* * *
Alice was right. Plants of the Piedmont really is a slacker class. The TA sat in the corner and played around on his phone while we “watched” the fifty-five-minute-long, super-dated educational video he insisted would help prepare us for next week’s test. Then he dismissed us early for no reason in particular, so I arrive at the Arboretum before our appointment time.
The Arboretum is much bigger than I’d realized. The herb garden sign says that it’s home to more than five hundred species and cultivars. My mother would have loved it. As I walk, I imagine a younger version of her coming here for visits between classes, taking secret clippings and tucking them away in her purse. I turn a corner and stop daydreaming.
A black granite table sits in the middle of a quiet grotto, and underneath it leaks a steady stream of mage flame.
It’s thinner than the thick ribbons that had coiled around my arms in the shower and much, much lighter. Pale yellow instead of rich crimson.
The table sits in the middle of a circle of dark brown and black soil and mulch. Underneath, bronze figurines reach their hands high to the thick granite tabletop as if holding its weight up in the air. The figurines are staggered in rows that disappear under the slab, giving the impression that there are more bodies lifting the table than the eye could ever see. Steady wisps of aether stream between their arms and legs and waft over the damp earth like golden mist.
“They put the table here for folks who want to read, study, or rest. And yet I find it difficult to sit here and do anything else but get sad.”
The voice comes from a hidden corner of the grotto.
A stunning Black woman with graying locs sits on a stone bench, a late lunch spread out on the empty space beside her. A brightly patterned shawl with alternating burgundy and yellow tassels lining its edges drapes her shoulders. Her eyes are the color of warm, rich earth, and her oval face is a deep brown. She peers at me from behind a set of bright yellow horn-rimmed glasses. I can’t tell how old she is, of course, because Black women are magical like that. She could be forty or sixty, or some number in between.
“Are you—”
“Dr. Patricia Hartwood.” A wide smile spreads across her face. It makes me feel lighter, brighter. “You must be Bree.”
I study this woman as if examining her face, really leaning into that simple act, could somehow bring me closer to my mother. Like maybe there’s a new piece of her hidden in this woman’s eyes. A crumb of life still preserved in someone who knew her in a way I didn’t. I find I’m desperately, uncomfortably hungry for whatever she can give me.
She looks back calmly, as if she knows exactly what I’m thinking.
My eyes find the table again. “Why does this make you sad?”
“Take a closer look.”
I walk between two of the stone seats until I’m less than a foot from the slab. When I crouch, mage flame billows into warm clouds around my ankles. The figurines aren’t identical, like I’d assumed from far away, but they have several things in common: natural kinky hair. Broad, strong noses. Full lips.
Black folks.
They’re all Black folks.
Black folks raising the round slab like hundreds of Atlases holding the world. Some of the men wear long shirts over pants. Others are bare-chested, their bronze muscles straining across stomachs and biceps. Women in skirts lift the impossibly heavy weight. Their feet are buried beneath the mud and mulch, and yet they push.
My voice is quiet and breathy. “What is this?”
“The Unsung Founders Memorial. Carolina’s way of acknowledging the enslaved and the servants who built this place,” she says, her voice wavering between pride and disdain. “We get this memorial, and it’s something, I suppose. It was a class gift. Not unimportant. But how can I be at peace when I look down and see that they’re still working? You know?”
I do know what she means. This type of knowing is an expensive toll to pay. I can’t forget the knowledge just because the price is high. And yet, sometimes we have to tuck the reminders away today in order to grow power against them tomorrow.
Dr. Hartwood draws herself up on the bench. “But that is not what our session is about.”
I stand, but it’s difficult to disengage from the memorial, now that I know what—and who—it represents. It’s hard to turn from its strange mage flame, too. Why would aether collect here? I make a mental note to ask Nick about it.
I finally tear my eyes away. “I’m guessing my dad told you all about me.”
“He is very proud of you.” Her smile reminds me of my mom’s. Laugh lines at the edges. Lipstick that matches her shawl. “He told me you were bright and, more than that, wise.”
I snort. “Wise? I got in trouble my first night here. I’m not wise.”
“Not a trait one can claim or dispose of themselves, I’m afraid.”
“S’pose so.” I’m surprised at the easy way my own drawl slips out. Talking to her feels familiar. Like home. Like reunions and fish fries and potato salad on picnic tables behind the church. I haven’t felt like this, let my mouth move like this, since I came to Carolina.
I sit down, and she offers me her hand. When our palms touch, a low and steady hum of electricity courses up my arm to my elbow. It’s nothing like Sel’s gaze. It’s warm like spiced cider on Christmas. Hot syrup over pancakes.
“Nice to meet you, Bree.” She actually refrained from a platitude. An adult who definitely knows that my mother is dead. I’m stunned.
I stammer, “Uh… you, too, ma’am.”
“Patricia, please. Dr. Hartwood, if you must, but I’m not one for the ma’ams.” Patricia waves her hand dismissively. “Save that for the aunties who demand it.”
I laugh, and she grins back. I haven’t been around an auntie like that since my mother’s funeral.
“So, you’re my shrink?”
“Psychologist, counselor, therapist. I like those best. You’ve been living on campus for a few days now. How do you like it?”
Demons. Aether. Knights. Homework. A boy who makes me feel fuzzy.
“It’s fine.”
“Mm.” Patricia’s brown eyes seem to dig through my skull, like a drill covered in velvet. “Friends?”
“I came here with my friend Alice, but we had a bit of a rocky start.”
Patricia nods sagely. “Common for students who room with friends from high school. Many find that the new environment challenges old relationships.”
“That’s an understatement. I’ve met a few people in classes and events.”
Oh, you know, events like secret feudal rituals.
“Tell me about Alice.”
How rude would it be to tell her the only reason I’m here is to find out what she knows?
“We’ve been best friends since we were little. We applied to EC together. We went off campus to this thing at the Eno Quarry, which I assume you know about, and we got in trouble. We fought about it. Did the silent treatment thing, but I think we made up last night. Mostly. I’m still kinda pissed that she called my dad, but I sort of get it.”
Patricia’s eyebrows have raised a fraction. “Were you aware it was against the rules to go to the Quarry?”