Chapter 22 Something Old, Something Blue #2
More pages followed. Names, dates, strange sigils, diagrams that looked almost precise, too precise to dismiss.
Ava’s diary was part confession, part spell book, part letter to someone she’d never dared to name.
Every line radiated the same mix of dread and defiance that I remembered from the last few months of Ava’s life.
I thumbed through the notebook, searching for a pattern.
The entries grew more frantic toward the end, the handwriting slanting off the lines and sometimes trailing down the margin.
There were lists of meetings, most marked only by first initials, but one entry, dated two weeks before Ava died, mentioned Ulysses by name.
“Ulysses came again,” it said. “He knows about the pendant. He wants me to show him the trick, but I told him it was a rumor. He’s losing patience. I think I am too… he’s lying. He’s always lying.”
The ink had bled through towards the end, and the pages crackled as I turned them.
“August 3: The river’s louder tonight. I heard them on the stairs again. It’s getting closer. If I vanish, you’ll know who did it. Watch the men with glass eyes. Don’t let them touch you. They’re already inside.”
The room tilted, just a little. I read on.
“August 7: Tried the salt line. It slowed them down, but not for long. I think they like it when you resist. Please, please don’t let him near them. Promise me.”
The next entry was just a date and a single sentence, written in what looked like a trembling hand:
“August 8: If you find this, it means I lost.”
A sound from the living room brought me back. I slid the notebook into my purse and closed the floorboard behind me. As I stood, I dusted off my knees and took one last look around.
I stood in the empty room for a second, letting the air settle, then exhaled.
There was nothing else. Just air, and dust, and the memory of someone I’d never really known at all.
Then, I stepped back into the narrow hallway.
I moved quickly, glancing over my shoulder to ensure no one was watching.
Each creak of the floorboards beneath my feet seemed amplified in the silence, urging me to hurry.
The dim light flickered overhead, casting fleeting shapes that danced across the walls, and for a moment, I thought I caught a glimpse of her, a fleeting specter urging me onward.
“Senorita?”
Mr. Ortiz’s voice echoed faintly from the living room. He appeared a moment later, wiping sweat from his brow with the back of his hand, his shirt clinging to him like it had fought a losing battle with gravity.
“Your time’s up,” he said, his tone apologetic but firm. “I told you, the inspectors come by sometimes, and if they find you here, it’s on my ass.”
I nodded, trying to keep my pulse steady. “Yeah. Sorry. Just a lot of memories.” I wiped my hands on my shorts, trying to look casual. “Thanks for letting me look.”
He waved a hand, already shaking his head. “No explanations, please. I don’t want to know. This apartment… bad memories. You shouldn’t be in here.” He glanced at his watch, then gestured toward the stairs. “Time’s up, mija. Come on. I’ll lock it behind you.”
I hesitated just long enough to make it awkward, then slung the strap of my bag across my chest, ensuring the hidden notebook pressed firmly against my side. “Sure thing,” I said, forcing a smile.
As we descended, the air thickened with that stale building scent. Mr. Ortiz locked the front door behind us with a decisive click and pocketed the key.
“Don’t come back,” he said softly. Not as a threat, more like a warning, maybe even a kindness.
I left the building and stepped into the white-hot August sun.
The late afternoon light poured over the cracked sidewalk, painting the street in hues of gold.
It was a spectacle of light and movement: dogs tugging at leashes, an ice cream truck with a tune two decades out of date, a trio of teenage boys dragging skateboards behind them.
I walked until the street noise drowned out the hammering in my skull, until the ache in my calves replaced the fear.
Only when I ducked into a dollar-slice place and ordered a soda did I finally sit, thumb trembling as I flipped through Ava’s last words.
There was more. So much more. Pages of warnings, spells, diagrams of circles and lines, and things I couldn’t begin to understand.
Each line was a map of Ava’s unraveling: dreams of a blue river running under the city, memories of strange voices whispering from the walls, the certainty that she was being watched.
She’d scrawled in the margins: Don’t let him in.
Don’t let him see you bleed. The blue stone is the key.
A single phrase repeated again and again: “Remember. It’s always the same story, just new faces.”
By the time I reached the final page, the words were smeared, almost unreadable, but the signature at the bottom was unmistakable.
The soda tasted like metal in my mouth. I set the notebook on the greasy Formica and pressed my palms to my eyes, hard enough to spark a brief, safe darkness.
I thought of Mateo, the drawing he’d made, the blue stone shining out of the page like a beacon.
I thought of Aiden, and Ulysses, and every warning I’d ever ignored.
I opened my eyes. The world was too bright, too sharp, but I could see my path, at least for now.
I should have left the notebook at the first sign of a headache, but I kept flipping through it. Even as I sipped the soda, I felt a creeping sense of exposure.
I felt it before I saw her, the shift in the air, the prickle at the base of my skull. I looked out the smeared plate-glass window, past the delivery bikes and traffic, and saw her.
Across the street, a woman stood still amidst the bustling crowd.
She was tall, her dark parka contrasting with her mahogany skin that glistened under the sun.
The hood was drawn up, shadowing her face but revealing a slice of profile: a strong jawline and high cheekbones.
Tightly coiled hair framed the edge of the hood.
There was an undeniable strength in her posture, a quiet determination that set her apart.
She didn’t try to hide or turn away when our eyes met. Instead, she waited, weight shifted to one hip, hands in her pockets as if killing time at a bus stop.
But she wasn’t killing time. She was watching me.
For half a second, I convinced myself it was a random pedestrian, but with every glance, the illusion got thinner. There was an alertness in her stillness, a predator’s patience. She wasn’t there for pizza.
I snapped the notebook shut and shoved it deep in my purse. My hands were shaking, not just from nerves but from a deep, visceral recognition, akin to the lingering memory of a fever dream.
Whoever she was, she knew me. Or she knew Ava.
Could she be the reason Ava died?
I tried to recall if I’d ever seen her, but I couldn’t place her. Her silhouette belonged to the kind of person who’d watched more than she’d ever spoken. The kind of person who’d follow you home, then wait all night for you to open the door.
I dropped the soda in the trash and walked out the back, letting the heavy metal door bang behind me.
My phone buzzed, not a call, a calendar reminder for a doctor’s appointment I’d already missed twice.
A bitter laugh escaped me; reality had a knack for intruding at the worst times.
I ignored it and kept moving, crossing the alley and doubling back to the avenue with my head down.
I didn’t see her on the next block, or the one after that, but the sensation of being watched didn’t fade. It followed me home, curling like a second shadow at my heels. I turned toward the subway, the city pulsing in the distance.
On the ride home, for the first time all day, I felt that the silence inside me wasn’t just loneliness. It carried heaviness. Because tucked inside my bag, Ava was still speaking. And I had no idea who she meant when she said, Don’t trust him.
By the time I reached my building, my hands had stopped shaking. I climbed the stairs two at a time, unlocked the door, and checked each window before letting the curtain drop. Only then did I set the satchel on the table and exhale, long and slow, like I could wring the terror out of my lungs.
Mateo’s bedroom lay shrouded in shadow, the afternoon light filtering through the curtains, casting soft patterns on the walls. The room was empty, the bed made in the way only Ms. White ever bothered to do. A stray hoodie hung off the chair. His math book lay open on the desk.
I stood there longer than I meant to. For a fleeting moment, I yearned to reach out, to share the weight of my thoughts with him, to pull him into my world of secrets and shadows. He was old enough to notice when something was wrong. Too old, maybe.
But deep down, I understood it wasn’t the right time. Not yet.
Instead, I went to the kitchen and scanned the contents of the fridge: a single yogurt cup and a half-eaten roll of string cheese.
I downed the yogurt standing up, its taste so sharp it made my eyes sting.
I needed it, needed to anchor myself to the present before diving back into the world Ava had left behind.
I spread the notebook open on the kitchen table, next to a pile of unpaid bills and an old drawing of Mateo’s, this one with no blue stone, just a dragon and a stick-figure knight.
The juxtaposition was almost funny. Maybe it would have been if I hadn’t started seeing patterns everywhere, lines connecting the drawing to Ava’s diagrams, to the warnings about Ulysses, to the woman on the street with her hood up.
I pulled out my phone and opened the web browser.
My fingers hovered over the keyboard as I entered an address from one of Ava’s entries, a corner deli in Astoria.
She’d circled it three times and written “meet J here / don’t be late.
” I cross-referenced the date with my own calendar and found nothing but the time, midnight, was underlined twice.
Another entry, same place, different date, with only the words: “Red umbrella. If she’s not alone, abort. ”
Who the hell was J? The only J I’d ever known was myself, and I hadn’t set foot in Astoria in years. But the entry was from just days before Ava had died, and the handwriting was frantic, desperate.
I checked my phone again. Nothing from Aiden, nothing from Ulysses. I texted Rita: “U home?”
She replied three seconds later, “Yeah, babe, want me to call?” and I nearly said yes. Nearly.
Instead, I typed: “You ever get the feeling shit’s about to go down?”
She sent back a string of emojis: bomb, fire, skull. Then: “Welcome to the club.”
I closed the notebook and pressed it to my chest. I could feel the city’s pulse through the window, a world that wouldn’t stop for anyone’s tragedy.
But underneath, there was the cold certainty that something was coming, something old, something blue.
And it already knew where I lived.