Gothikana

The students dismiss the legend as “just a story” (77). Corvina, who believes in ghosts but doesn’t necessarily consider them malevolent, puzzles over why the story unsettles her so much. As she tries to fall asleep, she hears the feminine voice and smells rot again. The voice encourages Corvina to find her. It vanishes quickly.

After a sleepless night, Corvina walks down to a different portion of the woods, hoping to avoid the lake. She finds gothic ruins, including battered gargoyles standing next to a strange tree with an alarmingly realistic eye carved into it. A row of 15 unmarked gravestones stand nearby. Corvina is alarmed until a crow caws, which brings her comfort. She offers the crow a biscuit from her pocket, which it accepts. She continues to explore the ruins and finds a piano that is covered by a tarp, indicating that it has not been abandoned. She recognizes this as a sign of Deverell’s presence and wonders about his connection to the graves.

She returns to the castle, struggling to ignore the feeling she is being watched. She enters Verenmore’s library, considering her ambivalence about higher education. She considers college a link to her past, however, as her mother had gotten pregnant while in college and had been cut off by her parents when she decided to keep Corvina. Corvina’s father died by suicide shortly after Corvina’s birth; her mother, Celeste, never discussed her deceased partner.

Roy teases Corvina about “practicing black magic” (84), which makes Corvina snap back at her. While browsing the library shelves for sources for an essay, Corvina finds a young boy, who warns her that “the Slayers” are “here” (86). Startled, she drops a book. When she stands up, Deverell is there. They stand close to one another, but Corvina worries that Deverell does this with many girls. She asks him about Alissa, whom he says was a “random fling” before he knew she was a student. They agree that they should stay away from one another, but they kiss and have manual sex anyway. When a noise nearby causes them to pull away from one another, they insist they will not repeat the incident.

A large photograph shows a crow standing on a gravestone that is topped with a cross. A quote from Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s Carmilla reads, “Love will have its sacrifices. No sacrifice without blood” (92).

Deverell lectures about motifs in literature that represent death. Jax suggests that crows represent death in literature, which Deverell notes is a particular theme of gothic literature. He assigns them a creative writing exercise in which they are to write about death in unpredictable ways. Corvina sees another student look flirtatiously at Deverell and criticizes herself for “lusting after a man half the school lusted after” (95). She struggles to reconcile the limited knowledge that she and Deverell have of one another and her persistent sense that there is “something there” between them.

Jax invites Jade and Corvina to go into the woods. Corvina grows angry when Jax casually comments that she must be “crazy” for spending time there. Jade and Troy defend her before she can say anything. Corvina agrees to go, as she wants to lead the group away from the ruins, over which she feels strangely protective. She has spent the past week journaling there each morning; she feeds the crows on each visit. They explore an area of the woods that Corvina has not yet visited. Jade makes frequent comments that this excursion is foolish.

Troy comments that he has always been afraid of the woods, but that the story of the “Slayers”—the students who murdered the villagers—made him even more cautious. Corvina, thinking of the boy in the library, is alarmed. Troy explains that legend holds that the students who “ended” the Slayers “disappeared off the face of the earth after leaving Verenmore” (100). Troy knows this because he delivers packages for the university, and the village postal worker shares local lore. Her paternal aunt is allegedly the villager who was killed, though this transpired before the postal worker’s birth. Jade discourages this conversation, saying she prefers not to know.

Corvina hears the female voice and smells rot. The group suddenly stumbles upon a shack and sees someone moving inside. Mo’s voice urges her to leave, and Corvina obeys, her frightened friends following her. Troy and Jax consider returning, as the door to the shack was locked from the outside, meaning whoever was inside might be trapped. Corvina insists they should stay away, citing “a feeling,” which Jade defends. They return to the castle, where they see Deverell crossing the grounds. The group wonders if Deverell is involved with what they saw in the woods. They are divided on Deverell’s involvement, but agree that “something is very wrong in those woods” (103).

A photograph shows misty, overgrown woods. A quote from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Table Talk” reads, “The principle of the Gothic architecture is infinity made imaginable” (104).

A mysterious narrative voice observes that “they” watch Corvina, whom, it contends, “should never have come to Verenmore” (105). They fear she will discover secrets which will undo their work. (This voice is possibly attributable to the false Jade, though this is never clarified.) They plan a diversion.

A small image shows a raven flying toward a full moon; the raven is in the upper lefthand corner and one of its wings overlaps with the moon. A photograph shows a close-up of a water feature that looks like a woman’s face, shown in profile. Water comes out of her mouth, while more water drips from above. A wet mark on the stone makes it appear that the statue is crying. A quote from John William Polidori’s The Vampyre reads, “She detailed to him the traditional appearance of these monsters, and his horror was increased…” (108).

In a dream sequence, Corvina tries to save a girl who is lying face down in water, but all her efforts to move closer to the girl make the girl float further away. The girl sinks into the water, and Corvina hears her mother’s voice. Her mother drops three tarot cards—the Devil, the Lovers, the Tower—and warns Corvina that “a storm” is coming and that “He is the storm” who will “keep [her] safe” (110). She further cautions that “once [Corvina tastes] the forbidden fruit, [she belongs] to the devil” (110). Corvina struggles to grab her mother, but Jade wakes her.

Rattled from the dream, Corvina takes a walk, though it is the middle of the night. She heads for the ruins, a place that now brings her comfort. She is startled to find Deverell already there. He is annoyed at her for wandering through the woods at night. He explains that he is repairing the piano, which he found there. She explains about her mother’s tarot cards, which she still has. She views them as useful guides, but sees personal choices as being more relevant to one’s trajectory.

Deverell asks her about Jax, as he saw them holding hands as they walked through the woods earlier in the week. Though Corvina has no romantic interest in Jax, she doesn’t deny anything between them, trying to encourage herself to stay away from Deverell. Deverell reasserts that they cannot have a romantic attachment, but confesses his strong, possessive feelings toward her. She characterizes this feeling as lust, but he contends that it is “madness.” They kiss, both admitting that they desire this form of “madness.”

When they pull apart, Corvina is embarrassed that Deverell apparently regrets their kiss. She promises that she will not repeat the incident and that they will return to a professor-and-student relationship. She bends to collect her dropped tarot cards and finds they are the same cards as from her dream.

The image of the raven flying toward the moon shows the raven in the lower lefthand corner. A large photograph shows ruins of a rounded alcove with a round window inside. The stone of the alcove is overgrown with plant life. A quote from William Shakespeare’s As You Like It reads, “Love is merely a madness, and, I tell you, deserves as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do” (122)