Darkness fell too quickly on this dim and dismal day. Grey shadows faded into black, as the thrusting shapes of trees, skeletal hands grasping at the sky, reached out to the unknowable in the growing Gloom. Turning at last from the window, where Night's curtain had fallen with a fervor, she found little solace in the lone Candle, that one meager taper whose sickly light seemed neither to illuminate nor to warm the spare and comfortless chamber which she, so lonely, occupied. E'en that light failed in its purpose, to her grief-shrouded eyes, casting the drafty doorway in looming shadow. More shadows flickered, as if engaged in climbing the bare walls into a dim beyond, there to hover and wait, poised in threat, ready to swoop in and suck out the life within. The room was grim and poor. A churchman's cell, if any church could condone the fate that sent her here. Yet, through the mist of tears and sadness, there seemed a Memory to awaken, to form a counter Image in the shadow. A Traveler, cloaked in grey, whose eyes were Bright as the new green leaves of springtime, offering solace. A hope, a promise, and yet his Words were full of dread.

'We are not what we seem.'

'I don't know, Dulcie. I don't think it's safe.' Mina sounded worried. 'It's nearly midnight, and it's so, I don't know, grim out. Maybe we should just wait until tomorrow.'

'No, it'll be fine. Tomorrow will be crazy,' Dulcie replied, shaking her head. Her friend's warning sounded too much like the passage she had just read. She needed to dispel those echoes. Besides, Mina didn't yet understand how hectic the campus was about to get. 'And I really should get that paper from you. I'll be by in a half hour.'

Before Mina could protest further, Dulcie signed off. 'See you soon!'

It wasn't like Dulcie wanted to go out again. Her friend's dorm room was a good half hour from her own cozy apartment, and the December night was frosty. But the walk would do her good, chasing the last of those spooky echoes from her mind. Besides, she had been the one to encourage the younger student to go old school while looking over the paper. 'Forget track changes,' she had said. 'Sit down with an actual printout and a pen. Take your time with the part where I used your research, and feel free to mark it up.'

Dulcie was not officially Mina's tutor. Dulcie was a grad student in English and American Literatures and Language, while Mina was an undergrad concentrating on History and Literature. But they'd met during a trying time the month before and shared intellectual interests as well as friendship, and Dulcie had taken the younger woman under her wing. Recently, she'd been trying to teach her that part of learning – and loving – the eighteenth century texts they both studied was accepting that, sometimes, paper was still the best medium.

As soon as she hung up, however, she began regretting her decision. 'What was I thinking, Esmé?' As she reached for the thick hand-knit sweater that served as her coat, she looked around for her companion. 'Well, you won't mind if I run out, will you?'

'Chrr–rr–rr.' The plump black and white cat appeared out of nowhere, as was her wont, and proceeded to rub against Dulcie's legs as she trilled. Chris? The question sounded like an echo in the back of Dulcie's mind.

It was an answer of sorts. Just not the one Dulcie wanted.

'Let's not tell him,' she said, as if she had heard the name out loud. 'He worries too much, you know.' With that she bent to stroke her pet's smooth black fur and to scratch around the base of her ears. But even though the feline purred, her voice reverting to the low rumble, Dulcie sensed the little tuxedo cat was annoyed. La Principessa Esmeralda – Esmé, for short – was not a normal house cat. She didn't like to be dismissed.

'It's the conference, Esmé.' Dulcie squatted on the floor to be eye level with her pet. 'The next four days are going to be crazy, and I really want to make everything go smoothly.'

Esmé tilted her head slightly but did not deign to respond. Dulcie waited, to no avail. It wasn't that her pet didn't understand her, Dulcie knew. As she had learned over the last two years, the little tuxedo cat had inherited many of the strange powers of her predecessor, the late great Mr Grey. Like being able to communicate, at least fleetingly, with a kind of conversational, if intermittent, telepathy that always made Dulcie feel like she was hearing a real voice from just behind her.

The problem was more in the opposite direction: Esmé loved to make herself heard, particularly when she felt slighted or like dinner service had been slow. What she didn't like was listening – or responding to anything like a request. Although the little tuxedo was barely two years old, she acted like Dulcie was the kitten of the family, and a not very bright kitten at that. Mr Grey, who still appeared to Dulcie on occasion, might advise her, but he never took the tone Esmé did. It wasn't that Esmé was overbearing exactly, it was more that she exuded an air of entitlement. Or privilege.

'I am the Principessa.' The voice that cut into Dulcie's thoughts illustrated her point, even as it brought her back. So did the claws that reached up to pierce her jeans.

'Esmé, that's rude.' Dulcie tried to sound firm as she carefully removed the claws. Tone, she assumed, might be as important as content, since she still didn't know how much the little cat understood. Clearly, she could 'hear' comments that her human hadn't voiced out loud.

'Well, I am!'

Dulcie sighed and stood up. She wasn't going to win this argument.

'Yes, you are,' she responded in resignation. The black tail flicked once in acknowledgement. 'And, yes, I should call Chris. I'll tell him later, I promise. It's just that I really want to have Mina's paper to give to Professor Showalter first thing tomorrow. Once the conference gets started, we're not going to have a moment to spare.'

Esmé turned away, suddenly captivated by the sight of her own tail. Dulcie had to smile. Maybe it was simply a function of age. Mr Grey had been a mature cat by the time he passed on – and Dulcie had only heard him speak after his death. Esmé, despite her protests, was still a kitten at heart. And living with two humans and a venerable ghost, maybe it was understandable that she tried to look more important than she ... Dulcie wouldn't say 'than she was'. That was unfair. The little cat was as dear to her and to Chris as, well, as they were to each other. But with her limited knowledge of the world – Esmé was, after all, a house cat – it was debatable whether she was as wise as any of her companions.

At any rate, Dulcie thought as she buttoned up her coat, neither of them would be able to tell Chris anything before morning. Dulcie's boyfriend, a graduate student in computer sciences, had recently changed his schedule to something more like normal hours. The overnight shifts in the computer lab paid the best, but the toll they took on his studies – not to mention their relationship – had begun to be untenable. Now Chris was doing more tutoring – and getting his research done. And she got to come home to the lanky computer geek most nights. He'd been called out tonight, however, for some kind of emergency fill-in. The lab, in the basement of the Science Center, had had some kind of animal infestation or something – Dulcie didn't even want to hear the details. For once, however, Dulcie was grateful for his absence.

'I'll be fine,' she said now to reassure herself as much as her feline mistress, as she detached the white mittens that once again clasped around her ankle, lifting the cat up as she did so. 'You just play with your catnip mouse for a while and take a nap. I'll be back before you know it.'

With a shove against her chest, the cat freed herself, jumped to the floor, and stalked away, and Dulcie smiled. She was short too. She knew how hard it could be to salvage one's dignity. However, she used the break to head to the door. The sooner she got over to Mina's, the sooner she'd be back.

'Mr Grey, do you think maybe you could talk with her?' Dulcie was on the street by the time she voiced the request. It had taken her a few minutes to find a way to phrase it that wouldn't be insulting to the younger animal, and now she walked swiftly along the empty sidewalk, the only sounds the distant roar of traffic. 'Reassure her that I'm not completely brainless?'

To all intents and purposes, she was alone. Wednesday, a week before Christmas, and the city was as quiet as it would get. Still, the glow of lights behind window shades was cheering, and Dulcie held out hope. Mr Grey had also been an indoor cat, but often as not these days he came to her out in the world. He seemed especially fond of appearing in the library, or in the tiny office she shared with another grad student, but he'd been known to make himself heard out here, particularly as the wind off the river picked up.

Now it whistled softly, threading its way through the old brick industrial buildings and the worn-out triple deckers. Dulcie didn't pause – the night was too cold – but she listened, hard. Often, she heard Mr Grey's voice. Sometimes she saw him, the flare of his wide white whiskers or the soft plume of his grey tail, silhouetted by the dust motes in a shaft of light or in the shadows like the one cast by the bare maple she now passed under. Sometimes, she still thought she imagined his visits. He did tend to come when she was sleepy or distracted, after all.

'Mr Grey?' She peeked up at the sky – at the moon overhead caught in those spiky branches. 'You are there, aren't you?' But she kept her voice low, and after a moment's search, her eyes went to the street again, to the dun sidewalk and the blue shadows that crossed it. As much as she had dismissed Mina's concerns – and Esmé's – Dulcie wasn't foolish. The street might seem quiet, but this was still a city, and as a young woman walking alone close to midnight, it made sense to be aware of her surroundings.

'Lost in the inky dark ...' The phrase, from her earlier reading, came to mind. She sped up a bit, but still her mind wandered. 'As in her black-hued thoughts, she felt her fancy wander, searching down the dim paths by which she had arrived. Or been led, she pondered, the dark of night thick'ning before her burning eyes.'

No; she shook her head to clear it and felt her curls break free of her knit cap. Now she was just scaring herself. The city might be quiet, and a little eerie, but it wasn't as bad as all that. Besides, as much as Dulcie enjoyed the Gothic conventions – ghosts and intrigue, all wrapped up with a dollop of romance and, at least in the case of her favorite author, a heroine with enough spunk to see it through – she knew the difference between fiction and real life.

Into the Square and back – that was all the midnight journeying Dulcie was doing tonight. She'd get Mina's annotated paper and bring it home; the undergraduate had contributed some genealogical research, and Dulcie had wanted to make sure she had used it correctly. Then she could read the whole thing through again, quickly, before presenting it to the visiting professor in the morning. Odds were, the professor – who was coming for the conference – wouldn't have time to critique it thoroughly between the constant panels and presentations that would re-energize the otherwise deserted campus. But she'd said she'd look it over before Saturday – meeting's second full day – when Dulcie was going to be giving a short talk about its contents. It was only one of the morning presentations, to be held in a small room off the main lecture hall. But it was Dulcie's first time presenting an academic paper at such a gathering, and she was a tad nervous. Even the sketchiest thumbs-up would be appreciated.

ELLA – as the Association of English Language Literatures Academics was known – was a big deal. And although the conference convened biannually, this was the first time it had met at the university since Dulcie had been here, and since the last two had been in Dubai and Oxford, both a bit beyond Dulcie's travel budget, this would be the first time she had ever attended.

Dulcie had heard the same gossip as all her friends – the hook-ups arranged over dialectics, the marriages made – or shattered – between panels. Even Chris had made some comment about the rumors, although Dulcie suspected him of feigning his concern about the reception she – and her paper – might receive. He wasn't really the jealous type, and besides, she suspected not many people would come to hear her anyway.

It didn't matter. All Dulcie cared about was the research. While some of her colleagues, Chris included, might be surprised at the number of real breakthroughs that were announced between the romantic comings and goings, Dulcie knew better. Newly uncovered texts, radical attributions, and revolutionary reinterpretations were constant and as vital as the discovery of the Higgs boson – and ELLA was where they were announced.

Not that she expected a thunderclap of acclaim for her own work. She – and her paper – were too small to make much noise, at least right away. Still, in three days, Dulcie would present, even if nobody but Mina was there to hear. Then, she hoped, the paper would develop its own momentum. Over the next month, she'd revise it and file it with the ELLA-associated journal. If she were lucky, she'd hear back by spring from the review board – whose members would, of course, expect her to spend her summer making minute and often contradictory revisions based on their particular areas of interest or grudges against each other. Then, sometime next winter, it would – goddess willing – be published. The size of the rumble then would be commensurate with how bright she could shine here. She had to make this presentation count.

Even without her own work, the next few days would be busy. Tomorrow – Thursday – the guests would be arriving – dozens of grad students and other low-level scholars and three top-flight academics, all of whom were candidates for an open position here at the university.

On Friday, the conference would kick off for real, with Martin Thorpe, the acting head of the department, giving the keynote speech. For the rest of the weekend, Dulcie knew, in addition to polishing her own paper, she was supposed to attend back-to-back talks from nine until three, not to mention the numerous gatherings that would follow. The guest lists for these could be political, but Dulcie figured as a member of the hosting university she'd receive invites to the major ones. She hoped so, anyway. That's where she and all the other aspiring academics would have their chance to mix and mingle with the tenured set, almost, sort of, on equal terms.

Some of her fellow academics, she acknowledged, would be here just for the socializing: the conference's reputation had to have some basis in fact. But with any luck, a few of them might also come to hear her present her paper – 'The Moon in the Branches: Tracing the Family Tree of a Gothic She-Author' – setting in motion the kind of relationship she desired – the kind that, in a year or two, might lead to a job.

It was exhilarating but also, Dulcie had to admit, exhausting. In some ways, she thought to herself as she made her way into the Square, she just wanted life to continue as it had for the last five years. Looking at the hallowed brick buildings around her, she thought about how easy it would be to do research here another five years, spending her days in the library – and her nights with her newly present boyfriend. They'd come through some, well, interesting times, and survived them intact. Now their domestic routine seemed the epitome of comfort. Plus, she still wasn't sure about that title. If only she could have some sense of the future.

'I guess I chose the wrong field for that, huh?' The moon over her head didn't answer. Maybe that was because it was well overhead, far from the spare branches of the sickly street tree. It didn't really matter. While Dulcie could have continued researching her topic forever, and, in fact, hoped to make it her life's work, she was nearing the end of her thesis.