“You do?” I’m so grateful for that news that, obnoxious as he’s been, I’m tempted to throw my arms around his neck. But he’s already turned on his heel and taken off down the path away from me. The path descends steeply now and I have to hurry to keep up with his long strides. The last thing I want is to be left alone in the dark again. It’s only when I catch up to him that I think of a question.
“Hey, why were you following me anyway?”
He turns and stares at me, his eyes flashing like cat’s eyes. “My God, you intellectuals are all alike. You think the sun rises and sets on you. I wasn’t following you. I was taking a short cut through the woods to keep an eye on that.” He jabs his finger in the air toward an opening in the trees. When I look in the direction he’s pointing, I see why his eyes are flashing. We’ve come out in the apple orchard. The stunted, misshapen trees look even more like gnomes in the strangely glowing fog that surrounds them. Above the field the copper beech looms like a giant marshaling his troops together. I can see it clearly silhouetted against the night sky because it’s surrounded by flames.
“What in the world—?”
“It’s the First Night bonfire. Year after year I tell the dean it’s dangerous, but she says it’s tradition.” He snorts the word and shakes his head. Etched against the fire, his high forehead, crooked nose, and strong jaw look like the features of a Roman general struck on a bronze coin. His eyes, turned gold in the firelight, are set in a determined expression as we approach the circle on the hill, where dark shapes sway before the lurid orange and red flames in the same rhythm as the pulse of the fire.
As we get nearer, I strafe the crowd for Sally but don’t see her. I can hear the roar and crackle of the burning wood and something else—a whispering that seems to be coming out of the fire itself, the way water caught in wood steams and hisses as it escapes. But it’s not the fire, it’s the circle of fire worshippers chanting something as they dance around it—the girls in the white dresses I saw them trying on earlier, the boys in loose white shirts over their jeans. Although I know they’re the same teenagers I saw lounging around the lawn earlier today, there’s something disturbingly pagan about the scene.
“What in the world are they supposed to be celebrating?”
“Beats me. One of the students tried to explain it to me last year. It has something to do with the changing season and ancient fertility rites.”
“Fertility rites?” I squawk, imagining Sally rolling around in the hay with some gangly teenaged boy. I still can’t make out her face in the ring of figures surrounding the fire. They all look alike in the glow of the flames, eyes wide and mouths open in some song, the words of which I can’t make out.
“Well, it’s not as bad as the one they have in May,” Reade says. “Beltane, they call that one. Then there’s a kind of marriage ceremony between the fertility goddess and what they call the corn god. Here they just celebrate the departure of the summer goddess and the beginning of the autumn goddess’s reign … or some such nonsense.”
It’s hard to tell in the fitful light from the fire, but the sheriff appears to be blushing. I wonder what he’s embarrassed about: the nature of this high school spectacle or how much he actually knows about it. I look away from him to the circle around the fire.
We’re close enough now that the anonymous figures have begun to acquire distinguishing features. I see that there are some teachers here as well, including the teacher who I saw in the reading room, Ms. Drake. The figures that stand out are the two girls sitting on thrones made out of hay on opposite sides of the fire. One is blond Isabel in a long flowing white dress and with a crown of flowers on her head. The other is petite, dark-haired Chloe, in a dress identical to Isabel’s but wearing a crown of russet leaves and acorns.
“It looks like they’re both being honored,” I say, remembering the rivalry between the girls. Then, recalling Chloe’s vow of vengeance against Isabel, I ask, “They don’t have to duke it out to see who gets to be goddess, do they?”
“Duke it out?” Sheriff Reade asks, cocking one eyebrow up. “No, it’s a purely symbolic sacrifice, though it does tend to get a little frisky. Last year Autumn pulled out a handful of Summer’s hair. I had no idea girls could be so mean.”
“Tell me about it. Last year after my husband died a girl in Sally’s class posted a rumor on Facebook that he had killed himself.”
“That’s horrible…. I’m sorry to hear about your husband. Did he … ?”
“It was a heart attack,” I say briskly, both because I don’t feel up to hearing the sheriff’s awkward attempts at sympathy and because I’ve finally spotted Sally. “Excuse me a second.”
Sally is sitting behind a gangly boy with lank dark hair falling over his eyes. She’s huddled behind his long, gawkily folded legs as if she were trying to melt into the shadows outside the circle.
As Reade speaks to the group—an address that manages to combine tips on fire safety, underage drinking penalties, and the New York State laws on controlled substances—I make my way around the perimeter of the circle until I’ve reached Sally. I crouch down next to her.
“Having fun?” I ask.
She rolls her eyes at me, but I notice there’s a pink flush in her cheeks I haven’t seen in a while. “I thought you wanted me to make new friends here, so when Clyde came and asked me to come out to the bonfire I knew you wouldn’t mind.”
“Clyde Bollinger,” the boy says extending a hand to shake mine. I don’t know whether to be impressed by his manners or suspicious of his desire to ingratiate himself with me, but I take his hand. “I’m in your folklore class, Ms. Rosenthal. I hope it’s okay that Sally’s here. I didn’t want her to miss the first festival of the school year, so I came by Fleur-de-Lis to invite you both. Did you find the note we left on Sally’s laptop?”
So the note was hidden in plain sight behind the Orion Nebula. Leave it to a teenager to find some perfectly obvious-to-them place to leave a note where no parent would ever think of looking.
“No, but I ran into Sheriff Reade in the woods and he said you’d probably be here.”
Sally and her new friend Clyde exchange a look, the meaning of which is unclear to me. She’s known this boy for a couple of hours at best and already they’re trading tacit signals like an old married couple.
“I hope you’ll let Sally stay, Ms. Rosenthal. First Night is the traditional beginning of the school year and sort of the unofficial initiation into Arcadia. She’ll really feel more a part of the community if she stays. You’re welcome, too, of course.” He finishes with such a charming smile that I almost miss the half-heartedness of the invitation. But it would be hard to miss the look of alarm in Sally’s eyes. She certainly doesn’t want her mother hanging out with her new friends.
“Well, it’s just that Sally doesn’t know her way around the campus yet—”
“I’ll walk her back,” Clyde offers. The ghost of a smile flits across Sally’s face, but then she purses her lips and glares at me, daring me to turn down Clyde’s perfectly polite and reasonable offer. We haven’t been here for a full day yet and already Sally’s figured out that it’s going to be tough for me to curtail her freedom on this campus.
“That’s very nice of you, Clyde,” I say. And then, turning to Sally. “Better make it by eleven. Classes start early tomorrow and you wouldn’t want to keep Clyde up late.”
Sally opens her mouth to object, but Clyde answers for her. “Sure thing. This breaks up pretty soon anyway. I’ll make sure that Sally’s home by eleven.”
“Great,” I say, getting to my feet. I’ve made my point, but clearly I’ve also been dismissed. I move from the circle, instantly feeling the chill of the night away from the warmth of the fire. I turn to go—and find the police officer standing right behind me.
“I see you found your daughter,” he says, nodding toward Sally, who’s laughing at something that Clyde is saying to her. “Everything okay?”
“Everything’s fine.” I s
tart to walk away from the bonfire. The last thing I want is for Sally to think I’m talking to a police officer about her. The worst scene we had last year occurred after I called the police when she didn’t come home one night. “It was a misunderstanding. I just didn’t see the note she left. I’m going to go back now. She’ll be all right here … won’t she?”
He shrugs—not exactly the gesture of reassurance I was looking for. “Probably. The whole thing’s pretty harmless … usually. I’m going to stay to make sure the bonfire’s put out after they’re done. If you’d like to keep me company …”
I look from him to the bonfire to see if Sally is watching me, but she’s completely absorbed in Chloe, who’s holding up some kind of doll crudely made of corn sheaves and shaking it over her head.
“She won’t even know you’re here,” Sheriff Reade says, guessing my concern. “I’ve got the perfect spot.” He points to a bench in front of Beech Hall, partly hidden in the shadow of the beech tree.
“Sure,” I say, thinking that a cold bench seems more desirable than the empty cottage waiting for me.
When we’re seated he digs in the pocket of his jacket and produces a thermos. “Dymphna’s tea,” he says, pouring some steaming liquid into the plastic thermos cup. I accept it gratefully. It’s hard to believe Sally and I were in the middle of a sweltering Long Island summer just this morning; it must be fifty degrees here, which doesn’t bode well for the coming winter. I shiver at the thought and take a long swallow of the tea. It has the same hint of spices—clove? cinnamon?—I’d noticed in the tea I had in the dean’s office.
“I’m curious to see the festival. I met the two girls who are playing Summer and Autumn earlier. They didn’t seem exactly friendly.”
Sheriff Reade laughs. “That’s the understatement of the year. Dymphna tells me they’ve been at each other’s throats since they got back to campus last week. The girls chosen to play the two goddesses are always the ones with the highest averages. So I guess it’s no wonder they’re competitive.”
“I thought the whole idea of Arcadia was that everybody was supposed to collaborate and support one another, especially the women.”
He gives me a long measuring look. “Weren’t you the one just telling me how mean girls can be?”
“Yes.” I sigh, keeping my eyes on the bonfire so the sheriff won’t see the pain in my eyes. “Only I’d hoped things would be different here.” As soon as I’ve said it I realize how much I’d been hoping that everything would be different here. That coming here would be a truly new start for Sally and me. Only now do I realize how foolish a hope that was. I look back at Sheriff Reade and catch him staring at me. He looks away, no doubt embarrassed by the emotion in my voice, and points to the bonfire.
“Look, Isabel’s going to make a speech.”
Getting to my feet for a better view, I see that the students have also all risen to their feet. Isabel Cheney stands up on her throne of hay. She holds in her hand another one of the dolls made out of corn sheaves, which she shakes like a rattle. In response the others in the circle hold up their own corn dolls and shake them at the fire.
“My subjects,” Isabel says, her clear voice ringing through the rowdy crowd. “I have been honored to be your leader since May Day. Before I came to Arcadia all I ever thought about was how I could do better than everybody else.” Mock expressions of surprise come from the crowd. Isabel smiles. “But since I’ve been here I’ve learned that there’s more to life than being on top—and before you say anything, Justin Clay”—she points to a handsome red-haired boy who has his mouth open to speak—“that’s not the kind of top I mean.”
The crowd laughs, but I notice that Ms. Drake, who’s standing on the edge of the crowd, has pursed her mouth in disapproval. “As part of my responsibilities as summer goddess I researched the history of the Arcadia School. I learned that the women who founded the school wanted to create a place where women would be free of domestic responsibilities so they could have the time and energy to pursue their creative goals. But I also found out that they weren’t any more free of everday rivalries and jealousies than we are.”
I notice that Isabel is no longer looking into the faces of the students around her. She’s looking over their heads toward Beech Hall. I follow her gaze to Dean St. Clare’s window. It takes me a moment to make out a figure standing in the darkened office beside an open window.
“It looks like the dean is watching the festivities, too,” I remark to Sheriff Reade.
“She’s always watching,” he replies.
I shiver and turn back to Isabel, who I now realize is addressing the dean as well as the students.
“I discovered a lot of things about the women who founded this school that weren’t entirely admirable, but in spite of the mistakes they made the school survived, giving future women—and men, now that the school is co-ed—Thank God!” Isabel pauses a beat for the laughter that follows and I feel sure she’s timed the crowd’s responses into her speech. “Giving us all a chance to discover our strengths and talents as well as our limitations and weaknesses. And that’s really the important thing. Coming to Arcadia has been the best thing that ever happened to me. The friends I’ve made here are like my family. This is my last year here and I felt sad about that because there are times I think that these years will turn out to have been the best of my life. I’m afraid sometimes that nothing will ever be as good.”
She stops for a moment, her voice cracking with emotion, and a silence falls on the revelers. A melancholy seems to have pierced their wildness, as if they have all glimpsed the sad truth of youth: that this night and nights like it might indeed be the happiest moments of their lives.
Callum Reade hands me a handkerchief and I realize to my great embarrassment that my face is wet with tears. Isabel, though, has managed to shake off her melancholy.
“So I say, if these are the best times of our lives, then let’s be the best that we can and leave regrets behind us. And speaking of leaving things behind us, if you think you’re going to sacrifice me … well, you’d better move fast!”
Isabel leaps off the hay throne and bounds past the revelers, who shriek with surprise. She pauses at the crest of the hill and turns back to the crowd. She holds her arms wide, the sleeves of her white dress billowing in the wind. The image reminds me of the glimpse of white I saw in the woods on the path to my cottage. A girl in a white dress—tall like Isabel. Had it been Isabel? But what would she have been doing near my cottage? The question is driven from my mind when Isabel leans backward and disappears over the edge of the hill.
I jump to my feet, sure the poor girl has fallen to her death, as a dozen or so of the students surge over the hill. When I reach the top of the hill I see Isabel sprinting across the apple orchard. She disappears behind one of the bent and crooked trees. The students stream down the hill and fan out into the orchard, their shapes soon melting into the twisted shadows of the trees.
“What are they doing?” I ask Callum Reade when he reaches my side.
“A bunch of them are supposed to escort Isabel to the edge of campus to ensure that the spirit of the summer goddess isn’t angry she’s been sacrificed. There’s Chloe, leading the others, but it looks like Isabel’s gotten a good head start on the rest of them, so hopefully there won’t be any hair-pulling incidents.” He turns toward the bonfire, where many of the students are still gathered. They’re throwing the little figures made of corn onto the fire.
“That’s another part of the tradition,” Sheriff Reade says. “You’re supposed to throw out all your bad habits and regrets from the last year and wish for what you want this year.”
I’m glad to see that Sally is part of this crowd and not the group chasing Isabel in the orchard. I watch her as she tilts her head up and squeezes her eyes tight just like she used to when she blew out her birthday candles or threw a penny into a fountain. Then she cocks her arm—exactly as Jude taught her to for softball—and throws the corn doll into the ve
ry heart of the fire. I think I know what she’s wishing for, but it’s the one wish no one can ever grant her: for time to go backward and restore her old life.
As soon as the sacrifice of the corn dollies is over I leave the bonfire, eager to make it back to the cottage before Sally and Clyde. Sheriff Reade offers to walk me back, insisting he’s going that way anyway to patrol the woods for bonfire stragglers. “Although they usually stay out of the woods.”
“Really? I’d have thought it would be a popular spot for clandestine activities.”
He smiles—a sly smile that makes him look devilish. “This generation tends to prefer their clandestine activities indoors. Certainly not in a haunted wood.”
“Haunted?”
“According to local legend,” he says. “This is one of the oldest tracks of virgin forest in the state. The Dutch wouldn’t cut down the trees because they thought it was inhabited by wood elves and moss maidens. When I was growing up, boys would dare one another to spend the night in these woods. They said the wittewieven would eat you alive.”
“The wittewieven?”
“The white woman. It’s an old Dutch myth, from the first settlers who explored the clove. They thought they saw a ghostly white woman in the mist from the falls. It’s mixed up with a story about a woman from Kingston who died in the clove. Just something kids used to scare each other witless…. anyway … here we are. Will you be all right on your own or do you want me to walk you to your door?” I don’t relish the idea of going on by myself even though I can see the lights of my cottage, but when I see the sheriff’s teasing smile I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of thinking he’s scared me with the local folklore.
“I’ll be fine. I don’t think the white woman will get me between here and my front door.” I mean it to be a joke, but then I recall that I glimpsed a woman in white earlier tonight. Or I thought I did. I almost ask him to escort me to the door, but he’s already saluting me with his flashlight and turning up the path that leads to the ridge. As soon as he’s gone, I realize I never did retrieve my flashlight when it fell earlier tonight, and now I’m alone in the dark. I fix my eyes on the lighted windows of the cottage and walk toward them, ignoring the sounds of the trees creaking behind me and trying not to think of white women and changelings and other things that inhabit the trees of folklore. Only when I get to my door do I risk turning around … and catch my breath at the sight of slim white shapes swaying in the woods. But then I see it’s only a stand of white birches among the pines.