The Crowley School for Boys sat perched on the edge of a grassy cliff, high above an outcropping of jagged rocks standing like soldiers against the crashing waves of the ocean below.  Its cluster of wood-shingled buildings, weathered to a dull gray by the salt-tinged wind, looked more like an old fishing village than an academy of higher learning.  The only access to the lofty campus was via a narrow sandy path that wound its way up from the coastline below.  There was no need for a gate or signs warning against trespassing.  The rugged New England landscape itself acted as both a deterrent and endurance test for anyone contemplating a visit.

  In truth, Crowley students did spend nearly as much time fishing their dinner out of the rough sea from small rowboats as they did in class.  They also filled their days adding rocks to the long seawall or chopping wood for the coming winter.  The administration’s philosophy revolved around the idea that students who had no free time were less likely to use it unwisely.  Thus, a program of hard work and calluses demanded as much attention as traditional classroom time.  A premise that seemed archaic to many of the roughly one hundred teenagers in attendance, but which made perfect sense to their parents, who, after all, were the ones paying the hefty tuition.

  Reaching the top of the path, Lester took a moment to catch his breath before approaching a group of students.  They were sitting on the grass, mending fishing nets.  None looked up from their task as he stopped to ask for directions, but a boy wearing a necklace made out of what appeared to be shark’s teeth paused long enough to point to a long low dormitory.

  As Lester stepped inside, he passed several additional students.  Some wore blazers with ties and carried books, while others dressed in rubber overalls, with matching boots that smelled strongly of fish.  Each moved with purpose, barely slowing enough to eye him suspiciously. 

  Following the main hall, Lester walked to the last door on the left.  It was open.

  The small room was lit by a single lightbulb hanging down from a low ceiling.  It cast a pale yellow glow on bare cinderblock walls, devoid of posters, photographs, or anything of a personal nature.  Between a pair of gray metal bunk beds pushed to opposite ends of the room, a young man sat at a tiny desk, his back to the door.

  Lester cleared his throat.

  “Give it up, Will,” the young man said without turning around.  “I’ve already told you I’m not switching kitchen jobs.”

  “Not even for me?” asked Lester.

  At the sound of Lester’s voice, the young man at the desk spun in his chair, and his eyes went wide.  “Lester?”

  “Hey, Mathis.  How’s it going?”

  The boy from the photograph hanging in the North’s kitchen jumped to his feet and pulled Lester into a giant bearhug, nearly knocking both of them over as he did.

  “Wow!  Look at you!” Mathis North marveled, letting go of Lester and taking a step back.  “You’re almost as tall as me now.”  Then the joy that had lit his face upon seeing Lester suddenly disappeared.  “Wait.  What are you doing here?  Is everyone okay?  Mom?  Dad?  Bernard?”

  “They’re fine,” Lester said.  “Everyone’s fine.  I’ve — come on my own.”

  “They don’t know you’re here?” Mathis asked, arching his eyebrows.

  “Not exactly,” said Lester.

  Mathis stared at him for a long moment, and Lester worried he might send him away.  What would he do then?  Who else could he turn to?  Lester still had the roundtrip bus ticket in his pocket, but he couldn’t just go back home.  

  “Okay,” Mathis said, his warm smile returning.  “Since it’s just the two of us, let me grab my coat, and I’ll give you the tour.”

  It had been a long time since Lester had seen his brother.  As they walked down the hill away from the school, he couldn’t help noticing that Mathis no longer resembled the childhood companion he remembered.  It shouldn’t have been surprising.  He was in his junior year of high school, after all, and soon would be off to college.  Still, Lester kept looking for the young boy behind the broad shoulders and stubbly beard.

  Mathis wore a black wool peacoat, a favorite with local fishermen.  It had large buttons that fastened on one side and a stiff collar that he’d turned up against the ceaseless wind.  His shaggy hair was the same dark shade he and Lester shared with their mother.  Anyone seeing them walking side by side would not have been surprised to learn they were related.

  Their physicality, however, was where the similarities ended.  Lester had always been eager to please, at school and home.  He was driven by an internal desire to do the right thing, or at least what was expected.   Mathis, on the other hand, possessed a fierce streak of independence.  Which often put him at odds with the adults in his life.  He didn’t act out simply for the sake of rebellion, nothing so angsty.  Nevertheless, Mathis’s unnerving habit of casually stating the truth of a situation often made the teachers and parents doing their best to tip-toe around it uncomfortable.

  In Giles Hollow, everyone thought Lester was the smart one.  But Mathis’s intelligence came from an intuitive place.  He sailed through school, seemingly without trying, even though he had a reputation of an absent-minded daydreamer.  It hadn’t been until after his brother was sent away that Lester had realized how much he’d looked up to him.   

  Reaching the shoreline, they followed a thin road in the direction of a cluster of houses and shops in the distance.

  “As great as it is to see you, Lester,” Mathis said, after they’d been walking a while, “I’m guessing this isn’t just a friendly family visit.”

  Lester glanced at his brother.  He’d been trying to figure out where to begin since they’d departed the school’s grounds, but the words wouldn’t come.

  “It’s complicated,” Lester said, looking away.  “And it might sound a bit — mad.”

  To Lester’s surprise, Mathis gave a small chuckle.

  “Why don’t you let me be the judge of that,” he said.

  Alone, far from his parents and The Council, with the rhythmic sound of the crashing surf urging him forward, Lester screwed up his courage and told his brother everything.  He spoke quickly, afraid he’d lose his nerve if he stopped, and the story flowed out.  But even to his own ears, each event in his tale seemed more unbelievable than the last.  Mathis nodded and grunted in all the right spots to show he was listening, but didn’t interrupt, so Lester kept going.

  Doing his best to present his case in the most objective way possible, Lester only included events he’d personally witnessed.  Still, of those, he left out no detail.  By the time he’d recounted the confrontation with their mother and the lengthy bus ride from Elmwood City, they’d been walking for nearly an hour and had reached the edge of a seaside village.

  Here the end of the seawall stretched out like a long stone arm, providing shelter to sailboats moored in a small bay.  Neither of them spoke as they stood side by side, staring out at the watery vastness beyond.

  Lester watched the waves break onto the rocks, their foaming mist casting brief rainbows against the light of the low-hanging sun.  Would his brother accept his story?  Would Lester, if the tables had been turned?  It troubled him to realize this was a question he could not easily answer.  

  “I believe you,” Mathis said, as though reading his thoughts.

  “You do?” asked Lester.

  “Yes, of course.  You’re my brother.”

   Lester watched a small blue boat bob up and down in the surf and felt a lightness in his legs.  He blinked back the unexpected tears that had begun to well up in his eyes.

  “However,” Mathis said.  “As flattered as I am you trusted me enough to come this far.  I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to give you all of the answers you’re looking for.”

  The blue boat dipped, and Lester’s heart sank with it.

  “But what I can do,” his brother continued, “is help you fill in some of the gaps of what you already know.  I will do this on one condition.  What you choose to do with the information once you have it, where you go from here, is a decision you’ll have to make on your own.”  He turned to face Lester.  “Do we have a deal?”

  Lester looked at his brother’s outstretched hand.  It was rough and callused.  A white, jagged scar sliced across the palm where someone had crudely stitched up a nasty cut.  He wondered what exactly Mathis had endured in the years he’d been away and how much of the boy he’d grown up with was still in there.  But, then again, hadn’t Lester himself changed in just the last few months?  Besides, what other choice did he have?

  “Deal,” Lester said and shook on it.

  “Great,” Mathis smiled, his tone once again light and gregarious.  “Now, let’s go get something to eat.  I’m starving.”

  They moved inland, away from the docks, toward the rows of colonial houses.  The road down from the school had been deserted, but this coastal neighborhood bustled with people.  Most appeared to be local residents running errands, washing cars, and walking dogs.  But as they got closer to the village center, the sidewalks grew crowded with tourists.  They chatted excitedly, pointing at various landmarks and stopping abruptly every few feet to take photographs.  At one point, Lester nearly plowed into the back of a short man carrying three separate cameras and a tripod.

  Mathis navigated the sightseers with practiced ease, avoiding the most congested areas by randomly ducking down barely noticeable alleyways and cutting through hidden parking lots.

  Lester jogged to keep up.

  His brother pulled open a nondescript door at the back of a random building and stepped casually into the middle of a busy restaurant’s kitchen.  Lester was sure they’d get yelled at, but Mathis simply nodded to the cooks and followed a group of waiters into an elegant dining room.  Fist-bumping the maitre d’, he then continued out the front door. 

  Lester came to a stumbling halt.

  It was as if they’d stepped back in time.  In front of them stood a large brick-lined courtyard with old-fashion gas lamps and ornate storefronts.  Horse-drawn carriages clicked up and down a street absent of cars, stoplights, and parking meters.  Additionally, the ring of old buildings surrounding the space blocked out any sign of the modern world, completing the feeling of a photograph from a history book come to life.  The only thing that betrayed the time-traveling spell cast by the cloistered square was a mass of brightly dressed tourists.  Like those they’d passed on their way here, they bustled about, darting in and out of shops, arms laden with purchases.  

  There was so much to see that Lester found himself spinning in place, unsure where to look first.  Then he noticed something odd.  Scattered among the shoppers, covered in drab tattered clothing, were what looked like escapees from a Circus of the Macabre.  One man, wearing a soaking wet sailor’s uniform, stood in a puddle outside a store called The Black Cat Coven.  His voice gurgled as he slowly turned the crank on an antique music box and tunelessly sang about a ship that had gone down in a storm.  When he reached the part where its doomed crew disappeared under a mountainous wave, Lester thought he saw a tear roll down the man’s face, but he was so wet it was hard to tell.

  On the opposite side of the street, between Third Eye Fortune Tellers and Beyond the Veil Books, swayed a woman in a faded and torn wedding dress.  Her face was powdered to an ashen gray, and she moaned mournfully as she handed out flyers for an evening ghost tour.  

  In the center of it all rose a shiny golden statue.  It was surrounded by groups of people waiting patiently to have their photographs taken in front of it.  As a smiling family of four stepped aside, Lester leaned in to have a look.

  The life-size bronze sculpture depicted a woman on a broomstick, flying over a swooping crescent moon.  She smiled as she held on to her pointed hat, the wind billowing her cloak out behind her.  Underneath the dangling toes of her pointy boots, a plaque shaped like a cloud read Discover the Magic of Salem.

  “Welcome to Witch City,” Mathis said, chuckling at the look on his brother’s face, before heading off again.  “Come on.  We’re almost there.”

  Lester pirouetted, trying to take it all in as he followed.

  A man smoking a long black cigarette leaned beneath the doorway of a tattoo parlor called The Dark Mark.  He was very tall and thin, with more piercings than Lester had ever seen in his life, let alone on one person.  While his head did not move, his dark eyes slid slowly sideways, following them as they passed.  

  Mathis made a quick stop at a food cart on the outskirts of the crowd.  He greeted the owner by name and ordered two clam rolls with fries.  Dinner in hand, they slipped down a side street, emerging at the edge of a large cemetery, where they found a spot on an empty park bench.

  A waist-high stone wall encircled the old graveyard and its slate-blue headstones, adorned with carvings of palm trees, urns, and winged skulls.  Beyond, in the distance, the water of the small harbor glimmered, reflecting the late-day sunshine.  The scene might have been idyllic but for the lone towering oak rising out of the middle of the emerald green grass.  The half-dead tree loomed above the cemetery, its leafless branches swaying in the breeze, casting quivering black shadows across the ground.  It stood, barely, as a half-alive reminder of the slow decay that awaits all things.  

  “Alright,” Mathis said, wiping tartar sauce from his chin.  “Let’s begin with a brief history lesson.  In 1626, about six years after the Mayflower landed at Plymouth Rock, another group of pilgrims struck out for the New World.  After a harrowing sea journey that left more than half their number dead, they came ashore at a place they would later name Salem.  Those early years were harsh, and simply finding enough food to survive the long brutal winters was a challenge.  But the settlers who chose to call this rough coastline home were tough.  By the time the American Revolution was over, they’d built their small town into one of the world’s most prosperous shipping ports.  Despite this success, and the countless other events of note that have happened here in the nearly four-hundred years since, Salem, Massachusetts, will always be known for one thing.” 

  “Witches,” said Lester.

  “Correct,” nodded Mathis.  “In May of 1693, a local doctor diagnosed several teenage girls as bewitched.  This quickly caused a hysteria that sent the residents of the town on an actual witch hunt.  Neighbors accused neighbors.  Some people even accused members of their own families.  All were then arrested and thrown in jail to await trial.  A court was established specifically to prosecute the crime of witchcraft.  By the time the whole thing was over, twenty people had been put to death.”

  “That’s horrible,” Lester said, looking again at the cemetery.  

  “Yes, it is,” said Mathis.  “Even worse, nineteen of those accused were hung from that very tree.”

  A shiver went up Lester’s spine as he pushed the image of a rope swinging from one of the oak’s thick branches from his mind.

  “Hold on.  Nineteen?” said Lester.  “I thought you said twenty people were killed.”

  “Good,” Mathis said, getting to his feet.  “I’m glad to see you’re paying attention.”

  He led Lester to the edge of the cemetery, through a stone arch, and down a long flight of cement stairs.  At the bottom, they emerged onto a tree-lined street with expensive-looking townhouses.  There were no shops here or packs of wandering tourists, only fancy cars parked in front of meticulously cared-for front gardens. 

  “The original main street of the town used to run right through here,” Mathis said, standing in the middle of the deserted lane.  The sounds from the busy square above were muffled and seemed far away.  “George Corwin, the local sheriff at the time, who also happened to be the son-in-law of the magistrate overseeing the witch trials, later went on to own this entire block.  He acquired most of the property at a substantial discount after seizing it from those accused of witchcraft.”

  “Your kidding?” said Lester.

  “No.  In fact, some speculate the Salem Witch Trials were nothing more than

one of the most notoriously perpetrated land grabs in history.”

  “Is that what you believe?” Lester asked, stepping out into the street to stand next to his brother.

 “Whatever Sheriff Corwin’s true motives, he enjoyed his work by all accounts,” Mathis said.  “That is, until the incident with Mr. Corey.”

  “Who?” asked Lester.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Corey owned the most successful farm in Salem and were a well-respected couple with impeccably mannered children.  This was why the sheriff made sure the entire town witnessed them being dragged out of their fancy house.  He wanted to send a message that no one was above suspicion in his quest to rid the land of witchcraft.  Poor Mrs. Corey was tried, sentenced, and hung that same day.  Unfortunately for Sheriff Corwin, the case against Mr. Corey proved to be a bit more problematic.”

  “How so?” Lester asked.

  “According to the law at the time,” said Mathis, “you couldn’t be brought before a judge until you plead either innocent or guilty.  Mr. Corey wouldn’t cooperate.  He refused to utter even a single word after his arrest.  Normally, the sheriff would have just let him rot in his cell.  Jails were so terrible back then that they were as likely to kill you as any death sentence.  But support from the townsfolk was wavering.  So many people were being accused that everyone felt like they could be next.  Some were even beginning to question the legitimacy of the court itself.  The sheriff needed something to reassert his authority and decided to make an example of the old man.  He had his men dig a hole, right about where you’re standing, stripped Corey naked, and threw him into it.”

  “Naked?” said Lester.  “Were they hoping to embarrass him into confessing?”

  “Most of the town did gather to watch, but sheriff Corwin’s plans went well beyond embarrassment.  Once the wealthy farmer was in the hole, they placed a long wooden board over his body and started stacking heavy stones on top of it.  After each one, they’d ask him to enter a plea again, and he’d refuse.  Mr. Corey was tough.  Seventy-one years old, and he still managed to hold out for three days before he died.”

  “Why didn’t he just say he was innocent?” Lester asked.

  “No one knows,” said Mathis.  “Maybe he didn’t want to give them the satisfaction after what they’d done to his wife.  More likely, he was relying on the fact that they couldn’t seize his property without a trial.  He did have a son to consider.  Anyway, not long after his death, the governor’s wife was accused.  Suddenly it was decided the whole thing had been a mistake.  They released and pardoned everyone still in jail, and life in Salem slowly returned to normal.  Too late for Mr. Corey, who was buried in the hole where he lay.”

  Lester looked down at his feet and imagined the old man’s crushed skeleton somewhere beneath.  As he did, he noticed a stone marker set into the pavement and stepped back to read it.  Giles Corey, Pressed to Death, Sept. 19, 1692.

  “Mathis,” Lester said, staring at the inscription.  “What happened to the people who’d been accused after they were let out of prison?”

  “What would you do if your neighbors thought you might be a witch and were willing to kill you just to be on the safe side?” Mathis asked.  “Once pardoned, most left Salem as soon as they could.  A few went back to England, while others found homes in nearby settlements.  A group was even rumored to have traveled inland beyond the colonies, disappearing into the uncharted wilderness.”

  Lester crouched and ran his finger over the engraved letters on the marker.  It couldn’t be a coincidence.  “They went inland,” he said to himself, “and built a town on a hill, naming it Giles after one of their own — and Hollow in remembrance of the horrific way he died.”

  Mathis smiled broadly.  “Well done, little brother.  I’d been at The Crowley School for nearly a year before I worked that out.”

  Lester beamed at the compliment, which also made him feel a sudden pang of loss.  Bernard was family, and he would always love him.  But if things had been different, if Mathis hadn’t been sent away for all those years, he and Lester might have actually been friends. 

  “Okay,” Mathis said.  “Everything I’ve told you so far, you could have learned from any one of a dozen history tours.  But, to go beyond the official story, we’ll have to step off the beaten path a bit.”

  They continued down the sidewalk and out of the quiet neighborhood.  Along the way, they passed several seafood restaurants and a rough-looking bar called The Scuttlebutt.  As they climbed back up towards the main square, Mathis disappeared into a fancy french bakery, emerging a few minutes later with a thin, pink box tucked under one arm.

  It was nearly dark, and the streetlights were coming on when they arrived at the tallest building in the town’s modest skyline.  The Hawthorne Hotel rose like a brick monolith, with light from dozens of gleaming windows peering watchfully over its neighbors.

  Inside, Mathis strode through the opulent lobby, past the antique furniture arranged beneath crystal chandeliers, and made a beeline for the front desk.  From behind the meticulously polished wood, an elderly woman wearing a red dress and a string of white pearls eyed his approach.

  “Is that Mathis North?” she said, pulling her glasses up from the chain that hung around her neck.  “As I live and breathe.  Thought you’d have been lost at sea by now, boy.”

  “Good evening, Dolores,” Mathis replied.  “How are you?”

  The woman narrowed her eyes.  “Who wants to know?”

  “Mostly the caretakers over at the cemetery.  They were wondering if they should start digging your grave before the ground freezes or if you think you might shuffle around for another winter out of sheer spite.”

  “Why you ungrateful ruffian,” Dolores said, stepping out from behind her perch.

  Lester watched nervously as his brother and the woman stood toe-to-toe, each scowling at the other.  He was about to suggest they bid farewell to this cantankerous krone and leave the way they’d come when she suddenly grinned and spread her arms wide.

  “Come here and give me a hug, you little bastard.”  Mathis obliged, wincing as she let go and pinched his cheek.  “Are they treating you alright up on that hill?” she asked, eyeing him up and down.  “You getting enough to eat?”

  “As long as I catch it myself,” said Mathis, rubbing the side of his face.  “Dolores, this is my kid brother, Lester.”

  She turned, and Lester was reminded of Mrs. Q as she gave him an appraising stare.

  “Of course he is,” she said.  “He looks just like you used to before they threw you between the devil and the deep blue sea over at that school of yours.”

  “I was wondering,” Mathis said, leaning in and lowering his voice, “if it’d be alright if I took him up?”

  Dolores’s expression grew serious.  “Oh, I don’t know.  I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” she said, matching his hushed tone.  She took a quick scan of the lobby.  “They’ve been keeping a close eye on things recently.”

  “We’d only be a moment,” said Mathis, “and I’d be eternally grateful.”  He held out the pink box from the bakery. 

  “Macarons?” Dolores asked.

  “Straight from Madame Sherri’s,” said Mathis.

  “Well,” she said, eyeing the offering.  “I suppose it would be alright.  If you promise to be brief.”

  Dolores accepted the pastry as though she were a spy receiving a folder of state secrets and then led Lester and Mathis across the lobby.  Arriving on the other side, she stopped in front of two tall potted ferns, between which hung a large painting that stretched from floor to ceiling.  Thick brushstrokes depicted a wooden ship with three sails sliding down a massive wave.  Angry storm clouds swirled above while a raging black sea threatened to pull the vessel down into its dark depths.

  Dolores removed a silver keycard from her pocket, and Lester noticed it had the image of a ship’s anchor imprinted on one side.  With another quick look over her shoulder, she swiped it across a small black panel hidden behind one of the plants.  There was a humming sound, and the painting slowly split in two, revealing the interior of a shiny silver elevator.  With its gleaming walls and bright lighting, the high-tech carriage appeared futuristic in contrast to the stately lobby, and Lester stared wide-eyed as he followed his brother inside.

  “Um, Dolores?” Mathis called as she turned to go.  “If you wouldn’t mind.”

  “Oh, right.  Sorry, dear,” she said.

  Leaning into the elevator, Dolores tapped a digital screen that sprang to life with a neon blue glow.  Lester expected to see a keypad in need of a secret code or perhaps some sort of fingerprint scanner, but it was simply a list of floor numbers.  Dolores tapped eleven for the topmost level and, without another word, stepped out.  She was halfway across the lobby by the time the doors closed. 

  “By the way,” Mathis said, as the car started to ascend, “save yourself the headache and don’t bother getting a smartphone.”

  “Why not?” Lester asked, perplexed.

  “Just like this elevator’s display, touch-sensitive screens don’t work for us.”

  Lester watched the digital numbers climb upward and remembered the difficulty he’d had trying to retrieve Mae’s photograph of the Yeti.  “How come?” he asked.  

  “I don’t know,” said Mathis.  “They just don’t.  Have you ever seen anyone associated with The Council use one?  Mom, Dad, or even Bernard?”

  Now that Lester thought about it, he realized he hadn’t.  He’d always assumed his father’s antiquated views on technology were simply part of his curmudgeonly nature, derived from his endless desire to deny all of his youngest son’s requests.

  With a brief sensation of weightlessness, the elevator came to a stop.  A deep bell tolled as the doors opened, and the two brothers stepped out into the belly of a 19th-century sailing ship. 

  “Tada!” Mathis said, spreading his arms wide like a magician who’d just performed his best trick.  “Feast your eyes on the secret headquarters of The Marine Society.”

  If Lester weren’t absolutely certain they’d started their journey in the lobby of a hotel, he would have believed that they were now standing in the main cabin of an ancient seafaring vessel.

  Brown wood walls curved up to join a braced ceiling, through which the massive trunk of a sailing mast came down from above and disappeared into the floor below.  Light from several glowing hurricane lanterns glinted off the dials of brass instruments, hanging between portraits of old sea captains who stared down at the intruders with cold contempt.  While at the far end of the cabin, a long bookcase held ancient-looking tomes and detailed models of ships constructed inside glass bottles.

  The effect was so convincing that Lester could almost feel the ocean’s sway beneath his feet.  “How — how is this here?” he asked.

  Mathis didn’t answer.  Instead, he walked across the room and took hold of one of the brass dials mounted on the wall.  He turned it slowly counterclockwise until there was a sharp click, and a secret door swung inward.

  A cool breeze swirled Lester’s hair as he joined his brother and looked out across the sprawling lights of Salem from high atop the Hawthorne Hotel.  The sound of laughter drifted up from far below, and glancing down, Lester immediately clutched the doorframe.  The only thing separating them from an eleven-story drop, and the resulting sudden stop, was a narrow concrete ledge.  

  “As I mentioned,” Mathis said, “this harbor was the wealthiest trading port in the east during its heyday.”  He nodded towards the bobbing running lights of boats in the distance.  “Every type of good you can imagine came through these docks.  Back then, if you were a merchant sailor, you knew these cobbled streets as well as the ones from whatever hometown you’d left behind when you took to the sea to make your fortune.”

  Mathis stepped back inside and closed the door.

  “This room,” he continued, “is an exact replica of the ship’s cabin on the Taria Topan.  It was one of the last trading ships to sail from here to the East Indies.  Salem was its home port, and in between voyages, its captain used to stay at a tavern he owned called The Franklin.  One day a couple of wealthy investors approached him about buying the land.  They wanted to tear down the tavern and build a fancy new hotel in its place.  To everyone’s surprise, the captain agreed.  But hidden in the contract was the requirement that the architect add this room at the very top of the hotel and leave its design off the blueprints filed with the city.  Additionally, the cabin was to be gifted in perpetuity to an organization called The Marine Society.”

  “And who were they?” Lester asked.

  “Well, like most secret organizations, they preferred to keep that information to themselves.  We do know The Marine Society existed long before the captain of the Taria Topan joined their ranks.  It’s rumored they were the ones that built the original Franklin Tavern during the founding of the first settlement.  After that, the business was passed down from one member to the next.  Though, there couldn’t have been very many of them at the time.  To even be considered for the group, applicants had to have completed at least one full deepwater passage.  Not an easy feat when you were just as likely to be lost at sea as arrive in the new land.  Once the tavern was sold and made into the Hawthorn Hotel, The Marine Society disappeared.  From then on, the only mention of them in any official record is a brief reference to a now-defunct seafarer’s charity.  Luckily, we don’t have to rely on official records.”

  Mathis walked to the bookcase and pulled down a giant black ledger.  As he placed it on a table, Lester noticed it was emblazoned with the same ship’s anchor he’d seen on Dolores’s keycard.  Carefully flipping through the pages, Mathis scanned the tight rows of handwritten names and dates.  

  “Here it is,” he said, pointing.

  “William North,” Lester read, “1685.”

  “That’s the signature of the first member of our family to sail from Europe to America.  Soon after which, according to this, he joined The Marine Society.”

  Lester traced his finger gently over the ink, marveling at the centuries that had passed since it had been scratched onto the page. 

  “During the next seven years,” Mathis continued, “his name appears on only two other town documents, the deed to a farm and a note of his marriage in a parish journal.  Then, right around the time the witch hysteria begins, all traces of him vanish.”

  “He wasn’t one of the ones they — you know?”  Lester held a hand to his throat.

  “No,” said Mathis, “but he wasn’t the only person to go missing either.  Nearly four dozen residents of the town suddenly disappeared, seemingly overnight.”

  “How is that possible?”

  Mathis sat down at the table and gestured for Lester to do the same.

  “Listen,” he said.  “The story of the Witch Trials, the one they package and sell to tourists, is a cloak.  They say that history is written by the winners, right?  From what I can tell, this particular bit of history is nothing more than a ghoulish sleight of hand.  A tale used to distract from what really happened here.”

  “Which is?” asked Lester. 

  “A bloody battle in an ancient conflict.  One that began long before a small fledgling settlement on the coast grew into the town of Salem.”

  Lester looked at his brother.  With his coat collar turned up, his messy hair, and the earnestness  in his eyes, he suddenly appeared — unsettled.

  “I know how it sounds,” Mathis said, again seeming to be able to read Lester’s thoughts.  “It took me years of digging through these archives and more than a little luck to uncover the truth.  Even then, it was hard for me to believe.”

  “And what truth is that?” Lester asked, not entirely sure he wanted to hear the answer.

  “The story you found in our great, great grandfather’s journal is no parable.  There is a war going on, one with roots that stretch back long before what happened here.  And those waging it believe it’s a struggle of good against evil.  As such, they’ll use any means to win.  Every member of The Council, including our parents, are soldiers in this fight.  Unfortunately for us, it doesn’t look like they’re the good guys.”

  Lester felt dizzy.  His first instinct was to deny it, but any hope he’d been clinging to that all of this might still be explained as some giant misunderstanding faded.  After everything he’d seen and discovered, part of him had already known.  But hearing his brother say it out loud made it real. 

  “Either by chance or by choice,” Mathis said, “members of both The Light and The Dark were among the first settlers of the New World.  Maybe The Dark was losing and tried to retreat, only to have The Light follow.  Maybe it was a coincidence.  I don’t know.  Regardless, their war came with them.  And as you and Amanda witnessed in the alley, they’re capable of fighting it with some unconventional means.  Combine that with the superstitious beliefs of the people of Salem, and it was easy for The Light and The Dark to cover it all up under the guise of witchcraft.”

  “But what about the people accused?” Lester asked.

  “The Marine Society has books full of family trees dating back over three hundred years.  But not one of them traces the father’s side.  I don’t think it was a coincidence that nearly all those tried and executed were women.  I can’t say for certain, but it’s possible The Dark’s abilities are only handed down from mothers.”

  “One group was attempting to extinguish the other,” Lester said, remembering the pain on his own mother’s face as she stood in the doorway.  “Get rid of the women and girls, and eventually, you’ll render your enemy defenseless.” 

  “Exactly,” said Mathis.

  Lester’s stomach twisted.  When he’d recounted the events that had brought him to Salem, he’d kept secret the unexplainably strange things that had been happening to him.  At the time, he’d been unsure why, but now he wondered how Mathis would have reacted if he knew.

  “However, even back then,” Mathis said, “the cover story could only stand up to so much scrutiny.  Word about the witch trials spread all the way to Boston.  Before The Light could finish the job, important people began asking questions.  The Dark took advantage of the distraction and disappeared.  As far as I can tell, The Light was never able to find them.  Even if they did, a large battle out in the open would bring too many complications now.  People don’t believe in stories of ghosts and witches anymore.  Not that either side puts much stock in the opinions of Grays. ”

  “Grays?” asked Lester.

  “Anyone not of The Light or The Dark.  Most people go their whole lives unaware that a centuries-old conflict could erupt in their midst at any moment.  But, of course, that doesn’t mean they’re safe from harm.  As with any war, even if you’re not the ones fighting, there’s always the chance of getting caught in the crossfire.”

  Mathis stood, and Lester followed him to the other side of the room.

  On the way, they passed a square glass case with a brass nameplate that read E. Teach.  Lester stopped and gazed inside, remembering the list Mae had shown him from the journal.  The box was empty, except for a plush purple cloth lining the bottom.  There was a round depression in the center of the fabric as if something heavy had recently been sitting on it, but what caught Lester’s attention was a small bit of embroidery.  Stitched neatly on one corner, rendered in gold thread, was a tiny hourglass without a top.

  Lester caught up to Mathis, who was standing in front of two large photographs hanging side by side on the opposite wall.  The one on the left was black and white and showed the aftermath of a devastating fire.  The town’s streets were still there, but other than a lone industrial chimney looking like the last tree in a clearcut forest, everything else was reduced to black squares of smoldering ash.

  The second photograph was the exact same view, only in color.  The buildings had been reconstructed, but now stood frozen in a vast field of white.  An impossible amount of snow blanketed the streets, which were full of long rows of regularly spaced plump mounds, the top of an abandoned car peaking out of each.

  “The great fire of Salem happened in 1914,” Mathis said.  “Twenty-thousand people lost their homes, ten-thousand their jobs, and several their lives.  During the blizzard of 1978, over fifty inches fell, ninety-nine people died, and it took six days to dig out.  The night before each of these events, there were multiple reports of people saying they’d witnessed the specter of Giles Corey walking the streets.”

  “You think a ghost did this?” said Lester.  

  “As he lay dying, Corey cursed the town and the sheriff as well.  In the same year as the blizzard, after suffering a heart attack, stroke, and a rare blood disease, Salem’s current sheriff, started doing some digging.  It turns out every single person who’s held that position has died on the job.  Not one managed to live long enough to retire.  All the way back to George Corwin, who mysteriously dropped dead at the age of thirty, shortly after he tortured Mr. Corey.”

  “Jeez,” Lester said, examining the photos.  He thought of his own small town, the school, the field with Mr. Chipping’s cows, and his family home.  Sadly, he realized he’d never be able to look at Giles Hollow quite the same again.

  “Lester?” Mathis asked.  “Are you okay?”

  “Yeah,” sighed Lester.  “I know what you’re saying is true.  I just don’t want it to be.”

  Mathis moved beside him and draped an arm across his shoulders.

  “I’m sorry, little brother.  I really am,” he said as the they stood together, transfixed by the images.  “Unfortunately, even in a secret war, the first casualty is always innocence.”

  Outside, they walked back towards the center of town.  Dolores had been busy talking on the phone as they’d made their way through the hotel lobby and had waved goodbye holding a half-eaten macaron.

   Lester recognized some of the shops he’d seen earlier.  The evening’s journey had taken them in a big circle.  As the old cemetery came into view, he felt Mathis stiffen.

  “Excuse me!” his brother called to a group of teenage girls sitting on a stone marker.  “Can I ask if any of you happen to be left-handed?”  

  The girls looked at each other and giggled.

  “I am,” said one.

  “And your friend,” Mathis smiled, pointing to a girl with red hair.  “How old you are?”

  “Sixteen,” she replied, a bit shyer than her companions.

  “What a coincidence,” said Mathis.  “The monument you’re sitting on is dedicated to a young woman who was barely sixteen herself when they hung her by the neck for the crime of witchcraft.  And how did they know she was a witch, you ask?  Perhaps they believed it was because of her left-handedness, her devil’s red hair, or maybe simply because she was female.”  Mathis’s smile faded.  “So, how about you all get up and show her a bit of respect?”

  The girls looked at one another and slowly stood.  As they sheepishly walked away, Mathis shouted after them.

  “Don’t forget to have a magical visit!” 

  Sitting back on the bench where they’d eaten dinner, Lester was struck by how like their father his brother had seemed as he’d scolded the teenagers.  Having been on the receiving end of several such lectures, he couldn’t help but feel empathetic.

  “Weren’t you a little hard on them?” asked Lester.

  “They’ll live,” Mathis scoffed.  “I was younger than they are when I left home.  A quick lesson in respect from a stranger probably won’t even ruin their day.”

  Lester and Mathis had never spoken about the events leading up to his brother’s sudden departure.  He’d been gone so quickly there hadn’t really been time.  Now here they were, sitting side by side in the dark overlooking a sixteenth-century cemetery after a day of digging into their family’s secret past.  And for the first time since he’d arrived, Lester felt uneasy. 

  “Mathis,” he said.  “I’m sorry mom and dad sent you away.”

  Mathis turned to him with a genuine look of surprise.  “Is that what you think?” he asked.  “That they kicked me out?”

  “Well — yeah.”

  “Lester, mom and dad didn’t send me away.  I asked to go.”

  Of all the revelations Mathis had shared with him that day, Lester found this the most shocking.  His parents had forced his older brother into boarding school because he was too rebellious and refused to blindly follow The Rules.  Lester had resented them and admired Mathis for sticking to his guns, even if it meant leaving everything he knew.  At times, Lester had felt shame for not being courageous enough to do the same.  But was his brother now saying that wasn’t true?

  “I-I don’t understand,” said Lester.  “Why would you do that?”    

  Mathis ran a rough hand through his shaggy hair.

  “It was the year I was due to be Drawn-In,” he said, looking out across the gravestones.  “When you’re little, all that Council stuff seems normal, you know?  It’s what you do.  It’s what everyone around you does.  But as I got older and started to see how other people lived, it felt more and more like something in our family was off.  Even the rumors of our connection to organized crime seemed like a badly choreographed stage play.  I couldn’t put my finger on it, but it was as if everything around me had a low buzz underneath.  Like when the sound of your alarm clock slips into your dream.  No one else seems to notice but you.  As it drones on, you know it’s trying to tell you something, only you can’t remember what.  The closer I got to joining The Council, the louder the buzzing became.  Eventually, it was all I could hear, and — I kind of lost it.  In the end, it got so bad I wasn’t sure what was real anymore.  That’s when I asked to go away.”

  Mathis faced Lester, and his rugged features softened.  For a brief moment, the hardened young man disappeared, leaving only the wide-eyed boy from the photograph hanging in the North’s kitchen.  “Crowley’s not just any boarding school,” he said.

  It finally dawned on Lester what his brother was trying to say.  He thought about the hillside campus, the sparse dorms, the rigid schedule, and the physically demanding tasks.

  “I always thought it was because you and Dad didn’t get along,” said Lester.  

  “That certainly didn’t help,” Mathis chuckled.  “Anyway, a few months after I arrived in Salem, they sent us on a witch tour as kind of a treat.  When the guide got to the part about Giles Corey, I nearly fainted.  So, I started spending what little free time I had poking around, learning this place’s history, and sifting through old records.  Then I found The Marine Society.  For the first time in over a year, I felt my head begin to clear.  Since then, every piece of the puzzle I’ve worked to uncover has been like regaining another bit of myself.”

  Lester didn’t know what to say.  He certainly didn’t blame his brother for feeling lost.  If he hadn’t had Amanda and Mae as friends, the same thing might have happened to him.  He was about to say this to Mathis when a man dressed in a long black coat and matching top hat appeared from the darkness to their left.  His eyes were ringed in black, and blood dripped from the corners of his mouth. 

  “Hurry now!” he bellowed, dragging a foot along the sidewalk in an exaggerated limp.  “If we’re late to the next stop on our tour, the situation will be — GRAVE!”

  The crowd of tourists following in his wake gave a forced laugh, and several snapped photos of the cemetery as they shuffled past.

  “That’s everything I can tell you, Lester,” Mathis said once they were gone.  “Now you know as much as I do.  Remember our deal.  What you do from here has to be up to you.  I’m not saying that means you have to go back, but it won’t take mom and dad long to figure out where you went.  I could maybe buy you a little time, put them off for a day or two.”    

  “I appreciate the offer,” Lester said, “but I’ve already made up my mind.”

  “You have?”

  “Yeah.  I’m going home.”

  Lester hadn’t been completely sure until he’d said it out loud, but it felt right.  Whatever was going on between the two sides, and whatever part his parents might be playing, he wouldn’t abandon his friends to face it on their own.  If he left now, he was leaving Amanda to her fate with The Council, and who knew what might happen to Mae if anyone learned of her involvement.  To protect them, he’d fight both sides if he had to.

  “Even when we were little,” Mathis said, “I was never as brave as you, Lester.  It’s been really great to see you.”

  Lester didn’t trust himself to respond.  He gave a tight-lipped smile instead, and his brother understood.

  The bright light from the nearly full moon lit the long sandy path up the hill as the two boys made their way back to The Crowley School.

  “I respect your decision,” Mathis said as they stood alone on the cliff above the crashing waves.  “Unfortunately, from what you’ve told me, it sounds like The Light may have finally discovered where The Dark has been hiding all these years.  That could mean it’s getting ready to start up again.  I’d hate to see you and your friends get caught in the middle.”

  “But neither Amanda nor I have gone through the Drawing-In ceremony,” said Lester.  “And Mae has nothing to do with any of it.  They’ve got no reason to involve us.”

  “If war finds Giles Hollow, none of that will matter,” said Mathis.  “Don’t forget, you’re the last of the North line, Lester.  Mom and dad didn’t have any daughters.  Whatever’s hunting our parents will also be coming for you.”