Contents
Chapter Three
Overview
Holland meets Adam Bishop, who abruptly becomes her new thesis adviser and claims Professor Kim is a fraud. Though he praises Holland’s writing, Adam rejects her devil-murder thesis as fiction and demands a new topic. Determined to prove her research, Holland seeks the Professor and schedules opening the mysterious bank box.
Summary
On the day before Halloween, Holland visits the Folklore department during daylight and enters Adam Bishop’s sparse office. A nosebleed interrupts their awkward introduction before the hot “grad student” reveals he is actually Professor Adam Bishop. He asks to meet because he is replacing Professor Kim as Holland’s thesis adviser.
Adam refuses to explain Kim’s situation beyond implying misconduct and calling her a liar and a fraud. He reviews Holland’s thesis, praises her craft and the compelling structure around Natalia West’s death, but declares the central claim—devil-orchestrated Hollywood deaths—unsuitable for scholarship and therefore unusable.
Holland pushes back, proposing to prove the devil is real. Adam warns that chasing Professor Kim’s stories is dangerous and orders her to propose a new topic by next Wednesday, offering his own suggestion. Holland pointedly refuses his help and leaves determined to defend her mentor and her research.
Unable to reach Professor Kim except via voicemail, Holland recalls Manuel Vargas’s card. Reconsidering what she’d dismissed as a scam, she decides the class legends may interconnect and could validate her work. She calls the bank and schedules an appointment to open the safety deposit box willed to her.
Who Appears
- HollandGraduate student protagonist; meets new adviser, defends her devil-murder thesis, and arranges to open the inherited bank box.
- Adam BishopNew folklore professor and Holland’s adviser; denounces Professor Kim, praises Holland’s writing but rejects her thesis as fiction.
- Professor M. Madeleine KimHolland’s former adviser; absent and unreachable, accused by Adam of being a liar and a fraud.
- Manuel VargasBanker linked to a willed safety deposit box; Holland calls to schedule opening it.