I locked the door and went back to the room where Mike was thumbing through the book Vickie had been looking at before she disappeared. “Anything?”
“Not yet. It’s about the Salem witch trials.”
What were you doing here, Vickie? And why were you asking questions about the Alchemists.
I sat next to Mike as we read the pages together. It was more of a book of notes, observations, and thoughts about the area. He put his arm around me. “How are you doing? I know this must be difficult.”
Mike knew about Vickie since he worked for Doug. I never expected she’d been questioning the same thing I was.
“It’s a little weird knowing this was what Vickie had been looking at before she vanished. When I came home for the funeral, I never asked any questions. I mean, I knew Beatrice had been the last to see her, but that was it. I don’t know. Why was she looking for the Alchemists?”
“Hopefully, we’ll find the answers.” Mike had a questioning look as he was deep in thought. “Was Beatrice ever questioned?”
I remembered her crying in Grandpa’s living room. “Yeah, it tore her up. She’d been Vickie’s nanny growing up. There were people in the place to confirm that Vickie had come back into this room. Another group of people confirmed Beatrice walked back to check on Vickie and she’d been gone. It was tragic. It put a little bit of a black cloud over Beatrice for a while. Grandpa made sure to keep inviting her to everything. After a year or two, the town came around.”
“I could see Virg doing that. He was a good man.”
“The best.”
Why did Grandpa give me the coin and letter? It made no sense. This seemed more than a scavenger hunt. I wondered if he wanted me to solve the mystery of Vickie’s disappearance?
Mike flipped another page to find an underlined passage. “Wait, it says that the witch trials were believed to be a cover-up. People started to build hidden rooms in their homes to hide their daughters in fear of them being taken and accused of witchcraft. It was something families continued to do for years in fear of more witch trials. Some homeowners also built secret compartments to hide important documents that were only to be shared with other Truth-seekers.”
“Truth-seekers? Who are they? What were the witch trials covering up?”
Mike read some more. “It doesn’t say. It goes on to say how even Judge Hathorne believed the trials were wrong.” We already knew that from Quinn’s letters. Mike pointed to a drawing in the book. “Look at this symbol. It says this is how you recognize the wrongdoers from the Truth-seekers.”
“Truth-seekers? Are those the Alchemists?” I studied the symbol. It was made up of three rays leading up to a high point of three dots surrounded by three circles. I grabbed my phone and searched Truth-seekers symbols. The search returned an image that matched the one from the book. “Mike, look. This is the Awen symbol of truth.”
“Is that symbol anywhere on the coin?”
I took the coin out of my pocket and inspected it. “No. Maybe it was the Alchemists against the Truth-seekers? Or maybe they’re not related.”
Or maybe we’re making more out of this than it is.
We finished thumbing through the tattered book with no further insights. I stretched and walked around the room.
Truth-seekers. Alchemists. Vickie.
What’s going on?
I stepped around the shelves to find a little sitting area that hadn’t been used in quite some time. Against the wall was a fireplace. It was dusty and full of cobwebs. At some point, I needed to help Beatrice tidy up the place. The front area where the tourists came wa
s clean, but I wanted to help preserve our town’s history.
I studied the fireplace for a second. Is there a chance… Maybe? I kept staring at it, wondering if I was going insane.
I heard Mike before I felt him behind me. “What are you doing?”