hurtful things. Just like the darkness in Meakin drove him to attempt suicide.”
“You really think he tried to kill himself?”
She flicked at an invisible speck from her blouse. “Let me put it this way. The scar I saw on his wrist wasn’t exactly a scratch. It was thick, raised, raw and ugly. The kind you get from a deep gash. I don’t blame him for trying to keep that thing covered.”
“Did you know him very well when you were at Emerson?”
“Not really. We had a few classes together, but we didn’t socialize.” She was growing impatient again. “Why all the questions about Daniel Meakin? I thought you wanted to talk about Afton.”
“I do. Whatever you can tell me.”
She shrugged. “I guess the thing that stands out most in my memory about that time is how scared we all were when the body was discovered.”
“We?”
“My little group of friends. Everyone I knew had partied in that cemetery at one time or another. It was a rite of passage at Emerson. To hear that a girl had been killed there was very upsetting.”
“Did you know Afton?”
“Only by reputation. She was a rich, spoiled party girl who, until she was murdered, led a fairly charmed life.”
I wasn’t altogether certain the irony was intentional. It was hard to tell with Temple. “Where did you meet her? She wasn’t a student at Emerson, was she?”
“Every hotshot on campus dated her. Or so they claimed.”
“Was there much talk after the murder about her involvement with a member of the Order of the Coffin and the Claw?”
“Some.”
“Did you know any of the Claws?”
“I may have, but I wouldn’t have known it.”
“No one ever let anything slip?”
“About the Claws? Never.”
“But Emerson is such a small campus. You must have had your suspicions.”
“There was always speculation. Among the girls I knew, it would have been considered quite a coup to sleep with a Claw and then out him. Or her.”
“Did you ever hear any rumors about occult activity?”
“Nobody paid any attention to that stuff.”
I perked up. “So there was talk.”
“All those secret initiations, midnight orgies, Dionysian rituals—nothing more than a bunch of frat boys’ wet dreams.”
“You never went to any of them?”
She frowned. “Why do I get the feeling you’re leading up to something?”
I hesitated as the waiter brought her a fresh drink. “It did occur to me that you might have some inside knowledge about the Claws.”
“I already told you I didn’t.”
“I know, but the other night at dinner, you mentioned that you and Camille were roommates for a time when you were juniors. You said you were thrown together by circumstances. And I read recently that the Order’s bylaws were changed to include women. Two from every junior class. So I just thought—”
“That I’m a Claw?” She gave a low chuckle. “Now that would be an unexpected twist, wouldn’t it? Especially if I’d dated Afton.”
That stopped me cold. An involvement with Afton Delacourt had never even occurred to me.
“Before you ask, no,” she said flatly.
“I wasn’t going to ask. And I don’t think your being a Claw is so far-fetched. I imagine you were just what they looked for in a recruit—smart, ambitious, attractive.”
“And poor. I was at Emerson on a full scholarship. Big black mark against me.” She stirred her drink. “Not that it mattered. I was never much of a joiner or a follower and I detest ceremony and ritual. Probably why I’m a lapsed Catholic.”
Not exactly an outright denial, I noted.
“Speaking of ceremony and ritual, have you ever heard of something called an egregore?”
“An egre-who?”
“An egregore. A thoughtform. A physical manifestation of collective thought. Some secret societies create them through ceremony and ritual.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Where are you getting all this stuff?”
“I saw Rupert Shaw today.”
“Aha! Now it’s all starting to make sense.”
“What is?”
“You. These questions.”
I shrugged.
“Look, I’ve known Rupert for years. He was a favorite professor of mine at Emerson and I consider him one of the last true Southern gentlemen. But let’s face it. His knapsack’s been short a few biscuits for years.”
“He seems perfectly fine to me.”
She smiled. “That’s one of his talents. He’s so sweet and down-to-earth and
I didn’t need Rupert Shaw to make me watch out for bogeymen.
“He’s been unstable for a long time,” she said. “I’m sure that’s why he was asked to leave Emerson.”
“I thought you said he was fired because of unfounded rumors.”
“The rumors may have been unfounded and I do believe somebody deliberately set out to ruin his reputation, but none of that stuff would have had legs if not for his previous behavior.”
“By previous behavior, you mean the séances he conducted with some of his students?”
“It wasn’t just the séances.” She glanced away, her expression troubled. “He had an obsessive interest in death. I always wondered if it had something to do with his wife passing. She was sick for a long time. Years, I think. Maybe the agony of watching her suffer and the guilt of waiting for her to die unhinged him somehow. I don’t know. As I said, he was one of my favorite professors, but I’m not surprised he’s taken up permanent residence in Crazy Town. Aka, his ridiculous institute.”
“I’ve spent a lot of time with Dr. Shaw and except for an occasional memory lapse he seems perfectly lucid and very in the moment,” I said. “
“That’s just it. Even someone truly sick can hold it together for a while.” Her smile turned hard. “Then one night you wake up and find them coming at you with a pair of scissors.”
That night I tucked Essie’s amulet underneath my pillow again. I had no idea if the pouch contained anything more than dirt and cinnamon—a root doctor’s placebo—but I felt better having it nearby.
Propping myself against the headboard, I opened my laptop and started a search. As I skimmed through article after article on shadow beings and egregores, I realized that something Temple said earlier had been bothering me all night. That seemed typical of our conversations. The impact sometimes didn’t hit me until much later.
I hadn’t made the connection before, but now I realized why I felt so uneasy about Temple’s speculation. It went back to Dr. Shaw’s theory about death—and back to my father’s warning about the Others. When someone died, a door opened that would allow an observer a glimpse into the other side. The slower the death, the longer the door would stay open, so that one might even be able to pass through and come back out.
Was it possible Dr. Shaw had tried to open a door to the other side by murdering Afton Delacourt? Had he been that desperate to make contact with his dead wife?
