Page 126 of Demise

Asher holds up his hand, silencing her as he hands her a fifty dollar bill and moves past her. I follow along, but I give the clammed up staff member a soft smile. It doesn’t seem to ease her, though. She looks uncomfortable with us being here, borderline terrified.

“Have you been here before?” I ask.

“Of course,” he huffs. “There are only so many locations to go for field trips in Salem growing up.”

“No need to get short,” I throw back. “She seemed to know you well, I was curious.”

“Everyone knows me,” he says stiffly.

“Yeah, because you were a whore.”

He gives me a disbelieving look.

“She was like seventy-eight. You seriously saying I fucked her?” he asks in outrage.

I shrug, doing my best to hold in my teasing smile.

“She was a pretty seventy-eight. Age is just a number.”

He shorts, lowering his voice as he speaks into my ear.

“Is that what Ronan and Wes say so you’ll jump on their old ass cocks?”

I let out a laugh and shake my head.

“As if they have to talk me into anything, I love every minute of it,” I tease, and Asher swats at my ass before we come to the first exhibit. My eyes begin roaming around the room as I take it all in. I’m not sure what I was expecting, but wax figures depicting the events of the trials, from the first accusation to the hanging and pressing of supposed ‘witches’ and their accomplices, is not what I was expecting.

From the research I’ve done and the reading from Thomas’s journal, I feel pretty well versed in the subject now, but Asher explains every exhibit for me in detail. First, he’d explain the scene or event we’re looking at, then he described the Brethren’s version. Some of them line up perfectly. Others…don’t. At all.

I look down at a plaque, three names standing out above all else.

Bridgette Bishop, Sarah Osbourne and Elizabeth Proctor.

It takes me a moment to figure out why those names sound so familiar, and then it clicks. My dream, from last year when I first came to Salem. The one where I was trapped in the cemetery on campus, running and running with no way out, surrounded by three headstones.

Bridgette Bishop, Sarah Osbourne and Elizabeth Proctor.

“These women…who were they?”

Asher looks at where I’m pointing as he nods.

“Witches. Bishop was the first to be executed from the trials. Osbourne died in jail before she could be hung. Proctor was acquitted. She was pregnant when her and her husband were tried, and so while he was sent to Gallows Hill, she was put on hold until she had the baby, but by the time she gave birth, the trials had ended.”

“Wait…Gallows Hill. Like our school?” I ask.

He frowns like he’s disappointed in me.

“Did you not know that the university was built on top of Gallows Hill? That the cemetery on campus is where all of the witches were buried?”

A chill runs through me. Nope, definitely missed that piece of information in the welcome packet.

“Where did she go?” I ask, still in absolute disbelief.

How fucked up is this society? As if I have to ask.

“Not far. Her husband wrote her out of the will while they were in prison, so when she got out, she was virtually penniless.”

I cock my head to the side. “Why would he do that?”

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