chapter twenty-one

meghan

Mae had the patience of a saint.

Chase didn’t chicken out completely, but he started second-guessing the size of the tattoo when he sat down, worrying it was too ambitious for his first one. Mae tried to gently coax him into it, but he kept looking at me like a little kid in a dentist’s chair, waiting for his mom to speak up for him. I asked Mae if she could come up with a more simplified version, and she pulled out her stencil paper and drew a tiny outline of a ghost. It reminded me of the Snapchat logo.

“Does that work?” she asked him.

He looked at me.

“Chase,” I laughed. “It’s your skin, not mine. Do you want it or not?”

After waffling it over for a minute, Chase finally decided that yes, he did want it. As Mae got her tools ready, she warned Chase she couldn’t refund the money he prepaid just because he’d downgraded his tattoo. Shop policy, she said. And that was when Chase asked, “Could you apply it to her next one, then?” He nodded toward me.

I started to protest, but Mae looked over her shoulder as she put on her gloves, saying, “Well, is there something small you’d want to get today?”

“Oh, I—that’s okay.”

“What if you got a little ghost like his, but with a bow on it?”

“That sounds adorable, but I—no, he’s the one getting tatted up today. Not me.”

“Are you really going to turn down a free tattoo, Meg?” Chase asked, watching Mae prep his skin with an alcohol swab. Butterflies fluttered in my stomach every time he called me by my nickname, and this time was no different.

“I’ll think about it.” I watched Mae apply the stencil to Chase’s bicep in the exact spot I’d told him to get the tattoo. I had a feeling that if I asked Chase to jump off a bridge, he’d shrug and say, “okay,” before leaping to his death.

He handled the tattoo better than I expected, taking slow, deep breaths as he watched the needle poke his skin. I hadn’t forgotten the words I’d said that convinced him to come here, so I slipped my hand inside his on the black leather seat. “Here,” I said, “you can squeeze my hand if you need to.” Like he was afraid to move too much, Chase nodded his head slightly, his hand tightening around mine.

How did we get here? How did we reach this point where we had now held hands not once, but twice? A few weeks ago, I had contemplated running him over with my car after he said he wished I’d die in a fiery crash. Now, I couldn’t decide if holding his hand felt too familiar or too foreign. Familiar in the sense that I knew Chase better than I knew almost anyone, but foreign because we hadn’t been this close in more than three years. Watching his thumb subtly caressing mine, I could almost forget all the heartache this man had put me through.

The memory of his nonchalance when I left him made my smile fade for a few minutes. How could he act like this with me now—like he was falling back in love with me—when three years ago, he didn’t care whether I was in his life or not?

I swallowed, trying not to think about it.

Chase’s tattoo was so simple, Mae was done in twenty minutes. She wiped Chase’s skin clean and inspected the tattoo, asking him what he thought. He looked down at his new ink, then up at Mae’s face. “It’s pretty badass.”

“Right?” Mae asked with a giggle, “Now we need to convince your girlfriend to get one.”

“Ex,” Chase and I blurted in unison.

Mae looked as embarrassed as she did confused, her cheeks turning as pink as the left side of her hair. “Oh my gosh, I am so sorry. I guess I just misread the vibe. You probably don’t want a matching ghost, then, or-?”

Did I need a reminder of Chase forever etched on my skin? Then again, a little ghost with a bow fit my aesthetic perfectly, and I didn’t have to associate it with him. And once I saw Mae’s drawing of the girl ghost, the words “alright, let’s do it” left my lips before I had the chance to second-guess myself.

I opted to get it on my collarbone, the one that wasn’t already covered in ink. I pulled off my sheer top and lowered the straps of my black tank and bra, noticing the way Chase looked down at the ground, like he was seeing something he shouldn’t. But when Mae began her work, and I closed my eyes from the stinging sensation, Chase’s hand quietly found mine.

Poor Mae—she was probably going to spend the rest of the day wondering about the dynamics of our relationship. Then again, so would we.

We both tipped her on our way out, and when we stepped into the cool air outside, Chase turned to me, his eyes wide. He looked down at his upper arm, wrapped in clear plastic, before turning back to me. “So. We just got matching tattoos.”

I pressed my lips together tight, meeting his eyes, and nodded. I was too stunned by my own actions to even speak. It wasn’t my first impulsive tattoo—I had an owl on one of my calves I wished I could erase. My owl phase was short-lived, but the reminder of it was permanent.

One look at Chase’s sexy smirk told me this phase, when it inevitably ended, would leave an even bigger mark on me.

**

Chase parked on Persimmon Road, just behind the football field of the high school, at the edge of Ackerman Woods. The park, with its winding hiking trails, led to a set of double waterfalls. One of them was forty feet tall, although when the weather was dry, it was no more than a disappointing trickle. It used to be private land until five years ago, and if you asked me, the parks department missed a big opportunity by not playing up the Woodvale Witch lore. They seemed to want to bury Woodvale's dark past, but they underestimated just how many people would have flocked to the park for a chance to spot the ghost of a supposed witch.

My goal for the afternoon was to figure out how long it would have taken Fannie to walk from her home—or at least where we assumed her home had been—to the spot where Chase’s YouTube fan claimed to have found the rocks. I wanted to rule out the possibility Fannie could have buried them there herself. Because, after all, that would be more believable than the idea that she and Evelyn were somehow both connected to weird symbols.

"Here we are, trespassing like the old days," Chase said, as we trudged through a yet-to-be-plowed cornfield. The dead, broken cornstalks jutted out of the ground like jagged spears, and the dirt beneath was still soggy from last week’s rain. It made me glad we stopped at my apartment on the way so I could change into boots. I was still in my long skirt, hiking it up in front so it wouldn’t snag on the sharp, brittle stalks. “Between this and the tattoo,” Chase continued, “I feel like an outlaw.”

“An outlaw? Please,” I said, rolling my eyes at him. “You’ve never even gotten a speeding ticket.”

“Hey—I got a warning that one time. You were with me.”

I couldn’t help but throw my head back and laugh as we traipsed through the muddy field. “Yeah, for driving erratically while playing Pokémon Go. Not exactly something to brag about, is it?”

He just shrugged, unashamed. We reached the edge of the woods at the end of the field, forging our own path through the budding trees. Pale green grass scattered with violets poked through the dead leaves on the ground, and a brief memory of picking a handful of them for my mom as a little girl flashed through my mind. She pressed one in my dad’s old dictionary, the massive red book that always sat on a shelf in our living room. I found it after she died. One of these days, I would have a piece of jewelry made out of it. But for now, I clutched my obsidian pendant with one hand, taking Chase’s outreached hand with the other as I stepped over a fallen log.

He used his phone’s GPS to guide us to the exact location where that kid found the rocks. I imagined we were walking the same path Fannie would have traveled if she were visiting the waterfall. Did this area look the same back then?

There probably wouldn’t have been a discarded Mountain Dew bottle wedged between a couple of rocks, that’s for sure.

“You doing okay?” Chase asked me, watching me hike up my skirt to step over some thick tree roots. “You know, jeans might have been a better choice…”

“I feel like I’m in a romantasy novel with this skirt on, so shut your mouth.” I kept walking, but Chase came to an abrupt halt. I didn’t like the look of his smirk when I turned around. “Why do you look so amused?”

“You said ‘romantasy.’” He paused, running his hand through his hair. “You could’ve just said ‘fantasy’, but you said—”

A rush of warmth flooded my cheeks. “I know what I said,” I snapped, continuing on my way. My skirt snagged on a pointy piece of bark, and I struggled to yank it free. With each tug, it only seemed to catch the jagged wood even worse. Chase, still grinning, bent over to work the black fabric free. I let out a whine when I saw the tiny hole the bark left behind.

“Like I said. Jeans,” Chase muttered as he straightened back up, his face only a few inches from mine. Caged between him and the tree, I swallowed hard, feeling the heat between our bodies. My chest heaved with my spine pressed against the bark, and I dared him with my eyes to make a move. Take it there. Do it.

But he didn’t. He glanced away, his jaw tightening, and the moment slipped away. I pushed off the tree, my stomach sinking with disappointment.

We continued walking in silence, and it was hard not to notice how he wouldn’t look at me anymore. Maybe he was too afraid. I’d been too mean to him, hadn’t I? Pushing him away at every turn. Why would he make a move now, when I was the one who decided to leave in the first place? Really, the ball was in my court. But I wasn’t going to make the move either.

It was probably for the best.

We reached the creek, the sound of rushing water growing louder as we came upon the double falls. We were at the top of the forty-foot drop, with a smaller waterfall just a few steps away. The storms from the week before made the water flow fast and fierce.

I eyed the creek, where a series of large rocks seemed to form a rugged, natural bridge across the shallow water, only a few yards from the drop-off. We’d strayed from the marked trail, and now it seemed like our only option was to cross here. Chase glanced at the map on his phone and then out at the water before turning back to me.

“Let’s walk upstream to get across. This looks a little dangerous.”

I ignored him, carefully stepping onto the first slippery rock. “Thought you were an outlaw.”

"Seriously, Meghan," Chase called after me. "If you fall…” He didn’t finish that thought.

“Then there would be two ghosts haunting these woods,” I quipped, taking another step. The water splashed against the soles of my boots.

Chase let out a heavy sigh, giving in, like usual. He joined me in the creek, stepping across the rocks with his hands in his pockets like he did this kind of thing all the time. “You’re exhausting,” he said.

“Thanks,” I tossed back with a smirk.

“When are you going to stop taking my insults as compliments?”

I turned around to shoot him a smart reply, but my foot slipped on a loose rock, making me teeter back and forth dangerously. Before I could react, Chase lunged forward, grabbing me by the waist to steady me. My hands instinctively reached for his arms, gripping him as I tried to regain my balance.

“I wasn’t going to fall,” I assured him, even though my heart was pounding in my chest.

“Right. Maybe next time, I’ll just let you plummet to your death, if you’re going to be stubborn like that.”

“Yeah? You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

He stepped closer, his grip still firm on my waist. “Is that what you think?” His voice softened, and he glanced down at his feet as he moved onto the rock closest to mine. “I’m surprised you haven’t pushed me over the edge of the waterfall already.”

“I’m thinking about it,” I said, trying not to smile.

“Well, if I go down now, you’re going down with me.” His hands felt heavy on my hips, holding me into place. Inching closer on that mossy rock, his palms slipped around to my backside until he was pulling my body secure against his. Hips against bony hips, chest against heaving chest.

We drew our foreheads close together, and I could feel one of his hands cupping the back of my neck. “Meg,” he whispered, his voice hoarse and desperate. I took in all of the features I hadn’t seen this close in a long time—his impossibly long eyelashes behind his glasses, the single freckle on his left cheekbone, and the soft lips I’d missed more than I realized. He leaned into me some more, those lips finally crashing into mine like we had no time to waste. With my arms wrapping around his body, I let out the softest whimper, parting my lips for him. He used his hand to tilt my head back like he needed to get a better taste. The man who couldn’t make a decision to save his life was confident in the way he kissed, his tongue thrashing against mine with purpose. The sensation sent an electric spark through my core that settled between my legs. God, that tongue…

This wasn’t the same man who knelt at my feet. The one kissing me now didn’t have to beg. He knew what he wanted, and he knew he had me. I could feel his lips tug upward in a smile before he deepened the kiss, his fist tightening around the hair at the base of my neck.

I breathlessly pulled away, opening my eyes to find him looking right back at me. “What are we doing?” I breathed out.

“I believe it’s called kissing.”

I took a step back from him, feeling his hands drop from my body. “You and I don’t kiss .”

“Then color me confused, because you just had your tongue in my mouth.” He glanced at my lips like he wanted to kiss me all over again. I resisted the urge to let him, taking another careful step backward.

The vulnerability of the moment hit me, knowing I’d just admitted my feelings without saying a single word. Feelings I hadn’t even come to terms with myself. Now that my guard was down, I felt exposed to Chase, completely. I could no longer pretend I didn’t like him, could I?

Dammit.

I clenched the fabric of my skirt, hiking it up again as I turned around. “Anyway, let’s go.”

If Chase’s feelings were hurt, he didn’t let it show. To my surprise, he chuckled as he came up behind me. It was like he saw my deflection as an amusing challenge he had to overcome.

The two of us were quiet as we made our way up a steep embankment to the flattened trail on the other side of the creek. And we were still silent as we followed it the rest of the way to the probable location of Evelyn’s old cottage. I knew why I wasn’t speaking, but Chase’s silence had more of a nervous, excited energy which probably had very little to do with the witch and everything to do with kissing me.

My pulse refused to slow down to a normal rate as we walked. What does this mean? That was the question that repeated itself over and over in my brain. He had to be asking himself the same thing—and my stomach sank when I realized our answers to that question were, most likely, vastly different.

Staring at the map app on his phone, Chase strayed from the path. “That kid said he found the rocks over this way,” Chase said, nodding for me to follow him. He led me ten or so yards from the trail, stopping when he reached a fat, fallen log covered in turkey-tail mushrooms. I watched him stare down at the ground, moving some loose dirt with his foot. “I think I can see where he dug up the rocks.”

“What was he doing out here, anyway?”

“I’m not totally sure, but I think he’s really been getting into all the Evelyn lore and was hoping he’d find something. When he did, he contacted his favorite local paranormal expert,” Chase said, “and now we’re here.”

I walked around the area, expecting to find something that would give me an answer—but I wasn’t even sure what the question was. Just beyond a freshly fallen tree, there was a short section of a crumbling stone fence covered in moss and lichen protruding from a bank of dirt. It struck me as odd to come across a man-made structure here in the middle of the woods. But now, finding it so close to where the rocks were buried, it was like it meant something.

I ran my hand along the soft moss on the old stone fence, knowing Evelyn’s old cottage must have been around here. That was no secret, though—while the exact location would never be known, everyone presumed her house was in this general section of Ackerman Woods. I felt a prickle at the back of my neck as I made my way past the fence, like I was standing where Evelyn once stood herself. If I mentioned that eerie feeling to Chase, he’d try to convince me Evelyn’s ghost was with us, so I kept my mouth shut as I took a few more steps. The white blossoms on the trees up ahead caught my eye. They weren’t Bradford pears, thank goodness—but definitely some kind of fruit tree. Apple trees, maybe? There were at least a dozen of them in the area, haphazardly spaced out like they could’ve sprouted from seedlings of older apple trees.

My breath caught in my throat. “Perhaps a sip of apple brandy would do wonders to calm their nerves.” Where did Fannie get that apple brandy she told the Woodvale Times about, anyway?

I turned with a gasp, startled by how close Chase was standing.His eyes were wide as he gazed all around us. “I have such an eerie feeling in the back of my neck right now,” he said, rubbing his arms like he suddenly felt a chill.

“Me too. Because I’ve just figured it out—Evelyn and Fannie were friends. I knew it.”

His eyebrows lifted in confusion. “Yeah?”

“Close friends,” I added, slipping my hand beneath my bangs and pacing. With the rocks being found so close to where Evelyn’s cottage stood, it couldn’t be a coincidence. I knew it. I felt it deep in my bones. Both women were connected to those symbols, and the apple trees in the middle of the woods only solidified my theory.

My mumbling turned into whispers as I tried to fit the pieces together. Evelyn was executed in 1846. Fannie died in 1849. Neither of them had children, and it was clear they were both outcasts in Woodvale. It made sense that they would be drawn to each other.

It was probably just my imagination running wild, but I just knew in my heart those women got drunk on apple brandy one evening and developed a secret code for communicating with each other. The thought made me smile, because it sounded like something Jillian and I might have done before our lives got too hectic.

“Hey, so…” Chase cleared his throat, absentmindedly scratching the edge of the plastic wrap around his arm. “Did you suddenly obtain some psychic abilities out here, or am I missing something?”

I shook my head. My fixation on Fannie had been a convenient distraction from the emotions I wasn’t ready to face, but I knew I could only avoid them for so long. Chase just stood there, waiting patiently.

“Sorry for being incredibly weird right now,” I said, fidgeting with my necklace against my chest.

Chase put his thumbs in his pockets, his eyes softening as he took in my wild appearance—the muddy boots, the holey skirt, the flyaways sticking out here and there, and the shiny plastic wrap on my collarbone that was visible beneath my sheer top. “It’s okay,” he said, “I like you weird.”

Hearing those words grounded me. All of this reminded me of our old blog days—one of us would always be rambling about our current nerdy hyperfixation while the other one patiently waited it out.

But what would happen the next time I went on a grief spiral? Those days were few and far between now, but they still occurred. We were coming up on my mom’s birthday, a day I’d already scheduled off, just like I had for the past three years. I was going to eat her favorite cake, stare at pictures of her, and cry. That was, quite literally, my entire plan for the day. But in my shared calendar with Chase, I’d entered “appointment in Indy” as a cover-up for being gone that day. A lie. The last thing I needed was for Chase to tell me I was grieving wrong, as gently as he might try to approach it.

The closest thing Chase had ever come to loss was his childhood dog, who died from old age when he was inthe eighth grade. He still had his parents and all four grandparents. He didn’t know.

And I still didn’t know if I could trust him to handle the darkest parts of me. He liked me “weird,” but did he like me when I was curled up in the fetal position listening to the same Fleetwood Mac song for the ninetieth time, crying into my mom’s old cardigan because it no longer smelled like her?Could he handle that?

I just wasn’t sure if I was ready to find out the hard way that he couldn’t.