Chapter 3 Salem
CHAPTER 3
SALEM
Classes began the next day, the morning flying by at full speed as she made her way from one class to another.
Salem had spent her morning within the School of Science building. It was a rather old part of the main castle block that had been one of the original three. Mortimer was one of the few universities in the world that were so old. Mortimer had been established as a boarding school in the early 1500s, taking over the castle that had been built hundreds of years before, for the sons of the wealthy, with one tower being an academic block, one residential, and one for the teachers and staff who stayed on the property. Back then, the town hadn’t existed, just the sprawling castle at the edge of the land where reaching it was only possible through the woods and up in carriages.
Over the course of the years, more buildings with the same architecture had been added as the boarding school had turned into a university, first for the sons and then the daughters of the privileged.
She knew all this not because the information was freely available, but because she had heard it in stories passed down in her family since the time of her great-grandparents. She had heard many stories.
Getting out of the School of Science and into the late afternoon lazy sun, Salem headed toward her last class of the day—Introduction to Psychology. It was one of the most popular modules in the first year, with most students from all subjects signing up for it. It made sense why—the human psyche was endlessly fascinating and so vastly unexplored, it could become addicting trying to understand human minds. Salem’s interest in the class, while academic, was also for another reason.
The professor.
Dr. Merlin, one of the most renowned psychologists in the world, with path-breaking papers published to his name and friends in high places beyond academia, was one of the draws of the course.
He was also the only professor her sister had mentioned once beyond the classes.
Once from anyone else could be ignored. Not from Olivia.
That was exactly why Salem was heading down the cobblestoned path, along with a group of other chattering students, to the lone, huge structure at the end of it.
The turnout for his classes was so high that the university had assigned a separate building for him to teach in. Given, it was the smallest structure on the whole campus, at the very back nearest to the woods, at least a few minutes away from any other tower.
The clouds were ever-present overhead, just like the sound of waves and water. It was a soothing sound to her ears, something that calmed her slightly frazzled nerves. She’d been a little off-kilter since the night at the beach, and she was letting herself figure out why.
“I can’t believe how hot Dr. Merlin is,” one of the girls walking in front of her told her group, and Salem eavesdropped as she always did on things around her. “He’s what, like forty?”
“Forty-eight,” another girl supplied. “Widowed, no kids, but rumor has it he’s dating Professor Carlton.”
“Shut up!” the third one in the group gasped. “From Business? She’s like half his age. And she’s married!”
“You think her husband knows?” the first girl asked.
“Who knows?” Every one of them giggled.
Salem filed all the information in her mental drawer as they reached the Merlin Auditorium. That’s what they called it on campus, since there was only one auditorium-style class and Dr. Merlin had been teaching it for almost fifteen years. The simple square structure matched the rest of the castle, the smallest on the property and yet with the capacity to accommodate hundreds of students, the woods as a backdrop and the sloping cliffside on the right.
Salem entered the building and held her breath as a file of students went quickly through a small narrow lobby. It opened up within a few steps, and she felt her shoulders relax as she took in the space. High sloping ceiling, auditorium-style seats in a semicircle, all facing a wall with a massive whiteboard, a large desk, and a chair. A smaller desk and chair had been pushed to the corner of the room.
Salem hurried to take one of the seats next to the window, one that happened to be in the second row. Slumping down in it, as the hall slowly filled in, she looked out to see a clear view of the sea and the lighthouse the news had shown, jutting out from a rocky, much smaller, cliff where the beach ended.
A door next to the whiteboard opened and a handsome man in his late forties, dressed sharply in a crisp white shirt and navy pants, entered. The hall went silent as Salem observed him clinically.
Well-built, average height, gray at the temples, wrinkles in the corners of dark eyes, a scar on his right cheek.
“Good afternoon, everyone,” he began, addressing the students. “Since we have a lot of you and not a lot of time, we will quickly introduce ourselves. I am Dr. Merlin and I will be teaching the Introduction to Psychology class this year.”
He looked around the room, making sure everyone was listening, and continued. “Now, you may think that is limited to counseling or behavior therapy but if you read through your syllabus, you’ll know we’ll be covering a lot more. We will go through and try to understand everything, from basic introduction to developmental, social, clinical, and criminal psychology, to name a few. So that you can decide for yourselves if you want to continue seeing me next year.”
A few girls giggled and he smiled, and Salem felt something slimy in the pit of her stomach. She was a rational girl, who believed in facts and evidence, but she also understood that there were data points humans unconsciously or subconsciously picked up that became instincts or gut feelings without rational reason.
She tried, most of the time, not to ignore hers.
And right then, looking at this older man with a seemingly handsome smile, she felt something heavy, something wrong, in her lower stomach.
“Before we get to that, please tell me your names one by one. I can’t promise to remember everyone but I’ll try.”
Someone from the top section began, and Salem took the time to observe the professor, standing there with the same polite, warm, wrong smile.
Before she could think upon it anymore, the main door opened, the loud sound cutting off the boy who’d been introducing himself.
The professor’s smile dropped.
“Sorry I’m late,” came the voice, and her stomach clenched for a different reason entirely.
It was him.
She turned in her seat and watched as he— The Psycho Painter —strolled down the stairs casually, as she’d realized he deliberately did, clad in a thin black sweater and jeans, a notebook rolled up in one tattooed hand. That was also something she had noticed in the last few hours on campus—most students carried tablets or bags with laptops, some books, and very few carried good old-fashioned notebooks. She herself had an oversized leather tote bag with an organizer that held her tablet, two journals, and the rest of her personal items.
The bag lay forgotten next to her side. The face she hadn’t yet seen fully became visible from the side as he made his way down. The sharp jawline she had glimpsed as a silhouette cut a raw profile, like serrated gemstone unleashed by a rock split open.
Murmurs broke out in the class as eyes followed him, while he looked straight ahead at Dr. Merlin. The older man stood with his jaw tight, his lips pursed, something in his eyes as he watched the younger male stride forward. Apparently, the professor did not like tardiness. Or maybe it was something else.
Salem watched as he bypassed all seats and went to the desk in the corner, put his notebook on the flat surface, and leaned against it.
“This is my TA, everyone,” Dr. Merlin said, his voice hard. “Caz.”
Caz.
Short for something?
Salem waited for a beat for more information, but the professor gestured for student introductions to continue, completely glossing over his assistant, who half-sat on the table with his arms crossed over his broad chest.
Strong dark eyebrows slashed over deep set eyes and high cheekbones, a seemingly straight nose and slight shadow adding severity to an already chiseled face, his burnished skin littered with tattoos, from his exposed forearms to the sides of his neck. It was all the work of an artist, both the tattoos and his wild, chaotic beauty. Even she could recognize that—the raw, emotive quality to his face tugged with sheer contrast at the aloof somberness, making one wonder which was real.
He looked like a Caz.
Someone from the back poked her, and she realized it was her turn to speak. Fisting her hands on her lap at the thought of speaking when so many ears were listening, she adopted the cool, aloof tone that was signature to her.
“Salem Salazar.”
She was suddenly aware of the eyes moving on her—Dr. Merlin’s, his, and those of the rest of the class.
She knew why. The Salazar name was that of one of the long, rare legacy families in Mortimer. It was also fodder for fresh gossip since last year’s events.
Ignoring others as she was good at doing, she focused on Dr. Merlin, wondering if he would say something like sorry, I heard about your sister, she was a lovely girl . She had heard that multiple times over the years. She was aware that Olivia had been his student, one of his best and brightest, and she waited for his response.
Nothing.
He said nothing, just gave her a nod and moved on to the next student, as if the name held no memory for him.
Interesting.
The weight of another gaze made her shift her focus to the man who had occupied her thoughts so annoyingly since she’d bumped into him that night at the beach. The one who drew over dead bodies and threatened people with pencils and held her up in the woods. It sounded ridiculous even in her own head, would have been ridiculous, had it been anyone else but him. He had an air around him, something chaotic, unpredictable, that made her feel off-center.
Caz. The Psycho Painter.
She rolled his name in her head, wondering what the sound would be like in her ears. The hard k sound, the soft z sound.
She wondered what the extension of the name was as he watched her with light eyes, the exact color of which she couldn’t tell, with an almost crazy glint in them, a small smirk pulling up at one corner of his mouth. That smirk was offensive. He was smirking like he knew her secret, like he could expose her, like he had some kind of power over her head.
She wanted to bite that smirk off.
It was offensive, and she idly wondered if he’d be able to sustain it if she stapled his lips shut.
Huh.
The violent thought surprised her. This was new. Usually, it was the aftermath that excited her, not the act.
Her signals were off when it came to him, leaving her with mixed emotions.
She raised her chin slightly, giving him the coolest, haughtiest look she could muster, and focused on the reason she had come to class, all the while aware of the intense eyes that never seemed to leave her.
The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.
—H. P. Lovecraft, “Supernatural Horror in Literature”