Chapter 59
FROM BEGINNING TO END
The wheels of the cart squeak as I trail Maggie to the front of the store, her shawl fluttering over an unreasonable number of layers.
Walt reads the paper behind the counter, muttering under his breath while Poe surveys the scene from a crooked shelf above.
Walt often mutters like this when he reads the Foggy Hollow Gazette, bemoaning the slow, pitiful death of real journalism.
It’s Saturday morning, and while I’m not technically on the clock, I don’t mind making myself useful while I wait for Twig.
Maggie comes to an abrupt halt and peers down her nose, through her reading glasses, at the book in her hand.
The spine reads: Lacework for the Recently Bereaved, and I can’t help but marvel at the vast and peculiar universe of books.
Somewhere out there, someone grieved a loved one and thought, “You know what would help? Needlework.”
The newspaper crinkles as Walt turns a page.
I glimpse the headline.
Echoes of the Past? Halloween Disappearances Stir Memories of Vandenberg Tragedy.
Maggie must glimpse it, too, because she harrumphs. A full week has passed since Halloween night, and like most others, she’s none too pleased with the lack of progress made by the police department. According to Maggie, the last thing this town needs is another mystery.
“Looks like Callie Reese has been moved out of ICU,” Walt says, turning another page.
The news hit yesterday at school.
She’d been transferred to the neuro step-down unit.
Maggie shelves the book. “I heard something rather interesting from Birdie the other night.”
“Who’s Birdie?” Walt asks.
She sets her fists on her hips looking truly affronted. “Birdie Temple.”
Walt blinks.
“She’s the one who’s always bragging about having met Maya Angelou at a Cracker Barrel.”
Walt stares back at her, completely stumped.
Maggie shoos her hand at him. “She’s Callie Reese’s great aunt. Apparently, the kids whipped up one of those online fundraiser doodads—”
“GoFundMe,” I say.
“—Set the goal at fifty thousand dollars, if you can believe it. Birdie nearly choked on her peppermint. Said they’d be lucky to raise fifty.
But lo and behold, some anonymous do-gooder swooped in like a knight with a shining debit card.
” Maggie lowers her sparse brows in my direction. “I wonder who has that kind of money.”
Jude.
He has that kind of money.
But I’m saved by the bell.
It chimes as the front door swings open.
Twig hobbles inside with a gust of cold wind, his injured foot in a boot and his arm in a sling. Still, he manages to carry a cardboard drink carrier with three coffees, a bag from Tudors, and a crossbody backpack strapped over one shoulder.
I rush to help him, although I suspect he’s growing weary of the baby treatment. Between Mrs. Calloway and Kate, he can hardly walk two steps without one of them trying to assist in some manner.
I hand Walt his coffee and nod at the headline. “Any updates?”
He covered the Vandenberg cold case back in the day. And although he’s made a few enemies between now and then, he still has connections. Which means he’s been our informant when it comes to these more recent disappearances.
“Nothing new, I’m afraid,” he says. “Sometimes I think they’re more focused on shutting down the rumor mill than finding the actual truth.”
“They’re failing on both counts,” Twig says, tossing me a biscuit.
The rumors are running rampant.
Conspiracy TikToks have sprouted like mold—teens speculating about rituals, cults, coverups. Most of it’s satire and clickbait. But there is a growing number of earnest believers.
Some of them have discovered our podcast.
Walt unwraps a biscuit. Ribbons of steam curl in perfect spirals and fog up his glasses. “I warned them. Releasing that last statement was a serious fumble. A prank gone awry appeases nobody, especially not the parents of those girls.”
“Or Birdie Temple,” Maggie adds.
“If this was just some kids trying to cause a scare, two teens wouldn’t be missing.” Walt uses the hem of his cardigan to clean his lenses. “Or perhaps, just one.”
Maggie frowns. “They messed up the count?”
“More than a few town officials seem to think Lainey Sikes ran off with Rafe Vandenberg.”
So does most of the student body.
I take a delicate sip of my coffee, thankful for the weekend.
I can hardly stand being in school these days.
The anxious whispers. The locker shrines.
The tears from kids who never once spoke to Lainey, or Ivy, or Callie.
The tactless jokes. The empty seat in AP Lit where Ivy used to sit.
Knowing the truth while everyone else speculates is unbearable.
If not for Jude and Twig, I’d feel completely alone.
Twig shifts. “Any word on the camera they confiscated?”
Maggie and Walt pause just long enough to make me uneasy. They know about our cemetery stakeouts. I’m pretty sure they suspect the equipment was ours. But like Mrs. Calloway, neither have confronted us about it.
“If there was anything on it,” Walt says, sliding his glasses back onto his nose, “no one is saying.”
Twig takes a bite of his biscuit, doing a great impression of a bad actor playing the part of casual.
In truth, we’re both wound tight, waiting for that knock on the door.
For the other shoe to drop. For someone to show up and accuse us of murder.
Twig’s been especially on edge. He nearly turned himself in twice, ready to confess the gear was his, that it was all part of a paranormal investigation.
Jude and I talked him off the ledge both times.
“Do they have any suspects?” I ask.
“Not a one. Don’t think they will either.” Walt folds his hands over the newspaper. “So, what’s the scuttlebutt with the pair of you? Headed downstairs for the next episode of your podcast? I imagine season three will practically write itself after last weekend.”
Twig and I exchange a glance.
We’re a full week into November. Normally we’d be excited—diving headfirst into research, pinning down topics, crafting quippy titles.
By now, we should have the first episode of our new season recorded.
But we’ve been dragging our feet. It’s one thing to discuss supernatural phenomena to which we have no connection, or a vague one at most. It’s quite another to dig into something so close we can still feel it breathing down our necks.
“We’re going to start recording today,” I say to Walt, trying to inject some enthusiasm into my reply.
Twig gathers his coffee and another biscuit, I take my own, and together we make our way into Maggie’s basement.
We don’t have much time to waste. Twig promised his mom he wouldn’t be gone long, and I’m meeting Jude at noon.
We’ve decided to return the gemstones and the locket to the crypt.
The portrait, too. We’ll lock them up, and put the whole thing to bed.
Twig pulls the crossbody bag over his head and sets it on the wooden table next to our sound equipment. He sinks into the nearest chair and stares forlornly at the crates in the corner.
“You okay?” I ask.
“Everyone thinks she’s off somewhere with Rafe.”
In a way, she sort of is. I swallow the tactless words and sit in the chair across from him.
He sets his elbow on the table and covers his eyes with his hand. “Kate was crying this morning in the bathroom.”
“She and Lainey were friends.”
He nods, and when he pulls his hand away, his eyes are red and teary. “I shouldn’t have let go.”
“Twig…”
“I had her by the wrists, Selah. But I just … I wasn’t strong enough.”
I reach across the table and set my hand on his arm. “There’s nothing you could have done.”
“I could have held on.”
“How? You with one good arm versus a demon octopus straight out of the Mines of Moria? Even Gandalf barely made it out of that one.”
“She was so scared. And now she’s gone because I—”
“There’s no I in that statement, Twig. She’s not gone because of you. She’s gone because of Seraphina. And Rafe. And evil.”
“We can’t even talk about it.”
His words come like a punch to the gut—an iron fist of truth. Here lies the heart of it: We know what happened. And we’re sitting on our hands like cowards. Afraid we won’t be believed. Afraid we might be blamed.
Don’t Lainey and Ivy deserve better?
Callie, too?
I imagine if things had gone differently.
If Twig hadn’t found the ruby. If there’d been no way to bring Jude back to life.
The thought takes my breath away. But I don’t run from it.
I force myself to consider the scenario.
Jude, gone. The paramedics taking him away, not on a stretcher, but in a body bag.
Would I really stay quiet?
He broke a curse that burned Foggy Hollow to the ground, threw a whole train off the tracks, and snatched four Vandenbergs from their dinner table.
He stopped Seraphina from rising, more terrible and mighty than ever before.
Would I really let the public believe he died because of a prank gone awry, when in truth, he died to save me, to save our whole town?
The thought is so vile, so despicable, it makes my bones hot.
We’ve been dragging our feet, unsure how to return to this thing we’ve always loved. Telling spooky stories. Chasing mysteries. Spinning theories. Embracing the unknown.
But maybe a shift is in order.
Maybe this season, we try something new.
“What if we do talk about it?” I say.
Twig looks at me.
“What if we tell the truth on our podcast?” I set my elbows on the table. “The whole thing, from beginning to end.”
His brow furrows. “Our listeners will think we’re crazy.”
“And the police might knock on our door,” I concede.
“Mom will freak out.”
“And I’m sure she’ll tell my dad.” I shrug. “But the truth will be out there, for those willing to hear it.”
Evil came to Foggy Hollow.
Evil took some of our own.
But evil didn’t win.
Twig’s gaze meets mine, and for the first time since that monster almost dragged him through the rift, his eyes twinkle with life.
He gets out his laptop, and we begin.