Page 22 of Salem’s Rise

I level him with a flat look.

“I’m sure you don’t.”

“Come now,” he says, grabbing my arm, his smile returning, easy and bright. “Lots to see!”

Twenty minutes later, we arrive in downtown Salem’s Fall.

It’s only early September, but Salem’s Fall is apparently unwilling to wait for October. The air has already changed, surrendering to the coming season with surprising speed. Narrow cobblestone streets wind between crooked storefronts painted in rich autumn colors, their windows crowded with candles, crystals, old books, and enough black cats to populate a small kingdom. Pumpkins line the doorsteps. Strings of orange and black lights twinkle and flutter overhead, while skeletons lounge on weathered wooden benches as though they’ve been waiting all year for someone to notice them.

Tourists are everywhere. A family in matching witch hats poses beneath a banner advertising the upcoming annual “Downtown Salem’s Fall Equinox Celebration”—whatever that is—while a group of teenagers gathers around a street performer dressed as a seventeenth-century fortune-teller. The woman waves her hands over a smoking brass bowl and announces that one of them will soon betray the others. Based on the horrified expressions around her, she may have just destroyed several friendships for a measly ten dollars.

“Wow. You people really commit to the theme,” I say.

“You heard Lucien today in class.” Rowan glances over at me, amused. “It’s our duty as citizens of Salem’s Fall to embrace the town’s history.”

I frown. “If you say so. This place gives me the creeps.”

“Give it time. Salem’s Fall grows on you.”

“So does mold,” I say.

He laughs, and I hate to admit I kind of enjoy the sound. It’s rich and easy, the sort of laugh that draws people in without trying.

I also hate that he’s right. In just the short walk from campus to Gallows Street, I can already see the appeal of the town. It is quite charming in its own spooky weird way.

I visited Salem’s Fall once as a child, one of the rare times Josh managed to convince Mom to take us somewhere fun for the weekend. We came in the off-season when it was cheaper. The town was still decorated with pumpkins, though there were sunflowers too. They called it “Summerween.” Josh dared me to touch a fake severed head in a shop window while Mom laughed in a way I almost never heard at home.

I smile at the memory.

“Careful,” Rowan says. “Looks like you’re already starting to enjoy yourself.”

“Temporary lapse in judgment.”

His eyes meet mine, warm and amused. “Those tend to happen around me.”

I ignore the small, unwanted flutter in my stomach and focus instead on the path ahead as we turn down a narrow street. Maple branches arch over the road, their leaves just beginning to turn colors along the edges.

Rowan seems to know everyone. A barista leaning out of a café window calls his name. An elderly man arranging pumpkins outside a florist shop raises a hand in greeting. Even a little girl in a purple witch costume waves at him as if he’s some kind of local celebrity.

“Good grief,” I say. “Do you know the entire town?”

“What can I say? I’m a man of the people.” He smirks and points to a black-painted storefront across the street with a carved wooden cat hanging above the entrance, its eyes flashing whenever the sign sways in the wind. “That’s The Black Cat Bookshop. Best bookstore in town.”

“Let me guess. It’s haunted.”

“Obviously,” he says, deadpan. “A bookseller died in the upstairs apartment, and his ghost rearranges the shelves after closing. Also hates romance novels. They mysteriously wind up in the dumpster whenever the owner gets new stock.”

“Sounds like my kind of ghost.”

“What?” He pauses, looking almost offended. “Not a romance fan?”

“I’m not into all that sappy stuff.”

“You’re not into love?”

I shrug.

“That’s a shame,” he says. “We’ll have to work on that.”