The Ghost of Winn Peterson

28. Vicar

Overwhelmed with the urge to go outside and look in the garden, Vicar resisted and reminded himself that the mysterious Dr. Radcliffe had likely not buried anything suspicious on his own grounds. Wherever Winn had been stationed was convenient enough to maintain a gravesite, but had he dug up the earth on his property, anyone of them over the years could have dug it up. Curious if the trio of suspicious youths ever made their way back to Winn's old home, Vicar rose from the bed and scratched at his hair. He was beginning to feel the effects of hiding in dusty, cramped rooms all day. 

He ought to make some use of himself while he rested his eyes. Having already found Gaston's letters and notes, Vicar supposed now he could find evidence of Winn's fiction. The desk was important enough to her, and her writing no doubt held more clues, less noticeable details about the strange world she'd been caught up in. Though, Vicar only needed to remember that her journal had not been in her room, but hidden away in a trunk, covered by layers of years and dust and spiders in the attic, far away from her room. Something so treasured as her storytelling would no doubt have been stored in a more private location, and he gave up the idea for the time. Instead, falling back on his old habits of musing and reminiscing, Vicar thought of Amelia once more, of her strange friends and the effect they'd had on his brief time in America. 

Amelia, he learned one evening, some weeks after she'd stayed behind to talk with him, had been romantically involved with at least two of the group before the Latin Club, as they were fond of calling it (the irony, one of them always seemed to make mention of, was that they hardly studied Latin, and indeed, the name was a joke of sorts to appease their other professors). It was in a medical class (he'd forgotten the name of it, so outside of his realm of interests it was that he really had no hope of maintaining the name) the initial romantic pairing had occurred. Amelia and Bobby, he learned with a mild fascination, were close enough in age that nobody had cared when they'd begun openly kissing or holding hands, but Bobby being slightly her junior, had reason enough to be shocked when their relationship ended and Amelia chose Clark as her next pursuit. 

Clark, being the oldest of the group and the only one sprouting gray hair, albeit prematurely if one was inclined to believe him, had been somewhat of an outcast, or more accurately, a loner amongst the group. Had he not met Amelia, it was doubtful he would have joined any club at all. Despite the shock this relationship caused, and the sulking Bobby did for weeks afterwards, Amelia eventually met with one of Clark's friends from a different school within the university, and thus, the first four were formed. This friend was Henson, who was fond of yelling and general bouts of argumentative behaviour, often seen as aggressive by other students. Why he and Clark were acquainted by something Vicar never discovered, as they were as opposite as a pair of friends could possibly be. 

The final two members of the Latin Club were brothers, an anxious James and a snobbish Harrison. Vicar had supposed Harrison to be the elder of the two, but learned from Amelia (who possessed an endless sea of knowledge on nearly every facet of their lives) that it was the meek James who'd been born in the wrong body of a firstborn son. His temperament, though easily scoffed at and perfect for being abused by students like Henson, suited the group well - who better to scout for books and resources than the shy young man who'd sooner be discovered snogging a book than another person as Amelia had? Whatever information James learned was immediately passed on to the younger Harrison, who was fond of sharing the news with as much condescension as possible and as many lofty words as he could cram into a sentence. Vicar had been rather annoyed with him the first time he'd sat with the group, as his headache was mildly furious at having to decipher the myriad of useless words Harrison used. Still, snobs had their use, and it was Harrison who had, with the help of the equally loud Henson, convinced the dean to allow the club into the official registry with the school board. The club limit was conveniently maxed out at six members, a limit bound by scant funding, as they often claimed.