Enigma

Chapter 5 Salem

CHAPTER 5

SALEM

There was something to be said about a routine. A lull of settling in, the comfort of familiarity, the deep-seated appreciation for the predictable, a routine provided all of those things. Salem loved routines. As a child, she’d had a printed-out routine stuck on her wall with her day mapped out. She loved the methodical approach to a day, doing everything that needed to be done with little space for variations. It kept her grounded and rooted in reality, and kept her moving forward as she wanted.

Finding and settling into her new routine was making Salem slowly relax.

It was her second week at Mortimer, and unlike the first few days, nothing out of the ordinary had happened. She woke every morning in her room, as did all the other girls in her building. She freshened up, took a quick shower, and tamed her hair into a bun. She wore something from the university dress code.

Yes, they had a dress code for undergrad students. A white shirt was a staple across the board. Girls could pick between a skirt or pants, with a matching jacket. The colors were assigned according to their school.

Science wore a shade of blue, any of their choice. Arts wore any shade of green. Law wore any shade of brown. Business wore any shade of gray. Reds weren’t encouraged. It was a simple but effective visual aid to tell apart students and for anyone lost to find their way back to their peers.

She had the blue. Salem didn’t really hate it, especially since she liked the color. It had such variation and depth. It could be sad, vibrant, passionate, anything, but undemanding of attention, unlike the reds. It fell toward the middle of the color wavelength spectrum, and she liked it. It suited how she viewed herself. It suited someone who loved routines.

But tonight was off routine.

It was a bonfire night, as she had been helpfully informed by a pamphlet under her door, and every first-year was invited. It was like a rite of passage, Aditi had informed her when she’d seen her in BBC. Every year, the senior class held a bonfire down in the woods to welcome the first-years. They played silly games, got drunk, hooked up, and basically lived the college life.

Salem didn’t want to go, but she was keen for information, and eavesdropping was her special skill. She could blend into the background as though mixed in by a brush. That was why she knew she had to go. Drunk people could reveal something innocuously and it could be something important.

So, there she was, in the woods, following a crowd of peers walking toward where the loud music was coming from. Tall trees teased little glimpses of the sky overhead, tiny stars twinkling on a surprisingly clear night. The scent of sea so close by mixed with the green surrounding her and the wood burning somewhere. A soft breeze lifted strands of her hair as she walked, playing with it.

She’d left it down tonight, letting it go as haphazard as it wanted.

“Salem!”

She turned at the call to see Aditi running up to her with another girl in tow. The same one she’d seen exiting Dr. Bayne’s office.

“Ah, I’m so happy you decided to come.” Aditi smiled. “This is Melissa. She’s in my art history class.”

Melissa extended her hand, and Salem took it. “Salem Salazar.”

She saw the other girl’s brown eyes widen slightly. “Salazar as in the guy who k—”

“Yeah.” Salem pulled back her hand. She wondered how long she’d have to live with the fact that after her sister died, her father had gone off the rails a few months later and killed a man, right before turning the gun on himself, leaving her mother and her behind with debt and stigma.

“I’m so sorry,” Melissa rushed. “I shouldn’t have mentioned that. It was thoughtless of me.”

A little unnerved by the genuine apology, not something she was used to receiving, Salem brushed it aside and continued walking. “It’s nothing I haven’t heard before.”

An awkward silence descended for a few moments before Aditi, exuberant Aditi with a warm, loving family, bumped her shoulder amicably. “How have I never seen you with your hair down? It’s absolutely gorgeous, girl!”

Salem glanced at her sideways, her hand automatically touching her curls, and gave the other girl a small smile, the innate politeness her mother had trained into her taking over. “Thanks. You too.”

Aditi was beautiful, like a princess from the fairy tales Salem had never believed in.

“I love what you’re wearing too,” Melissa complimented her, pointing at her black leather jacket and the shorts that she’d paired with chunky boots. Black because it blended in the best and she’d missed wearing it.

The girl was trying so Salem did as well. “Your sense of style is very… artistic.”

Melissa, in a boho maxi dress and long dangling earrings, like the ones her sister had loved, blushed. Aditi grinned. “That’s on brand for her. She’s a fine arts major.”

The woods finally opened up into a large clearing, a massive bonfire already lit up and crackling in the center of it while people roamed around chattering, dancing, drinking, having general fun.

“C’mon.” Aditi pulled her and Melissa by the arm, dragging them to the right end of the clearing. “I know exactly where the good stuff is.”

“Do we wanna know how?” Melissa asked the question on Salem’s lips.

Aditi shrugged. “I work at BBC. Best place to know things, if you ask me.”

Salem’s eyebrows went up. She hadn’t thought of that angle. Was it possible that Aditi could know something about the deaths? Something she didn’t even think was important? She needed to talk to her, preferably alone at another time.

They stopped in front of a guy, at least in his late twenties, wearing a backward cap and manning a large freezer he had rolled in from somewhere. The wheels were still attached to the bottom.

“Manny,” Aditi greeted him. “Three chilled ones please.”

The guy silently opened the freezer and took out three recyclable tumblers with the lids on. Handing them over just as silently, he shut down the freezer and took his seat again.

Salem looked down at the opaque white tumbler and knew she wasn’t going to drink it. No way. She didn’t understand how people could be so careless here, when it was so easy to slip in a few drops of something and drug or, worse, poison someone.

“Dude, I thought you were a scholarship kid,” Melissa hissed at Aditi. “How did he just hand you stuff?”

Aditi removed the lid and sniffed the questionable liquid delicately. “One of the guys this morning was talking about calling ‘Manny’ and asking for a ‘chilled one’ like it was a code or something. I just wanted to see if it worked.”

Salem took off the lid from her tumbler and sniffed too. It was suspiciously bland. “What the hell is this?”

Melissa gave them both a look. “Who cares? It’s a party and we got free drinks at fucking Mortimer! Let’s gooooo, baby!”

And she chugged the drink.

Salem watched with curiosity, waiting for the other girl to be done.

“It’s some kind of lemonade.”

Yeah, right. And pigs were flying somewhere. There was no way to mask the citrus in a lemonade unless something equally strong was added to it to neutralize it. Salem had no intention of testing it on herself, but she was curious enough to keep the drink with her and maybe have one of the lab techs test it in tomorrow. It was a weekend and the labs would most likely be free. Watching Melissa would give her enough of a clue to see what to look for. If the girl got sick or fainted, it could be some type of date rape drug. If she died, it could be poison or…

“Are you sure you want to drink that?” Salem asked.

Aditi gave her a curious look as Melissa shook her head. Alright, she didn’t know her well enough to ask her to stop.

Oddly enough, Aditi, who had been the one to instigate and procure the drinks, only took a sip before keeping hers in her hand, completely untouched. Salem wanted to ask why but she needed to have a conversation with the girl anyway, so she bit the words back and looked around.

Students of all ages, from first-years to seniors, mingled about. A group of girls, ones she recognized as the first-year self-appointed queen bees, laughed in a huddle with some good-looking, suave guys. She recognized the type from a mile away, having seen them on social occasions throughout her life—the trust-fund, golf-loving, slick smile, sick soul type. She had nothing against them, just that they unsettled her.

She had been fourteen when one of them had come on to her really heavily in a dark corner at a lavish party her family had dragged her to. She’d hated attending such events anyway, but that night had been the worst, with her on her period, trying to find a quiet corner to ease her cramps, and the boy coming out of nowhere, pushing her against the wall and forcing a sick imitation of a kiss on her.

She remembered the debilitating terror she had felt for a split second before she had clawed his face and bit his lips, his blood filling her mouth with sharp metallic taste, while he had run away shouting, calling her a crazy bitch. While the party had turned accusatory glances toward her, it had been her sister who stepped to her side and took her hand, letting them all know he had been a sick predator and he’d gotten what he deserved. Seeing the perfect Olivia Salazar, with the perfect reputation, vouch for something so severe had swiftly turned the tide.

That had been the first and last time her sister had overtly helped her.

For all her faults, Olivia had been a good sister in the end.

It was Salem who had failed.

Taking a deep breath to dislodge the heavy weight from her chest, Salem turned her gaze away from the boys to look at other people and distract herself from a lifetime of memories painted red. What the boy had done had been wrong, but it had triggered something dark inside her, because after that, she had begun to fantasize about it, about being cornered, about being pinned, about being surprised by a passionate kiss. At first, she’d felt sick of her own brain, not understanding how she could want something like that when it was deemed wrong. But after enough time and enough research about it, she had realized it was her brain’s way of coping, taking power back and reshaping her sexual proclivities. The idea of consenting to being surprised, with a partner who knew her limits and she trusted to respect them while pushing her, was a response to her life experiences. She fantasized about it, about being held and moved and taken, but knowing she wanted it. That was what made the difference.

A group of guys, completely unlike the trust fund-type, stood in a corner, heads together, drinks in hand, talking about something important from the looks of it. They were different, their demeanor, the air around them, not really fitting with the place.

“Holy shit, he’s here.”

Melissa’s high-pitched whisper, almost a squeal, had Salem turning to see the girl, who had flushed to the roots of her hair as her eyes trailed something. Aditi let out a soft whistle and Salem followed their gazes to see what had drawn that reaction out of the two seemingly levelheaded girls.

Him.

Caz.

After almost ten days without any sighting of him, she drank in his form from a distance. His back was turned to them, and she lamented not being able to catch a glimpse of his face. She really wanted to. She wanted to see what he looked like in the light, whether she had just built it up in memory. For all she knew, he was ordinary and the lighting had been making him look good.

Wouldn’t really change anything though. Her internal reactions hadn’t been triggered by his looks.

“That’s one hunky chunk of a man,” Aditi exclaimed softly, her voice full of feminine appreciation.

She could appreciate that too from where they stood. He was one of the tallest people in the clearing, his back broad and muscular in his weathered leather jacket, his dark hair unbound and almost touching his shoulders in gentle waves as he ran his tattooed fingers through it. He joined the group of guys she’d been watching before, and somehow, he fit in. There was an air of something different, something disturbing about all of them. With him, there was an added air of danger lingering there, right in the shadows, just waiting for the light to expose it.

“Who is he?” She heard Aditi asking the question that had bugged her for days before her class, since the night at the beach.

“That’s Cazimir van der Waal,” Melissa supplied, and Salem blinked.

Cazimir.

That was the full name.

Van der Waal.

Of course he would be called that.

His name represented the force in the universe between atoms, stronger when they were closer, weaker when they were apart.

“Shit, that’s the guy everyone’s been talking about?” Aditi asked, her tone surprised.

Salem looked from one to the other, wondering what they were talking about. Had she missed something? Why was everyone talking about him?

“Yup,” Melissa confirmed. “He’s the one.”

“Wait, what am I missing?” Salem let her confusion seep into her voice.

Aditi looked at her. “Well, he’s a postgrad, specializing in some special type of painting.”

She frowned. “But he’s the TA in my psychology class.”

“That’s the funny thing,” Melissa added. “He just showed up last year out of nowhere. Became Dr. Merlin’s TA when that’s a position coveted by so many students, you can imagine.”

Salem motioned for her to continue, intrigued.

“Some say his family pulled some strings, that they have some personal relationship to Dr. Merlin. Some say he killed someone and went to prison, where he got all the tattoos. Some others say he’s some kind of a spy with a secret identity or something. That’s the thing. No one knows anything about him. But anyway, he just showed up and took the School of Arts by storm.”

It hit Salem she was doing exactly what people did—talking about someone behind their back, indulging in pure hearsay. But she couldn’t bring herself to stop.

Aditi threw her drink in the fire. “It’s rumored that two of his paintings were secretly auctioned off for millions a few months ago. I’ve never seen his work personally.”

“Neither have I,” Melissa chimed in. “He’s very private about his art apparently, only his supervisor and some of the faculty are said to have seen it. And they say he’s extraordinarily talented.”

Aditi nodded. “Everyone is waiting for his final project before he graduates, since that will be put up in public. Caz van der Waal is the next big thing, Salem.”

The Psycho Painter.

Salem looked at the back of his head, her eternal curiosity piqued even more by everything she’d learned about him.

Melissa sighed dreamily. “We’ve been here a few days and he’s already some kind of legend in the School of Arts. The professors swear they haven’t seen someone with his talent in years. But he’s slightly… unhinged, to put it politely.”

Salem thought that already from the little she had seen of him. Yet, she asked, “Unhinged?”

Melissa winced. “Well, I can’t say for sure but there’s so many rumors around him. Only aided by how secretive he seems to be. Always hanging out with those guys and they’re all… a bit weird but excellent in their fields. Rumors vary from groupthink to secret societies to cults and what not.”

“Secret societies?”

“Yeah, one of the rumors says he’s sold his soul to some kind of a cult for power and they make him… do things.”

Salem stilled, her attention laser focused on the conversation, her heart beginning to pound in her chest as a vague memory of something drifted across her mind.

They’re making m e do this.

“That’s wild,” Aditi laughed. “As if there could be some kind of secret group on campus making Faustian deals with students and we wouldn’t know about it. Gossip travels here faster than light.”

Melissa joined in on the laugh and Salem forced herself to crack a smile, a shiver racing down her spine as her eyes fixated themselves on his back. Had she known him, she would’ve asked him about the rumors, maybe. She didn’t know how much weight there was to them, but she did know he was involved in something shady.

A gust of wind made the fire roar. Some guys clapped. A girl on her right squealed before giggling.

And then, as though called by the sound, Caz turned toward it, a frown on his mouth, his eyes scanning the crowd, passing over her before suddenly snapping back, gazes locking.

He was too far away for her to make out the color of his eyes, but they felt heavy. Intense.

Fire flickered between them, blocking the side of his face with an upward roar and falling back down, exposing it again.

And it matched. His face matched his voice, his form, his intensity. She hadn’t remembered him wrong. The lighting hadn’t been to blame.

The same sharp jawline, the strong dark eyebrows, the light eyes, the fire flickering in them, the reflection making it look sinister.

The same small, offensive smirk pulling up one side of his mouth, the flames between them covering half his face, making him look like a dark prince of a certain underworld who had come calling, ready to drag her to its depths.

I could recognize him by touch alone, by smell; I would know him blind, by the way his breaths came and his feet struck the earth. I would know him in death, at the end of the world.

—Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles