Sixteen years after the murder of Angela Hall had precipitated the decline of Caldwell College, Mark Darrow returned to campus, standing in the shadow of the Spire.
Darrow had come at the urgent request of Dr. Lionel Farr, his professor and mentor, one of the seminal figures in Caldwell’s history and in Darrow’s life. It was the end of the spring semester and blossoming dogwood trees, set between generous oaks, brightened the landscape with pink. Even here, Darrow could detect Farr’s in?uence; since becoming provost, Lionel Farr had overseen the planting of pine trees and neatly tended gardens, giving the foliage both variety and order. But the buildings spaced throughout had no par tic u lar theme: the oldest—elaborate brownstones with Gothic steeples and towers— were mixed with square, staid structures from the late nineteenth century and newer buildings in a variety of architectural styles, some more nondescript than others. As a student, Darrow had found this hodgepodge engaging, a stone- and- brick record of the growth of Caldwell College over time. Though the campus would never resemble that of a picture- book college, these structures had housed generations of students and nurtured much learning— including, as Darrow gratefully remembered, his own.
The current students looked much like Darrow’s classmates had all those years ago. With the subdued, somewhat dazed look of college kids facing ?nals, they wandered past him, taking little notice, Darrow reflected wryly, of the former campus legend, now a latethirtyish lawyer in a business suit, headed for his meeting with the presidential search committee of a small Ohio school in crisis. Then Darrow looked up at the Spire, recalling the most vivid hours of his youth, and all trace of humor vanished.
Erected two de cades before the Civil War by the school’s found er, the Reverend Charles Caldwell, the tower remained as Caldwell had intended: the epicenter of campus, with four brick pathways radiating outward like spokes, the other buildings set at an appropriate, almost reverent distance. At its base was chiseled, Christ, the Chief Cornerstone. From there, at Caldwell’s insistence, over two hundred feet of sandstone rose above everything but sky.
The found er’s aspirations had been realized— the Spire dominated both the landscape and the psyche of Caldwell College. Its image graced the yearbook, the alumni magazine, the school’s letterhead, and, for over 160 years, had decorated every diploma issued to a graduate of Caldwell. Part of Darrow’s fraternity initiation had been to memorize Webster’s de?nition of a spire: “a structure that tapers to a point at the top, as in a steeple.” Just below the steeple, in a space with four long openings, the great bell of the college hung, its deep resonant clang reserved for moments of celebration or sadness. The lawn beneath the Spire was the scene of graduations, weddings, pep rallies, and memorial ser vices. In the week before Caldwell’s annual football grudge match with its hated rival, Ohio Lutheran, students guarded it at night from vandals: by long tradition, the Spire was where, if Caldwell emerged triumphant, the celebration would begin. It was on such a Saturday in November that a twenty- one- year- old Mark Darrow had ascended the Spire for the ?rst and only time, never imagining that, within hours, this memory, and this place, would turn dark for all the years that followed.
A scant hour before, Mark had thrown the last of four touchdown passes, sealing Ohio Lutheran’s defeat; Coach Fiske, whose privilege this was, had designated Mark to ring the bell atop the Spire. Very rarely was a student admitted to the bell tower— the Spire’s oaken door had been padlocked since 1938, when a drunken celebrant had fallen from the Spire to his death. The new president, Clark Durbin, had opened the door for Mark and passed him the ceremonial bronze axe with the chip in its blade, the spoils of Caldwell’s victory. Then Mark stepped inside.
Alone, he paused inside the shadowy tower, filled with awe and reluctance. Since early childhood, Mark had loathed con?ned spaces; the absence of light frightened and depressed him. The winding staircase, dark and dank and steep, led, in Mark’s imagination, to a chamber suitable to druids or high priests. Battling claustrophobia, conscious of his responsibility to commence the celebration, Mark started climbing. He felt his chest tighten, a nameless terror choking his breathing. As a distraction, he counted each stone step to con?rm that— as his fraternity had also required him to remember— the Spire had 207 steps, each one foot high.
Reaching the top at last, Mark opened its door. The square chamber was bare, its mortared stone walls adding to its severity. Hanging over him was a massive brass bell. Mark’s other aversion was heights: though the four long openings of the tower began at his waist, he approached the one he had chosen gingerly, as though some invisible hand might send him hurtling into space. But as he surveyed the throng below, a surge of triumph overcame his fear.
The lawn was covered with students, many of whom had already embarked on an alcohol- fueled bacchanalia that, for some, might last until dawn. Among them stood Lionel Farr, his wife, Anne, and their twelve- year- old daughter, Taylor, who had waited with the others for Mark to appear. Mark spotted them and then, for Farr more than anyone, he brandished the axe, his grin of triumph spreading as Taylor waved back with an adolescent’s adoration. Seeing him, the crowd let loose with a deep- throated roar. Then, heart pounding, Mark reached for the heavy iron chain . . .
Staring up at the tower, Darrow could still hear the deep tolling whose echo had nearly deafened him. But now there were spotlights placed around the Spire, so that darkness never came here. This, too, was the work of Lionel Farr.
The moments before he had ?rst met Farr— an encounter that changed his life forever— were also imprinted in Darrow’s memory.
He had been a seventeen- year- old in a small Ohio town, a star football player but a middling student. With no real family or any future he could see, he hoped only to wrest one timeless moment from a high school athlete’s transient glory. His chance came down to the last play of his ?nal game as quarterback of the Wayne Generals. The air was crisp, carrying the smell of popcorn and burnt leaves; the ?eld, a bowl of light in the darkness, reverberated with the enthusiasm of a football town of seventeen thousand, perhaps half of them here huddled against the cold, screaming and stomping the wooden bleachers with booted feet, the small minority of blacks quieter and seated in their own clusters. There were six yards to go, four seconds left, three points between Wayne and its ?rst defeat in an otherwise perfect season. The Generals broke the huddle, seven linemen in blue jerseys loping toward the line of scrimmage, their shadows moving alongside, as Mark, two running backs, and a ?anker spread out behind them. Opposite them was the Cloverdale defense, eleven boys in green uniforms, their four defensive backs— poised to thwart a pass or run— portraits of taut alertness.
For an instant Mark took it all in— the light and darkness, the primal roar of the crowd, the...