Page 58 of The Missing Pages
“As I recall, the watch key is in here.”
He pulled out two keys on a small round ring. One was very tiny, the other more substantial. A faded pink ribbon was tied around them, connecting them to each other.
“Oddly, I’ve never been able to find out what this other, larger key’s for,” he said as he pulled the crystal inkwell closer to him.
“Now let’s see if I remember how to open this right…” His words melded into a hum as he examined the silver watch casing that served as the inkwell’s top. “Yes, now here it is.” Pete used his nail in the groove to open up the back of the watch.
“It’s really not that hard, Violet. Look here,” he said. “Just in case next time you’re the one who needs to do it.”
He then took the tiny winding key and inserted it into a small hole, and then slowly began turning it. Soon the watch sprang to life.
“That wasn’t too hard,” he announced with a little flourish. He then moved the hour hand forward, setting the watch to the correct time.
Violet glanced at the second key on the ring, which was larger and a completely different shape than the winding key.
Pete dropped the ring back in the drawer and shut it closed.
“But what could the other key be for?” Violet asked him. Ever since her encounter in the library with Theo, she’d been on the lookout for more clues to Harry’s story. Now Violet couldn’t help but be intrigued. “It must belong tosomething…”
He shrugged. “As I said, I’ve always wondered that myself. But it’s just another mystery about Widener,” he said and laughed. “Maybe we just gotta ask his ghost.”
Violet’s eyebrow raised. “Do you think there really is a ghost in Widener?”
He laughed. “No, I was just teasing you.” He gave her a playful pat on her shoulder, then checked the now-working watch against the one strapped around his wrist. “Tell Madeline I couldn’t find anything wrong. It just needed a proper winding.”
“Will do,” Violet said. “Thank you.”
The second after he left, Violet reached for the drawer.
The watch showed the time. It was 10:07, meaning Violet only had a few minutes before she had to get to her psych class.
She looked around, and no one else was in the Memorial Room. Unable to control her curiosity, she pulled the little drawer open again and pulled out the set of keys.
The smaller one was the one Pete had used to wind the watch, but the larger one was the one she now focused her attention on. It was as long as her thumb, with two flat bits at the end of the blade. Both keyswere quite tarnished, but the larger one had a beautiful design at its bow. Violet traced her finger over it. The metalworker had forged two tiny birds on the end. As she peered closer, she could see they appeared to be two starlings, their beaks connected in a kiss.
Violet gently put the keys back in the drawer. It was now 10:12 and she had only a few minutes to get to her seminar. If she walked fast she could get to James Hall, where the class was located, in just under ten minutes.
Violet collected her things and hurried toward the door.
The air outside smelled of wet maple leaves and traces of morning coffee, as she headed west on Kirkland Street toward Quincy Avenue. James Hall was one of the less attractive buildings on campus. With its flat white roof and 1960s utilitarian facade made with concrete panels, it evoked an austere modernism that appeared incongruent to so many of Harvard’s classical-styled buildings. But now Violet wondered if the architect who had been commissioned to design it had drawn his inspiration from William James himself. Was the outside made purposefully austere in order to contrast with the intellectual energy that buzzed inside? Much like the human body was a husk for its soul?
Violet considered the building in a new light now. William James was a man who had pushed the boundaries within academia of its attitudes toward life after death. Violet wondered whether it was his intellectual curiosity that had initially led James to seek out a famous medium after the death of his son, or was it his grief and desperation?
Maybe it was both. As for herself, Violet knew it wasn’t just Hugo’s death that had made her curious about whether there might be a way of communicating with the spiritual world. Nor was it also her belief thatHarry was trying to reach her. Or her hope that Hugo might also one day try to communicate with her too. She realized she wanted to find evidence to support something deeper.
Was the soul impossible to extinguish? Was it possible that part of us could transcend death? Violet wanted to believe, much like William James and the members of the Trinity Ghost Club, that the spirit lived on.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
PROFESSORJAMES RETIRED THE YEARIGRADUATEDHarvard. He was well known on campus, an esteemed educator and highly acclaimed in his field.
I remember one evening when I had ventured back to my room at Westmorly Court after a long day of classes, my good friend was in the common area reading one of Professor James’s latest writings.
He put the book down and asked me this question.
“Do you believe the spirit and the soul are the same thing, Harry? I was asked this question in class today and, quite frankly, I have no idea.”
I was tired at that moment, and struggled to come up with an intelligent response.
