The Devil & Me

Chapter Seventeen: Apocrypha

He looked at me and I stared back with a clenched jaw. The bell rang. "Cassius. I have to go to class," I said.

"Come find me later," he said. He squeezed my shoulder. It didn't feel romantic. It didn't feel lustful. It felt like a warning. "I want to see you."

He left, walking with no urgency. I dipped into class, made a dozen apologies for my lateness, and dumped my newly heavy backpack onto the ground.

ψψψ

At the end of the school day, I had a few minutes to sit before I had to go to practice. I sat down at my desk in the empty bedroom⁠⁠ (as now both Luce and Grace stayed out as long as possible) and opened my backpack. I sighed. How did it come to this? My friend group dissolved at the start of my senior year, but my problems with the student body were erased. I thought if everyone left me alone that everything would just...stop. But I didn't feel better. I felt the same kind of lousy as always. I shook my head and lifted a book from my bag.

I stared down at the leather-bound book that Liliana Ambrose had earlier dropped. I'd give them back to her at practice today. But you would think that she notice a fucking brick had fallen out of her bag.

A long purple book mark hung out of the pages. I ran my fingers across it. It was satin, I think. The leather, despite its age, looked strong. The pages had the thick, dusty smell of an old library. I wondered if she had taken this out of some archive for independent research. We were seniors now⁠⁠—maybe she wanted to do an extra project. I opened the book. Yes, it was none of my business, but this was Liliana we were talking about: I didn't like her.

The front page read, in looping, ink script, "the Diary of Mary Ambrose, née Browne." My eyebrows shot up to my hairline. As in their ancestor Mary Ambrose? My eyes drifted to the dates below. From more than three hundred years ago?

I kept flipping the pages. Entries began.

"Dear Mary Jr⁠⁠—

That Devil boy, he took my seat in class. I sit in the back now, I can barely see. I'm going to fail my exams and the teacher is going to wallop me good."

"Dear Mary Jr⁠⁠—

I'm going to begin to write smaller. I only have one extra leather-bound book--the one Papa got me for Christmas⁠⁠—and money is tighter. Papa, he will not tell me, but I know."

"Dear Mary Jr⁠⁠—

I don't know what money I'll have for dowry. A girl without dowry, what kind of marriage can she make? I'll be ruined, the business is ruined, oh I'll have to find work. It's the Ambroses, putting their money into that new man, the Scott down the street. It takes all the money out of our mill."

"Dear Mary Jr⁠⁠—

The new job and the caustic lye burns all my fingers right down to the reds, but it's work, honest work. Never mind it's on the Devil's property, that highborn finishing school, but Papa is not so well Mary. Won't you say a little prayer with me?"

"Dear Mary Jr⁠⁠—

The Devil boy has discovered me. He won't leave me alone. I'm afraid he'll chase me out. I'm afraid I'll die of hunger in the street. I'm afraid that I'll have to resort to things that will make God..." Her handwriting became shaky here. The page was discolored. "I will be strong, Mary, for my siblings. Soon, I may be all they have."

"Oh, Mary⁠⁠—

I've made a dreadful mistake! This is the end of me, I'm going to be a Pariah forever. I don't know what demon took over me and forced me to jump. But that boy⁠⁠—that man⁠⁠—he made me so angry! All his life, he's made me so angry, and then I...I'm ruined, I'm ruined, my siblings..."