November 7, 2025
Salem High School, Massachusetts
Eliza pressed her forehead against the Jetta window as Aunt Ivy rolled up to the front of the drop off line at Salem High. Eliza really did not want to leave the car. Terrified during her first car ride, she had been sick all over the back seat. She’d since adjusted slightly to the terrifying speed and motion. But this new ask? Lord, help her.
She looked over at the building with three stories of red brick, teens swarming the front steps like bees in a hive. The collective hum of all the voices outside buzzed through the glass of the car window.
“Ready?” Aunt Ivy asked from the driver’s seat.
Eliza was not ready in the slightest.
“I shall manage,” she said unconvincingly, voice shaking slightly. Lucy noticed and grabbed her hand from the back seat.
Lucy and Aunt Ivy had basically been running a mini prep academy for the past week, teaching her how to text (she was still working on this one), browse the internet, basic laws of society, and even gave a crash course on basic conversational skills and topics. Lucy had taken her out to a few shops around Salem to build up experience.
All along, Eliza had been their patient, if not occasionally baffled, subject.
But with Ivy not having found a way to reverse the blood magic yet, Lilith needed to be accounted for in school. Eliza was forced to play along for the time being.
And Lucy was *so* proud of her subject. “It’s your grand debut!”
Eliza looked pained, as if she might cry.
"No sad faces, you’ve come so far. And you look just like Lils, you’ll be fine! You've gotta remember what we practiced, ok?”
Lilith's black sweater hung loose on Eliza's frame, and her hair was pulled back with an elastic band. Lils's jeans had been too loose on Eliza to the point of falling down, so Lucy had taken her shopping to buy some new fits.
She felt immodest in these pants, but the child insisted that they were the style, and to not wear them would be bizarre. So she had complied.
“If anything bad happens,” Aunt Ivy said, “you text me, ok? Just like Luce showed you.” Eliza nodded.
The glowing box in her pocket was not to be trusted, as far as she was concerned. It felt like witchcraft, although no one here seemed to think so.
As she climbed out of the Jetta, Eliza was met with the sound of revving engines and music blasting from open windows all around. She momentarily froze and looked back at Lucy and Aunt Ivy for reassurance.
A girl on a skateboard breezed past, nearly knocking into her. “Hey, watch out!"
Eliza flinched. In her time, such rudeness would not have been normal...yet here, no one seemed to care. Before she could get too frazzled, Lucy was out of the car and yanking her by the arm.
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“Follow me, I’ll walk you to first period. Then I've gotta split.”
The hallway was chaos, lockers slamming and florescent lights glaring overhead. Shoes scuffing and students chatting. Everywhere she looked, people were staring at those glowing boxes, their heads looking down. What in the Lord's Kingdom was this place?
“That’s your locker now, number 103” Lucy said, stopping at a tall metal cabinet. “I'll help you get your stuff.”
Eliza nodded as Lucy spun the dial and the locker clicked open, books nearly falling out. “Looks like Lils has her schedule taped up here." She traced her finger along the schedule on the side of the locker door. "Your first class is AP U.S. History with Mr. Gains. Room 201.”
Lucy pointed down the hall, toward the staircase. “I'll walk you there, stay close to me."
Eliza clutched her books to her chest and followed Lucy like a frightened puppy.
The stairs were a river of bodies flowing both directions, full of people jostling and shouting. She didn't remember ever having to deal with a crowd this big, even during town market days with her family or Goody Martin.
Finally they reached Room 201, and she slipped inside as Lucy scampered off with a quick wave. An older man with grey hair and half-moon glasses approached her with concern.
“Miss Proctor, there you are. I'm glad you’re back. You missed the presentations this past week.”
Eliza looked up at him from her desk. Well, he was addressing Miss Proctor alright. Just an entirely different Miss Proctor than he realized.
“I... I apologize." What was it Lucy and Ivy had told her to say? "I have been ill."
His expression softened slightly. “Yes, so I heard. Must have been some illness, it’s nice to have you back among the living again.” He chuckled, walking back up to the front of the classroom.
Eliza's eyes widened. He really had no idea.
AP U.S. History filled up quickly, students taking their seats, then pulling out those glowing boxes and tapping nonstop. Why was everyone always gazing at those? Something had gone very wrong with the future, Eliza thought.
A girl with flame-red hair and freckles slid into the seat beside her. The girl’s eyes were beautifully green like forest moss, framed with some kind of dark ink or paint. She focused in on Eliza. “Hey, are you okay?”
“Yes," Eliza said, meeting her gaze. "In a manner of speaking."
“Good to hear. I’m Becca, by the way. You're Lils, right? We’re in a few classes together…I don’t think we’ve ever really met.” She grinned. “You’re always so quiet.”
Eliza nodded. “I prefer listening.”
“That’s fair. Well, most people here would rather talk so it's kinda nice.” Becca leaned closer, and Eliza smelled cedar. “You seem different, did you get a new haircut or something?”
If only you knew, Eliza thought, shaking her head no, trying to respond as minimally as possible as Lucy and Ivy had instructed her.
Before Becca could press further, Mr. Gains cleared his throat and clapped before dimming the lights and turning on the projector.
“Alright everyone, phones away. Today we'll be starting our unit on Colonial America. I want you to imagine, if you will, what life was like here, in Salem, three hundred or so years ago. Let me paint a picture for you; no electricity, no running water, no modern medicine..."
He paused at one student's desk to take away a glowing box. "And most importantly, NO phones. Please put your devices away, or else I will collect them and you can come meet me at the end of the school day to get them back."
The boy groaned as Mr. Gains began his slideshow. "Now, please imagine, really imagine, what this would have been like. People died from diseases we can easily cure today, often died in childbirth. And of course, there was a near constant fear of starvation from crop failure. And of attack."
Eliza did not need to imagine any of it. She remembered the ice cold of winter, the never-ending work of the harvest season. Remembered her mother's face, pale and sweating with fever during the birth of her younger sister. No doctor had come, there was no tonic to soothe her screams.
“Can anyone tell me what the Puritans believed?”
A boy in the front raised his hand. “They were, like, super religious right? And thought everything was a sin?”
“Well, in a way. They believed in predestination, that God had already chosen who would be saved and who would be damned. That nothing you did in life could change that fundamental fact.”
Eliza clenched her hands involuntarily. Mr. Gains was walking through the desk aisles and turned to her.
“Miss Proctor, would you care to weigh in? Isn't this your specialty subject?”
Her head snapped up. Mr. Gains was looking at her expectantly.