Page 14 of Hallowed Bones

“I was curious,” she answers with a shrug. “They’re accessible to the public anyway. Next to the Goodes, there are also three other families that still exist and live in the area.” She turns away from her clothes and leans back, lifting a hand to her chin as she counts them down. “There are the Goodes, then the Coreys, the Scotts, and the Bishops.” She shrugs and goes back to what she was doing. “They’re all old families, so pretty much all of them have money like the Goodes. Actually, I’d say the Bishops are probably the richest.”

I shake my head in dismay. “I don’t really care about old wives’ tales and who has money and who doesn’t,” I tell her honestly. Thanks to my parents’ life insurance policies and what they’d had in savings when they’d died, even with what my aunt had taken for herself, I’m set for life. The only downside is that I can’t access any of it until I turn twenty-one. So nearly another two years.

“You might not care,” Elodie relies. “That doesn’t mean other people don’t. The Sons of Salem know that, and they can be pretty insular because of it.”

“Wait—what? The Sons of who? Are they a motorcycle club or something?”

Elodie laughs, the throaty noise almost making me smile in response, but I’m still too hung up on her words. “Didn’t I say? That’s what everyone calls them—the heirs of the old witch families.”

“So Cameron’s not the only one,” I surmise.

She shakes her head. “Of course not. I told you there were four families. About a year or so ago, there was a big accident or something and several of the guys’ parents died. I can’t quite remember how, now that I think about it.” Her brow furrows for a second before easing as she attends to her task, as if the reminder of several deaths is a passing thing to her, and I suppose, if she didn’t really know them, it is.

“Anyway,” she goes on. “They all attend Ipswich College. Every generation is supposed to, or that’s what my friend Jonah says—he’s a townie, and his family has lived here for generations too.”

“This is…” I settle my elbows on my pillow and prop my chin in my hand. “A lot of information.”

Elodie spins away from her wardrobe, another shirt in hand. “I make it my mission to know everybody on campus,” she confesses with a wicked grin. “It’s a skill, you could say. Life is all about networking. You can have all the education in the world, but if no one knows who you are, then you’ll never get an opportunity to show off your skills or intelligence.”

“Okayyyyy.” I stretch out the word as I stare back at her, waiting.

Elodie huffs out a breath and marches over to her bed to set the third shirt next to the others. Her eyes move over the selection as she talks. “Ipswich is old—Salem is old—there’s a lot of history here, and most of it’s pretty dark.”

Dark? Yeah, I can imagine that. It hadn’t really crossed my mind that I’d be moving to the same town where the Salem witch trials had taken place. I bring the pillow closer, squeezing it against my chest. It’s probably one of the most well-known tragic pieces of history. How many lives had been lost all because of paranoia? The worst of humanity, too many prejudices, and too much greed. All for what? Land? Power?

My heart pangs with a note of sorrow so deep that it carves into my chest and sits right alongside the other wound that’s been there for twelve months. I’m tired of the dark; all I want is normal—and for my stupid bad-luck curse to end.

Shoving away the sensation, I sit up and refocus on my roommate.

“Ipswich is older than America itself. A lot of people say it’s haunted.”

My spine stiffens. “Haunted?”

Elodie must hear the unease in my tone, because she chuckles lightly as she looks back at me. “We’re close to Salem; of course it’s haunted,” she says in that duh kind of voice that tells me it should’ve been obvious. “What did you expect?” She doesn’t give me an opportunity to answer the question. “The history of Ipswich College is that it was originally built as an orphanage during the Salem witch trials, and then it became a school for the kids who lost their parents in them.”

“Amelie said that—” I start, only to be interrupted as Elodie swipes her hand through the air.

“Let me guess: She gave you the spiel about the European aristocrat? Yeah, that’s the ‘official’ story.” She makes air quotes when she says official with two fingers before dropping them. “I didn’t find any evidence that any European aristocrat ever lived in this area when I was researching the Sons of Salem, though.”

Lifting one of the shirts from her bedspread, Elodie holds it to her chest and turns to gaze into the mirror. “You really didn’t know anything before moving here?”

I snort a little at the question. “No,” I tell her. “My dad hated all the superstitious shit. He wouldn’t even let me dress up as a witch for Halloween when I was a kid.” He’d been so chill about everything else, but witches and magic and anything concerning the occult? It was completely removed from the house and never talked about.

The reminder makes me wonder if it had anything to do with his time here. Amelie and Francis had said I was technically a legacy of Ipswich College—Dad had attended. Surely, he’d learned about all the Salem witch trials stuff while he was here. Did it freak him out? Was that why he’d been so against anything related to witches?

Elodie flips around to face me. “What do you think of this outfit?” she asks, gesturing down to the shirt and then the jeans on the bed.

“I think it’ll look great,” I tell her honestly. The gold satin sheen to the top complements her skin.

“Perfect.” She smiles at me and then frowns, eyeing my own clothes, the sweats and tank top I’d changed into hours ago to start the unpacking process. “You can’t wear that to the party.”

“Party?” I grimace. “I didn’t know I was going to one.”

“Well, of course you are.” Elodie rolls her eyes before tossing the shirt to the bed. She strips out of her clothes, unabashed of her partial nudity as she slips into the jeans. “And before you say you don’t party, you’re my new roomie and I’m not giving you a choice. You need to make friends before classes start so you have someone to sit next to on Monday.”

“Won’t you be—”

“Junior,” she says, reminding me that we’re likely not going to be in the same classes, and a sudden sense of dread creeps up my chest.