Page 34 of Atlas of Unknowable Things

SEANCES, TABLE-TURNING, AND AUTOMATIC WRITING

—WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

I woke up somewhere in the woods inexplicably clutching The Book of Widows.

Had I taken it from the office and not realized it?

My hair was tangled with leaves and my forearms were caked with mud.

I wasn’t sure where I was, but in the distance, I could see the sky-blue glint of the lake, so, pushing myself up, I started in that direction.

On aching bones, I trudged back through the woods, and when I came out onto the main path, I determined by the color of the cloud cover and the stillness of insect activity that the day must be lingering somewhere near dawn.

Back in my cabana, I showered, changed, and then sat out in the back garden with a cup of strong coffee.

Was I losing my mind? It was certainly plausible I’d had some kind of break with reality, a hallucination brought on by that concoction of herbs, some of which either singly or in combination must have had psychotropic properties.

I knew this had to be true, and yet none of me wanted to believe it.

Even though I knew that Charles must have been a hallucination, I wanted to believe he was real just to have him back.

My head was still swimming and I had something like a nasty hangover, so I curled up on the couch and slept for a few more hours.

When I awoke again, I went in search of the others.

I needed to find out what was true and what I’d hallucinated.

I knew that I’d gone out to the island on the boat and that I’d drunk the tea, but beyond these facts, I wasn’t sure what was real and what wasn’t.

Surely Charles couldn’t have been real. He was back in New York, probably scamming some other idiot out of their research.

They were down in the apothecary garden. I could hear them laughing. I expected them to react when they saw me, but no one showed the slightest sign of interest in my presence, with the exception of a small wave from Finn.

“Hey, sleepyhead,” he said. “I tried knocking on your door earlier, but you must have been out cold. Rough night?”

I balked. “You’re joking, right?”

I looked around at the rest of them, hoping for someone to help me feel less crazy, but no one seemed even slightly perturbed. They were all acting like nothing had happened.

“What are we supposed to be joking about?” asked Aspen, slipping off her gardening gloves and tucking them into her back pocket.

“Last night,” I said, with eyebrows raised and a shoulder shrug as if to convey What the hell?

“What are you talking about?”

“What happened out in the woods.” They stared back at me with blank expressions.

“You have to be shitting me. Aspen gave us psychedelic mushrooms or ketamine or something. And you all told me you were alchemists or…” I tried to find the words, but my head was spinning, confusing everything I was trying to say.

“You said there was an evil in the woods. You told me that there was something awful out there.”

“It sounds like you had a hell of a dream there, kiddo,” said Dorian.

“It wasn’t a dream. I woke up in the woods, for god’s sake. Lexi, you have to remember. You were there with me.”

But Lexi looked away. There was a flush to her cheek and a sadness in her eye, and I knew then that I wasn’t crazy. It had all really happened. Only for some reason they were intent on lying to me about it.

Overwhelmed almost to the point of tears, I turned to go, meaning to return to the cabana, but instead abruptly shifted direction and headed down to the lake.

On the verge of a panic attack, I sat down on the cool pebbled beach and stared out at the water.

How was I supposed to understand what was happening to me if I had no outside source of stability?

The philosopher and critic Tzvetan Todorov defines the fantastic as the hesitation between a supernatural and a mundane explanation of an occurrence.

For example, in a work of fiction, if a woman in the woods sees a monster and turns out to be crazy, then that is realism.

If it turns out that there really is a monster in those woods, then that is horror.

But if one can make an argument for either to be true, then that woman occupies the space of the fantastic.

It was a space with which I was becoming abundantly, achingly familiar.

I hugged my knees tight to my chest, fighting back tears. I wanted to be held, to be told I was safe and loved and that everything would be okay. Instead, I was alone, and I had no idea whom to trust. I wiped away my tears and decided to go up to the scriptorium to think.

I was at a crossroads, I knew. Funny metaphor, crossroads.

Ancient cultures believed that the meeting place between two roads was a space between worlds, a place where you might have one foot in reality and another in the beyond.

Crossroads were where witches went to make deals with the devil.

I didn’t think I was in danger of making any deals with any devils, literal or metaphorical, but I did feel strongly that the choice I was about to make had the potential to take me in a direction that could change my life forever.

I couldn’t put my finger on the precise moment I’d begun to feel my grip on reality slip, but since coming to Hildegard, it was as though I was becoming someone I barely knew.

My dreams felt hallucinatory, almost prophetic.

I was experiencing sleep paralysis and waking up in places I couldn’t remember going.

And I’d started considering notions I’d once scoffed at.

In my darkest moments I’d half believed that werewolves and lake monsters might be real, I was vaguely convinced that the island was the site of a human sacrifice, and now I was hallucinating in the woods and losing time.

I wanted to find out what had really happened to Isabelle (and, of course, to her artifact), but at this point, was it worth it?

No, I decided. It wasn’t. Finding the relic would be great and all, but these people were playing with my head, and my life was beginning to feel wildly out of control.

I’d seen things I couldn’t explain and had experienced mental trajectories so far outside of my character that they were beginning to seriously worry me.

Getting a leg up on an academic publication wasn’t worth the disorientation and lack of agency I had begun to feel.

If this were a movie, I would be shouting at the main character to get out of there.

And indeed, nothing was stopping me. I kept feeling as though something was, but it wasn’t.

I was free to go. And that’s exactly what I decided to do.

I bought my ticket that night and then started packing.

Grabbing my suitcase, I threw it on the bed and started tossing in clothes.

I opened the desk drawer, grabbed the cards and the widows’ keys, and went to pack them as well—I’d return them if anyone asked—but one slipped out of the deck and landed on the floor.

I picked it up and was about to put it back in the deck when the image on it made me freeze.

It showed a cart traversing a steep mountain pass, and in the back, hoisted onto a hook, was a grisly rendering of a flayed animal.

I didn’t know if I believed in the accuracy of divination, but if there was ever a message from the universe, that was it.

The next day, I headed up to the house to let them know I’d be leaving. I found Dorian in his office sorting through some papers.

He stood up when he saw me, smiling brilliantly. “Looks like you’re feeling better.”

“Yeah,” I said, lingering in the doorway, fiddling with my hands. Why was this producing so much anxiety in me? I took a breath and noticed I was shaking. “But I have to head home.”

He didn’t seem to understand at first, but then his smile faded, and I felt a knot in my heart when I saw the sadness in his eyes. “Can I … can I ask why?”

“It’s my cousin,” I said, trying to look like I wasn’t lying. “Sort of a family emergency. There’s no way around it.”

He sat back down and looked at the papers he’d been examining. “I see.”

I walked over to him and put my hand on his shoulder, but he flinched at my touch.

“I want you to know that I really appreciate everything you’ve done for me. I just need to go back home.”

“Of course,” he said, his tone distant and cold. “Family always comes first. Do you want me to make the arrangements for you?”

“I booked my flight already.”

“Of course,” he said, still not meeting my eyes. “I wish we would have gotten to spend more time together, but you need to go where your heart calls you.”

That seemed like a strange turn of phrase. My heart?

“I really appreciated the fellowship opportunity,” I said, but he looked away.

“Yes, of course,” he said, ignoring me and turning a sheet of paper over. “I don’t mean to be rude, but if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”

“Yeah,” I said, stepping away awkwardly. “Of course.”

Confused, I walked back out into the hall. That was not how I’d expected him to behave.

I wasn’t sure if Dorian would inform the others of my impending departure, but later that day, I decided I should tell them myself.

I found them gathered in Aspen’s cabana sitting around a low coffee table drinking out of steaming mugs, and as soon as I walked in the room, I could tell I’d been a recent subject of discussion.

“We hear you’re off,” Finn said with a puckish grin.

“Yeah. Tomorrow afternoon. I just wanted to stop by and say it was great meeting you all.”

I’d expected some kind of pleasantries, but instead they just stared at me as if waiting for me to explain more.

It felt weirdly unsocialized. I looked at each of them, our eyes momentarily connecting, and behind those eyes I saw a singular, completely inexplicable emotion: fear.

I had the feeling they were looking at me like I was a wild animal capable of almost anything, and that collectively, they needed to keep me under control.

“Anyway,” I said, trying not to show how shaken I actually was by their response. “I just wanted to say goodbye because as I said, I’m leaving tomorrow.”

“How are you going to leave?” Lexi asked.

That sounded vaguely threatening. My arm muscles involuntarily tensed in response.

“I’ve booked my transportation.” This was only partially true. I wasn’t able to book a ride from the college, so I’d arranged to get picked up in Petit Rouen.

“We’ll be sorry to see you go,” said Lexi, overcome with emotion, which took me by surprise, because as far as I could tell, she didn’t even like me.

But if Lexi seemed sad about my leaving, Finn and Aspen seemed almost panicked.

“It would be in everyone’s best interest if you stayed for the entirety of the summer,” Aspen said, almost as if she were repeating a scripted line of dialogue.

“I don’t think that’s going to be possible,” I said, nearly beside myself with how weird it was all getting. And without saying another word, I turned and made for the door, giving a perfunctory wave as I departed.

I stayed in my cabana after that. Whatever doubts I’d had about leaving had been more than cleared away by the response I’d gotten.

I still needed to figure out how to get to Petit Rouen, but no doubt Dorian could take me.

He seemed annoyed, but I was pretty sure he would still give me a ride to the village.