“Oh my God!” Jess squealed.
“Is that a good or bad squeal?” I asked.
“Are you kidding? It looks amazing!” Tilda nodded solemnly. “With that hair, your new dress is gonna look amazing.”
After thanking and tipping Tilda, we headed back to the shuttle stop. I paused when I caught sight of my reflection in the glass. It was me and yet not me. Bold and vibrant. Light and carefree. It made me feel stronger and more alive.
As we crossed the bridge to the other side of town, it wasn’t the broken Emma passing through; it was this new girl, and some foreign energy radiated from her, so powerfully that even a stranger might have recognized it as something close to audacious.
C
HAPTER
10
I
t’s surprisingly easy to avoid someone, even if you share a room. Michelle and I continued our standoff over the next few weeks, but I was growing impatient. Yes, I had kissed her boyfriend, but Michelle had cheated on him, too. I knew two wrongs didn’t make a right, but it wasn’t as black and white as Michelle liked to believe. I couldn’t understand why she wanted to cut me out of her life so completely without even trying to resolve our differences.
To make matters worse, Overbrook asked me to stop by his office after school one day. In front of the entire class. The girls
ooohed
dramatically, hoping I was in trouble, which I probably was. I felt like I was about eight years old, getting reprimanded for fighting at recess. I reminded myself that my number one priority was to win that scholarship to Paris so I wouldn’t have to deal with any of this nonsense next year.
At the end of the day, I walked to Easty Hall with an ache in my gut. When parents come down the main drive to campus, Easty Hall is the first building they see—a long, low building of dull gray stone with leaded casement windows and four commanding gables that give the impression that the building disapproves of you.
My footsteps echoed across the wooden floors as I walked to Overbrook’s office. I found him sitting at his desk, red pen in hand, his eyes tracing over someone’s essay.
“Ms. Townsend, please sit,” he said, barely looking up from the paper and gesturing to the small, uncomfortable chair across from him. The stack of papers in front of him was held down with a snow globe paperweight. Inside the snow globe was a tiny miniature of Lockwood. When he caught me studying it, he picked it up and shook it.
“It’s lovely, isn’t it?” he said, watching fake snow float down on his miniature school. “A gift from an old friend who knows Lockwood is my home. My sanctuary.” I nodded politely and waited for him to get to his point. “Ms. Townsend, I’ve always considered you a bright, sensible girl, but your behavior of late suggests that you may be straying a bit and losing sight of your future.”
“What do you mean, sir?”
“You seem distracted in class, your average has decreased several points, and your attendance has been spotty. When I see a student heading down a treacherous path as you are, I feel compelled to step in. I am here to help you, after all. You do believe that, don’t you, Ms. Townsend?”
“Yes, sir,” I lied.
“Your reputation is vital if you want to succeed in college and in life. Grades will only take you so far. Teacher recommendations, honors and accolades—these are what will set you apart when it comes time to apply to colleges.” He cleared his throat with a phlegmy gurgle. “It has come to my attention that you’re vying for the scholarship to attend our sister school in Paris next year. A very prestigious program. It would do wonders for your transcript.”
“Yes, sir?”
“I want you to keep in mind that even though your grades in French are very strong, you can be rejected for many reasons. And you’re up against some very stiff competition.” As if he needed to remind me. “The application will require a letter of recommendation from me, which I would be happy to write, provided you are able to keep your behavior . . . well, more in keeping with the core values of a Lockwood student.”
“And what are those?” I said, hearing a note of insolence creep into my voice.
“Why, you must know them, Ms. Townsend,” he said. “They’re part of the Lockwood code. Leadership. Academics. Respect. Discipline.” I didn’t bother to tell him that our core values spelled out the word
LARD
. “If you aim to exemplify these values in everything you do, you may find yourself in Paris this time next year. But you must make certain you get yourself back on the right path, is that clear?”
“Yes, sir,” I said, feeling my insides go cold. Because right now, nothing in my life seemed very clear.
I fled from his office and out of the building, taking shelter against the cold stone wall. I felt breathless and a little dizzy. I wasn’t used to being scolded by teachers. I was the good kid. The A student. Not the truant. The discipline case.
I walked back to the dorm, feeling sick to my stomach. Maybe a good run would clear my head and get me back on “the right path,” as Overbrook had said.
After suiting up in leggings and a sweatshirt, I set off down the hill past the equestrian center and headed up toward Old Campus and the Commons. By the time I reached the top of the hill, I felt winded and light-headed. That runner’s high kept eluding me. I was determined to keep going until I found it.
When I came to the woods for the second time, I hit my stride. My body was moving almost robotically, and my mind had achieved that blissful, trancelike state.
Suddenly, I heard a trilling coming from across the stream. At first I thought it was a bird, but as I listened more intently, it sounded like a child’s humming.
Mesmerized by the song, I crossed the log bridge and saw a flash of red dart ahead of me. The scarlet flash was like a beacon, calling me forward, so I followed it until I came to a pebbly area by the water’s edge. A little girl in a red dress and a white cap was skipping along the stones. She seemed oblivious to my presence at first, but when she saw me, a smile leaped across her face like she’d been waiting for me. Her clothing was old-fashioned, yet there was something familiar about her face, like maybe she was one of the teacher’s daughters who had gotten into the wardrobe closet for
The Crucible
.
I approached to ask who she was and what she was doing here, but every time I got too close, she squealed in delight and ran in the opposite direction. The sun seemed to follow her as she did, a roving spotlight that danced with her across the ground.
I followed her even as she tried to evade me, and our game continued until she tired and sat down on the bank. She leaned over the stream to spy her reflection in the water, and protectively, I ran to grab her and keep her from falling in. Briefly, I saw our two reflections, one slightly larger than the other, but otherwise, almost mirror images. Before I could observe any further, she pulled out of my grasp and went running back up the bank, leaving only my reflection in the stream.
When she came to the rosebush, she leaned over and plucked a flower, then scampered off through the woods. Curious. The roses in the Commons garden had died already. How did this rosebush still have blooms in the middle of December? What strange enchantment was it that allowed these roses to bloom past their prime?
Before I could wonder very long, I realized I’d lost the little girl. I broke into a run after her. Wintry branches blurred into streaks of brown and black as I ran faster and faster, losing all sense of time.
When I reached the clearing at Braeburn, the little girl danced into the sunlight of the broad expanse of lawn. She stopped to grab two sticks and some leaves from the ground, then attached the leaves to the sticks so they looked like arms and legs. She placed a black leaf on top of one of the sticks to make a hat. On the other stick, she pierced a red rose petal onto a small branch in the center. Then she waved her puppets back and forth, making them dance like marionettes.
Manipulating her little voice into the deep bellow of a man, she said dramatically, “You will leave this town at once, Hester Prynne, never to return. Your name shall be black in the village, and all will know you for a harlot by the scarlet letter on your breast.”
I took a step back at the sound of Hester’s name. The little girl looked at me, and I knew suddenly who she must be. “What’s your name?” I asked.
“I am Pearl,” she answered, meeting my eyes. Pearl was Hester Prynne’s daughter. Only she was no longer an infant, but a girl of seven or eight.
I blew air through my cheeks, letting the truth wash over me. Somehow, it had happened again. I had involuntarily traveled into
The Scarlet Letter,
only this time I was able to speak.
Pearl continued her dialogue. “Woman, you are a sinner!” she said in the same booming male voice. “It is because of your mistakes that we must transfer the child to other hands.” The words were so carefully chosen I thought she must be recreating some scene she had actually witnessed.
She staked the puppet of the man into the ground and began animating the other puppet, the one with the rose petal in the center. In a high-pitched, female voice, she said, “God gave me the child! She is my happiness. She is my torture. You shall not take her! I will die first!”
Pearl then began hurling stones at this puppet with a vicious intensity. I was watching in horror until a woman appeared behind her, grabbing Pearl’s arms to still them. But Pearl struggled out of her grasp, manic with anger and aggression. She stared at me with a directness that chilled me.
An oily voice seeped into my consciousness. “What naughty elf is this?”
I looked at Pearl to see if this was her mimicry, but instead found myself face-to-face with Chillingworth. He seemed to have aged immeasurably since I’d last seen him, like he was slowly decomposing above the grave. Amusingly, with his bony limbs and his head topped by a narrow black hat, he resembled Pearl’s makeshift puppet.
He walked by me as if I were invisible, ripping Pearl’s puppet from the ground.
“A very strange child!” Chillingworth said. “She talks to imaginary voices and has no friends but the sticks and leaves. Yes, a strange and lonely child. It is easy to see you in her, Hester Prynne. Would it be possible, do you think, to analyze that child’s nature, and, from it, give a shrewd guess at the father?”
“Nay,” Hester said. “A knowledge of men’s hearts would be needful to complete the solution of that problem. And you know nothing of the heart; only vengeance.”
“Do you know me so little, Hester Prynne?” he said. “Even if I wanted vengeance, what could I do better than to let you live with this burning shame upon your bosom?” He laid his forefinger on the scarlet letter, which seemed to scorch Hester’s breast. “Hester,” he said, “I gave my best years to feed the hungry dream of knowledge. What business did I have to attach myself to youth and beauty like your own? How could I have deluded myself with the idea that my intellectual gifts might veil physical deformity in a young girl’s fantasy? Nay, from the moment we came down the old church steps together, I might have foreseen that scarlet letter blazing at the end of our path.”
“I was honest with you,” Hester said. “I felt no love, nor pretended any.”
“True,” he replied. “It was my folly.”
“But I have greatly wronged you,” she murmured.
“We have wronged each other,” he said. “Therefore, I seek no vengeance, plot no evil against you. But, Hester, the man lives who has wronged us both! Who is he?”
“Please don’t ask me!” Hester said, looking firmly into his face. “You will never know.”
“Never?” he said. “Hester, know that I shall seek this man, as I have sought truth in books. I shall see him tremble. Sooner or later, he will be mine!” Hester broke down crying, and I felt helpless to do anything for her. “Just as you protect him now, you must also protect me,” he said. “Tell no one of my identity. Under the guise of a physician, I will seek him out and ruin him. You may weep for him now, but you and yours, Hester, belong to me. My home is where you are, and where he is.” His eyes blazed and a twisted smile warped his face.
“Why do you smile?” Hester said. “Have you enticed me into a bond that will prove the ruin of my soul?”
“Not your soul,” he said. “No, not yours.”
With one last glance at Hester and Pearl, Chillingworth left the clearing and ascended the hill toward the scaffold.
“I do not like that man,” Pearl said.
“Then we shall not tarry near him,” Hester said. “Come.” She took Pearl’s hand and led her toward the wood.
“Wait, Mother,” Pearl said, remembering me.
“What is it, child?”
“We must wait for the girl.”
“What girl is this?”
“I do not know,” she said.
I called out my name.
“It is Emma,” Pearl repeated. “She walks behind us now.”
“Foolish child,” Hester said. “Perhaps Chillingworth is right. There is witchcraft in you yet.”
I followed behind them at a distance, but Pearl kept turning around to make sure I was still there. We hadn’t walked very long when I realized where we were headed. We were climbing a rather steep hill, and the terrain was growing rockier, the foliage denser. And then I saw the familiar sight—boulders piled in formation, as if they’d been placed there by mankind instead of nature. Here were the witch caves I’d discovered months ago.
Hester and Pearl disappeared behind the overgrowth, and I ran after them until I’d reached the entrance to one of the caves. Weeds obscured whatever lay beyond. Ripping off the mass of tangled vines revealed a small wooden door, painted red.
I knocked once, then pushed the door open, surprised when it gave way to a tiny cottage within.
“Emma is with us now,” Pearl told her mother when I came in. “See? The door just opened.”
“Peace, child. That is only the wind,” Hester said. “Now stop imagining ghosts and get ready for bed.”
“Mother . . . ,” Pearl began to say, but I held my finger to my lips, not wanting her to upset Hester. I glanced around, noticing a small living area with chairs and a table, a woven rug on the ground, ashes in the hearth, and a thatched area covered with blankets. Hester sat at the table and began to work on a piece of embroidery. I had forgotten this was how Hester made a living—sewing and doing embroidery for the very townspeople who had banished her.