The Oxford Inheritance (10 page)

CASSIE WOKE TO SCREAMS.

She lifted her head, groggy. She was at the table again, arms splayed over her philosophy reading, with a sheet of her notes stuck to her cheek, ink smudged with drool. She peeled the page off, yawning, reality and her dream world still tangled and opaque.

There was another scream.

Cassie lurched to her feet. The noise was coming from Evie's room, and it increased as Cassie approached: a babble of screams and unintelligible softer whimpers.

Cassie tapped on the door. “Evie? Are you okay?”

There was no response, only another cry, cut off halfway. Cassie flung upon the door, expecting to find a struggle, but Evie was alone. She was still sleeping, illuminated in the pool of neon light falling through her open bedroom window. Her oversized nightshirt was twisted, the covers thrown off the bed as she writhed, clawing at some unknown assailant.

Cassie crossed quickly to her bedside. “Evie, sweetie, it's okay.” She shook the girl's shoulder gently, not wanting to pull her too sharply from her dreams. “Evie, wake up now.”

Evie recoiled from her touch, retreating to the far side of the bed and curling, knees pressed tightly to her chest. She was sobbing, muttering a strange babble of words that Cassie couldn't make out.

“Evie!” Cassie shook Evie harder, raising her voice to a shout. “Wake up!”

Evie awoke with a gasp. She blinked, her whole body trembling, eyes darting in the dark room.

“It's okay,” Cassie told her, quickly flipping on the bedside lamp. The room filled with a warm glow, the shadows suddenly receding. “It's me. You had a nightmare, but it's all right now.”

Evie caught her breath. She gripped Cassie's hand as slowly her eyes adjusted to the light. “A nightmare?” she said, her voice still uncertain.

“Just a dream.” Cassie gently rubbed her shoulder. “You okay?”

Evie nodded slowly. “Yes. Yes, I think so . . .”

Cassie pulled back. She hadn't realized, but she'd been holding her breath too. “Look at you, you're like ice,” she said, rising to her feet. The room was freezing, sending the hairs on her arms rising. She crossed to pull the window shut, latching it firmly. “You shouldn't leave the window open like that, you'll catch a chill.”

Outside, the first streaks of dawn were crossing the Oxford skyline. Cassie tied the curtains firmly back and turned. Evie was still sitting huddled on the bed, blinking and lost. Cassie pulled the thick terry-cloth robe from the back of Evie's door and draped it around her shoulders. “How about I make us a cup of tea? Tea, and some of those fancy Choco Leibniz cookies. I'll go put the kettle on.”

Cassie settled Evie on the living room couch, wrapped in her robe and an ancient woolen blanket from the cupboard. She turned on every light, filling the attic with a bright, warm glow that seemed to seep into Evie, bringing her color back as Cassie fussed around the small kitchen. “The cure for all ailments, right?” she said, bringing over the tray.

Evie smiled—stronger this time—and reached for her cup. “But only real builder's tea,” she agreed. “None of that Assam and rose petal stuff.”

There was silence for a moment as they both sipped their drinks. Cassie took a chocolate-covered biscuit and slowly dipped it in the tea, a custom she'd learned from watching the other patrons in the bookshop café. The trick was to leave the biscuit in the hot liquid long enough to start to melt the chocolate, but not so long that the biscuit broke off. Fo
cusing on the simple task, she felt herself slowly relax. The sound of the screaming had sent Cassie back to the nights her mother would sob and babble, rushing half asleep to pluck Cassie from her bed. It was the medication, she'd been told many times, but that was little comfort when her mother's cries cut through the thin walls.

“Do you get nightmares often?” she asked Evie.

Evie shook her head. “I didn't used to, but now . . .” She sighed, clutching her mug of tea between two small, slight hands. “It's probably stress. My thesis adviser keeps on me to settle on a specific research angle, and I have outlines due, and teaching . . .” She trailed off, looking overwhelmed. Cassie could only imagine. She was worried enough about her own studies, but that was nothing compared to Evie's load, preparing for a thesis with all the research and teaching hours too.

“Maybe it's time to cut back on the partying,” Cassie suggested carefully. Evie was still maintaining a whirlwind social calendar with Olivia, Hugo, and their fashionable crowd: out every day for lunches, afternoons spent in the exclusive Oxford Union buildings across town. Cassie had expected the early partying to fade, or at very least be relegated to weekends, but Evie was still coming home late almost every day of the week. Up close, without her makeup, Cassie could see it was taking its toll; the shadows under Evie's eyes were smudged and translucent, her skin dull.

Evie gave a rueful grin. “Probably. I don't know how those guys manage it. Practice, I guess. You know Hugo's been working on his thesis here for five years now?”

Cassie flinched at the mention. “What's holding him back?”

“I don't know. He doesn't like to talk about it.” Evie smiled, her affection clear. “You should come out and have a drink with us sometime. He's always telling me to invite you along.”

“I've got enough on my plate,” Cassie hedged. “It's my turn to read my essay this week and I can't give Tremain another chance to tear me apart.”

“He won't,” Evie reassured her. “I've seen how much work you've been doing; he won't have the chance.”

“I hope so.” Cassie managed a smile. “You want to join me and make a study day of it? It's supposed to rain all afternoon. I'm going out for a run, but after that I'll be working straight through.”

“I don't know.” Evie bit her lip. “I'm supposed to meet the girls for brunch, and then shop for gowns for the Christmas balls. . . . But you're right,” she decided finally. “If I finish a proposal, it'll get my adviser off my case, and I'll have more time for fun over the weekend.”

“There you go,” Cassie said, relieved Evie would be getting some rest. “I'll grab some food on the way back for us. It'll be fun.”

Cassie sprinted hard, her breath fogging the early morning air as her feet
pounded the riverbank path, now frozen and tough beneath her stride. She let her mind empty, focusing only on the flow of breath into her body and the satisfying ache in her limbs. By the time she looped back past the meadows to the side gates, her face was numb from the cold and her muscles screaming their protest. She bent double to recover, panting for air, as the college bells chimed seven. Gradually, her pulse began to slow.

“How's it looking out there?” the elderly porter, Rutledge, asked, when she ducked into the lodge to check her mail.

“Same as usual.” Cassie nodded her greeting. “Colder, though.”

He chuckled. “You just wait until January,” he warned her, busily sorting a stack of parcels. “They'll be out cutting ice to let the rowers through.” He took a gulp of coffee from his Raleigh mug and nodded at the clutter of junk mail in her hand. “Anything from home?” he asked.

Cassie gave a hollow laugh. “No. It's just me.”

“Sorry to hear it,” Rutledge replied, just as Cassie realized her mistake. According to the cover story she'd spun for Raleigh, she had a pair of devoted, adoring parents waiting for her back in America. It was only a small slip, but she couldn't be too careful.

“I mean, they're busy,” she quickly covered. “We talk more on the phone.”

“Technology.” Rutledge shook his head with a bemused expression. “I remember when letters took three weeks. Now I Skype with my niece all the time, over in France.” He took another drink of his coffee. “Whereabouts is it you're from, anyway? Boston?”

She shook her head. “Indiana, way out in the middle. But we moved around a lot.”

“And what brought you all this way?”

She gave him a smile as she turned to leave. “Why does anyone come to Raleigh? History.”

She made her way through the gatehouse and out onto the main street outside. Half a block away stood Harvey's—a deli/sandwich shop that was apparently as much a daytime staple to the Raleigh students as Ahmed's kebab van was come nightfall. Ever since Evie had introduced her to it, Cassie had found it the perfect place for an inexpensive—if not entirely nutritious—meal, and she often detoured there after her runs to wait in line in the small, fog-steamed storefront to claim a hearty breakfast bap of sausage, egg, and lashings of tomato ketchup.

That day, the line was only a few people deep. Cassie took her place in the queue, turning her attention to the day of study ahead. Her next philosophy tutorial with Tremain was the next morning, and she hoped to have her essay written and submitted by the end of the day, leaving plenty of time for a long night's rest so that she would be alert and prepared to defend it.

This time, Cassie was determined to prove Tremain wrong. He thought she was a waste of the place, that she wasn't up to the standard of her classmates, but Cassie knew he was wrong. She might not have attended the best schools like them, enjoyed private tutors and costly after-school activities, but she could hold her own.

She had to. With the threat of expulsion hanging over her head, there was too much at stake to fail over poor grades. She wouldn't be
intimidated by Tremain's sneering; she would find a way to change his mind.

The line inched forward, until Cassie drew level with the glass-fronted cabinet filled with containers of wafer-sliced salami, crumbling chicken, and salad, dripping with oil. The grill behind the counter hissed, staff moving in a practiced ballet around one another to expertly crack eggs onto the blackened hot plate, flipping and sliding orders along as the demands kept coming. They had her order filled and packaged in barely a couple of minutes.

“What about the Merton ball?”

A pair of girls was walking in front of Cassie, effortlessly fashionable, even bundled in their autumn wear, the ubiquitous Raleigh college scarves looped around their necks.

“Not this year.” Their voices drifted back to Cassie. “It's been a bore over there ever since Freddie and the gang graduated.”

“What about your dear professor?”

“Oh, right. Whoops!” The girls laughed, and Cassie realized one of them was Olivia Mandeville, with a dark-haired girl Cassie hadn't seen before. They paused at the traffic lights, and Olivia turned, noticing Cassie three paces behind them.

“Oh, hi!” She bobbed forward, kissing Cassie on both cheeks before she had time to react. Olivia's blue eyes shone; her cheeks were pink with the cold. “You found Harvey's then?” she said, noticing Cassie's brown paper packages steaming in the cold air. “You have to try the bacon and brie, it's divine.” She turned back to the other girl. “Paige, this is Cassie, Evie's roommate.”

“Oh, of course.” Paige scanned Cassie from head to toe with a curious stare. “Lovely to meet you.”

The lights changed, and Cassie fell into step with them, crossing toward Raleigh's imposing front gates.

“How are you liking it so far?” Olivia asked in a friendly voice, a world away from her calculated smiles the first time they'd met. “Evie says you're doing PPE.”

“It's . . . an experience,” Cassie replied evenly.

Olivia laughed. “You'll have to come out with us sometime; there's a whole city you never see stuck in here. Where is Eves, anyway? She was supposed to meet us for breakfast.”

“She's feeling under the weather,” Cassie told them as they entered the courtyard. Students were bustling across campus, and a group of early tourists was milling about under Rutledge's watchful gaze, waiting for a guided tour to start.

“What a shame. Shall we come by with a care package, cheer her up?”

“Maybe later,” Cassie said. “I think she's just resting today.”

“It's this bloody flu.” Olivia sighed. “Everyone's dropping like flies. Send our best, will you?”

The girls took off toward the cloisters, drawing attention from the group of tourists as they passed. Cassie watched them go. There was something glamorous about Olivia, paired with easy confidence; she was always relaxed and secure like a gleaming gemstone against the gray weather and scruffy students.

Girls like Olivia had always fascinated her, the way the world parted so easily to let them through. Here in Oxford, it was magnified: the circles of old private-school friends and boarding-school chums strolling about the city like they owned it. And perhaps they did, sharing a comfort and security the rest of them never knew. Vacations and first drunken nights sneaking champagne from their parents' wine cellars; a sprawling web of friends, and cousins, and old classmates that stretched so wide they need never be faced with a room of unfriendly strangers. Cassie envied their security, their certainty of their place in the world. They would never have to face the judgmental stares of strangers or wonder for a second about the correct protocol for a formal dinner or event.

They would never be told that they weren't good enough, that they didn't belong.

She made it to the attic just as the sky broke, and the few splatters of drizzle
were replaced with a torrential downpour. Cassie opened the door to her rooms to find Evie looking more like her usual self. Dressed in a capricious cashmere sweater and flowing woolly skirt, she was flitting between her bedroom and the living room, unloading great armfuls of files and paperwork in crooked stacks on the large, low coffee table.

Cassie shrugged off her damp sweatshirt, hanging it on the radiator to dry.

“I need to look at the big picture,” Evie announced, slamming down another stack of loose-leaf notes. The pages shivered at the impact and slipped out of order, drifting to the floor. “I'm spending too much time caught up in the small details; I have to see how it all fits together. What Raleigh and the group were trying to achieve, their manifesto, instead of all the historical minutiae. If I figure out their purpose, it should give me mine: a broad thesis of intellectual ambition, and how it related to the Crown and church. They were on the forefront of everything: Science, arts, literature . . . right here in Oxford. I need to find the link that bound them together, and how it shaped the evolution of the fields.” Evie stopped. “Sorry, listen to me. I guess I just need a sounding board.”