Chapter Eighteen

Gwen awoke at dawn again. In the pale morning light that crept through the stained-glass window, she raised her left hand up and stared at the ring on her finger.

It was real. It hadn’t been a dream. Every time she woke up it was with a small panic that her time at Marshal had all been a dream. A wonderful magical mid-autumn’s night dream. But there it was—the silver-and-pearl ring. Had she dreamed her own engagement ring it would have been this one—so simple, so elegant. And not a diamond in sight. She’d read once about the children who were forced to work diamond mines in Africa like slaves. No diamonds for her. How did Edwin know this was her dream ring?

Because he was Edwin and he knew her. And because he knew her, he knew she would sneak out and go back to her cottage to get ready for class. She kissed his sleeping lips and dragged herself from his bed. It was easy to leave this morning, because she knew she would return to his bed tonight and every night hereafter. She dressed quietly and slipped out into a perfect September sunrise.

A sense of peace consumed Gwen. Everything was perfect. Almost too perfect. She knew she shouldn’t question the good gifts that the world graciously bestowed, but enough of the sensible old Gwen remained to make her wonder why everything was so…completely…perfect….

Gwen paused mid-step. In the middle of campus a woman stood in the early morning mist. An old woman with white hair and a face lined with a lifetime of penance.

“Ma’am?” Gwen called out as she neared the woman. The woman didn’t seem to hear her.

She called out again. Once more the old woman did nothing but gaze upon the campus. She looked at it but through it at the same time.

“Can I help you?” Gwen asked standing right in front of the woman.

“Grandma? Where did you go?” A young man’s voice came from the entrance to the courtyard. He jogged over to the old woman, but didn’t give Gwen so much as a glance.

“I’m here, Ryan,” the old woman said.

“You wandered off. Scared me to death.” Ryan looked only about twenty or so, not much older than Gwen's students.

“Death?” the old woman said with a sad smile on her face. “You’re just a child, Ryan. What do you know about death?”

“Grandma, let’s go. You saw the school. We should leave.”

She shook her head. Gwen waved her hand in front of the old woman. She didn’t even blink. Ryan, her grandson, didn’t seem to see her either.

“This is no school,” the old woman said. “This is a tomb.”

Gwen shivered at the word tomb. Who was this madwoman?

“You know what I mean,” the young man, Ryan, said. “It was a school. You’ve seen it. Let’s go.”

“I was a teacher here,” the old woman said. “Long ago.”

“I know,” Ryan said. “You told me that.”

“I told you nothing,” she said.

Gwen narrowed her eyes at the woman. “Are you Miss Muir?” she asked. The old woman didn’t answer.

“I taught literature here,” she said. “In 1961 until 1964. I remember it was 1964. That’s when we saw Mary Poppins.”

“1964?” Gwen repeated to herself.

“Gwendolyn?”

Gwen turned around and saw Edwin standing ten feet away from her in his three-piece suit and glasses.

“Edwin, what’s happening?” she asked, more scared now than she’d ever been of The Bride.

“I wanted to tell you,” he said and gave her a look of profound apology.

“Let me tell you about death,” the old woman said. Gwen turned from Edwin back to her. “I was an educated woman. But I was a fool. I loved this place. Loved this school. The headmaster here was a kind and noble man. Edwin Yorke. We all called him Headmaster Yorke out of respect.”

“I’m sure he respected you, too, Grandma.”

“He did once. But then I lost his respect. There were two boys at the school. The boys…they loved each other. I found out they loved each other. I…” The old woman raised a bony hand to her mouth. “I told the headmaster what I learned. I thought it was a sin. The gravest of sins.”

“It was 1964,” Ryan said. “Everyone thought it was a sin back then.”

“Not Headmaster Yorke. He defended the boys. He fired me right in front of the boys. He was right to do it.”

“I’m sure he forgave you.”

She shook her head. Gwen listened in growing horror. It was 1964, Ryan said? No…it couldn’t be.

“He fired me, but I had my revenge. I thought I was doing the right thing. I wrote letters to the parents about the school, about what Headmaster Yorke was allowing to happen on his watch. Boys engaging in sinful acts with the other boys. I told them to take their children out of the school if they cared at all for their souls.”

“Grandma…” Ryan sounded horrified. Gwen shared his shock.

“They came, the parents did. Christopher’s parents came first. They came at night a few days after I sent the first letter. They came and they grabbed Christopher from his bed and tried to drag him from the school to their car. He fought them off. In the struggle…”

The old woman covered her face with both hands. She took a deep shattered breath.

“In the struggle someone knocked over an oil lamp. The rug caught fire and spread quickly to the curtains. Soon the dormitory was in blazes. The boys were sound asleep. But they woke up and ran for their lives.”

“That’s good then, right?” Ryan asked.

The old woman shook her head. Gwen looked over her shoulder. Edwin no longer stood alone on the lawn in the rising sun. Every last student now flanked him—Edwin in the middle, fifteen boys on each side of him.

“A boy named Samuel got trapped inside the school. Headmaster Yorke raced in to rescue him. Christopher and Laird followed him into the fire. Then…part of the roof collapsed. And the fire spread to the other dorm—Pembroke. Every single last student ran back into the burning buildings trying to save their headmaster and the other students.”

Gwen held her hands to her face and looked from the old woman to Edwin, who stood silent and solemn in the morning light. The boys stared at that old lady. They saw her. She did not see them.

“Headmaster Yorke had taught them far too well the lessons of loyalty and brotherhood. That was the motto of the school, Ryan. A Latin motto.”

“Fortius quam fraternitas nullum est vinculum,” Edwin said, his voice crisp and commanding as a ship’s captain.

“There is no bond stronger than brotherhood,” the boys said in unison. The old woman didn’t hear them. Only Gwen heard them.

The old woman recited it softly to herself. Gwen recited it with her.

“And then the roof collapsed completely. And Headmaster Yorke and all the boys were trapped inside.”

“Oh my God,” Ryan said, his hand on his stomach as if he was about to be ill.

“They all died,” the woman said. “Died together.”

“Fidus ultra finem,” Edwin said.

“Faithful beyond the end,” all the boys replied.

“Fifty years ago today…” The old woman looked at her grandson. “They all died…every last one of them. Here on campus. Mr. Price and Mr. Reynolds died of smoke inhalation. But the rest of the boys burned to death, burned beyond recognition. They could only identify Samuel. Headmaster Yorke had shielded him from the fire as best he could. And they could identify Christopher. We think it was Laird who covered his body to protect him from the fire. Thirty-three dead in total. All because of me.”

“Grandma, there was no way you could have seen this would happen.”

“No. But it’s done and those beautiful boys and their headmaster and teachers are all dead. Headmaster Yorke would have been ninety years old this year had he lived. My age.”

“Come on, Grandma,” Ryan said, gently taking her by the arm. “We should go.”

“They’re all buried here, you know.” She pointed across the campus. Gwen followed her finger and saw that all the Marshal buildings were gone now. Only an empty field greeted her. An empty field and thirty-three white crosses in the ground. “The parents buried their sons together. They died together trying to save each other. They would be buried together. Together for eternity.”

A tear spilled out of Ryan’s eye and rolled down his cheek.

“I want to be buried here, too,” she said.

“Grandma, don’t talk like that.”

The old woman shook her head. “But I don’t deserve to be buried here. For fifty years, I have prayed for forgiveness. I asked God to somehow take back what I’d done. I’d half believed that if you brought me here, I’d see the buildings standing again. Hawkwood Hall—that’s where I taught my classes. The headmaster lived on the fifth floor. And there was a cottage right over there,” she pointed at Gwen's house. “I lived there. And you see those patches where there’s no grass? That’s where the two dorms were…Pembroke and Newbury…side by side.”

Gwen sobbed in silence, afraid to miss any word the old woman spoke.

“I prayed God would bring the school back, and the boys, and Headmaster Yorke. And they would be together. These boys…this school was their Heaven. And I prayed they would have a teacher come take my place who would not make the mistakes I made, not be the fool I was. And she would love and cherish the boys and Headmaster Yorke. That is what I have prayed for.”

“I’m sure they’re all in Heaven,” Ryan said and touched his grandmother’s arm.

“But I won’t be,” the old woman said. “I’ll go to Hell for what I’ve done. I will burn as they burned. Except my burning will never end.”

Gwen inhaled deeply and smelled the smoke again. It came not from the burned rubble of the buildings or the scorched grass, or even from the past. It came from the old woman, from Miss Muir.

“Forgive me, Edwin,” the old woman said. “Forgive me.”

“I forgive you,” Edwin said. But the old woman didn’t hear him. “We all forgive you.”

“Take me home,” the old woman said to her grandson. “I was wrong to come here. I don’t belong here. I never did.”

Ryan took his grandmother by the arm and tried to lead her away. Gwen took a step, intending to follow her.

“Gwendolyn, you can leave,” Edwin called out. She turned and faced him. “You can leave, but if you do leave, there’s no coming back.”

“And if I stay?” she asked.

“Then you will stay here always. Just as we have, just as we are.”

Last night she had lain next to him in his bed and asked him to promise her that nothing would ever change, that it would always be this wonderful, this passionate, this good. A foolish romantic question, the sort of question everyone asks when they first fall in love. The answer should have been no. Of course it wouldn’t always be like this. They would grow older, grow wiser, grow more comfortable with each other. The passion would wax and wane. And then someday it would end. It would all end, because no one lives forever.

But Edwin was already dead. He’d been dead for decades.

“It’s so strange,” the old woman whispered. Gwen turned back to her. “I had such a vivid dream last night. I dreamed that I came back here and the school was still here and it looked like it did fifty years ago. The boys were all here—Christopher and Laird, Jefferson, Samuel, Eliot…all my sweet young gentlemen. And Headmaster Yorke was here. And a lady. They’d decorated the whole school in white for a wedding. I thought it was my wedding. But it wasn’t. I wasn’t even a guest at the wedding. They didn’t want me here…”

“We’ll go now, Grandma. You have to eat, take your medicine.” Ryan tried to coax her toward the exit.

“They rebuilt the school, Ryan. But it wasn’t my Marshal. Five miles from here is the new school. The Marshal School they call it. It’s not the same, though. It’s not the same at all….”

The old woman and her grandson walked back through the arch. Gwen touched her face and found it wet with tears. She looked back and saw the crosses were gone now, all those graves. But the boys were still in a line, Edwin in their midst.

“There was no way to tell you,” Edwin said. “Forgive me.”

She raised her hand to stop his words.

It all made sense now. The waitress at the diner…it was The Marshal School, the new school, that was hiring teachers, not the Marshal Academy. And then the waitress had given the old man extra napkins…she knew he would cry like Christopher’s grandfather had when he visited. No. The elderly man walking with Christopher—it hadn’t been his grandfather. It had been his father come to mourn the fiftieth anniversary of the school burning to the ground, the anniversary of the day he’d killed his son by trying to save him from his sins. No computers. No cell phones. The shock over Edwin’s divorce. Christopher and Laird being terrified of discovery. Christopher said banks weren’t open on Saturdays. They were now, but not in 1964. And of course…

The scent of smoke.

Now that the old woman had gone, the scent of smoke disappeared from Gwen's nostrils, and all she could smell was the dewy grass beneath her feet, the warm and living forest. Life. She smelled life. Even though all her boys…

“My sweet boys,” she said and looked at their faces, eternally frozen in youth. Somehow Miss Muir’s prayer had been answered. The school lived. The boys lived. The headmaster lived. “My angels…”

All of them dead fifty years, and yet here they were and here they would stay. Miss Muir’s wish had been granted—the school had risen from the ashes, the boys from their graves. Here was the school, the boys, the headmaster…and Miss Muir couldn’t even see it and never would. Her prayer was answered and she would never know it. Their Heaven was her Hell.

But what about Gwen?

She looked past the old woman who’d once been Miss Muir and saw her car again. The wreckage of her car. The battered, fiery wreckage…

“Gwendolyn?” She heard the voice calling her name. Not Edwin’s voice. Not the boys’. She’d never heard the voice before. Her eyelids fluttered. She blinked and blinked again. A white light flashed. She closed her eyes tight and opened them again. She lay in a hospital bed, and above her stood a man in a doctor’s scrubs and coat. “Gwendolyn Ashby. Can you hear me? You’re in the hospital. You were in a car accident, and you’ve been unconscious. Nod if you understand.”

Gwen closed her eyes again and when she opened them she was back at Marshal, back with Edwin.

“Edwin?” she said, her voice trembling with fear and confusion.

“You can go back if you wish,” Edwin said to Gwen. “Or you can stay and…”

He didn’t have to finish his sentence. If she stayed it would be like he promised—always like this. The days would blur into each other in a haze of books and laughter and learning. The nights would be always like last night. Heated, ardent, hungry. Every night like the first night. New love forever.

The old world was there, waiting for her. She could wake up and rejoin it. But if she left she could not return. If she stayed she would never leave. The door that had let her in would close, and she would never leave again. Somehow she knew she would forget this morning and Miss Muir’s visit like one forgot a dream upon waking. The boys would forget. Edwin would forget. This would be her life forever and her life would be…

“Perfect,” she whispered.

She walked up to Edwin. Thirty pairs of eyes watched her.

“Boys,” she said. “Don’t look.”

The boys covered their eyes with both hands.

She put her hand on the back of Edwin’s neck and pulled his mouth down to hers for a long hard kiss.

Thirty boys ohhh-ed and wolf-whistled before bursting into embarrassed teenage laughter. Behind them the bell broke through the morning fog and sounded the first period five-minute warning.

“Boys,” Edwin said sternly as he stood back up from the kiss. “Class. Now.”

The boys, all of them wearing watchful smiles, didn’t move a muscle.

Silly boys. Didn’t they know she was teaching them A Midsummer Night’s Dream in class today? Surely they were eager for that discussion.

She gave Edwin one more kiss, and headed toward Hawkwood Hall.

“You heard the headmaster,” Gwen said, and clapped her hands once to get their attention. “Get to class.”

Somewhere in the back of her mind she heard the sound of a heart rate monitor beeping a flat line.

Gwen ignored it and went back to work.