Salem's Cipher

by Jess Lourey

  Bel rolled her eyes. Ernest caught her expression and blushed, but continued despite her disapproval. “The Underground was resurrected at about the same time as the Hermitage, early 1800s or so. The Underground’s mission was basically to protect women, because the Hermitage viewed them as a threat to their power. At least that’s what everyone says.” He tipped his head at both of them. “Your mothers might have known something more specific. Most of us members are only contacted when we’re needed for something.”

  He tried to draw himself up to his full height, but the 1920s room had not been designed for 6'7" people, and so he bumped his head against the hanging light. “Like today.” He rubbed his head. “I was called on to pass a message to you two. To let you know that you’re not safe here. The Hermitage Foundation came for Vida and Grace, and now it’s coming for you.”

  “But why us?”

  He shrugged. “Vida said it’d be guilt by association. Usually, female leaders pass on the Underground membership to their daughters. I guess they wanted to protect you two from that, if this is the first you’ve heard of any of it.”

  “So, the Hermitage Foundation regularly kills off women, and no one even notices?”

  Ernest answered her question with a look.

  Bel blew air through her nose like a bull. “Okay, let’s say everything you’ve said is true. The Hermitage Foundation is a front for some shadowy cabal that secretly runs the world. Their main opposition is an organization of women who call themselves the Underground. Our moms were leaders, and because of it, one of them might be dead, and the other is, what? Kidnapped?”

  Ernest nodded. Bel paled, but she continued. “So what scavenger hunt are we on now? What are we after with all these clues?”

  Ernest shook his head sadly. “I don’t know. I just know that it’s the only way to stop the Hermitage Foundation and protect yourselves, maybe keep your, um, one of your mothers alive.”

  Salem was ticking through all the information he’d offered. “What can we do to stop them?”

  Bel threw her hands in the air. “You’re not really falling for this, are you?”

  Salem looked from Ernest to Bel. “It makes as much sense as anything this last crazy day, doesn’t it? Maybe more. It fits right in with a hidden message in a Gentileschi painting and another in a wooden beam just as old.” She sat on the edge of the bed, her legs still trembly.

  For the first time, Ernest smiled. “You found the note at the First Church?”

  When neither woman responded, he continued. “We all knew, or thought we knew, anyhow, that’s where the trail began. The First Church. But no one except maybe Salem’s mom knows what’s at the end.” His eyes lit up. “We just know that it will somehow destroy the Hermitage Foundation.”

  Bel rubbed her face. “This is such a bullshit story. If finding whatever’s at the end of this trail would destroy the bad guys, why didn’t my mother, or Vida, or the Underground, or whoever, just do that a long time ago?”

  Ernest thrust out his hands, palms forward. Surrender. “They’ve tried. Every leader of the Underground since it was revived has. Whatever is at the end of that trail was originally hidden 200 years ago, and hidden well so that the Hermitage couldn’t discover it. Whoever knew what and where it was is long dead.” He dropped his hands, drew in a deep breath, and exhaled slowly. “When Vida was here, she said she was training a code breaker to finally track down the document.”

  He directed his glance toward Salem. “She said it was you, Bits. She’s been training you your whole life. You’re the one who can save the Underground.”

  33

  Russell Senate Office Building

  Washington, DC

  Senator Hayes’s aide, Matthew Clemens, showed the two representatives from Women Rise into her office. Hayes was familiar with the organization and their chief mission to eliminate acid attacks on southeast Asian women. She had seen photos of what an acid attack could do, melting through flesh and bone, liquefying noses and eyes and mouths, dissolving, fusing, hardening skin and muscle into unbending leather, destroying lives.

  She knew that the two representatives who were ushered into her office had been attacked, the first doused with sulfuric acid by a husband who thought her beauty drew unwanted attention, and the second whose boyfriend, whom she’d met on Facebook, melted her face with nitric acid when she ended their relationship.

  But none of this could have prepared her to sit across from the women as they unwound their scarves.

  Despite possessing a poker face honed across decades of public service, Senator Hayes found herself shaking with anger.

  “Thank you for seeing us.”

  “Of course,” Senator Hayes said. She did a mental body scan, calming herself. These women didn’t need her fury or her pity. They needed her influence. She looked them in the eye and gave them the only things she could: respect and attention.

  They continued their introductions, and then Anchali, whose mouth was so destroyed that she had to hold a handkerchief to it to catch moisture as she spoke, dove in. “It’s not just the acid attacks we would like to speak with you about. They are the most obvious markers of culture that does not protect its women, or allow girls access to a living wage or advanced education. I was one of the lucky ones.” Her voice was lilting and lovely, crisp on the consonants and rolling through the vowels. She had been enrolled in medical school at the time her husband had melted her flesh, she explained. She’d had to take a reprieve from her education, suffering twenty-seven surgeries since the attack.

  Khean, the other representative, pulled out facts and reports and photographs that made Senator Hayes want to call her daughter that moment and tell her how much she loved her. Hayes listened, taking notes, waiting to speak until they paused.

  “Your bravery is humbling.” She spoke to both women. “Tell me more, and tell me what I can do.”

  Their meeting lasted a half an hour. Gina Hayes wished she had more time, but her schedule was full. It always was.

  “Ready for your next one?” Matthew said after leading out the Cambodian women. He set a steaming cup of chamomile tea with a squeeze of lemon in front of her.

  Gina Hayes was still scribbling notes to herself. She didn’t look up. “What sort of world do we live in where a man would drive a seventeen-year-old girl twenty miles from the nearest hospital, pour battery acid on her, and drive away, Matthew?”

  He sighed. “One that needs a change of guard, Gina. And that’s why you and I are here on the first day of November, fighting through paperwork and malarkey so deep, a shovel couldn’t touch it. And while we’re on the topic, your next appointment is with the Speaker of the House. Should I toss a sheet over the furniture before I let him in?”

  That drew the tiniest of smiles from Senator Hayes. “Not necessary. But let’s have him wait an extra five minutes, shall we? I don’t recall him ever making one of our meetings on time before I earned the nomination.”

  “That’s the spirit,” Matthew said, glancing at his iPad. “As long as you keep it under twenty minutes, you’ll be on schedule for the rest of the day.”

  He tapped his screen. “Capitol meetings all day, and then tonight, you’re getting together with representatives from Veterans for Peace. Tomorrow, we return to Iowa for a rally. Actually, you’re out of town every day until the election. Sure you don’t want me to squeeze a second in there for you to sleep or wipe your nose?” He glanced at her, his eyes lasers. “I wouldn’t mind canceling the Alcatraz stop on Monday, for example. You already have California in your pocket. Getting to and from that island is going to be nothing but a hassle.”

  “I’m not changing my schedule. A promise is a promise.” She blew on her tea. “I’m ready for the Speaker.”

  34

  Ten Years Old

  Salem skips up the sidewalk of the blue-and-white bungalow. The air smells like the inside
of a freezer. The corpses of flowers and weeds alike, brown and jaggy from an early frost, hang over the sidewalk. A year ago, Vida had given her lawn over to what she called “an English garden.”

  Salem had lost a friendship bracelet in there that she had yet to find.

  She walks up the three stone steps, one of them bearing her left hand print. She’d disliked the cold, messy feel of the cement when her dad had pressed her kindergarten fingers into it five years earlier.

  At the top of the stairs, she curls her grip around the familiar C-shaped handle, depressing the tongue with her thumb. The door is unlocked. She steps inside.

  She shouldn’t be home. It’s the middle of the school day. But it’s picture day, a day she dreads because she looks like a frog with her poofy hair, green eyes, and big lips, and she doesn’t want that in the yearbook. Again. So she told the nurse she was sick and that she was going home. The nurse, one year from retirement, either hadn’t heard or didn’t care.

  One bus ride later, and she’s standing inside her home. Her mom calls her housekeeping style “tousled.” Her disorganization is a side effect of her peculiar genius, Salem’s dad tells her. He should be in his shop, working, and Vida should be teaching at Hill College. Salem is going to sneak an Orange Crush out of the refrigerator and bring it to her room before she goes to his shop so she has something to drink up there because her dad is for sure sending her straight to bed when he sees her home this early.

  She is almost around the hallway corner and in the kitchen when she hears them arguing. Her mom and dad. Home in the middle of the day. Her throat tightens. She wishes she really was sick.

  “She’s too young,” Daniel is saying. “Let her be a child yet.”

  Her mom answers. “She’s perfect, Danny, and you know it. The girl’s a genius.”

  “Yes, but she’s our girl.”

  Is Daniel crying? Salem has never seen either of her parents cry. The thought terrifies her. She peeks around the corner.

  “She sets us free,” Vida says, “and we’re free forever. All of us. You, me, Gracie, Isabel. So many more. It’s not just about one person; you taught me that.”

  Vida’s hair is in a bun. She’s wearing hoop earrings. Daniel has on a faded t-shirt. They stand in front of the refrigerator, the grocery list secured with a Salem-crafted button magnet visible between them. Vida reaches for Daniel, who is indeed crying, his lashes dripping with tears like jewels. Salem gasps. They both swivel, spotting her.

  What happens next is vague, a ghost memory of letting her watch movies and eat popcorn even though both her parents, normally strict about school, know she is playing hooky.

  Yet they spoil her that day.

  35

  Salem, Massachusetts

  Ernest Mayfair’s words echoed.

  When Vida was here, she said she was training a code breaker to track down the document once and for all. She said it was you, Bits.

  His announcement hung in a silence so intense that it became a living thing.

  Bel slayed it. “That is absolutely, one hundred percent enough horseshit for one day. I am full up.” She reached for her duffel and began packing up her toiletries.

  Salem felt hollow. Hollow and lonelier than she’d ever been in her life. She believed her mom would use her—in a heartbeat, in fact—but her dad?

  “Sorry.” She shot Ernest a sad smile. Bel was being harsh with him, even though he clearly believed every word he’d said. “This is a lot to digest. We’re both pretty freaked out that our mothers are missing.”

  Ernest’s shoulders slumped. “How else can you explain their disappearance and whatever you found at the First Church? You both know this is big. I can see it in your eyes.”

  Salem was struck by his bearing, which he wore almost like an accent, a posture and expression that was an unlikely mix of innocence and defiance. If she believed what he’d said about the Hermitage Foundation and her parents training her to solve this code, that meant she’d have to believe that either Vida or Grace was dead. Gripping that thought was like squeezing a live coal.

  “The only thing I know for sure,” Bel said, “is that if you know we’re here, that means someone else could too. We have to get the fuck out of Dodge.”

  Ernest nodded eagerly, as if they were finally all three on the same page. “I’ll come with you.”

  Bel snorted. “No way.”

  Amazingly, Salem trusted Ernest.

  But she trusted Bel more. She powered down her laptop and slid it into its case. Next, she grabbed the Dickinson note and refolded it gently to its original shape before sliding it in her jacket pocket. She moved past Ernest to reach the door. “Sorry.”

  He didn’t seem to hear her. “The man who chased you into the Witch Museum is waiting outside. He’s at the restaurant across the street or maybe in the lobby. I can show you a back way out.” His voice was little more than a whisper.

  “We’ll pass on that generous offer.” Bel’s voice was sleek with sarcasm. She opened the door and held it ajar for Salem. “Walking down dark halls with strangers is one of the first no-nos they teach you at the police academy. We’ll go straight from the lobby to a cab, so it doesn’t matter where that creep is. He won’t grab us in public, and he won’t know where we’re going, just like you won’t.”

  Ernest nodded in resignation. Salem had never seen anyone look so sad. She opened her mouth but realized she had no way to make him feel better. She stepped outside of room 325, and the door closed behind her. Bel was already halfway down the hall. Salem hurried to catch up.

  “You didn’t have to be so mean to him.”

  Bel sighed and waited for Salem. “It’s not mean to stand up for yourself. We didn’t know that guy from Adam.”

  “But he knew us.”

  “Nothing an Internet search and a solid dose of crazy couldn’t get him.”

  “Why would he bother?”

  Bel stabbed the elevator button. “I don’t know. Where are we headed?”

  Salem glanced over her shoulder. The hallway was empty. She lowered her voice anyhow. “Amherst, Massachusetts. It’s where Emily Dickinson grew up.”

  “You think there’s another message there somewhere?”

  “I don’t know, but we have to get out of this town, and that’ll buy me more time. Amherst is a couple hours west, I think. I can research while you drive.”

  They rode the elevator in silence, the air between them charged. When they hit the main floor, Bel held up a hand and peered around the spacious lobby. Three women reclined on the ornate couches in the middle of the atrium, paging through wedding planners. A gray-haired guy sat across the couch from them, back to the elevator, reading a magazine. The same efficient man who had checked them in was working the front desk, helping a woman in a black blazer. A group of people were talking loudly around the corner from the elevator, out of Salem and Bel’s sight line.

  “Do you see him?”

  Bel shook her head. “All clear. Stick close.”

  They stepped into the lobby. Salem’s pulse thumped in her temples. She felt conspicuous, and like she wanted to look into all the corners at once. “I’ll ask about a rental at the desk.”

  “I’ll watch for him out front. There’s too many damn entrances to this lobby.” Bel turned toward the foyer.

  Salem walked to the counter and stood in line behind the woman with the black jacket. The woman glanced toward Salem then back to the hotel employee. Her shoulders drew up, and she abruptly ended her conversation and turned back toward Salem as if to leave.

  Her face was bland, unremarkable.

  Salem would have let her walk right past, but they locked eyes.

  The same eyes she’d seen in the man outside Plummer Hall.

  The same eyes that had followed them into the Witch Museum.

  Evil eyes.

  T
he woman stepped toward Salem, a smile licking her mouth. Salem tried to yell for Bel. A low moan escaped instead. The woman reached into her interior jacket pocket.

  Salem smelled metal. Fear grabbed her, touched her where she didn’t want to be touched.

  She learned what it was like to be hypnotized by a snake’s eyes, to watch, frozen, while a deadly creature slithered toward you, unable to so much as breathe. Her feet sunk through the carpet, into the floor below, holding her so she could be harvested.

  If she hadn’t been bumped from behind, violently, she was sure the woman in the black blazer would have swallowed her whole. She fell forward.

  “Excuse me.” Agent Lucan Stone grasped her arm, scowling at the woman before turning his full attention to Salem. “Are you okay?”

  Salem threw her hand onto a nearby pole to steady herself. Her heartbeat, which had been suspended, returned with a pounding force. “What are you doing here?”

  “Coincidence.” His smile was brilliant.

  Salem felt an electric surge. They stared at each other for a moment too long. When Salem glanced around the lobby, the evil-eyed woman had disappeared.

  “Not likely,” Bel said, appearing at Salem’s side. “You must have news for us.”

  Agent Stone’s grin disappeared. “I’m afraid not. I do have questions, however.”

  “Sorry,” Bel said, grabbing Salem’s hand and leading her toward the door.

  They stepped into the chilly November afternoon, the setting tangerine-­and-gold of the sun at odds with all the darkness in their lives.

  36

  Salem, Massachusetts

  Clancy was the first person Agent Stone had spotted when he’d entered the Hawthorne Hotel lobby from the rear moments earlier. His partner had been sitting on a couch in the center of the spacious room, pretending to read a magazine. The second person Stone saw was Salem Wiley, frozen in terror as the eerie woman in a black blazer turned from the front desk and walked toward her, predator written on every inch of the woman’s creepy skin. Stone had seen death row gangbangers with less hate in them.