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46

Virginia felt as though she had just been wasting time for the entirety of Monday. It was blatantly obvious that she hadn't spoken in literature class, so much so that her professor had to resort to calling on her to answer a question about the reading.

"Because the main girl, the narrator, is so forgettable I can't even remember what her name is. Because every fear she has is well founded in her own insecurity and inferiority. Yes, Max loves her, but he loves her solely because she's the opposite of his first wife. That doesn't make for much of a healthy, grounded relationship, does it? She's jerked around by everyone else and she barely has her own character arc. So to answer your question, it's because she's a character that's easy to make into yourself that she's the narrator, but for that same reason, she's barely the protagonist."

Jim had asked why she thought the book was titled Rebecca. From across the room, Greyson mouthed, "you okay?" She just shrugged and looked back at the front. By the time she got to history, she had texted Quinn with an idea to go back to the tree, to see if there was anything for her to find out there. He texted back with a simple: Yes.

That was the only thing on her mind while Dr. Grainger droned on about the "golden age" of America, the 1870s. He talked about inventors and millionaires and the men who made America into the powerhouse that it was.

"And in reality, they were all just a bunch of assholes."

That caught Virginia's attention and she looked up from staring at her blank page where notes should have been. Her professor was staring at her and she blinked, feeling her face turning red.

"Ah, that got your attention, didn't it, Miss Davis?" he raised his eyebrow at her.

She bit her lip. "Yes, Dr. Grainger."

"I can tell that you're preoccupied," he said. "Or are you just tired? Did you get enough sleep last night?"

Virginia knitted her brow. "Yes, I did."

"So you aren't tired. Just bored then?" he asked, and shrugged. "Maybe you are far too caught up in what you found in the county records in the library. Do you mind sharing with the class just what it is that you found, digging through all those old, interesting documents?"

Clearing her throat, she thought about Andrea. She thought about the tree, about the burned witches. She thought about how violence was so far from a new invention that the enormity of it almost made her sick to her stomach. But she spoke instead spoke rationally about what she had found.

"Tunnels," she said simply. "There were tunnels, probably originally for smuggling things that were taken from the port in New Orleans, but they were eventually used pre-Civil-War for the Underground Railroad." Blinking, she looked at her professor. "Correct?"

"Yes," he nodded. "And there are even tunnels beneath our own Martins College. They branch out to several areas, but primarily to the Piers mansion, which acted as a safe house for the few years leading up to the Civil War. And Miss Davis, do you, by any chance, know what the tunnels were used for after the Civil War?"

She shook her head. "No, sorry, I was only looking for that era."

He nodded curtly. "Anyone else?"

No one moved. He chuckled quietly to himself. "They were used for smuggling booze during Prohibition and you didn't hear this from me, but rumor has it that a few caches of bottles are still left down there from the twenties. Now don't all of you rush at once to go spelunking because most of the tunnels are collapsed."

There was a mumble of disappointment from the back of the room.

"Yes, Mr. Thatcher, I know that breaks your heart, but you'll survive. How about we migrate back to the subject of today's class, all right?" he'd asked the whole class, but he looked directly at Virginia.

She nodded a little, but she instantly regretted it.

"Good, now that I have Virginia's permission, we can talk about Rockefeller," he walked over to his computer and clicked on a slideshow.

Virginia wanted to bury her head in her hands and disappear for the rest of class, but she didn't dare. She wanted the day to be over, for the week to be over. She wanted...Virginia didn't really know what she wanted. Picking up her pencil, she began to scribble down the cursory facts about John D. Rockefeller. Born 1839, died 1937.

Wow, she thought. Old dude.

And instead of writing down the rest of the facts, she framed the dates in what was shaping up to be a sketch of an elaborate mausoleum. It was ornate for a pencil drawing, with a flat roof and a gargoyle leaning, mouths agape, over the gothic-looking entry way. She shaded in stained glass windows and sketched steep steps up a craggy hill leading up to it. As Dr. Grainger moved onto the next slide, Virginia realized she hadn't gotten any of the information, but she knew for sure she would remember the years he was born and died.

As her teacher released them from class, he called for her. Virginia stopped, clutching her backpack against her side as she crossed over to his desk.

"So Virginia," he looked up at her.

"Yes, Dr. Grainger?" she bit her bottom lip. She wanted out of there. Quinn would be waiting, waiting to take her to see if Andrea had bungeed back to the tree.

"I am actually very curious to know what you found in the records," he inclined his head toward her.

She shrugged. "Just what I told the class. Some maps of the tunnels. I thought it was interesting."

"Well," Dr. Grainger put on his glasses. "Did you go searching for them?"

"No," Virginia lied. She wondered what he was getting at, but she said nothing else.

"Really?" he raised an eyebrow. "Well, there's a way to get into them through the basement in Eaton Hall."

"I think I heard something about that from some upper-classmen," nodded Virginia, shifting uncomfortably under his pointed inquiry.

"Well," he pushed up his glasses as they slid slightly down his nose. "If you ever do go exploring down there, be careful. I've heard they're prone to cave-ins, especially in a couple of the ones that weren't looked after since the Civil War."

"Thanks," Virginia smiled slightly. "I'll keep that in mind."

And she turned to walk away. What was his deal? Virginia was at a loss as to why he would be so invested in what she had found out from those records. Then a thought struck her. What if he knew something like she had found out? What if she knew there were ghosts on the Piers plantation, or maybe he was hiding some dark secret of his own. She put a pin in that idea for the moment, promising that she would look into it later, once the problem at hand was dealt with. First, she had to know that Andrea was okay.