Back then, when I was a young woman, there were still witches. That was what Nana Alba used to say when she told Minerva bedtime stories; it was the preamble that led into a realm of shadows and mysteries.
Shortly after Minerva first arrived at Stoneridge, she'd looked toward the thick mass of trees that constituted Briar's Commons and heard a shrill cry that sounded like an infant's wail. For a moment she'd shivered in fear, thinking of her great-grandmother's tales of witches who drank the blood of the innocent on moonless nights. But it had been only a peacock.
She was used to the birds now, the gray peahens and the beautiful males with their dazzling displays of iridescent feathers. They’d sun themselves on the lawn in front of Ledge House and sometimes they’d even sit on the porch of the old mansion. The story went that when the college acquired the building and turned it into a dorm, the peacocks had been part of the deal. A superstitious old dean reckoned they were lucky. Thus it had become tradition to keep a few of them by the dean’s house, though the birds liked to drift toward other buildings and roamed the campus with impunity.
Now as she stood near the window, she heard the same cry. She couldn’t see where the peacock was stationed. It was likely somewhere by the entrance, watching the last of the students make their exodus from Ledge House.
Her friends had told her she’d never get used to the cold and the snow of New England, hailing as she did from the temperate climate of Mexico City, but she’d handled the winter without misfortune. It was the summer that made her anxious.
The campus was closing for the season. Within twenty-four hours all the dorms and facilities would stand silent and still, with a few resident directors like herself left to oversee the buildings. The library would be open, albeit with reduced hours, serving the students—mostly grad students—who would not fly or drive home for the summer.
The campus by the sea, with its greenery and its beautiful Victorian houses, with the sun shining and the ducks swimming placidly in the lovely ponds, ought to have inspired joy and relaxation. But everything irritated her. The quiet of the summer was the perfect chance to work on her thesis, if she’d had anything to write about.
Her progress had stalled. She’d done little in the winter and even less in the spring. Her adviser would expect a certain number of pages come fall. Minerva doubted she’d be able to produce much; her outline was a jumble of nonsense.
She couldn’t afford to be anything except excellent. Her tuition at Stoneridge College was covered courtesy of a scholarship for academic high achievers. Her room and board were paid through her work in the language lab, helping Mr. Marshall with the flock of bored undergrads who needed a second-language course to graduate, and supplemented with her job as a resident director.
She’d always been able to juggle dozens of responsibilities without a hitch. Back in Mexico City, when she was in secondary school, she helped take care of Nana Alba. She’d come home, peel off her school uniform and change into comfy clothes, make dinner, give the old lady her medications, then complete her homework while keeping an eye on her. Great-Grandmother Alba died at the ripe old age of a hundred and one, and everyone said a nurse couldn’t have done a better job taking care of her.