Page 38 of Salem’s Rise

“I know.” I nod toward Georgina instead. “She’s very pretty, isn’t she?”

“She’s a bitch.”

The speed of her answer startles a laugh out of me.

“Who is she?”

“Georgina Alden.” Wren makes a face like she just smelled something rotten. “Legacy student. Spoiled socialite. Insufferable bully. She was born knowing which fork to use for dessert and which fork to stab you in the back with.”

“Alden? Like the campus rec center?” I ask.

“Among other things.” Wren nods. “The Aldens have donated a small fortune to the university.”

I watch Georgina smile at something Silas says.

“And they’re dating?”

“Georgina wishes they were.” Wren moves in closer. “Everyone assumes they will eventually. They’ve known each other since kindergarten. Their families expect them to marry,” she says. “But then, apparently, she and Rowan had a thing last year. Major drama. But now everyone’s all chummy again, so I guess they patched things up.”

“Does Silas… want to be with her?” I ask.

“He’s never seemed particularly happy about the prospect.”

That shouldn’t please me as much as it does.

“She’s an Alden,” Wren continues. “One of the old families. Not as powerful around here as the Blackhollows or Ashcrofts or even the Hawthornes—my branch of the family tree not included—but close enough to matter.”

Georgina catches me looking. Without breaking eye contact, she slips her hand a little higher onto Silas’s arm.

“Does everyone in this town come from some old Salem’s Fall family?” I ask.

“Not everyone, but yeah, a lot,” she says. “Think of this place like a spooky version of Martha’s Vineyard. Or the Hamptons. It’s an old New England town, and a lot of the same families have been here for generations. Some try to leave, but they always come back eventually.” Wren’s voice softens beside me. The fire crackles in the hearth, sending a brief plume of sparks up the chimney. “One way or another, Salem’s Fall always brings its people home.”

September 27 (34 Days Until Halloween)

By the following Monday afternoon, Professor Beatrice Endicott has vanished.

Not disappeared in the ominous, blood-on-the-floor sense, but missing for all intents and purposes. Despite her promises at Strega’s Hollow on Friday that we’d speak again today, her university voicemail says she’s unavailable, her email inbox sends an automatic reply promising a response when she returns, and the woman who answers the phone at Strega’s Hollow informs me that Professor Endicott has begun an indefinite research sabbatical.

It’s more than a little strange, considering Professor Endicott never mentioned taking a sabbatical when she rushed me out of the museum. Then again, she’d seemed unusually scattered. I suppose she could be the sort of person who’d forget to mention she was leaving town for weeks.

In any event, Professor Endicott may be gone, but she gave me one useful thread before she left. She’d said Josh had spent time researching Salem’s Fall history with Eleanor and that some of the books they’d read were housed in Special Collections at the Ashcroft Library and in the Blackhollows’ private archive at Blackthorn Manor.

I arrive at the Ashcroft Library after my final class ends for the day. I still can’t shake the bad memories of being attacked the last time I visited. The wound along my arm has faded, but the skin tingles uneasily as I stare up at the steps. I consider turning around, but then I think of Josh’s easy smile and the way he’d always cut my peanut butter and jelly sandwiches diagonally when we were little because he insisted they tasted better that way. Instead of leaving, I draw a steadying breath and force myself forward, climbing the steps to the massive oak doors. Then I push them open.

Behind the circulation desk sits a woman in her mid-forties with brown curls, red-framed glasses, and a cardigan decorated with tiny embroidered acorns. She looks up as I approach.

“I’m looking for help,” I say. “I need to do some research, but I don’t know exactly what I’m looking for.”

Her eyes brighten. “You’re here for a book, then?”

“I think so, yes.”

“How lovely.” She leans forward excitedly. “Most students use the internet these days and treat this building as either a study hall or a place to pick up dates.”

I glance around the crowded main floor. She’s not wrong. Half the students are texting or playing games on their phones, while two people in the reference section hold hands over a textbook neither of them has opened.

“What sort of books are you looking for?” she asks, folding her hands on the counter.