An Arcane Inheritance by Kamilah Cole - 6

October entered like a bulldozer, demolishing any hope of a slow transition to autumn. One minute, the days were warm enough for Ellory’s lace-white classmates to stretch out on the quad in bikini tops, sunglasses on their faces and suntan oil glinting on their stomachs. The next, Ellory was wearing a sweater to every class and carrying a light jacket in case it got colder when the sun went down.

The trees had grown red with warning, those that had leaves left to change, and she was already contemplating going home for her winter clothes. Though the two states converged at the southwest border, Connecticut cold was nothing like New York cold. Ellory’s soul needed a hoodie, or it would freeze to death inside her.

It had been two weeks since the party, and the weather wasn’t the only thing that chilled her. Acknowledging the strangeness of her school year seemed to have given that strangeness more power.

Once, Ellory had been behind the counter at Powers That Bean during a shift so slow that she hadn’t had a customer in hours. She was taking advantage of the quiet to read a book, one of the few times she could read for leisure, and she turned the page, only for the words to swim before her eyes. The lighting over the page changed from late afternoon to early morning, and her nails were painted rather than plain, and it felt like she had read this book before, except that she had never read this book before. When she blinked, she was breathing hard and the book was on the floor, her hands still curved as if holding it.

Another time, the sharp honk of a car horn narrowly saved her from being struck by the speeding vehicle as she stepped into the road, lost in a memory that had unfurled and dissipated like incense. In her mind’s eye, she hadn’t been on a sidewalk; she had been outside an ornate yet somehow nondescript house at nighttime, seconds away from pressing her face against the lit glass to see who was inside. Her stomach dropped, and she leaped back onto the sidewalk, gasping for breath as a man cursed at her through the car’s open window. She stood there, frozen and blinking rapidly, until her brain reoriented itself, until she could remember nothing of the daydream that had distracted her except that golden light in the darkness.

And then there was the time Ellory crossed campus, only to find out that her class had been canceled, freeing her to take a walk to the greenhouses. She didn’t even make it inside; the second she touched the doorknob, she saw not the plants on the other side of the shaded glass but bodies, rows of corpses with unseeing eyes and unrecognizable brown faces. The greenhouse was no longer a greenhouse but a mausoleum, and all the graves were open to reveal husks that withered from brown to black, curling in on themselves like a newborn’s fist. Maybe it had been a dream or a vision, maybe she’d been exhausted from the walk or blinded by the sun, but it had scared her so much that she hadn’t gone inside.

It was like being a child again, talking to people who weren’t there and hearing murmurs in the trees that no one else could and lying awake while straining to hear her parents’ quiet conversations about what was wrong with her.

Still, after two weeks, all she had was a too-long Word document and a too-short list of resources. Her mind had become an unreliable thing, an Etch A Sketch that shook itself clean at random, and she never knew when she would lose her grip on reality next. Around her investigation, she still had university to drown her in weeks of homework and studying, quizzes and the occasional argument about refrigerator space with her roommate. By the time the day of the salon arrived, she was almost relieved to be anxious about something else for once.

Ellory checked herself over one last time in Stasie’s full-length mirror with a sigh. She had no idea what a salon was, let alone how to dress for one at an award-winning professor’s house. For her, the word salon conjured images of Astoria hairdressers, Black women with press-on nails and all the best gossip, metal chairs that needed to be pumped up so she could see her untamed Afro in the vanity mirror, the miserable pain of getting fresh box braids put in and knowing she’d be taking ibuprofen to sleep. Apparently, a salon was also a gathering of the noblesse, and she didn’t have the money to dress like someone who used the word noblesse .

Instead, she’d let Cody dress her in business casual. A long-sleeved off-white silk shirt tucked into a pair of high-rise black skinny jeans. An oversize double-breasted check coat in brown and black, and a cherry-red scarf would keep her warm. She wore the same black heels that she’d worn to the party, mostly because she didn’t want to learn to walk in a pair of ill-fitting ones on such short notice. Who would be paying attention to her shoes anyway?

After his initial text with the date, time, and address, Hudson Graves had resumed treating her like her existence was inconvenient. Classes were still a battlefield. Comments were still bladed. Gazes were still cold. Ellory wound up checking her phone every day, making sure his text was still there, that their conversation at the party hadn’t been the result of spiked Corona. Even now, part of her doubted he would actually show up. Or, if he did, maybe it would be with the rest of his friends in tow to laugh at her before they pulled away to the salon from which she was definitely excluded.

graves: outside moneta

She sent back coming! and eyed herself in the mirror one last time. She looked good. She felt good. If she could impress Professor Colt tonight, she could score her own invitation to future salons, and she wouldn’t need to rely on Hudson Graves. She couldn’t mess this up. She wouldn’t mess this up. She could do this.

graves: hurry up

Then again, making it through the night without strangling Hudson Graves in front of a crowd of witnesses would be enough of a miracle.

As promised, he was right outside the lobby doors, playing a game on his phone. He wore a dark brown cashmere turtleneck, a storm-gray chesterfield coat, and brown loafers. His slacks were black, his scarf was tartan wool, and his hair was curlier than usual. The platinum blond of it seemed to glow beneath the fading sunlight.

“Nice,” he said, when he finally looked up at her. Ellory might have taken this as an insult if it weren’t for the way his eyes lingered on her, not dismissive but not considering either. Appreciative was the best word she could come up with for how his gaze traced her lines and curves. He slid his phone into his coat pocket. “Come on, then. We don’t want to be late.”

The walk to the student parking lot was a silent one. Ellory didn’t want to ask questions until it was too late for Hudson to take her back to her residence hall. The sky was dimming from clear blue to hazy gray, the foliage dusted pink and orange by the sun. Dusk was when the campus caught a second wind after the marathon of classes drained the energy of their morning coffees. Students traveled in packs to the dining halls, to off-campus bars, to the library to get ahead on their homework, and to night classes they didn’t regret until it was actually time to go.

When it wasn’t stressing her out, Ellory could admit that Warren was beautiful, with its endless green lawns and trimmed elm trees, its dramatic columns and French-inspired grandeur, its iron gates and the creeping ivy that twisted around each spire like sleeping serpents. It wasn’t welcoming, it wasn’t homey, and it wasn’t at all accessible, but it was beautiful. It flaunted the same beauty of national parks and private islands: established by wealth and nurtured by exclusivity.

“Holy shit,” Ellory said, stopping in the middle of the parking lot. “Is that—”

“A ’71 Plymouth Barracuda?” Hudson smoothed his hands over a sleek black muscle car that looked like the sort of thing the private detectives would drive in a monochrome movie. “Sure is.”

Ellory blinked. She had been staring at the silver Lamborghini parked in front of whatever the hell that was. Hudson, a man who owned cuff links and an alarmingly large collection of five-hundred-dollar sweaters, struck her as a Lamborghini type. She needed a moment to process the fact that there was someone else around here who would believe a Lamborghini was an appropriate car to drive around a college campus.

“It’s been in the family since it came off the assembly line. They stopped making the convertible that same year,” he continued. “It can be a nightmare in terms of upkeep, but Boone does all the repairs and modifications for me. In exchange, he doesn’t have to pay rent.”

Ellory blinked again. Was it her imagination, or did he sound quietly proud? “I…see. You like old cars?”

“I like things that tell a story.”

The inside of the car was black vinyl and smelled like citrus. The steering wheel was bronze, and the cassette tape deck and radio had been replaced with a more modern setup. She watched him place his phone in the dashboard mount and flick through for a song, apparently less concerned about being late than he was about finding the right soundtrack. It was such a small intimate thing for them to have in common. She turned to the window, pulling her coat up around her shoulders.

“Isn’t She Lovely” by Stevie Wonder crooned from the speakers as Hudson backed out of the parking space. She loved Stevie Wonder—and this song in particular. Aunt Carol had used to sing it as a lullaby to get her to sleep, used to tell her about Motown and Diana Ross, Marvin Gaye and the Temptations. Her shoulders relaxed automatically. “You like bell hooks and Songs in the Key of Life ? This is starting to feel performative.”

Hudson snorted. “Who in this car am I performing for, exactly? I don’t need to impress you. You hate me.”

“I do,” she confirmed, “so you understand why I have to ask again why you’re bringing me as your guest. Is this a Most Dangerous Game situation? Are you and your friends going to hunt me for sport?”

“These people aren’t my friends. And trust me, I’m not doing you a favor. This is a punishment, Morgan, not a gift.”

His jaw was clenched tight, and his fingers were tense on the steering wheel. He really believed that. Ellory had even more questions, but she swallowed them down for now. Hudson was probably trying to psych her out. Everyone knew that even juniors with exemplary grades found it nearly impossible to get into Professor Colt’s classes. His waiting list was extensive, and his connections were legendary. No matter what Hudson Graves said, this was a huge opportunity. He had the privilege of deciding whether he liked these salons. Ellory didn’t care if they did hunt her for sport as long as she got a recommendation from Professor Colt at the end of it.

It was a twenty-minute drive to the house. Professor Colt lived in the kind of neighborhood that was more trees than people, where the residences had acreage and driveways that curved away from the main road to hide them from view. But when Hudson turned up the drive for this one, Ellory didn’t see a house—she saw a mansion. The three-floor cottage had a slate roof, white stone at the top and red brick at the bottom, and two different chimneys, as well as a sunroom attached to one side and a garage attached to the other. There was a stone deck littered with chairs, a firepit, a grill, and glass-top tables. There was a sprawling view of what looked like a golf course across the way. There was a backyard so wide that Ellory couldn’t guess at where it ended and the neighboring property began.

Hudson slotted the Barracuda behind a BMW and an SUV, both diagonally parked in front of the closed garage doors. If he noticed Ellory’s awe, or even found it amusing, it didn’t show. Instead, he swept toward the front door, leaving her stumbling to catch up with him. There was a skull plastered at eye level, spitting a black door knocker out of its open mouth. It was for the holiday; she knew it was for the holiday, knew she should find it fun and quirky. Instead, her heart pounded a little faster as Hudson rang the doorbell.

The skull watched them both, unfathomable.

When the door swung open, Ellory froze like a rabbit within view of a wolf. Perhaps she’d stared at the door knocker for too long, but for a moment, all she saw was death: A bleached face with sunken cheeks and gaping eye sockets. Teeth bared at her in a predatory warning.

“You’re late,” said Preston Colt. “But now I can understand why. Who is this lovely young woman?”

His voice was a soothing balm to Ellory’s anxiety. It was no skeletal corpse that stood before her, but a handsome white man in his early to midsixties, his graying dishwater-blond hair combed back from his broad forehead and almost-nonexistent eyebrows. His smile was kind, not sinister, and his sunken blue eyes were framed by crow’s feet that implied a lifetime of laughter. He wore all black—black suit jacket, black collared shirt, black slacks, black oxfords—which only drew attention to those few spots of color: The salt-and-pepper beard that lined his jaw. The silver glint of a Rolex. The lavender square curving from his left breast pocket.

“—Morgan,” Hudson was saying when her ears stopped ringing. “We’re in con. law together, and she’s a great admirer of yours.”

“She also speaks for herself,” Ellory managed. She reached out a hand. Firm handshake. Maintain eye contact. Smile, but not too much. “It’s such an honor to meet you, Professor. Thank you for having me.”

They shook. “It’s nice to meet you, Miss Morgan. Colt is fine during these little salons. Come in, come in. May I take your coats?”

The inside of the house was as lavish as the outside. They stepped through an arched doorway into a tasteful land of hardwood floors with neutral throw rugs, leaded windows that gazed out onto a beautiful verdant lawn, carved wainscoting, and a mahogany grand stairwell that twisted out of view. Colt led them to a carpeted first-floor study that had a lit fireplace and inlaid bookshelves housing fancy editions of books without visible titles. More windows lined the right wall, but in here the curtains were drawn, lending it a more intimate feel. Cushioned armchairs and a silver couch surrounded a glass table laden with hors d’oeuvres, including a charcuterie board.

Another thing that Ellory had thought was made up before she’d come to Warren.

There were already seven people present, four men and three women. Aside from one of the women, everyone was white, which meant that she and Hudson single-handedly brought the nonwhite population of the room up to a third. Their faces brightened at the sight of Hudson and then pinched at the sight of her, as if they were unused to new people and wondered if she might be a threat. Ellory straightened her shoulders and met their confused gazes head-on. The only person who didn’t immediately look away was the brown woman, but she also didn’t return Ellory’s answering smile.

“Tough crowd,” she whispered to Hudson.

“Oh, you just wait,” he whispered back.

He carted her around the room, opening and then facilitating conversation until she was stitched into the tapestry of the salon. Ellory expected to feel like a showpiece, the starving artist to Hudson’s smug patron, but he was so different here. If he had been performing in the car, he was putting on an Oscar-winning routine for these people. He asked about parents and cousins, weddings and stock market prices. He used words like summering and authenticated , referenced artists like Modigliani and Flinck. He laughed at jokes that weren’t funny and smiled like he’d never known what it was to do anything else. She tried to keep track of names, but several times she found herself simply gaping at his transformation. This was code-switching on such a grand scale that she felt out of her depth, unsure which parts of him were genuine.

Eventually, Hudson abandoned her to have a whispered conversation with Colt while the scent of butter rolls wafted in from the kitchen.

“The food at these things is always legendary,” said a model-tall blond woman with severe bangs whose name was possibly Greer. “I heard that his chef is poached from a restaurant with two Michelin stars.”

Ellory, who had no idea what that was supposed to mean, nodded sagely. “Are you in his political theory class?”

“I took it last semester. Worst few months of my fucking life .” Greer wrinkled her nose. “He doesn’t even teach the same curriculum twice, so I paid for a set of useless notes from some guy who took it in the fall. Asshole.”

Ellory, unsure if she was talking about the guy or Colt, nodded again.

“I’m surprised I’ve never seen you before,” Greer continued. “I always go to those rallies and everything. Is that not the best way to support anymore?”

“Support what?”

“Black Lives Matter.” She turned her clutch to reveal that there was a pin advertising the movement affixed to the front of it. “I’ve been seeing fewer people there. Are we staying home and just donating again? Because I have dates and stuff.”

“I, uh.” Ellory blinked. “I’ve never gone to a Black Lives Matter rally.”

“I fucking knew it. A waste of time, right? Like—”

Ellory excused herself before she had to hear the end of that sentence, her eyebrows nearly one with her hair. But the rest of the conversations only gave her further whiplash. For every person who showed an interest in her life in Astoria, where she’d sourced her outfit, or what classes she was taking, there was another who dismissed her outright for being a freshman, or expressed shock that she’d never been on a yacht, or led her over by the fireplace to ask, unironically, if she had any international weed connections because they wanted that strong Bob Marley shit . By the time Colt reappeared to call everyone to dinner, Ellory was genuinely considering opening the window and making a run for it.

“You do this every month?” she asked when Hudson reappeared at her side. “Why?”

Hudson smiled, and it looked so bleak that Ellory almost begged him to stop. It made her feel sorry for him, that he was capable of smiling like that. And yet it made a perverse kind of sense. He made her so miserable sometimes that he had to be well acquainted with the feeling.

“Dinner will be better,” he promised. “Not by much, mind you, but there’s wine.”

The untouched hors d’oeuvres would haunt her all night, but all Ellory said was “Okay.”