Diana Peterfreund - Under the Rose

I stood to the side a bit as my brothers got ready to call the meeting to order. Thorndike, this evening’s Uncle Tony, donned a long black hooded robe, took her seat on the dais at the top of the room, and turned a pedestal so that the wooden engraving of Persephone faced the room. She struck a small gong thrice, once, and twice. “The Time is VIII. I hereby call to order this, our Seven thousand, one hundred, and twenty-ninth meeting of the Order of Rose & Grave.”

Keyser Soze, our club’s Secretary, took his seat to the right of the dais, and the other Diggers, including me, followed suit, each perching on one of the couches.

“In honor of Persephone, the Keeper of the Flame of Life and the Consort of the Shadow of Death, we, her loyal Knights, salute and honor her image.”

“Hail, Persephone,” we intoned. Well, most of us. I was sitting next to Lucky, and I noticed she didn’t intone a thing. She didn’t even whisper it. She noticed me staring and rolled her eyes. Clearly, we’d entered the Hyde phase.

“Omni vincit mors, non cedamus nemini,” Soze said.

Thorndike continued with the rather arcane calling-to-order ritual, which included a list of fines incurred in the previous week by members for various infractions:

Lil’ Demon:cursed before the altar of Persephone—$3.

Puck:used barbarian names when Bond had beat him in Kaboodle Ball last Thursday—$2.

Graverobber:twice caught without his society pin—$10. (“Get a tattoo like ours and you’ll be golden,” Angel suggested.)

After that, there was a sort of group-bonding activity in which we turned to our fellow knights and messed up their hair. I liken it to that moment in church where you shake hands with the people next to you in the pew. We sang a few traditional songs (singing is really big at Eli, no matter what activity you’re involved in), which tended to be, at once: spooky, ribald, and filled with literary allusions.

Next up, Bond reported on the developing plans to steal back a small bronze statue of Orpheus that had been recently pilfered from our courtyard. Thanks to some recent surveillance, we were pretty sure the thieves had been Dragon’s Head, and Bond and Lil’ Demon had been combing through the archives in the Library to find records showing how to break into Dragon’s Head and retrieve our property. This tradition of “crooking” from other societies was one of the oldest we had. The tomb was chock full of memorabilia from generations of Diggers who’d been trading trophies back and forth with all the other societies on campus. I thought most of the stuff was junk, myself, but I’m sure to the class of 1937, the mangy stuffed lion’s head they’d swiped from the tomb of Book & Key represented a triumph of criminal ingenuity.

And the other societies weren’t the only targets of our raids. I’d been amused to learn upon my induction into the Order of Rose & Grave that many of the most infamous items-gone-missing over the years could be found within the hallowed walls of the tomb. From what I could discern, the university turned a mostly blind eye to all of the shenanigans, so long as we kept our thievery confined to objects like champion crew boats, weathercocks from the roof of the president’s office, and the like. A few years ago, a valuable World Clock had disappeared from a college dining hall, and the benefactor as well as the college dean were so upset that it seemed like all fun and games had come to an end. With the heat on, the club decided to ditch their booty and found an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone when the local campus tabloid printed an exposé about Rose & Grave. Magically, the clock appeared in the tabloid’s minuscule office the following day, and an anonymous tip to campus police pointed the way hence.

I knew the story well. The editor of every publication at Eli had heard how the tabloid editor had been dragged into the provost’s office to explain himself. The clock’s presence in the tiny basement office was ridiculous, of course. No one believed they could have hidden such an enormous piece of equipment in a space hardly big enough to contain the rumors they collected. Naturally, the editor redirected the blame back at the Diggers…and mysteriously, the case against the thieves—whomever they might be—was immediately dropped.

Interestingly enough, the club portrait of D169 hanging in the tomb’s room of records features fifteen young men standing around the usual table showcasing the usual society paraphernalia. But behind them all is a World Clock.

We hadn’t chosen the target of our club’s big caper, but it was early yet in the year.

“This evening, to honor Persephone, we will hear the Connubial Bliss report of Knight Bugaboo. All agreed?”

There were sounds of assent in the room, and I took my place before the painting. I liked Connubial Bliss. She was not a beautiful woman, but she had a certain stark appeal. Her pose wasn’t openly seductive, nor pornographic (like some other nudes we’d found in the tomb’s collection), but rather a casual nakedness. In her hand she held a pomegranate, which, I’d learned, was a more accurate interpretation of Eve’s apple. Persephone wasn’t the only woman of myth who’d lost paradise by eating pomegranate.

Her gaze looked a bit beyond the viewer, her expression stoic, and at times I thought it was a little sad. Angel had said she looked aloof, as if she was above the adoration heaped upon her by the hormonal adolescents who usually used this room. Puck had said she looked sexy. So, clearly a naked Rorschach test.

I turned and faced my audience. “Most Sacred Goddess Persephone, Uncle Tony, and my fellow Knights of Rose & Grave…” And then I stopped. “Um, what is he doing here?”

I pointed to Poe, who had, of course, taken a seat in the most shadowy section of the room. He looked affronted. “What do you mean? I can come to meetings.”

“Oh, no.” I folded my arms. “I don’t want him here.”

“I’m a member of this organization,” he said. “I’m bound by the same oaths as the rest of these people.”

“He’s not in our club,” I said. “I don’t think—”

“But we always let the patriarchs sit in on the meetings if they want,” Angel said. I shot her a look. Dude, show a little Diggirl solidarity, huh? She hadn’t had that creep breathing down her neck when she was reporting on her sex life. Why should he get the honor of hearing about ours if we didn’t get to hear his in return? (Um, not that I’d want to!)

And I still had my ace to play. “I don’t feel comfortable. Isn’t the idea of this evening for me to feel completely comfortable?”

“What exactly is it about me that makes you uncomfortable sharing your intimate history, Bugaboo?” Poe said with a cold satisfaction.

“What is it about you that makes everyone uncomfortable in general?” Lucky snapped. There we go! A little support.

I stood there, looking at the club, who were approximating a tennis match audience. Poe, me. Poe, me. Poe, me.

Thorndike cleared her throat. “This is Bugaboo’s presentation. If the knight feels ill at ease in the presence of the patriarch—”

“She shouldn’t,” Poe argued. “I’m here like the rest of you, to participate in the experience of Rose & Grave.”

“Haven’t you gotten enough experience that you don’t need to horn in on ours?” I glared at him. He glared back.

“I think,” Thorndike said, “we should take a vote.” She rapped a gavel against the wooden top of the pillar by her throne. “All those in favor of restricting the C.B. reports to the members of the current club, say ‘Aye.’”

Everyone looked at one another. It was a momentous vote. I’m sure half of them thought I should drop the whole issue with Poe. Yeah, he was a jerk, but he was always hanging around the tomb, devouring our food and sulking. We’d almost gotten used to him. And he’d proved last year that when push came to shove, his oaths really did mean something. However, I could see it on each of their faces. They were all thinking of patriarchs they would rather not have around when it came time to do their own reports.