u/CJKenneth

After my talk with the professor, I knew I had to get a look at those newspapers Ms. Warner had mentioned. I had two names and I had a date range. Eventually I was bound to find something. I marched back to the circulation desk and asked Ms. Warner if I could look at the student newspapers and magazines from 1969-1974. She got out from behind the desk and led me down a hallway to the right of the entrance, then down a hallway to the left, then down two flights of stairs into the sub basement. After checking labels on the end caps of shelving, we stopped. 

>“This shelf is 1968-1970, this shelf is 1970-1972 and this shelf is 1972-1974. Quite a lot to go through, I’m afraid. In those days everyone on campus wanted to have their own magazine, newspaper, or periodical, so there was a lot of output. I’ll leave you to it, but do come back upstairs if you need help finding something else.” 

I stood in shock at the monumental task in front of me as I heard Ms. Warner’s heels clack away back to the stairwell. 

After a moment, I placed my bag down at the desk in the corner and grabbed the first box. Even just skimming for any mention of Rebecca Steinbaum or Prudence Peaceflower took ages. My eyes strained looking over the yellowed paper under the blinding desk light. My jaw clenched as my mouth dried out in between sips of the rapidly cooling coffee I poured from my thermos. By 11:30 that night, I was exhausted, starving, and had found nothing of interest. There were articles about everything from campus parties, politics, poetry, and the latest developments in the cold war, but nothing about Steinbaum or Peaceflower. It was like sorting through trash from a hoarder’s house, flipping through acrid pages with the occasional article that had been clipped out, surely to end up on someone’s dorm room wall decades ago. I decided to check one last box before heading home, and that’s when I found my next lead. In a quarterly publication about regional economic news, two pages had been stuck together. Gingerly peeling them apart revealed a small blurb at the bottom of the page:

AFTER RESIGNING HER POSITION LAST SEMESTER, EX-PROFESSOR PRUDENCE PEACEFLOWER (FORMERLY REBECCA STEINBAUM) HAS ANNOUNCED THAT SHE WILL BE OPENING A HOTEL NEAR WOLCOTT

Finally, actual proof! I had begun to suspect that I was trying to chase down an urban legend, but this was real evidence that she had existed, that Woods was right about her names, and that there was something more to find.

Although my Thursday schedule was non-existent, on Friday I did have classes in the morning. I could barely focus on the lectures as I thought about what I was doing next. That afternoon I would be driving up to Wolcott. I was supposed to go to a party with my girlfriend that evening, but something inside me just had to find out more about the professor’s hotel. I needed to go there, and I needed to see it myself. As soon as my last class ended, I headed for a payphone and called Amy’s apartment since she was saving up for a cell phone at the time, but still couldn’t afford one. She must have left for campus early for her 3PM chemistry lab, so I left a message on her answering machine:

>“Hey babe, it’s Dave. I know we’re supposed to go to Mikey’s party tonight, but I’m not going to be able to make it. I’m digging into something for a paper, and I have to make a trip upstate. It’s not too bad a drive, maybe one and a half to two hours. I should be able to get back late tonight. I know this is last minute, but trust me it’s worth it. I’ll tell you more when I get back.”

It would have been better if I’d called her earlier. It would have been better if she’d guilted me into going to that party. It would have been better if I hadn’t made the drive. It would have been better if I never went to Wolcott.

I was at a yard sale last weekend - some nurse at the local hospital was trying to offload stuff before she moved down south for retirement, and I found an old laptop for sale. Apparently, if a patient dies and no one picks up their stuff for a couple months then the staff get to take what they want. She said that she picked it up to use as a spare or to sell but just never got around to doing anything with it. I decided that I could probably fix it up and make a couple bucks reselling it on eBay, so I took it home.

The computer booted right up after being plugged in, and there was no password. I figured I’d look around before doing a factory reset - just to see if there was anything interesting. No games, no photos, no nothing. Just a single untitled Word document from 2007. I read through it and something about it seems real. Googling didn’t return much, so I’m posting it here:

My name is David and I’m going to die soon.

I don’t have much to leave anyone. The $325 in my checking account, the TV in my apartment, and my 1987 Buick Regal are about the only assets to my name, and collectively they’re probably worth less than $1,500. About all I have of value is my story and a warning: never stay at The Peaceflower Inn.

I was 20 in the spring of 2000, a junior at Bellmore College, a small liberal arts school in western Vermont that you’ve probably never heard of. I wouldn’t blame you either, only around 1,200 students attended the school when I was there. It wasn’t a bad school, just not particularly remarkable in terms of its prestige. The kind of place filled with artistic types who wanted a small school experience or those who didn’t have the means to attend larger universities. Even so, they had a generous alumni base that helped to support a wide range of academic scholarships, which was the only reason I was able to attend. Solid Bs with an occasional A kept me from having to pay for tuition, and I could afford a sparsely furnished studio apartment with part time work. 

That semester, I had signed up for the “History of Bellmore College” class. Just about everyone took it at some point since it was an easy-A. Once a week you sat through a lecture on some aspect of the college’s history - how the founder made his fortune, a notable dean, etc. - and at the end you wrote a paper on any topic about the college’s history. In return for this minimal work, you got a history credit. Well, it was mid April and the semester was about a month and a half away from ending when Professor Jacobs announced that we’d have to pick topics for our papers by the end of the month, stipulating that no one could write about the same subject since Bellmore had “such a rich and diverse history to choose from”. I guess I was late to submit my choices the next week since the TA told me that they had all already been taken, but that I had another week to find something else to write about.

What was supposed to be an easy-A was turning into more effort than I wanted. I got some of my best work done at the local diner, so I went down to grab an early dinner and look over the syllabus for other topics. While I was sitting at the counter, Mike - another regular patron - asked what I was working on this time. I explained the assignment and my dilemma when he suggested:

>“Why don’t you write about the Peaceflower thing?” 

I had no idea what he was talking about, but before I could ask a followup question the owner interrupted:

>“Hey! I don’t want to hear any talk about that woman in here. Mention her name again and I’ll kick you out.” 

Despite seemingly working 100 hours a week to run his restaurant, Stavros had always been friendly to customers. However, at the mention of “the Peaceflower thing” his usual happy demeanor had flipped to one of pure disgust. Mike shut up and stared down at his coffee.

The next morning I headed to the library. I had no classes on Thursdays, so if I was lucky the librarian could point me toward a few books or articles and I could put together a passing paper that day, freeing up time to focus on my other courses. I walked in the doors and headed straight for the circulation desk. 

>“Hi, I’m working on a paper and was hoping you could help me find some sources.” 
Ms. Warner, the head librarian, turned toward me. 

>“Of course, dearie! What’s the paper about?” 

>“Well, I’m taking the class on the history of Bellmore, and I wasn’t able to get one of the usual topics. I heard that some lady called ‘Peaceflower’ would be good to write on, but I really don’t know anything about it.” 

Ms. Warner furrowed her brow and pursed her lips for a moment. 

>“The name sounds somewhat familiar. We’re archiving some student newspapers, maybe I saw it there, yes. I’ll go take a look through what we’ve cataloged so far.” 

She went into the back room behind the desk and flipped through reference cards for about 10 minutes before returning. 

>“It seems that we don’t have that name in our records yet - it’s still an ongoing process getting all these student publications sorted out. You know, Professor Woods could know something. He was a student here back in the day and might be able to give you somewhere to start looking.”

Disappointed, I made my way over to Villeneau Hall. Professor Woods was part of the art faculty. He’d had some commercial success in the mid 80s with his metal sculptures, but got bored of the medium and decided to return to college to get a graduate degree and eventually to teach. When I got to his classroom, it was empty except for the professor working away in the corner on some mountain of brightly colored blobs layered together. 

>“Excuse me professor, I was just at the library and Ms. Warner said you might be able to tell me something about a woman I’m writing a paper on.” 

Woods spun around, his gray ponytail swinging as he did. 

>“Is it a contemporary artist? If you’re looking at someone from before the turn of the century I might know some stuff, but you’ll probably want to ask one of the art history professors.” 

>“Actually I’m writing about someone from here, I think they were a student or something? Are you familiar with the name ‘Peaceflower’?”

Professor Woods started laughing as he stood up and walked over to the sink to wash whatever he was working with off his hands. 

>“That’s not a name I’ve heard in awhile, no one seems to talk about it anymore. So, you’re writing a paper on her?” 

It wasn’t the response I was expecting, but I was certainly intrigued. 

>“If I can find out enough to write five pages. The library didn’t seem to have anything on hand, but she thought you might be able to point me in the right direction. So, was she like a student or…?” 

>“She was indeed. She also taught, at least for a little while. Although, when she was a student she wasn’t going by ‘Peaceflower’. Rebecca Steinbaum was her birth name, that’s what she went by in undergrad and grad school. Our paths crossed for a brief period - it’s a small school after all - but I had already graduated when she started teaching and the whole thing was over by the time I came back.” 

>“What whole thing?” I asked. 

Woods took a sip from his mug and cleared his throat. 

>“Like I said, she was a student here - majored in anthro or sociology if I remember correctly. Right after that she got her masters and then her PhD. In ‘71 she became an associate professor and changed her name to ‘Prudence Peaceflower’. Taught some class on ‘the divine form’ or something like that and I guess it got a bit out of hand.” 

>“How does a class get out of hand? What, was she sacrificing students to demons or something?” 

>“I don’t really know the specifics, but people told me bits and pieces over the years and there were a few articles written about it at the time. Like I said, this all happened before I came back and at that point no one wanted to talk about it too much. All I know is that her intro courses were pretty typical, but I guess her higher level classes had a more experimental teaching style that the college didn’t jive with and by 1973 she was given the boot. Apparently even the grant money wasn’t enough to make the college put up with her.” 

>“She was bringing in grant money?” 

>“Oh yeah, tons of it. From what I heard, one summer she had done some work with a researcher out in San Francisco…”

He stroked his goatee for a moment. 

>“...Dr….something…West…I guess he helped her secure a bunch of funding from the federal government. Didn’t matter in the end though. That’s about all I know, hope it’s helpful.”

After I thanked the professor, I went back to the library. I no longer just wanted to get my five pages written as quickly as possible, now I wanted to know more. Looking back, I wish I’d never let my curiosity make me look deeper. I wish I’d never talked to Professor Woods. I wish I’d never listened to Mike when I was at the diner. I wish I’d submitted my list of topics earlier.