I think I know where this is going, now.
“Do you think she believed all of that?” Beverly asked me later at the Student Union. There had been no formal agreement to turn this meetup into something approaching a date, but it had become clear that we were both amenable to the idea. If only because at least we would have something to talk about over our food court bowls. “The Skullheart story, I mean?”
I shrugged. “Why wouldn’t she? Why wouldn’t we? The core of it’s not really remarkable. There was a fiddler. He was bad. He died, probably under strange circumstances. Somebody thought it’d make a good story.”
Beverly shook her head. “No, not that part. It was just… well, she herself wouldn’t say the guy’s name. It was like she thought that it really wasn’t safe, because he really might hear. Could she honestly believe that?”
“Probably,” I replied, after swallowing a mouth full of noodles. “She’s old. You know how it is: old folklorists always end up deciding that some legends are true. I’ve decided, when it’s my turn, that I’m going to believe in Mothman.”
“Yeah, but who still believes in wizards and witches, in this day and age?” Beverly thought about it. “Okay, a lot of people do. But not, you know, scholars.”
“How many scholars does [Lecturer] see every day, though?” I pointed out. “She does more fieldwork than teaching. You spend all your time surrounded by people who believe something, you’re going to start believing in it, too. At least a little.”
“Come on, [my name]. You’re just guessing that. Neither of us has that kind of experience.” Beverly smiled when she said it, so the comment didn’t sting too much.
Which is not the same thing as saying that it didn’t sting. I scowled at my bowl, as if it would give me an idea. And damned if one didn’t come to me. “What if we did?”
“What do you mean?” Then the light dawned. “Right. [Lecturer] said she would be doing a summer survey of the Berskhires, didn’t she? Looking for ghost stories, and spectral songs.”
“Yes! A month in the countryside. She’ll probably visit every haunted house in western Massachusetts. I bet that, after a week of that kind of diet, we’d start seeing spooks, too.” A thought struck me. “And even if we didn’t, that’d make for a good entry on our C.V.s.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Beverly said. “First off, do I even want to go?”
My eyebrows raised. “Don’t you?”
“Well, yes,” Beverly admitted. “Still, she hasn’t said we could go with her. She hasn’t even been asked. And how do we know she’d say yes?”
“That part’s easy: we’d just pay our own way.” I went through the numbers in my head. “It’d just be for a week. If we stayed in cheap hotels and eat out of cans, we could do it for a few hundred dollars apiece. It won’t cost [Lecturer] anything to let us tag along; why wouldn’t she, especially if we made sure to be helpful?”