Page 57 of The Missing Pages
The cold chill of impending winter had arrived on campus, and Violet couldn’t wait to get home for Thanksgiving and curl up into her childhood bed for a few days and relax.
Since her last conversation with Madeline, she’d started to think more and more about the mysterious second key. It had to belong to something.
“It sounds crazy,” she told Theo when she ran into him next. “But you were there and witnessed it too. Harry said it has to do with love.”
“I was there. But I’m not quite as convinced about all the rest.”
“Meet me there again tonight, then,” she insisted. “I’ll bring the board. I want to ask another question and see if he answers. I have to figure out if he’s really trying to communicate with me.”
“All right,” Theo nodded. “I’d be lying if I didn’t admit I’m curious. I told you that my mother believes in all this kind of stuff. Her psychic even predicted I’d get into Harvard.”
“Really?” Violet chuckled.
“Yeah, but with my dad and grandfather both having gone here, is it really all that impressive to be able to predict that?”
Violet nodded. “It’s still pretty cool that your mom’s open to it.”
“I guess. My mom definitely swears she’s the real deal,” he said emphatically. “So what time do you want to meet?”
“How about eight o’clock. Same place in the stacks.”
“Sounds good,” he said as he hoisted his backpack onto his shoulders and headed off to class.
Thanksgiving was only a week away, and while nearly the whole campus was gearing up for the Harvard–Yale game over the weekend, Violet’s mind was elsewhere.
She still had a few assignments to finish and a paper to write for her Anglo-Saxon Poetry and Elegies class, but meeting Theo in the library, a place where they could soon easily get back to finishing her work, didn’t strike her as a preposterous idea.
Though many people would think trying to communicate with Harry Elkins Widener in the bottom of the stacks certainly was.
“Do you want to grab an early dinner tonight?” Sylvia caught her just as she was leaving Emerson Hall. “I think I need to carbo load before I hit the books.”
“Our traditional finals menu? Mashed potatoes followed by ice cream?” Violet grinned.
“Of course! Just like freshman year.”
“Sounds good. I’ll head over to Widener to study afterward.”
“The school should just set up a bed over there for you. You spend more time there than anywhere else these days,” she said, laughing.
Sylvia eyed her from the side. “Come on, I was just joking with you, Vi. You know I don’t believe all that nonsense that Jenny and Lara are spreading—that you’re hearing the ghost of Harry Widener in your head or that you’re the book slasher.”
Violet stopped in her tracks. “Wait, they actually said that to people?”
“I don’t think anyone is taking what they said seriously. Honestly, Jen is still upset about being embarrassed by the water pipe bursting on her at the Owl party. If you ask me, she was just trying to divert all that unwanted attention away from herself onto you.”
“Just great.” Violet sucked in her breath. “That’s just what I need. My roommates whispering behind my back.”
She barely spoke to Sylvia over their mashed potatoes, and when Sylvia went up to scoop out her ice cream, Violet didn’t follow. She’d lost her appetite completely by now.
“Please don’t be mad at me, Vi.”
“I’m not mad at you. I just hate living with the two of them.”
Syl looked down at her bowl of chocolate ice cream, resting her spoon on the edge. A vague look of discomfort washed over her face.
“I didn’t imagine it would be like this, either. I’m so sorry. They can be real jerks.”
Violet nodded. “They sure can.”
“If they start spreading rumors like that, I could lose my job.” Her face whitened. “And that’s the only thing that makes me happy here since Hugo died.”
“You’re not going to lose your job. No one is going to take gossip as fact at Harvard. You know that.”
“Are you kidding me? And if they do fire me, Syl, I’m not going to get over that.”