Page 24 of Salem’s Rise

“Because then Silas would be right about you. He says you’re a fool.” A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. “Though I think that’s only because you’re not afraid of him. Everyone else around here is.”

We stop at the end of the block at a narrow shop wedged between an occult gift shop called the Wandering Raven and the Crooked Kettle Tea Room. A faded sign hangs above the door: PEMBERTON’S ODDITIES: GAMES, PUZZLES, AND CURIOSITIES.

Rowan escorts me inside. The place smells like dust and sandalwood, every available space crowded with strange objects. Antique chess sets. Wooden game boards and intricate puzzle boxes. Professor Pemberton stands behind the counter, polishing the brass face of an old compass. I recognize him from the faculty page on the university website, though he looks less formal in person, dressed in jeans and a dark vest.

The professor glances up as we approach. “Mr. Ashcroft,” he says with the same surprising deference every authority figure at the university seems to show the Heirs, though without the added fear Silas commands. “And a friend.” He looks at me. “How can I help you?”

“Hi, Professor Pemberton,” I say. “My name is Jack Mercer.”

He freezes, his expression shifting instantly. Without a word, he hurries past me, flips the front sign to CLOSED, and locks the door. He scans the windows as though checking whether anyone followed us, then swiftly pulls the blinds shut.

“Hello, Jackie,” he says. “I’ve been expecting you.”

Professor Pemberton gestures toward a pair of tall wooden stools tucked against the counter of his curiosity shop, and Rowan and I settle into the seats. The little shop suddenly feels slightly claustrophobic now that the front door is locked and the blinds are drawn. An old grandfather clock ticks steadily in the corner while a brass pendulum swings back and forth beneath a glass case.

I clear my throat, breaking the silence. “You said you were expecting me, Professor?”

“I knew you’d show up eventually.” His expression softens with something close to sadness. “Josh’s little sister, Jackie. You look so much like him.”

For one painful second, I can’t speak. Everyone always said Josh and I had the same eyes, though his were warmer than mine and usually carried the beginning of a joke.

“You knew my brother well?” I ask.

“Well enough,” Professor Pemberton says, adjusting a stack of books near the edge of the counter before settling into a chair across from us. “So what can I do for you? I assume you didn’t track me down because you’re shopping for a nineteenth-century astrolabe.”

“I’m trying to understand what happened before Josh disappeared,” I begin. “I keep coming back to his game—to Vanished. I know you supervised his fellowship. What I never understood was why the university wanted him so badly. I know Vanished had become popular, but it was just a game.”

Professor Pemberton eases back in his chair. “How much do you know about Vanished?”

“I know the basics,” I say, and Rowan draws closer beside me, suddenly listening with more interest. “It’s a puzzle game, like Zelda or Tunic. Players solve a mystery by working through things. Pattern recognition, ciphers, symbol language, layered maps. Each round of the game centers around a fictionalized storyline, but they’re all based on real-life historical mysteries.

“He started with the disappearance of the Roanoke colony. When that exploded, he made the second round about the Donner Party disaster. Then last year, he started working on a round focused on Salem’s Fall’s history. Something to do with the witch trials and local legends.”

He nods. “Did you play?”

“A little,” I say. “He sometimes had me test puzzles before he released them. I was good at spotting holes. Once the games went live, though, I was usually too busy with school and work.” Guilt presses lightly against my ribs. “I kept telling him I’d play more when life slowed down.”

I always thought there would be more time. Now I don’t know if Josh will ever complete his game or if I’ll ever get to play it.

“Josh talked about you often. You were his best tester,” Professor Pemberton says, and the words hit somewhere tender. “He said you saw patterns other people missed. He admired your mind.”

“I can’t believe your brother created Vanished,” Rowan says, leaning forward.

I blink at him in surprise.

“You’ve played it?”

“Of course.” His face brightens. “The whole campus was obsessed with the Salem’s Fall round. That first level was brilliant, the one where you had to decipher symbols from a seventeenth-century witch journal to figure out which magic ritual came next.”

Professor Pemberton smiles faintly. “That was one of Josh’s favorites.”

“I helped with that,” I say. “I still think he made the math too easy. I solved it in twenty minutes.”

“Impressive.” Admiration shines in Rowan’s eyes. “Took the guys in my dorm a whole week.”

Professor Pemberton shifts in his chair, drawing our attention back.

“What made Vanished so extraordinary wasn’t any single cipher or map,” he says. “Plenty of people know how to create codes, but Josh understood how to make one discovery change the meaning of everything that came before it. Players thought they were looking at simple decoration, a background detail, but then hours later they realized the entire game had been teaching them how to read it.