Chapter 2
Chapter
Two
“Ihate pumpkin spice. It’s the devil’s dandruff,” my little sister griped as we exited the town’s sole coffee shop, Bill’s Paper Cup.
Based on that blasphemous statement, I was pretty sure she was adopted. If she wasn’t? I’d have to disown her for that comment alone. Everybody knew that nothing could dethrone the superior flavor of the autumn season.
Suck it, apple cider drinkers.
After taking a sip from my steamy pumpkin spice latte, I made a point to moan loudly in appreciation of the flavors dancing across my taste buds.
“All the more for me, Beth.” I flashed her a blissfully contented smile as we strolled along the sidewalk side-by-side. My camel-colored boots quietly tapped against the ground as I walked. “Besides, you have to admit, it’s way better than what Mom brewed at home.”
It had only been a couple of days since we started calling this quiet little town of Falston home. Our parents moved out here on a whim, driven by a midlife crisis and a pipe dream of owning farmland when they retired.
Until then, Mom was able to continue her work as a luxury brand consultant, always focused on trends that emerged fresh from the runway.
Dad, on the other hand, was a coach. In what?
I had no fucking clue. Anytime I tried to figure it out, he bored me with talk about helping people find their inner grit and embracing their unique sense of self using his seven-step S.P.A.R.K.L.E. program.
Fortunately, they had waited until Beth graduated from high school last June before uprooting themselves from the big city life.
I didn’t have to follow them all the way out here to bumblefuck, but some extenuating circumstances made it the wiser choice to tag along.
Besides, my job was either feast or famine. Being a book conservator was financially hit or miss, but it was something I could do from anywhere. Working with my hands to bring life back to books that had undergone hell or neglect was a passion I had discovered while spending summers with my aunt.
Slowly, but surely, I was growing a decent clientele that shipped books to me. Some jobs required as little as rebinding, while others were in need of more extensive rehabilitation, such as water, smoke, or mold damage.
The older the book, the bigger the challenge. And I loved a good challenge.
It hadn’t been an easy move, leaving the big city I had known all my life. Coming out to the middle of fucking no-man’s land at least wasn’t the stupidest thing I’d ever done in my life. So, there was that.
One of the perks of coming out to a place with nothing but open space?
The homestead my parents purchased had a smaller house on the property.
Back in the day, the structure had been the caretaker’s cottage.
But now? It was a space to call my own with just enough distance from the main house to have privacy and a designated area for my book projects.
“Harlow?” My sister interrupted my thoughts.
I looked over at her. “Hm?”
By the way she bit her lower lip, I could tell she was debating her next words.
“Just spit it out, Beth,” I pressed.
She stopped and gently grabbed my arm to also halt me in my path. Even through the thick yarn of my oversized burgundy sweater, I could feel the warmth of her hand.
Her voice was hesitant and almost nervous. “Have you heard anything about the upcoming fall festival?”
Shrugging casually, I shook my head. “Other than it’s all anyone can seem to look forward to around here? Not really.”
I tilted my head at her curiously. “Why?”
Beth had a grating habit of shaking the charm bracelet on her wrist when she was nervous.
The bracelet once belonged to our Aunt Laurel before she passed.
She was our mom’s eldest sister, a free-spirited and spunky type who believed in all sorts of far-fetched ideas when it came to the supernatural.
Aunt Laurel was convinced that the moon’s energy could bring strength to whoever bathed in its glow, that herbs were more than just a way to flavor food, and that everyone had two souls inside them. One they were born with, and one they became one with.
Never made much sense to me. Like I said, she was super hippie and shit.
But it wasn’t until almost ten years ago, after she died, that I realized she may have been onto something more than I had cared to admit.
Things in my life started to take an interesting turn when I was sixteen.
At first, it was just little shit. Not stumbling in the dark on the way to the bedroom when I woke up in the middle of the night.
A quiet confidence that I mistook for maturity.
The way my eyes were a sharper shade of green when I caught sight of my reflection.
Then came the bizarro changes. I’m pretty sure it’s not normal for a high school sophomore to start openly purring when your crush sits next to you in geometry class. Talk about mortification on a whole other level.
From there, it only got worse. The coroner had just declared all the findings of my Aunt Laurel’s autopsy and untimely death to be inconclusive.
After three months of grieving her, not understanding the circumstances of why her death had been so mysterious, we were left with nothing.
I remember the timing vividly, because that’s when all my changes came to a life-altering head.
While attending our school’s homecoming football game, I fell aggressively ill. At that time, I had sworn it had been the direct consequence of consuming one too many greasy pipes of funnel cake.
Dead fucking wrong.
By the time I had stumbled into the dimly lit parking lot, my stomach violently twisted, and the most horrid of sounds came out of me as I doubled over.
It was a cross between a dying animal, wet gurgling, and mewling.
Just about the point when I had sworn I was choking on a bile-soaked cotton ball, I collapsed bonelessly.
When I had come to, all my senses were heightened. I could smell every blade of grass, my vision cut through the darkness, and every nearby heartbeat had its own unique staccato rhythm.
Oh, and I had fur—shiny, black fur. I had passed out as a normal teenage girl and gained consciousness as an honest-to-God fucking cat.
Unfortunately, I was nothing more exciting than a short-haired domestic feline, but still.
Who could say that they could turn into a four-legged creature known for being an asshole but still undeniably lovable?
Beth was the only person I had confided in, simply because I couldn’t handle this fucker of a secret on my own.
Looking back on my decision to entrust a nine-year-old with this?
Not necessarily my best judgment call. Though other than a few slip-ups early on, Beth had kept her promise made under the iron-clad vow of ‘crissy-crossy her heart and hope to die.’
I didn’t dare clue my parents in on this transformation that blew the awkwardness of puberty out of the water. If I had shared my secret? I was certain that instead of living in the middle of buttfuck nowhere right now, I’d be in a padded cell being questioned by a therapist about my feelings.
Worse? Perhaps I would have been turned into the S.P.A.R.K.L.E. program’s poster girl.
After years of trial and error, along with Beth’s support, I learned how to control this particular side of me.
I wasn’t going to lie, sometimes being able to turn into a stealthy furball had its uses.
Sneaking in and out of the house at night, avoiding people you didn’t want to talk to, and the occasional eavesdropping to name a few.
Snapping out of my reminiscing about days past, I saw my little sister staring at me expectantly.
“Did you hear a word I even said, Har?”
I grimaced. “Sorry, something about the fall festival?”
Dramatically, she rolled her eyes and continued walking down the sidewalk. I quickly fell in step beside her.
“I was saying,” she speared me with a pointed side eye in my direction, “it’s a bit creepy. Everybody keeps acting like either it’s better than Christmas or it’s Doomsday.”
“So, people here love a good festival. Since when is that a crime?” I mulled over what I had observed over the past few days while taking another long sip from my latte. “Besides, aren’t caramel apples your second-favorite treat in the world?”
Spoiler: She would murder someone for candy corn. Personally, I’d rather gnaw on candied crayons than that shit.
Beth huffed out exaggeratedly. “For someone who has heightened senses, you can be downright oblivious. You know that, right?”
She pointed with her cup of sad, non-pumpkin-spiced coffee in the direction of the central courtyard. “First off, there are town rules in place for the week,” she said incredulously, as if it were the most damning piece of evidence since the infamous Dead Sea Scrolls fiasco.
My gaze landed on a giant board that indeed had a list of rules laid out for all to see.
1. Everyone must leave an apple outside their door each evening during the festival.
2. No entry to the corn maze after dusk.
3. All journalists must possess a permit granted by the Town Council before being allowed entry into the festival.
4. It is mandated that all townspeople attend the final bonfire.
5. What happens at the festival, stays at the festival.
I snorted at the last rule. Was this the bumblefuck version of Vegas?
“So they have traditions and set out some somewhat reasonable restrictions. It doesn’t mean there’s foul play afoot.”
Admittedly, I thought it all just a bit peculiar, but my pride refused to make the admission out loud. Tell Beth that she might be partially correct for once? I’d rather listen to another one of Dad’s hour-long lectures on letter ‘E’ of his coaching program.
“Oh, come on!” Beth said shrilly, nearly splashing her coffee everywhere as she raised her arms in protest.
Attempting to settle her down with the universal sign for her to slow her roll, I grudgingly conceded. “Okay, okay, okay. Other than the rules, what else creeps you out about it?”
She leaned in conspiratorially. “The girl next door, Amanda, said that her big sister went missing after going into the corn maze hunt last year.”
“Corn maze hunt?” The disbelief colored my tone as I scrunched up my nose.
“Oh yeah, there’s like a whole betting pool on it each year.
A participant’s name is drawn at the beginning of the festival.
The chosen person must run through the maze and make it to the end before dawn.
Here’s the catch: supposedly, the town’s ancestral spirits will chase the person through the maze.
” She paused dramatically. “And if they catch you? You never come out.”
Ancestral spirits? She has to be fucking joking.
“You’re starting to sound like Aunt Laurel with all the bippity-boppity-boo talk,” I warned.
Beth scoffed. “Says the girl that turns into a cat at will,” she responded dryly.
My eyes widened as I elbowed her hard in the ribs. “Beth! Christ, say it a little louder, won’t you?” my harsh whisper clipped with panic that someone may have overheard.
Yet, my little sister seemed unfazed by it.
“Relax, no one heard me except that crow over there.”
My head whipped around so fast at the mention of a crow that I was surprised I didn’t crack my neck right off my spinal column. Sure enough, there was a crow perched on top of a postbox, the blue paint chipping away from years of use, and bolts starting to rust.
Was that the same damn crow from the kitchen window this morning?
Surely not. Though it was staring at me with that same intensity, with too close an eye, and an energy that pulsed like it was waiting to claw its way out of its own body.
The very same energy that I felt when I shifted between my forms, human and cat alike.
An overwhelming instinct to pounce and demand answers surged through me.
“Harlow, stop staring at it like you want to bat it around and leave it on someone’s doorstep.” Beth’s words pulled my focus back to her.
“I’m not— I’m just— Ugh, shut up.” The demand came out with sisterly irritation instead of actual malice.
When I glanced back at the postbox, the crow was gone.
Beth tugged on my arm to keep me moving down the sidewalk with her. After a few moments of silence while walking with linked arms, she opted for a less charged topic.
“Think there will be any cute guys at the opening ceremony of the festival tonight?” She waggled her eyebrows at me in her typically goofy way.
A sharp laugh bubbled out of me as I looked at her and shook my head. “If we haven’t run into them in the past few days, I’m not terribly hopeful.”
Deep down, I secretly hoped that I would be proven wrong. I needed something in this rinky-dink town to make the move here worthwhile.