Page 77 of Divine Oaths

Kasem drew lines between the different players in all of this and then began a list that he filled out as he spoke. “We don’t know how or why the curse started. We don’t know how to break it, outside the obvious goal of me living past my fated death. And we don’t know why you saving me in the alleyway that night connected your powers to my lifeline.”

As we drew out our plans, sometimes stragglers ventured to our side of the quiet rooms. We probably looked like two college sweethearts stealing time to study together. Kasem, with his wire-rimmed glasses (he was farsighted, I learned) as he shuffled through handfuls of books and files about Virginia and Westfield history. Me, multitasking between finishing my music assignments and looking up articles he suggested.

“My powers don’t work like that,” I said for what felt like the hundredth time after Kasem asked me to hold one of the books he was reading to confirm whether it was historically accurate. “Aren’t you supposed to be some kind of academic prodigy? How can you not know the difference between a primary and secondary source?”

“So, your powers make you what, a secondary source?”

“Funny,” I said, rolling my eyes and hiding my smile. “Why do I get the feeling that you’re using the curse to con me into being an assistant for your graduate thesis?”

He cleared his throat. But behind the current book he was flipping through, I could tell he was fighting back laughter too. Which, fair. I was getting stir-crazy myself.

It had only been a few hours since we’d begun our deep dive, but since there were no outside windows here, it felt like it’d been days.

“I can’t transport myself into the past or time travel, or anything like that,” I said, continuing my explanation. “I can just see the past, and, occasionally, the future, in psychic visions.”

“Through touch,” Kasem clarified. “So, then, are you constantly just seeing visions of different timelines whenever you grab someone or hold something?”

“Mostly the past, but yes. I do—ever since the night in the alleyway.” I held my hands up, showing him the coarse, burnt flesh that marred my fingertips. Most people flinched at the sight of the blistered skin. Kasem grew silent.

“Is it painful?”

“Not anymore,” I said. “It’s really the migraines and the nosebleeds that bother me now. I can’t control them like I used to be able to, but recently, I’ve been better at keeping visions at bay.”

Westfield was a minefield for me. There was so much history in every quiet corridor, in every building, that it was hard to avoid falling into a vision when almost everywhere was steeped in the past.

Kasem considered that for a moment, then picked out one of the books he’d brought. Some journalist in the 1960s had published an official record of Westfield’s history, starting with Westfield Saint James. As the journalist described him, Westfield was a young general fresh off victories from the War of 1812. He was also an outspoken member of the Virginia Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, one of the few abolitionist organizations in the state in the decades before the war, and he purchased the swampy lands that would later become the university from a local ordinance commissioner. In its first iteration, Westfield existed as a military academy called Saint James Academy. Its earliest students included Duncan, Westfield’s oldest son, and Kent, Duncan’s half brother and the youngest of Westfield’s four children.

In 1854, Westfield died and, to the shock of Virginia society, his will named Kent the inheritor of the academy while Duncan would serve as its president. Legal disputes ensued. Eventually, Duncan and Kent filed to be cofounders of the newly established Westfield University in order to claim the estate and beat the various legal petitions facing the will.

“So, when did the board of trustees start having more control over Westfield?” I asked. The book had tintypes of Duncan Saint James and the other sons of Westfield standing in front of the university’s original main building. But none of the photos showed anything of Kent and the Black side of the Saint James family, or even mentioned the institution’s abolitionist history outside of Westfield’s individual interests.

Kasem held out his hand. It took me a moment to realize what he meant by the gesture.

“That’s not how my powers work,” I said, shifting nervously in my seat.

“Didn’t you just say—”

“I can’t just see hundreds of years into your past in an instant. And I can’t see into your ancestors’ lifelines through you either. As it is, I can barely see into a few hours back in time without my head feeling like it’s splitting.”

Besides shoppers at Louisa’s stall, no one had ever asked me to use my powers on them. Particularly someone I had a real relationship with. Not that Kasem and I had a relationship. But even Jojo had never willingly offered to let me see into his past. I knew Kasem was just trying to figure out how to break his curse, but it felt too intimate, too personal.

“Fine,” he said. “Let’s see what the books say, then.” He rummaged through the stacks of titles he’d picked out until he found a small coffee-stained pamphlet that had been commissioned by the local county.

REVISITING WESTFIELD UNIVERSITY

Most of the pamphlet had the same information as the book from the 1960s. General Westfield Saint James bought the land, opened a military academy, and gave it to his son in his will, and then his sons renamed the school after their father. But on the last page of the pamphlet, there was an addendum from a reprint in 1959.

During the midst of the Civil War, control of Westfield was briefly seized from the Saint James family by a General Winhall of the Confederacy. At that period, Westfield was established as an accredited university. The board of trustees was created and they operated the school in the midst of the war. But on the eve of the end of the war, a skirmish between the general, his troops, and the Saint James heirs ensued, with General Winhall perishing in the aftermath. Duncan Saint James took ownership of the school in the years following.

In 1946, Joseph Saint James, a young colonel who bravely served in the Second World War and whose deceased father, a Mr. Seth Saint James, fought in the first of the World Wars, filed a legal petition with seven other descendants of Kent Saint James. Their goal? Reclaim ownership of the university and the Westfield estate, which, they argued, should be theirs according to General Westfield Saint James’s 1853 will, which named Kent Saint James as the inheritor of the institution at the age of one and twenty. In 1955, the family won their petition. They were officially granted ownership of the full Westfield estate in 1956. Yet, the sudden, tragic death of Colonel Joseph Saint James has resulted in delays to transition plans.

Now, the oldest son of the colonel, a Mr. Melvin Saint James, will legally gain ownership of the estate following his twenty-first year, as per the transition documents outlined by the conservatorship trustees of the Westfield estate. Mr. Melvin, now seventeen, is petitioning the courts to grant his inheritance at eighteen, per the common law of Virginia. In the interim, the Board agreed to facilitate the process of having the descendants of Kent Saint James reclaim ownership of the school and appointed the descendant of Duncan Saint James as the school’s president.

I leaned over the table, shifting the pamphlet so I could read it better. The photo of Kasem’s ancestor Melvin was a small clipping from a newspaper that showed a handsome young Black boy surrounded by his younger siblings, three other little boys and one cute little Black girl in a stroller. Their mother wore a veil with moths sewn into the lace that partially covered her face. Even so, she looked grief-stricken and overwhelmed. At thirty, she was a widow and mother of five young children, with only the glimmer of an inheritance for her young son to help tide them over during hardships.

“It doesn’t say anything after that,” I said, turning the page to nothing more than the empty back of the pamphlet.

“It was written in 1959,” Kasem said.