Chapter 31 Salem
CHAPTER 31
SALEM
After rocking her world, both physically and emotionally, Caz had led her down the stairs for the first time, left her in his studio since he had to go.
She looked around the room, a huge space that had been a dungeon at one point but was now his studio right under the library.
The gray stone walls were jagged and uneven in the windowless hall-like room, doorway arches breaking up the space. She could imagine there had once been wrought-iron cages in the arches, keeping people locked in here, that had been removed over the years.
A surprisingly comfortable couch with a pullout bed was pushed against one wall, a row of shelves similar to those in the library above taking up the space on the other side, filled with painting equipment, a gym bag similar to the one he had in her room, and a spare set of boots. A fireplace was carved into the wall right beside it, empty but present, and she could imagine a time when wood must have burned there. It wasn’t needed now, since the central heating in the library above and the insulation of the basement kept it warm.
But it was the canvases, eleven that she could see, all similar in size to the one he had used in the woods when painting her, that held her attention. Because unlike the ones he had covered in opaque tarp, these ones were right out in the open.
And.
They.
Were.
Stunning.
Salem felt her breath catch in her throat as she walked to the one that had caught her eye, a large painting, done in blacks, grays, and blues, of a nude, faceless woman lying flat, being dragged somewhere by her legs by a cloaked, hooded figure. It was a disturbing image, one that evoked discomfort in her, but she couldn’t deny the sheer talent in front of her.
She turned to another painting, this one even more disturbing, done in blacks and browns—another nude, of a man this time, lying dead as a river of blood flowed from his mouth, a hollow skull covering his penis in a way that was uncomfortable.
She turned to the next painting. And the next. And the next. Until she’d seen all the eleven and understood what the note on his file from his supervisor had meant. His art was unconventional, disturbing, and provocative. It was meant to be that way, and it gave her a glimpse at who he was inside—someone who understood darkness, understood death, understood the disturbing and delirious nature of them. Just like she did.
And though she wasn’t any expert on technique, the use of darkness and light in his work was remarkable, the fact that he could create something like this on a blank canvas only from his mind completely awe-inspiring.
The fact that he had led her into his secret lair, a dungeon of darkness where no one came and no one saw his creations, a place he was notorious for keeping private, made something go soft inside her. It was his equivalent of a murder board.
Letting her mind drift back to the reason she stood there, Salem turned to the box that held her great-grandmama’s journals. She dragged it to the couch, toed off her boots, and got comfortable on it.
And then she opened the sealed box, looking down at the dozen or so leather-bound notebooks, all inscribed neatly with the year on the first page in the late woman’s fancy scrawl.
Salem took them all out and organized them by year, stacking them on the side, then opened the one for the year her great-grandmama had come to Mortimer.
This journal belongs to Evelin Anderson.
Year: 1920
Salem flipped the pages until she reached the day Evelin had come to Mortimer.
July 21st
The castle is unlike anything I have seen. It is so vast, so beautiful. There are woods and the sea in the same place, and oh my, I have never seen them before. My humble home stands in a place full of sun, and it is jarring to be here where it is so rare.
The people haven’t been very kind yet. They belong to families with more wealth than I can even dream…
Salem read through the pages, noting her great-grandmama’s account of the university and the people around it. It was such an odd experience, to read about the place she was at, see how it had been before and how much it had and hadn’t changed, to know her own legacy had started here with the woman writing it.
To know vs. to read was a different experience altogether, the words making the line she came from so much more real.
Salem continued to go through the paragraphs as slowly, the tone changed.
December 19th
I was a skeptic. I didn’t believe the folklore and the gossip the maids indulged in about Mortimer, not until last night. I had a restless night. Unable to sleep, I walked out of my room to take a walk and tire myself. No one was awake at that hour. It was a full moon night, too bright and too burnt, like an overripened fruit, so I decided to forego the candle and wrapped the cloak around myself.
Salem turned the page.
I went to the cliff, walking along the path that led to the beach. But the stairs were too high and my nightdress too long. It was dangerous, so I walked in the opposite direction, toward the lighthouse.
Salem leaned forward, very curious about what her great-grandmama had to say about the damned lighthouse.
They said to never go there, that it was haunted by the spirits of those caretakers who had never been found. They said it was haunted by the spirits of anyone who had been there, that the lighthouse swallowed them whole and never let them escape.
I had never believed the gossip, not until I heard the sounds and saw the shadow moving in the window, lit by the light of the moon, a cloaked figure with the face of the dead, gone in a blink.
What the hell?
Salem reread the words, unable to believe what she was seeing, the account of her own great-grandmama’s experience, a woman she had known to be practical and strict, not fanciful and whimsical. This did not fit what she had known.
She continued reading.
I ran back to my room and prayed. I do not want to be haunted. I do not want to die. I should have listened to them. I should have stayed away from that lighthouse. There are dead crawling on these grounds, spirits in the stones, demons in the darkness, and I pray they do not find me.
Salem felt a shiver wrack her body, suddenly aware of the fact that she was sitting alone in a room that had once housed prisoners, prisoners who had died, their blood and tears swallowed by the walls.
She looked around the room, and saw the paintings surrounding her, more images of death and darkness, and she had no shame in admitting she felt spooked.
Salem was practical like Evelin, not whimsical, not fanciful, but rational and a believer in evidence. And it was in her hands, evidence, and that was what spooked her even more.
Stay in the present.
Focus on the facts.
Shaking it off, she turned back to the journal, afraid of what she would encounter on the next pages. Surprisingly, thankfully, Evelin only wrote about the university after that, about meeting Salem’s great-grandfather, about how taken by him she had been, about how he had seduced her. Salem’s eyebrows went up. From the account of things, her great-grandfather had been a bad boy, not caring about propriety and decorum as had been the norm at the time, blatantly seducing the good girl from a good family until she got pregnant with his baby out of wedlock, and marrying her so they completed graduation with each other and their first child.
That part of their family history had never been passed down. She had always been told they had met each other, fallen in love, and married. No baby out of wedlock, which she could imagine had been huge at the time. They had six children after that and lived a long life together, him passing away just a few years before she did.
It was quite romantic, actually.
Salem pored over the journals, one after the other, time flying by, until she knew everything there was to know in the pages. And aside from that one mention of the lighthouse, there had been nothing out of the ordinary in them.
Nothing, except one thing.
A break in the entries. It wouldn’t have stood out if Salem didn’t see the pattern. Evelin had made one entry per week, every week, for years and years without fail, except one time. No entry for two weeks. Right before she met Salem’s great-grandfather.
Salem didn’t think she’d been sick, because if she had been, she would have made a note of it. But no, she had just picked up where she’d left off seamlessly, like the two weeks of her absence weren’t a big deal.
But as she was someone who studied patterns, it was a glaring gap for Salem.
She shut the last journal and a small slip of a paper fell out as she set them aside. She picked it up, turning it around to see rough sketches of some kind, none of which were clear enough for her to make out, the ink and paper faded. She turned it over and saw something written in similar faded ink.
Dear friend,
I believe you. The villagers have talked about seeing them around the lighthouse. They wear cloaks on full moon nights and something bad happens around new year’s time. I will write when I know more.
More faded words.
New Year’s.
Her brain got stuck on that.
Her sister had died just a bit after New Year’s.
Salem sat back and tried to make sense of things.
There was some kind of a secret society on campus, she already knew. Maybe multiple ones. And from the little she could glean, they had been operating for many decades. Could the deaths she was investigating now be connected to them? Could it be that? Could Olivia and Laz have died at the hands of something like this?
Salem opened the emails on her phone, the emails from Olivia that she had saved, and pored over them again, examining them with new eyes, trying to see if there was any clue in one of them.
She slowly made her way down, trying to keep herself detached from the emotion that threatened her whenever she looked at her sister’s old words, and clinically examined them. One paragraph caught her eye.
Salem, I don’t know if you will ever see this but I know you’re the only one smart enough to figure this out. Things have gone beyond my control. I have done things I never should have. They made me do it. But it’s too late now.
They made me do it.
New Year’s.
Cloaked figure.
Lighthouse.
Salem was pretty sure, after all of this, that there was either some kind of a group that had driven her sister to her death or some kind of a serial killer targeting smart students. She didn’t know about the others, maybe they were connected, maybe not. But the evidence of Olivia’s words rang in her ears.
They made me do it.
A sense of foreboding suddenly settled in her stomach, the knot in her gut twisting and turning. She knew, surrounded by journals and emails written by her dead family, that she was close to the answers.
She intended to find out, once and for all, what they were.
You will always be fond of me. I represent to you all the sins you never had the courage to commit.
—Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray