chapter fourteen

chase

Meghan was in an infectious good mood the following Monday. Not only was she on a high from the publication of our Lenny story in the Sunday edition, which was shooting her subscription number through the roof, but this whole Fannie thing was giving her life.

It was refreshing to sit back and watch her be the one to hyperfixate on something as I often did. “And listen to this,” she said, slowly turning a page in the journal that sat in front of her on the little school desk, “She skinned the fox that ate some of her chickens and used its pelt to make a scarf.”

“Gross. Maybe that’s why nobody married her.” I only made the remark to make Meghan shoot a playful glare in my direction—and I got exactly the reaction I’d hoped for. “How many pages have you transcribed so far?”

Over the past few days, Meghan had gone from carrying a single notebook to wielding three of them at all times. One was for official newspaper business, and another for copying Fannie’s words. The third one was the tattered old journal itself. “Still just a few partial pages,” she said, eyeing her new notebook. “And it’s all about chickens. It’s no surprise, I guess, that she froze to death while she was on her way to feed them.”

“You might even say she died doing what she loved.”

Two weeks ago, Meghan would have scoffed and tossed some hateful comment my way. Hell, she might have even thrown one of her notebooks at my head. But now there was a twinkle in her eyes as she rolled them at me, running her hand through her hair. She wasn’t sporting the usual updo that day. Her dark, shiny strands loosely framed her face as she looked down at the open notebooks spread out in front of her.

What caught my attention even more than her hair, however, was the way she smiled a lot more these days. I could tell she was finding me more tolerable, and it was almost like it annoyed her—like she couldn't control the way her hatred of me was tapering off.

I watched as she leaned forward, completely absorbed in Fannie’s journal, her brows furrowed in concentration. We’d come up to this abandoned classroom to plan our week, but Meghan was entirely focused on Fannie.

Kind of like I was entirely focused on the subtle way her lips moved as she mouthed the words of the journal entry to herself.

I cleared my throat, forcing myself to snap out of it. “Where do you think Fannie’s ghost hangs around?”

Meghan lifted her chin to look at me. “Judging from what she wrote here, I’d say she’s still guarding her chicken coop in the afterlife.”

“Do you think we could track down where she lived and scope it out?” I crossed my arms against my chest, worried this might be a little forward. After all, this wasn’t official news business I was suggesting, and she knew it. I regretted my inclusion of the word “we” more with every passing second, wishing I hadn’t inserted myself into her hobby.

But Meghan glanced from me to the window before returning her gaze to the old journal, saying, “Maybe. I know she lived on Persimmon Road.”

I tried not to let my surprise show, but damn, I was relishing in her not immediately shutting me down. She didn’t laugh it off, didn’t scoff, didn’t hit me with some sarcastic quip about how this wasn’t my business. “Isn’t that the road that runs behind the high school?” I asked, trying to keep my tone casual. “That’s right by Ackerman Woods.”

Meghan blinked a couple of times. “You mean the woods the witch supposedly haunts? Do you have ulterior motives for wanting to come along with me, Chase?”

“I wasn’t even thinking about that,” I answered with a laugh. And it was true. “If you want to go explore Fannie’s old stomping grounds together sometime, I’ll take you out there. And I won’t bring any of my equipment, I promise.”

Meghan tapped her pen on the desk, thinking this over. “Then what’s in it for you?”

I slowly brought my lips together, reconsidering my declaration that she was smarter than me. Because if that were true, she’d realize the only reason I wanted to tag along was to have the opportunity to spend time with her. Couldn’t she figure that out? “If we encounter anything supernatural, I can always go back with Sean.”

She considered this for a moment, finally saying, “Let me think about it,” carefully closing Fannie’s journal. And then, with a whimsical smile, she said, “We went out to the metal bridge on that road before, remember?”

Of course I did. I’d carved our initials into the rusty supports with my pocketknife. I wondered if they were still visible, or had years of weathering worn the rust away? “Yep. That’s where we saw that fat groundhog.”

“No,” she said, tucking her hair behind her ears. “That was that other bridge, the old wooden one.”

I knew better than to argue with her, but I was pretty sure she was remembering this wrong. I merely muttered a doubtful, “Hmm.”

“You don’t believe me?” she questioned, pulling out her phone. “Let’s just fact-check it, then, shall we?”

“Fact-check it? How?” I asked with a laugh.

“There’s a picture of it on the blog. Just let me find it.”

I lifted one eyebrow in confusion. “You’re on our blog right now? How in the hell is that site still up?”

Meghan stopped scrolling to gaze up at me, and her cheeks turned the slightest shade of pink. “Because… because I’m still paying for it,” she admitted.

This was news to me. “All of it? The domain, the hosting?”

She nodded. “I mean, yeah? We put a lot of work into it, Chase. I didn’t want it to just disappear. I still get emails from people every now and then.”

She was even paying for the custom email? I swallowed, struggling to process the reasoning behind all of this. I’d assumed the website died when our relationship died. I almost opened my mouth to point out she could have downloaded the archives rather than pay a monthly fee to keep it open, but Meghan had to have known that. She was no idiot. Maybe there was a part of her, perhaps some small part, that couldn’t let go of everything we built together.

Before I could dwell on it any longer, Meghan put her phone away and said she’d look up the groundhog detail later, mentioning we needed to get to work. As we planned out the week’s interviews and events, I found it nearly impossible to focus on anything but the delicate way she had one leg crossed over the other, pointing her knees toward me as she spoke.

She is so falling back in love with me.

**

“Meghan’s been paying for Woodvale Whispers all this time.” Those were the first words out of my mouth when I entered The Comics Vault. The stairs from my apartment led into a little hallway at the back of the store. It was five minutes after closing, and Sean was locking the door behind a couple of his regulars, some RPG players who paid Sean a monthly fee to host their games at a table at the back of the store. My bed was just above their meeting area, so it wasn’t uncommon for me to be jolted awake from a nap by someone screaming, “ Critical hit! I decapitated the orc!”

Honestly, I took comfort in the fact there were bigger nerds in Woodvale than Sean and me.

“And?” Sean asked, walking over to his cash register while I grabbed a broom to sweep up the Dorito crumbs on the floor around the RPG table. I often chipped in to help him close up, so we could head out for our ghost stakeouts faster. “What are you implying?”

“It makes me feel like some part of her still cares,” I said, bending over to pick up a crumpled character sheet.

“Right,” Sean said, popping open the cash register. “About the website.”

“Yes. And,” I said, pausing for emphasis, “maybe this is a little delusional of me to assume, but… it could mean she cares about me, too.”

Sean tilted his head back and groaned, holding a stack of cash in his hand. “I knew you were still in love with her.”

“I never said that.”

“Are you still in love with her?”

I turned around, still clutching the broom, and scanned the shelf of trade paperbacks behind me. My eyes landed on the newest volume of Saga . “Hey, look, I still haven’t gotten around to reading this,” I said, holding the book up to Sean in an attempt to deflect his question. “You should let me borrow it.”

“First of all, this isn’t a library, dude,” Sean said, slamming the cash register drawer. “And second, you need to move on. For the sake of your mental health. And mine. And probably hers.”

“Hey, if I can listen to you describe the color, consistency, and smell of Dimitri’s diaper blowouts in great detail, you can listen to me whine about Meghan.” I scooped the dirt and crumbs into the dustpan and dumped them in the bin by the counter before grabbing my backpack and GoPro from the table. “Anyway, are you ready to head out?”

Sean nodded. “We should probably hurry. I only have an hour and a half before I need to get home. Let’s stay focused. I won’t talk about baby stuff if you don’t wax poetic about how much you miss Meghan.”

“Deal,” I said, rolling my eyes. I missed the days when Sean and I could go ghost hunting into the late hours of the night, before he had more responsibilities at home. I understood, but it didn’t make it any less annoying. And lately, it seemed like his sense of humor was buried beneath all his stress. The lighthearted jokes I often relied on him for, the very thing Owen said was the reason people watched our videos, were practically a thing of the past. I never thought I’d have to ask Sean to be less serious, but I’d almost reached that point.

I had to hand it to him, though. He was pulling most of the weight when it came to promoting and planning the comic book convention. And amazingly, he finally got a solid “yes” out of Ethan Killian’s assistant. The actor’s name was officially on all of our flyers, bumping Owen Gardner’s name down to the next line. We were rolling with the big-time celebs now.

Well, sort of.

Just as Sean was re-locking the door of the shop behind us, my phone buzzed in my back pocket. I pulled it out, expecting a breaking news alert—it wouldn’t be the first time I’d have to ditch our plans to go cover a fire or an accident. But much to my relief, it was a text from Meghan.

Meghan: Is it weird that I kind of hope we run into Fannie’s ghost? There’s so much I’d like to ask her.

A grin tugged at my lips as I reread the message, pausing on the sidewalk in front of The Comics Vault. Meghan was initiating a text conversation with me, and it sounded like she was down to scout out the woods around Persimmon Road with me, too.

I wanted to show the message to Sean, just to prove Meghan was reciprocating my feelings, but he might start detailing the time Dimitri spit up into his mouth. So, I kept it to myself, typing a quick response as I followed Sean to his car.

Chase: You’re not worried she’ll come after you for reading her diary?

Meghan: I can take a Victorian ghost.

Chase: Famous last words. Better hope you can run faster than the fox she gunned down.