The Book of Spells (Private 0.50)

Eliza laughed.

“It’s a good thing Miss Almay isn’t here right now. She’d mark you for a troublemaker,” Catherine warned.

Alice giggled, but Catherine didn’t crack a smile. “I’m serious, Alice. Don’t let her catch you mooning over the boys. My roommate was expelled last year for sneaking around with an Easton student.”

“Well, she can’t see me now,” Alice said. Then she leaned out the open window and lifted her hand in a wave. “Hello, boys!” she called out merrily.

“Alice!” Catherine scolded, but she couldn’t help laughing anyway.

Eliza leaned forward to get a better look. In the center of the group on the lawn was a tall boy with tanned skin, his dark blond hair gleaming in the sun. He grappled with a couple of other boys and managed to get the tie off one of them, then laughed as his victim gave chase. As he turned around, he looked up and his eyes met Eliza’s. He stopped running and simply stared.

Eliza suddenly felt warm from her toes all the way up to the tips of her ears. Her heart pounded in a way it never had before. She knew that it was

wrong to stare so boldly at a boy, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away. And neither, it seemed, could he.

The owner of the stolen tie rushed him and tackled him right to the ground.

“Oof! Did you see that?” Alice giggled, covering her mouth.

Eliza sat back, her breath coming short and shallow. She had seen. In fact, she could have kept staring all day long.

New Friends

“Eliza, Catherine, this will be your room.”

Mrs. Hodge opened the door to a bright, sunlit chamber on the fourth floor of Crenshaw House, directly above the entry. They had already dropped off Alice on the floor below, which was reserved for second-years, but Alice’s view had been nothing like Eliza’s and Catherine’s. The windows on the far side of the room looked out over the entire Billings campus and the tree-covered hills beyond. It was the sort of view that was perfect for daydreaming.

“We’re roommates, then,” Catherine said with a smile as Mrs. Hodge bustled away.

“Looks that way,” Eliza said. “And I promise I won’t be getting expelled for looking at boys.”

Even as she said it, though, Eliza recalled the gaze of the boy out on the field, and she warmed from head to toe all over again. But she rolled her shoulders back and resolved not to think about him. She was not here to meet a boy. She was here to read forbidden books and be free of her mother’s watchful eye.

Catherine unlatched a large wooden trunk near the wall. Down the hall girls called out to one another, chatting about their summer vacations and their day’s journey. Their obvious familiarity made Eliza feel suddenly nervous. What if everyone in her class had been here all along, like Catherine? Would it be difficult to make friends?

Eliza stepped inside the room that was to be her new home. She took a deep breath and looked around, trying to keep her fears at bay. The walls were painted a lovely light blue—no pink in sight, she noted gratefully—and the lace curtains billowed in the warm breeze. Her trunk had already been placed at the foot of the bed nearest the door, and she was happy to see that her father had included a bookshelf among the furniture he had sent ahead for her. She walked over and ran her fingers along the top shelf, thinking of her father with a pang. He was currently off on a business trip in Washington, D.C., but this bookcase proved that he was thinking of her. At least someone in her family endeavored to understand her. She couldn’t wait to dig to the bottom of her trunk and free her novels. They wouldn’t come close to filling the shelves, but that simply meant she had room to acquire more.

“Oh, good. There’s already a hook here,” Catherine said from the other side of the room.

She opened her trunk and took out a wooden carving of a fleur-de-lis, which she hung on the nail above her headboard. Eliza envied Catherine’s ability to feel so at home and relaxed. But then, Catherine had been coming here for years. In a few days’ time, Eliza was sure she would feel just as comfortable. The key was to make the room feel like her own. She, too, had a hook above her bed. Opening her trunk, she took out the framed photograph that had hung in her room since she was little. It was a picture of her and May, taken at the farm the summer of 1907, one of the happiest weeks they had ever spent there. Neither of the girls smiled in this particular photo, as their mother forbade smiling in any pictures or portraits. “It’s unbearably common,” she always said. But Eliza’s feet were bare in the grass beneath her formal dress, and May’s blond hair stuck up a bit in back, from rolling around in the field of daisies just behind the barn. Eliza placed the photo on the wall above her own bed, happy she’d been able to bring the best part of home along with her.

Just to the left of the photograph, she noticed a small carving in the wall. “Was this your room last year as well?” Eliza asked Catherine.

“No, why?”

“Someone carved the initials CW into the wall,” Eliza said, tracing the letters with her finger. “I wondered if it was you.”

“There was a girl who went here a few years ago—Caroline Westwick. Perhaps this was her room.” Catherine shrugged, then removed a few other things from her trunk: a long, flat wooden box, which she slipped under her bed, followed by a stack of hardcover books. Eliza peeked over Catherine’s shoulder to get a glimpse at the titles: Wuthering Heights. Jane Eyre. Mansfield Park. Evelina.

“I love Mansfield Park,” Eliza exclaimed. “Don’t you think it’s one of Miss Austen’s best, yet least appreciated, novels?”

“Oh, yes!” Catherine replied, holding the book to her chest. “I’ve read it at least five times, and each time I applaud Fanny Price’s strength even more.”

Eliza felt as if she had woken under a lucky star. Almost half of Catherine’s large trunk was taken up by books. Mrs. White, it seemed, had no objection to her daughter’s enjoyment of novels.

“I’m so glad you’re a reader,” Catherine said as she began to unpack her things. “Theresa hates when I try to talk to her about books.”

“Theresa?” Eliza asked.