Maybe a witch

The Day I Was Bewitched

People have offered countless explanations for what happened to me.

My mother blamed loneliness.

My father blamed idleness.

My cousin insists I mistook infatuation for destiny.

Years later, professors would tell me that the human mind has a remarkable talent for inventing patterns where none exist. Priests would remind me that temptation often disguises itself as fascination. Doctors would speak of obsession with the confidence of men who have never truly been obsessed.

They're all wrong.

I know the exact day I was bewitched.

It was the first week of October, 1994.

It was raining.

Of course it was.

Blackthorn always seemed to exist beneath the same stretch of gray sky. Even on the rare occasions the sun appeared, it felt borrowed, as though the town had stolen it from somewhere brighter. The houses were beautiful in the way abandoned cathedrals are beautiful-grand, silent, and cold enough to make you lower your voice.

My father called my stay there "a lesson in humility."

He had another name for what happened at university.

Disgrace.

One foolish decision during my final year of law school had earned me a year's suspension. The newspapers never heard about it, but our friends did, which was worse. My father refused to let me spend the year hiding in my apartment.

So he packed me off to Blackthorn to live with my cousin Victor, who managed several of our family's estates there.

Victor had his own ideas about how a twenty-two-year-old man should spend an autumn afternoon.

"We'll show you the town," he said.

By "the town," he meant St. Agnes Academy for Young Ladies.

Every afternoon, just before dismissal, Victor and his friends parked across the street beneath a row of old chestnut trees and watched the students leave through the academy's iron gates.

They had a game.

Every girl received a score.

Eight.

Six.

Nine.

Four.

The rules were embarrassingly simple.

The shorter the skirt, the higher the number.

Long skirts were a tragedy.

Ankles hidden beneath thick stockings were apparently crimes against youth itself.

I laughed when they laughed.

I wish I could tell you I was better than that.

The truth is, I wanted them to like me.

That afternoon the wind was fierce.

It rushed through the avenue in sharp bursts, tugging at scarves, umbrellas, loose hair, and school uniforms. Victor grinned.

"Perfect weather."

His friend beside him whistled.

"We're getting tens today."

Girls emerged from the academy in groups, clutching their satchels while fighting the wind. Laughter echoed down the pavement.

Then she appeared.