“Oh, Maud, do tell!” Her friends leaned in with interest. Up until now, Maud had never breathed a word about having a beau. Josie thought that Maud had seemed interested in Teddy Swain before their disastrous encounter in the botany class, and Maud had never mentioned anyone in particular since.
“I would light a candle and look in the mirror, and over my shoulder”—Maud spread her hands wide, lowered her voice, and widened her eyes—“an image would appear…”
“Tell! Tell!” Josie said. “Who would appear in the mirror?”
“And there over my shoulder,” Maud continued, “I would see a ghostly image, first faint, then bolder, and then, finally, crystal clear.” She paused for effect, holding her two friends spellbound.
“Tell us!” Josie cried.
“Over my shoulder would appear—MY MOTHER!” Maud cried. “Saying, ‘Maud Gage, I did not send you to get a degree in holy matrimony. I sent you to study for a diploma. You will most certainly not be married by Hallowe’en next. Now, get back to your studies!’?”
With that, the girls collapsed in laughter.
Maud flipped over onto her stomach and stared at everyone.
“I have an idea,” Maud said. “We should form our own secret society—females only.” From the corner next to her wardrobe, she grabbed a broom, brandishing it high above her head. “In hoc signo vinces!” Maud cried. “In this sign, we conquer, and in this room, we all have a vote! Who votes that we revive the all-secret, all-female Cornell Women’s Society of the Broom?”
Maud kept the broom held aloft as she looked around the room, meeting the eye of each of her friends. All of them knew the story of the super-secret all-female society. It had long been rumored that in 1872, when the first sixteen women enrolled at Cornell, the men had refused to enter into any social intercourse with these new coeds, shunning them in classes, ignoring them as they walked across campus, and banning them from ever entering in the all-male fraternities that controlled the campus’s social life. To fight back against this slight, this intrepid group of young women had formed their own clandestine organization—naming it the Society of the Broom and taking as their motto In hoc signo vinces: “In this sign, we conquer.” Of course, the men did not fail to notice the symbolism behind their choice—the broom, witches, the dark arts of women. No one discussed it publicly, but in private, the campus was scandalized that the women were being so radical.
If the group had indeed once existed, as rumored, it had long since been disbanded, but the legend of the Broom Society continued.
The relations between the sexes, while not exactly warm, had since thawed enough that the rumored society was no longer necessary, and the girls had become more interested in joining one of the nascent sorority organizations that were already being founded in other universities, particularly in the West. But the significance of their predecessors’ secret society was lost upon none of them.
“Let’s reconvene the Society of the Broom,” Maud said. “We can hold a séance.”
“Oh, Maud!” Jessie Mary breathed. “Are you a medium?”
“Of course not,” Maud said. “But tomorrow is Hallowe’en, so why not try it?”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Josie said.
“It won’t be a real séance,” Maud insisted. “We’re just doing it as a lark. The boys have all kinds of fun in their secret fraternities—this will be our secret ritual. We won’t breathe a word about it.”
“Sorcery…” Jessie Mary murmured, as if bewitched by the mere sound of the word.
“We all know that witchcraft and sorcery are nothing more than superstition,” Maud said decisively, lowering the broom. “But I say we have a right to a little bit of fun while the boys are outside making mischief.”
* * *
—
THE NEXT NIGHT, a few minutes before midnight, nine intrepid girls were crowded into Maud and Josie’s room. Maud had placed a small table in the center of the room, and she told the girls, who were pressed shoulder to shoulder, to each place both hands on the table.
“I will act as the medium,” she announced. “Because I’m not afraid of the supernatural, and I don’t believe in it, so if anything happens, we’ll know that it’s true.”
The girls all nodded their assent. No one but Maud would be bold enough to try to act as a medium.
The night of Hallowe’en was frigid and still. Sharp pinpoints of starlight shone through the window. The gas lamps were extinguished, and the girls’ faces were shadowed, but their white dressing gowns glowed in the dark.
“Silence,” Maud said in a firm voice. “No laughing, no giggling, no talking. We must all be perfectly still.” Maud struck a match and lit a wax candle, placing it in the center of the table. The girls stared solemnly at the flame.
Matilda had always maintained an interest in the occult and spiritualist practices. But Maud herself knew little about any of it except what she had picked up from her mother. She thought this was all just playacting, though she knew from the attitude of the other girls that many of them were inclined to believe.
“On this All Hallows’ Eve,” Maud intoned. Josie giggled. Maud nudged her under the table. “We summon the spirits….If you hear us, please give us a sign.”
The room was quiet, but filled with the muffled sounds of young bodies trying to stay still: the shuffling of feet, cleared throats, loud breathing. The silence went on and on until Maud sensed that their concentration was just about to break.
Without giving any outward sign, she pushed up on the table, very slightly, until the side she was holding levitated just above the ground.
The change in the room was electric. The table seemed to move even higher now, as if several of the girls were buoying it into the air. Their faces were shadowed, so she couldn’t read their expressions, but she decided to continue to play along.
“We have received a sign!” Maud said in her most dramatic voice, channeling Susan B. Anthony as she whipped up a lyceum crowd.
Maud heard Jessie Mary’s audible gasp and felt her startle beside her, which only made the table shake more.
“Can you answer some of our questions?” Maud asked, in the same portentous tones.
This time, Jessie Mary didn’t move, so Maud surreptitiously rocked the table herself.
The girls sat perfectly motionless, their attention rapt. Maud was enjoying herself. “Who has a question for the spirits?” she intoned, her voice grand.
The air of expectancy in the room was palpable.
Josie coughed, and a half-strangled word died on her lips.
“Josie? Do you have a question? Be bold! Speak up!”
“Well…I…”
“Spirits, Miss Josie Baum would like to ask a question. Do you agree to accept her question?”
Maud waited to see what would happen, but nothing did.
“Give us a sign.” Again, silence. Maud slowly raised her knee and bumped the underside of the table, taking care not to jostle the candle too much.
The startled cries around the table satisfied Maud. It pleased her to know that the girls could get up to their own mischief without having to carouse outside like the boys.
“Miss Josephine Baum, please state your question.”
“What is the name of the man I will marry?” The girls all giggled, the table jostled, and the candlelight flickered around the room.
Now Maud had to improvise. She had a strange feeling deep in the pit of her stomach: Did all the girls know she was just fooling? Or had she swept them up into something without really thinking about the consequences?
She looked around at the faces of the gathered girls, wondering what should happen next, but soon her sense of fun overtook her. With her index finger, she began a series of knocks under the table. She tapped three times, then stopped.
“Why, I believe that the spirits are spelling,” Jessie Mary cried out.
“One-two-three. It must be C!” one of the other girls said in a hushed voice.
Counting on her fingers, Josie exclaimed, “It’s C!”
“Charlie Thorp!” the girls cried in unison. Of course everyone knew that he was Josie’s beau.
“Ask him when we will marry!” Josie said excitedly.
Maud quickly did the math in her head, figuring out when Charlie would graduate before tapping the numbers 1-8-8-3.
Soon the room was filling with questions, and Maud stopped worrying so much about whether it was obvious that she was answering everything herself.
* * *