Chapter 32 Salem
CHAPTER 32
SALEM
The next weeks passed in a blur of new routine.
She slept through the nights, only occasionally dreaming, mostly resting deep and well, surrounded by warmth and Caz, after being fucked within an inch of her life then adored and petted in a way that turned her limp.
Then she woke up before him, went out for a walk, and came back with a coffee for him and for herself, something they shared while talking, learning to communicate with each other, which he was admittedly much better at than she was. Then they saved water and showered together, and he usually washed her hair, taking any excuse to touch and play with it. He left before she did, and after she got ready, she went to her classes.
She loved her curriculum. The faculty were impressed by her and gave her projects that were more advanced than her course, and she loved rising to the task, her passion for forensics especially shining through. Though the content of the class was intense, she was on top of it, excelling in both her lab work and her theory, and looking forward to acing her exams the following week.
Somewhere in the middle of the day, Caz found her wherever she happened to be on campus, and made out with her for a few minutes before running off. She knew he was working on finishing the paintings. He had told her one night, after they had finished their frenzied coming together and relaxed, that his work was going to be presented for the first time at the charity gala, since it was his final year, and then auctioned off. That was what had been keeping him busier, as he finished a collection of paintings, mainly working on his main masterpiece, which he refused to show her.
After her classes, she met up with her friends and hung out with them, making it a point to keep that time as a part of her new routine. Aditi and Melissa, as she’d come to learn, were wonderful people and even better friends, and now that she was opening herself up slowly, accepting the fact that maybe there was some value in her company after all, she tried to be a better friend to them as well.
Aditi was still on-again, off-again with Baron, the guy not giving her any reason for breaking up their arrangement and still somehow sneaking into her life. Melissa also started seeing someone, the guy she met at the bar the night Lara died.
Lara, who was never found after the tides went low. Her family was informed and collected her things, and Salem remembered seeing them devastated as they left, completely confused. She could relate to that incomprehension.
Between Dr. Bayne and the man she had seen, Salem tried to make sense of what was going on.
She knew there was a secret society of sorts in Mortimer, one for legacies, that her father and Caz’s had both been a part of, and that both Caz and Baron were now a part of. What she didn’t understand was how the deaths could be related to them, especially if her sister and Caz’s brother, both legacies, had been victims. She didn’t understand how Merlin was connected to the deaths, even though he clearly had the souvenirs. And she didn’t know what connection Dr. Bayne and the man in his office had to the whole thing.
And there was a connection.
Because Olivia and Laz died, both legacies.
Merlin had souvenirs of Olivia and other victims.
Dr. Bayne and the man had been with Lara and she’d died too.
It was all connected, she could feel it, she knew she was close to figuring it out, but something kept escaping her, something that would be the final piece of the puzzle, and something she was certain Caz knew but was keeping from her. She didn’t know if it was because he still didn’t trust her completely or for another reason. Maybe he wanted to tell her but couldn’t. Maybe it went against some kind of rule in his boys-only club. Maybe he was protecting her.
There were too many conjectures and not enough conclusions.
Salem stood on the cliff in the early morning light, as the darkness slowly dissipated, the cold and the fog wrapping around her in tendrils, keeping her hostage as long as she stood there.
The wind was loud, as was the sound of waves crashing on the shore. Wildflowers that had once fluttered in the wind on the side of the cliff leading up the woods were wilted in the cold, waiting for the season to change and for new blooms.
Looking at the flowers reminded her of the bizarre conversation she’d heard in Dr. Bayne’s office, about bouquets and flowers and gardeners, which could have been literally about florals or some kind of keywords. She didn’t know which.
Shaking her head in frustration, she gazed at the lighthouse in the distance, wondering where her great-grandmama had once stood, if it had been exactly where Salem was now. She wondered about her entry a lot, something she kept to herself as well, not intending to tell Caz until he told her whatever secret he was still keeping from her.
Her buzzing phone broke through her thoughts. She looked down to see her mother’s name flashing on the screen, calling her in the morning, like always.
She picked up. “Good morning, Mother.”
“Did you have Evelin’s journals sent to you?” Her mother opened the conversation with that, her tone hard. Salem was surprised it had taken her so long to find out. She must have been too distracted to pay attention to what Salem was doing—or simply didn’t care. Salem was leaning toward the latter from past experience.
“Yes,” she confirmed, gazing out at the sea, wondering why the journals were so important to her mother. Evelin hadn’t been her grandmother, rather her grandmother-in-law. Her mother had not known her until she had married into the family, so there couldn’t be any emotional memories for the diaries, not like the ones Salem could claim to to have.
Her mother stayed silent for a long beat. The wind whistled around Salem, whipping her coat around her frame, the scent of sea and woods and winter crisp in her nose.
“You need to let it go, Salem,” her mother told her with finality. Salem was familiar with that tone. She had heard it all her life when her mother had asked her to do things she hadn’t wanted to do, attend events she hadn’t wanted to attend, be polite to people she hadn’t wanted to even see.
It was less the tone and more the words that made Salem pause now.
“Let what go, Mother?”
“This need to dig graves.”
Salem frowned slightly. “What do you mean?”
She heard the older woman sigh. “You’ve always been like this, Salem. Your need to uncover the truth matched with your stubbornness has been in you since the day you were born. You always looked at everything with curiosity, wanting to know how something happened, how something worked. We used to think you would grow up to become an engineer or something.” Her mother chuckled at the end, and then sobered.
Salem pushed her free hand into her pocket, trying to understand what her mother was telling her. She stayed silent, waiting for her to continue.
“Your interests turned darker,” her mother mused. “In the beginning, we were worried about you. Understandably so. But you just wanted to dig up bodies, dig up their truths, and there was some comfort in that, I suppose, rather than what we had thought you would become.”
“A killer, you mean?” she asked plainly, well aware through her own research that she’d showed what an outsider might take to be signs of criminal behavior even though she’d never had the urge inside.
“Yes,” her mother answered, just as plainly. “But you didn’t, and… and I know I haven’t been the best mother to you.” The admission fell in the line between them, making Salem grip her phone. “But I have always loved you, Salem. You are and will always be my child. That’s why I need you to let it go now. Find peace.”
Salem’s nose tingled at the words leaving her mother’s lips. It was the first time she had talked to the older woman at length, the first time her mother had sounded genuine with her, the first time Salem remembered being told by her mother that she loved her sincerely rather than as a throwaway distracted term.
Or maybe she had always told her and Salem had never listened.
Salem tried to see her childhood through a different lens, tried to remove her emotion from the situation and analyze it from her mother’s perspective. A woman who wasn’t bad by any means, who had two children, whom her world had revolved around, one day and one night, one exceptional and one eccentric. Maybe Salem had closed herself off emotionally so much that she had never believed her mother when she reached out, had never seen the gestures as genuine just because the older woman had been different with her from how she had been with her sister.
And despite everything, her mother called her every single morning, checked up on her. Maybe what Salem had thought of as her checking up on her only option was more nuanced. Maybe everything was more nuanced.
The world wasn’t black and white like she thought it to be. Instead, it was like Caz’s paintings, a spectrum of blacks and grays and whites, of darkest corners and light. And Salem didn’t know if she was right or wrong anymore, things inside her muddled and gray, much like the ambiance around her.
“You know,” her mother began when she didn’t say anything, “I named both you and your sister for peace. I wanted you both to be the most peaceful, content little girls who spread joy and peace in every life they touched.”
Well, her name had failed spectacularly in that regard.
You give me a modic um of peace in a wor ld of chaos.
His words, imprinted on her soul, came back to her. Maybe the name hadn’t failed her completely. Maybe she hadn’t failed the name completely. Maybe there was space for nuance in life.
Salem swallowed. “I know I haven’t been the best daughter to you either,” she admitted. “I know that she was. I know you loved her in a way you’ll never love me.”
“Salem—”
“I’ve made my peace with that.” Salem talked over her.
“I’m sorry,” her mother whispered into the line.
It wasn’t her fault. Salem hadn’t believed she was worthy of being loved, she still didn’t deep down, but now, at least she knew she was wanted, by her friends, by her lover, by herself.
“Can we not start again?” her mother asked softly. “You’re my only child now. And the last year, I’ve seen you, Salem. Your tenacity, your tenderness, your toughness. I didn’t understand when you were a child but they are your strength. You have made me feel stronger just by how you have carried on.”
That meant a lot to her, to hear her mother say that. She knew it was tough for the older woman too, to change and adapt in a new world, to own up to her mistakes and apologize for them. Salem appreciated that.
“It’s fine, Mother,” she told her. “We can try.”
Her mother let out a breath. “Then you need to stop whatever you’ve been doing, trying to find answers that are not there. Trust me, Salem, I have tried as well, and hit a wall every time. Let it go, please. I don’t want to lose you too.”
Salem couldn’t promise her mother that, not when she’d been working on it for this long, not when she could feel in her bones that she was this close. She needed answers, and suddenly it occurred to her that her mother might know some.
She ignored her mother’s request and asked another question instead. “Mother, did you ever hear Father talking about the Vanguards?”
The line went heavy. She could feel it in the silence that followed her question. Her mother hated that name, and had never wanted to hear a word about it since her father’s fiasco.
Salem wondered what she’d think of her daughter sleeping with the enemy, the morbidity of the idea, of her sleeping with not only a Vanguard by blood but the younger brother of the boy who had protected Olivia because he had been paid by their family, it was scandalous.
If society ever found out she was involved with a Vanguard, the scandal would be monumental, the fact that they’d come together despite the river of blood between them.
Just imagining their faces made her want to giggle, which in itself was surprising. She never giggled.
“Why do you ask?” her mother asked shortly.
Salem ignored her question. “They were a legacy family too, were they not?”
Her mother sighed loudly, as though she was trying to be patient with her only child. “Yes, Salem. They were a legacy family too. Five generations, if I remember correctly. We were family friends with them, their boys and you girls in the similar age group. Until the accident that destroyed that family.”
The story tracked with what she knew. “And the boys?”
“Dead, probably.” Her mother hesitated. “No, wait. One of them was alive, I believe. Last I heard they had fallen on hard times after getting disowned by their guardians. One of them became a criminal.”
Caz had. She already knew all of it so the veracity of what her mother was telling her was verified. “Did Father ever talk about them?”
She could tell the woman was trying to remember. “Maybe a few times in passing. Nothing of consequence. Why?”
So her father hadn’t told her mother about hiring Laz Vanguard, about considering him for a son-in-law, or burying the records for a young Caz. Her father hadn’t told her mother about the club and demolishing it, or the fact that Caz had watched and killed the man who had leaked Salem’s photos.
“Nothing,” Salem answered her. “Just wondered, that’s all.”
There was a sound of a bell behind her mother.
“I have to go,” the older woman said. “I meant everything I said, Salem.”
“I know, Mother.”
“I would like to start fresh,” her mother told her seriously. “But if you don’t stop digging old graves, you’ll not even realize when the next one is your own. So stop now, before it’s too late.”
And with those ominous words, the line went dead.
I look at the sky […] and my mind keeps poisoning itself uselessly.
—Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath