Page 17 of Salem’s Rise

“It was them. I’m sure of it.”

The blood drains from her face, and she looks genuinely frightened now.

“You can’t tell anyone what you suspect,” she says, her voice dropping, and I lean in, my chest tightening at the fear in her tone. “No one ever punishes the Heirs. You’ll be accused of lying, harassing them, trying to damage the university. They’d have you removed from campus before dinner. Anyone who goes up against the Heirs loses, especially if they go up against Silas.” She presses her lips together. “And I would know. I’ve known them my whole life.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t hate me,” she exhales nervously, “but Van is my cousin.”

I glance at her cheap, worn shoes and the thrift-store T-shirt hanging from her narrow shoulders. She looks nothing like the wealthy women at SFU who parade around campus with designer handbags dangling from their arms.

“You’re a Hawthorne? But… you work as a janitor,” I sputter, immediately apologetic. “Sorry. No offense.”

“None taken.” Something bitter crosses her face. “My mother is a Hawthorne—technically—but our branch of the family tree was cut off years ago. Van’s side inherited the money, the name, everything that mattered. Mine got the privilege of being reminded we’ll never measure up.”

“But he’s so… horrible. And you’re nice.”

“Trust me,” she says. “I’m nothing like Van.”

I want to believe her, I really do. But nothing in Salem’s Fall is what it seems. Wren herself warned me of that my very first day on campus. She’s a Hawthorne. Van’s cousin. Maybe the Heirs sent her to check on me. Maybe they want to know how much I’ve learned or what I remember. I’m beginning to understand why Josh warned me not to trust anyone here.

“Well,” I say, forcing a weak smile. “Thanks for checking on me. And for the cookies.”

Wren’s expression falls. She heads for the door, looking hurt. “You really should think about leaving, Jack,” she says and walks out.

I manage to sleep away the rest of Sunday.

Sometime in the middle of the night, I tear off the bandage on my head, leaving a tender knot beneath my hair and a faint smear of dried blood near my temple. Thankfully, the bandage around my arm is still in place when I wake the next morning, clean and professionally wrapped. According to the instructions left on my desk, I’m supposed to return to the infirmary in seven days to have the stitches removed.

As my morning alarm blares, I sit up carefully, testing the dizziness. The room sways only a little before settling again. I start to get dressed for class when the smell from yesterday hits me again—even stronger now. I pull a long-sleeved flannel shirt over my head and cover my nose against the thick, sickening stench hanging in the air like spoiled meat. It seems to be coming from Eleanor’s half of the room.

I take one hesitant step closer, and it gets worse. I follow the smell all the way to her wardrobe, where it’s strongest, and crouch down beside it. That’s when I notice something strange. The base doesn’t sit flush with the wall. I hold my fingers near the narrow gap and feel a cool draft slipping through.

Gritting my teeth, I push the wardrobe to the side, its wooden base scraping several inches across the floor as a narrow door appears behind it. The brass latch is dark with age, but the wood around the frame has been scratched recently.

My heartbeat quickens.

What the hell?

I think back to Wren’s warning my first day on campus about my room being older and the rumored hidden passageways in the walls. Apparently, that part wasn’t just a rumor.

Still, that alone isn’t particularly odd. Old New England houses often have things like secret servant corridors and storage voids left over from generations of additions. That’s probably all this is. Something a bit creepy to discover but quite ordinary.

The smell rolling through the door is almost physical now, coating the back of my throat and forcing tears into my eyes. I reach for the latch, and the door opens with a low groan, darkness waiting on the other side.

I use the flashlight on my phone to illuminate a cramped passage barely wide enough for one person. Rough stone walls press in on either side, the ceiling sloping sharply above a set of narrow wooden steps leading into what looks like an old access corridor hidden between the floors. My beam catches something pale at the bottom.

At first, my brain refuses to understand what I’m seeing. The phone shakes in my hand, the light revealing even more—a bare forearm, dark hair, the twisted outline of a woman’s body crammed against the stone.

A scream tears out of me and I stumble backward, slamming into the open door hard enough to jar my injured arm. Pain flares, but I barely feel it.

The woman’s face is turned toward me. I recognize her from the room assignment emails.

Eleanor.

Multiple wounds cut through her neck and the front of her shirt, as if someone stabbed her over and over. Her hands lie open, every fingernail broken, blood dried beneath them and along the stone beside her, deep scratches marking the walls as if she fought to pull herself forward or claw her way out. She’d been alive long enough to fight. Long enough to understand she was going to die.

I barely make it to the trash can before I vomit.