Page 27 of Salem’s Rise

Wait. No…

I shake my head, putting an end to the ridiculous train of thought. That’s insane. Cats don’t know the future.

He butts his head against my bag of food.

“You hungry, little fella?” I ask and unwrap my sandwich, tearing off a piece of turkey. “Here you go.”

He accepts it, purring louder as he chews. I give him another piece and then another because I’m a sucker for a cute furry face.

As I feed him a last few bits of turkey, my phone slips from beneath my arm and lands face-up on the sidewalk. The cat peers down at it, then plants one paw directly on the screen. The display lights up. Not my home screen but an app. Dark background. White lettering.

VANISHED

I freeze.

The cat snatches one last bite of turkey from my hand and gives a satisfied flick of his tail before trotting away, disappearing into the darkness.

I stare down at the phone, the app still flashing across my screen. I’d completely forgotten I still had Josh’s game installed. He’d insisted I download the most recent release last October, so whenever I freed up, I could play and see what he’d been working on.

My thumb hovers over the icon and I tap “start.”

An hour later, I’m sitting cross-legged on my bed in Wintermere Hall, half my sandwich still untouched beside me. I’m already on level three of the Salem’s Fall round, having gotten through the first two levels quickly.

The game is filled with hidden messages tucked inside faded journal entries. Maps that only make sense once they’re folded a certain way. Ciphers concealed inside old town records. Nothing is random. Everything connects.

Josh’s voice echoes in my memory.

The game is never about looking for one answer, Jackie. You’re always looking for the patterns.

Outside, an owl hoots in the darkness as I finally solve the third level. A cool breeze drifts through my open window, and I shiver, pulling a blanket tighter around myself as the next chapter opens. At the top is a strange symbol: a curved spiral with jagged lines radiating outward, intersecting with an inverted pentagram. Below it reads:

COMING SOON.

LEVEL FOUR: VEIL NIGHT

The next few days settle into something that almost resembles normal. Classes finally stop feeling like a whirlwind of introductions and syllabi and become actual work. I learn which coffee shop has the shortest morning line, and which professors start on time. But beneath it all, I don’t forget what I’m really doing here in Salem’s Fall. Every move I make inevitably circles back to Josh.

My meeting with Professor Pemberton keeps replaying in my head. The split second of panic when I mentioned the Veil. The way he’d shut the conversation down so abruptly.

I keep digging, keep asking questions that earn me confused looks. Most people don’t remember my brother. The ones that do answer the same. Josh was nice but quiet. Smart. Always buried in old books.

One girl who clearly had a crush on him remembers him spending hours in the Special Collections section of Ashcroft Library, surrounded by stacks of colonial records and frequently meeting with Professor Beatrice Endicott, the university’s historian and curator of Strega’s Hollow, Salem’s Fall’s most popular tourist attraction.

I put Professor Endicott next on my interview list, which is why I find myself walking into the Historical Studies Building on Friday afternoon. The hallway is quiet, most students already escaping into the weekend. My heart sinks as I reach her office and find the door closed and a handwritten sign hanging beneath the brass nameplate:

OUT OF OFFICE: AT STREGA’S HOLLOW. BACK MONDAY.

“You should know the faculty here are basically allergic to office hours.” Deep male laughter echoes down the hallway.

I turn, folding my arms across my chest. “Seriously? Quit stalking me.”

Rowan Ashcroft stands a few yards away, one hand tucked into the pocket of his SFU Lacrosse Team jacket, looking effortlessly polished. The afternoon light spilling through nearby windows catches the golden strands of his hair, and there’s that expression on his face that suggests the world exists primarily for his amusement.

“I didn’t realize walking down a hallway qualifies as stalking,” he says.

“It does when it’s always hallways I’m already occupying.”

He tilts his head thoughtfully, as if considering my accusation with exaggerated sincerity. “Campus isn’t that big, Jack,” he says. “And I have excellent timing.”