” he said. “But, these past few months, as my twenty-first birthday has gotten closer, the situation has been deteriorating. That’s why the stabbing off campus was—unexpected.”
“But you were with a bodyguard that day,” I said.
“It was suggested that I start traveling with one. But Liam was hired by the board of trustees, not me. So even if I wanted to get information from him about that night, I doubt it would be of much help, especially if it’s as you claim, and Alaster orchestrated the attack.
” Kasem paused, picking up a bag of chips and squinting at the ingredients list. “The amount of salt in this is outrageous.”
“It’s vending machine food,” I said, laughing. “What do you expect? There will probably be three chips in there, a handful of crumbs, and nitrogen gas.”
Kasem opened the bag.
“There are four. Only half a handful of crumbs, and, yup, I think that’s nitrogen.”
I held back my laughter as we split the chips, Kasem leaving the bulk of the contents to me.
He had a sense of humor, which I liked. Being so wealthy and removed from normal society, it was probably inevitable that he was somewhat out of touch.
And as much as I’d written him off as pompous and elitist, talking with him like this, I realized he was a bit more grounded than I’d initially taken him for—even if he was just discovering the highs and lows of vending machine chips.
“So you thought you’d be safe at Center City Mall, away from campus,” I said. “But you weren’t. So maybe it wasn’t the curse that night? Maybe it was just Pete and Jay and whoever the other attacker was.”
He looked doubtful. “Maybe,” he said. “The curse is tethered to them even when they’re not at Westfield, though, so they probably thought they could fulfill their debt on their own off campus.”
By now, I’d finished the first two bags of chips, mostly by myself, and was on to the third one.
Kasem watched me, a light of amusement in his eyes as his gaze traveled to my lips. He tapped the corner of his mouth, and it occurred to me why he’d actually been staring.
“I’m a nervous eater. Also, they’re good,” I said, wiping away salt and potato bits from my mouth, suddenly shy. A hint of his smile remained. “What else do you remember from that night?”
Kasem cleared his throat.
“Not a lot,” he admitted. “I was barely there after Pete and Jay jumped me. Honey said I was unconscious when the paramedics came, and I spent most of the summer recovering from my injuries. But I remember you, being with you, hearing your voice. I had this sinking sensation that I wasn’t going to make it, and suddenly you were there and something was anchoring me there too. ”
Kasem took a sip of his drink, but his eyes were downcast, his knuckles drawn tightly as he clutched the bottle, his long lashes shrouding his full gaze from my view.
“My knowledge of the curse is pretty anecdotal. My father, the last Saint James from our side to die from it, passed when I was barely an infant. What he knew, he told my mother and your Jojo, and I learned through osmosis: One of Westfield’s founders was our ancestor Kent Saint James.
You know, the statue you saw in the maze.
But none of the men in our family live past our twenty-first birthdays to inherit the estate, and the ones who don’t die young survive because they’ve withdrawn their claim to the inheritance.
There’s a ritual you can do that allows for it, but like anything with the curse, it comes with a price. ”
“Is that what Jojo did?” I asked. “Is that why the curse didn’t kill him?”
Kasem nodded. “It means the next in line gets the estate and the curse that comes with it. But the board of trustees runs the estate and the conservatorship that manages our inheritance, so our side of the family and Alaster’s are pretty much just figureheads that they need around because Westfield was founded by our families.
“The board has added a few different clauses in the conservatorship over the decades. A few years ago, they added another stipulation—in addition to being a Westfield undergraduate, future heirs also must complete its graduate program. Random new rules like that make it harder for us to inherit Westfield. But really, it boils down to the original will from Westfield’s founder: Whoever among our side of the family is to inherit Westfield must be of age—twenty-one years old—and must have studied within its halls.
“My father didn’t want to do the ritual of disinheritance.
He thought he could survive the curse and inherit Westfield so my brother and I wouldn’t have to experience a life counting down the years until it took us.
He had a heart attack on the midnight before his twenty-first birthday, when he was a student here.
They said he saw something on campus, something that made a young, healthy man die then and there.
Ojore was four or five, I think. I don’t think he remembers much about Dad either, but he got to know him more than I did. ”
“I’m sorry,” I said, reaching for him and stopping myself. He was telling me his past voluntarily. I didn’t want to risk my powers flaring up. But Kasem traced the back of my hand with his fingers, noticing how I’d wanted to comfort him, needing it in some way.
I leaned toward him, letting our knees touch and my shoes rest against his.
“It’s all right,” he continued. “The Board wouldn’t have wanted him to inherit Westfield.
He and our mother had us young—too young.
And despite how much the Board tried to stop them from getting married and legally passing on the estate to me and Jojo, they had a shotgun wedding.
Alaster’s father was my dad’s best man.”
“So the two sides of your family were close at one point.”
“I mean, as close as they could be with the Board pitting us against each other. Alaster didn’t always use to be like this either.
He loved teaching, had a fiancée and everything.
He was planning on leaving Westfield, but the Board and the president wanted him to take over when his dad retires, so he was forced back here, given the tenure job, and has slowly become—well, what he is now.
But of course, the Board found a way to protect Westfield’s image and use his secrets against him.
Everyone connected to my family knows about the curse, including them. ”
“Then why don’t you do the ritual?” I asked. “You’d survive the curse. You wouldn’t have to die because of it.”
But even as I asked the question, the answer came to me.
Kasem and Jojo had been the last of their side of the Saint James line. With Jojo having renounced his claim to Westfield, and Kasem’s looming death, that meant that all of Kent’s descendants would be gone. The estate would officially go to Alaster and his family.
Without a curse or any legal recourse keeping them from the inheritance, Westfield University and all its endowments would be theirs.
“My birthday is the seventh of December. Let’s bide our time until then and figure out how to unbind our lifelines—then maybe your migraines and my sleep paralysis will stop.
And, if I survive my fated death day, then the curse will be broken.
I’ll inherit Westfield, and the accidents plaguing our university will end.
“Besides,” Kasem added, answering my question about the ritual. “I’m not like my brother. I’m not afraid of the curse or of dying because of it. I have nothing to lose.”