Why do certain classrooms remain locked even during regular school hours, and what's behind the administration's refusal to discuss the graduating class of 1962? Which textbooks contain chapters that disappear when photocopied, and why does the night janitor carry equipment that isn't for cleaning? What happened in that basement storage room that required it to be sealed with concrete?
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Survival of the generic.
― Siobhan Vivian, The List
Miriam Ketch had always prided herself on being Providence High’s most dedicated substitute teacher, arriving early and staying late even when not required. The aging brick building felt more like home than her cramped apartment, its echoing halls and flickering fluorescent lights a comforting constant in her transient career.
It was during her third consecutive week covering Mrs. Henderson’s history classes that she first noticed the inconsistencies in the curriculum. Dates that didn’t align with established timelines, references to civilizations that archaeology had never confirmed, and most disturbing of all, a recurring emphasis on something called “The Convergence of 1892” - an event she couldn’t find in any historical record.
The students seemed oddly receptive to these anomalous lessons, taking notes with an intensity that bordered on religious devotion. Their essays, when she graded them, demonstrated knowledge far beyond their years, written in prose that felt ancient despite their adolescent handwriting. Young Timothy Marsh had written extensively about pre-human mathematics, while Sarah Olmstead detailed astronomical alignments that wouldn’t occur for another millennium.
The breaking point came when Miriam discovered the faculty planning documents in the main office. Decades of meeting minutes detailed a curriculum designed not to educate, but to “prepare the vessels for generational understanding.” The school board signatures at the bottom of each document belonged to people who had died years before the dates listed, their names recurring in student records spanning impossible lifetimes.
As the final bell rang that Friday afternoon, Miriam realized why she’d been hired so insistently despite her lack of references. The children filing past her desk weren’t learning about history - they were learning to remember it, awakening to knowledge that had been carefully cultivated through bloodlines that predated the town itself. And now, having witnessed their true education, she understood that some substitutions are permanent.
