Chapter 9

I recognize Mrs. Gibson: she’s the woman who was talking to Beatrix at the mixer last week. She is the librarian with the genealogy hobby? I was picturing a woman in her sixties, gray-haired and grave, with a pinched face and a lot of cats.

Kind of like Sister Margaret back in New Hampshire.

This librarian wears her brunette hair in a long French braid, with a ribbon in Darby Prep blue wrapped around the elastic band. Her porcelain skin and long black lashes make her look like one of those baby dolls with a bisque face, their lips painted on in pale pink with simple brushstrokes accenting their cheeks. Like my aunt, she dresses conservatively and dark – she nearly blends into the wood-paneling of her office which is crammed to the rafters with papers and books and magazines of all ages.

Well, mostly old. But not dusty. Mrs. Gibson obviously takes good care of her belongings, as an efficient and careful librarian would, and there is nary a dust bunny in sight.

“Welcome, Calliope, welcome,” she says, coming from around her desk to greet me. It appears as if she’s about to take my arm but instead she removes a pile of books from a chair so I can sit down.

“You can call me Callie.”

The shelves behind Mrs. Gibson sag with the weight of the hard-backed books. I stare at the spines, fascinated by their titles: “The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus” by Christopher Marlowe, a collection of poetry by Sir Walter Raleigh, “The Alchemist” by Ben Jonson, and many, many volumes of William Shakespeare.

The librarian catches me looking. “Are you an antiquarian like myself?”

“An…? No, not really. I was just thinking how my Aunt Beatrix would love to get her hands on those.”

“Beatrix? Oh that’s right. You’re Bea’s daughter.”

“Niece.” Several untitled books catch my eye, situated as they are directly behind Mrs. Gibson’s round head. Canvas-covered in navy, they are nondescript save for a small gold symbol on their spines: two interlocking figure 8’s with an upside-down L. Unlike the other books, which appear to have remained undisturbed on their shelves for dozens of years, these three are pushed in an inch, as if they had been returned to the shelf with an extra-hard shove.

I am about to ask the librarian about them when she interrupts me.

“So you’re Fiona’s newest pledge,” Mrs. Gibson says.

“Well, actually, Julia’s my roommate. She’s kind of the one who told me about it.”

“And what did she say?”

“Oh, um, that it was a philanthropic group and um, secret.” I lower my voice in case someone else might overhear but we are alone in Mrs. Gibson’s office, a small room made smaller by the presence of all the books, which is tucked away in the back end of the school’s library. It took me ten minutes just to find it after I entered the building.

“It is, and it’s very old,” Mrs. Gibson says with a regal lift of her chin. “Alpha chapter is the first of the Bell Book and Candle chapters, which have been set up at private schools all over the country.”

“Oh wow.”

“Impressive, isn’t it?”

“Is Darby Prep special?” I ask. “Is there a reason why it was the first chapter?”

The librarian regards me with a small smile. “Well, maybe once you’ve been initiated, you’ll find out.”

Oops!

“Tell me why you want to join Bell Book and Candle.”

“Oh, um…Julia didn’t tell me there’d be a quiz,” I say, shifting my gaze from the books to the floor – and stalling for time. Parties? Guys? Fun? Can I say that to a librarian?

“Take your time,” she replies. “Your friends already want you. I’m just curious about your own interest.”

Friends? Really? We’re friends? Yeah, I guess so, and the thought warms me.

“Well, Mrs. Gibson,” I begin. “When I was at Sisters of Mercy, I didn’t have a lot of friends—”

“Why is that?”

“Oh, well, my aunt and I didn’t live on the school grounds—”

“And why didn’t you?”

“Um, we already had a house nearby and Bea didn’t want to move.”

The librarian nods but it feels like she’s not really paying attention to the words I’m saying, but rather the way I’m saying them. Does she honestly care that Beatrix and I lived off-campus?

“Is this for the family tree thing?” I ask.

Mrs. Gibson holds my gaze for a moment and then shakes her head, laughing. “No, no. I’m just curious. Sorry for the odd questions.” She adds a sheepish grin. “Fiona tells me I need to get out of my office more and be more sociable.”

Fiona? Since when is she Miss Congeniality?

I smile too. “Well, you are a little pale.”

“I think I’m covered in a protective layer of book dust,” she jokes. “ 200.”

I feel the tension ease with our laughter. I don’t know why I was so anxious before; she’s just a librarian, after all. And not even as scary-looking as Sister Margaret.

Mrs. Gibson pulls out a yellow notepad and pen and I notice for the first time the absence of a computer in the stuffy office. Or maybe there is one and it’s just hidden beneath piles of books.

“Let’s start, Callie.”

I squirm a little in my chair. It feels like I’m about to take the SATs – and I haven’t prepared at all!

Mrs. Gibson notices my anxiety and smiles in my direction. “Don’t be nervous, Callie. This is routine for most girls.”

“It’s just…I’ve never, you know, delved into my family’s past.”

The librarian raises her pen. “Our past is ourselves,” she says, almost regally. “It defines who we are, who we will be.”

Oh that makes me feel so much better.

“Now, have you always lived in ?”

I nod. “Bea and I were there from about the time I was born, I guess, until a couple of months ago when we moved here.”

“ is lovely.”

“Yeah.”

“And Sisters of Mercy is a very good school,” she says and her head nods in approval. “I considered attending myself when I was your age. Is it still all-girls?”

“All-girls? I don’t…um, no, no, it’s co-ed.” When was it all-girls, I wonder?

“Oh, that’s too bad. I believe girls get a better education when there are no boys around to distract them.”

For some reason, that makes me think of my own situation and how Bea and I have manipulated it to suit our own needs by denying the existence of certain elements. I can’t help it: I wrinkle my nose despite my best efforts to be a good candidate for the club.

“Is there something wrong with my opinion?” Mrs. Gibson asks.

“Well, no, but…it’s so unnatural, don’t you think?”

“How so?”

“Shouldn’t we get used to being around guys so we don’t freak out in the real world? If we can only focus when boys aren’t around, we’ll get distracted when we get out of school.”

“Distracted one way or the other, is that what you’re saying?”

“Boys will do that.” I try a smile and watch the librarian tilt her head to one side in thought.

“That’s a very interesting theory, Calliope. You’ve got quite a head on your shoulders.”

“Um, thanks.”

She taps her pad of paper with her pen cap, drawing my attention back to the task at hand. “It’s just you and your aunt?”

There’s that tension again! I can feel it in my lower back as it begins to spread, like a muscle strain up to my shoulders and down my legs. “Yes, ma’am.”

Bea hates it when I “ma’am” her (“I’m not that old!”) but Mrs. Gibson doesn’t seem to mind.

“And your mother and father?”

I glance down at my uniform and wish I could shrink under its pleats. “I don’t know who my father is. My mother’s name was Evangeline.”

“She’s Bea’s sister?”

Nodding, I continue. “She was. She died after I was born.”

Mrs. Gibson scribbles on her pad but says nothing. I try to read the expression on her face but the way she is sitting with her shoulders hunched forward, her mouth and eyes are obscured and I see nothing.

“Evangeline was also from ?” Mrs. Gibson wants to know.

“Yes. I think so.”

“And how old was she when you were born?”

“Seventeen.”

“And how old was Beatrix then?”

“Nineteen.”

Yes, my aunt was only 19 when she took me in, when she changed her life in order to care for me. I wait for Mrs. Gibson to comment so I can vouch for Bea’s selflessness and generosity but the woman says nothing.

She asks about Bea’s work, about her schooling, about my years at Sisters of Mercy – my grades and teachers and extracurricular activities – and about my plans for the future.

And the whole time, I wonder, Can she tell I lied? Can she sense I’ve evaded the truth about my mother?

We all have secrets, don’t we? My mother didn’t die; she disappeared.