chapter twenty-seven

meghan

All the firsts were the hardest.

The first Christmas without my mom almost killed me. There was no stocking with my name hanging by the fireplace, which she always pretended wasn’t from her. “Look what Santa brought you!” she’d say with that mischievous grin, even when I was in my twenties.

Then came the first birthday without her Facebook post, timestamped one minute after midnight because she insisted on being the first every year. And on the first anniversary of her death, I couldn’t stop reliving the horror of her final days.

It wasn’t like that after my dad’s heart attack when I was in the fifth grade, because we had each other. People rallied around us, too, making sure all of those “firsts” were filled with joy and distractions. My birthday party that year was the biggest I’d ever had, and my mom’s best friend sent us on a cruise for Christmas. It didn’t even feel like a holiday because we were somewhere completely new.

The grief after losing my mom was lonelier. In the quiet moments, I found myself wondering what my mom and I would be doing on this day if she were alive.

On her birthday, I knew we’d be eating carrot cake and watching Practical Magic together—our shared favorites. I wouldn’t be sitting at a picnic table alone with Stevie Nicks drifting through my AirPods, struggling to swallow the lump in my throat. I kept glancing up at the classrooms above, half-expecting to see the faces of little kids laughing at the sad, lonely lady in the schoolyard.

I was halfway through my Uncrustable when I heard voices behind me. I looked over my shoulder to see Sarah Gardner and Kendall Devin walking in my direction carrying their own lunch boxes and gigantic pastel cups. I started to gather my things when Sarah said, “Don’t get up—can we sit with you?”

“Yeah, of course.” I took my AirPods out and put them back in their case and Sarah and Kendall sat down across from me. I smiled as I brushed the crumbs off my lap, sitting up a little straighter. “How’s the day going? Surviving the chaos?”

“Barely,” Kendall said, unscrewing the top of a thermos. “I had to ban farm animal noises today. It started with one—and it’s always the same one, of course—and before long they were all mooing and neighing and cock-a-doodle-doing. I can still hear the echoes.”

I laughed. “That seems… exhausting. I could never be a teacher.”

“We question choosing a career in education every day,” Sarah said with a chuckle. She looked past me like someone was behind me, and sure enough, Abigail walked up and took the spot next to me on the bench. She had two yellow pencils securing her long, red hair in a bun, which seemed like a very “librarian” hairstyle to me.

“Okay, I am dying to know,” she said, turning to me the second she sat down, “what’s it like to work with Xander day after day?” Abigail’s bubbly, high-pitched voice reminded me of a mouse—it was impossibly endearing.

“Well,” I started, staring down at my water bottle. “Sometimes I want to kill him…? He can be a real ass, but I honestly think it’s just for show.”

“That checks out,” Sarah said, swallowing a bite of her sandwich. Kendall nodded beside her, widening her eyes.

“He’s always been like that,” Abigail said. “He’s all talk. Really, he’s just a big ol’ sweetie-pie.”

That statement nearly made me choke on my water. My reaction had the same effect on Sarah, and before long, the others were laughing, too. “I think you’re the only person in the entire world who thinks Xander Pierce is a ‘sweetie-pie’, Abigail,” Sarah said.

“He is,” she insisted. “You just have to get to know him. Anyway…” She trailed off, shifting gears as her attention turned to Sarah. “How are you holding up with everything?”

Sarah’s smile faltered for a split second. “I’m okay,” she said, tucking a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “I’ve just been keeping myself distracted with books.”

Kendall turned to Sarah with her eyebrows lifted in curiosity. “ What books?” Her tone was suspicious—almost accusatory—but in a teasing way.

Sarah hesitated, glancing between us, then reached into her bag and pulled out a paperback. She held it up sheepishly, revealing the cover of a true crime book about a man who annihilated his entire family.

“Sweetie,” Abigail said, reaching diagonally across the table to touch Sarah’s hand. “If you’re trying to de-stress, you’re doing it all wrong. You need to be reading smut. Like me.”

“I second that,” Kendall said, lifting her soup spoon in solidarity.

As someone with a Kindle library that would make most people clutch their pearls, I couldn’t help but jump in. “Smut is always a good distraction. The smuttier, the better.”

“Okay, do you see what’s happening here?” Abigail moved her hand in a circle between the four of us. “We’re forming a smutty book club. Right here, right now. Everyone in?”

“I don’t think we have a choice,” Sarah answered with a laugh.

“I’m in,” Kendall said, taking a sip from her giant cup. “We can call ourselves the Woodvale Smut Sluts.”

Abigail clapped. “I love it. Let’s get shirts made!”

“Can we add a fifth?” I glanced around at the three of them. “Jillian Taylor would be all over this.” They all excitedly agreed, so I sent Jill a quick text.

Meghan: Do you want to join the Woodvale Smut Sluts?

Jill: Only if I can be president.

She didn’t even ask any questions, but that didn’t really surprise me. “She’s in,” I told them. Sarah wondered if we’d want to get together to choose our first book that evening. “Owen’s having the guys over for poker, and—”

“The guys?” Abigail asked, and I was glad she did, because I was wondering, too.

“Xander and Mason,” Sarah said, continuing, “and I can send them to the dining room while we all hang out on the patio. Sound good?”

I bit my bottom lip. I’d already canceled dinner with Jill that night, planning to wallow in my room and watch Practical Magic alone, but this sounded like a better use of my time. “Perfect.”

As I finished my Uncrustable, I noticed the lump in my throat was long gone. Maybe this night at Sarah’s would be exactly what I needed. When I looked up again, Kendall and Sarah were staring past my head. Abigail looked over her shoulder before turning back around to say, “God, there are far too many hot people working in this building.”

My curiosity got the best of me, so I turned around, too. My stomach did a little flip when I saw Chase approaching, fiddling with his lanyard, like he couldn't quite get used to wearing it. His steps slowed as he got closer. He seemed nervous, but then again, I couldn’t imagine there were too many times that Chase approached a table of women like this. He stopped at the edge of the picnic table and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Ladies.”

“Have I seen you on the news?” Abigail asked.

“If it was the America’s Most Wanted segment, then no,” he quipped, darting his eyes back and forth. The other women laughed, but I just looked up at him, returning his tight-lipped grin. He was so proud of his little joke—it was adorable. “Meghan, did you want me to go with you to the Historical Society?”

“I’d love that.”

“Okay.” He glanced at the trash in front of me on the table, fidgeting with his lanyard again. “Are you ready now, or-?”

I gathered up my stuff at lightning speed, throwing a quick goodbye to the others. “I’ll DM you the details about the Smut Sluts,” Sarah called out as I joined Chase on the sidewalk to the parking lot.

“Smut Sluts?” Chase asked as I waited for him to unlock the car. “That the name of your new coven?”

“Something like that.”

**

The Woodvale Historical Society was headquartered in an old Victorian house a few blocks from Grissom Elementary. With slate blue siding and gray scalloped eaves, I’d admired it since I was a little girl. I’d even insisted on having my senior pictures taken in front of it.

It made my heart sink to see how it looked after the tornado came through, with chunks of the gutter and pieces of siding completely ripped away. Inside, Cadence told us they were looking to brighten up the paint job on the outside anyway. “We’re going to bring it back to its original cerulean color,” she said, leading us to the reception counter, flipping her dark hair over her shoulder.

“Cerulean? The Concerned Citizens of Woodvale will be—well, concerned,” Chase said.

Cadence grinned as she pulled a yellow clasp envelope from below the counter. “I welcome their fury.”

I watched Cadence’s meticulously manicured nails closely as she opened the clasp and pulled out what looked like a wooden coaster. The sigil decoder was round, about the size of my palm, and made from smooth, aged wood. The letters of the alphabet had been carved around the edge, softened with time but still legible.

“This was in Evelyn Stewart’s dress pocket when she was taken to jail.”

“Is it a replica?”

“No, this is the real deal,” Cadence said, meeting my eye. She had a twinkle in hers like she understood how special this was. I held my breath as I took it from her hands, like I didn’t deserve to touch it. It felt like I was holding a magical tool, but in a way, I suppose that’s what it was.

“I’ll get the form for you to sign it out.”

“Wait, I can borrow it?” I assumed Chase and I would only be allowed to take pictures of it.

“I trust you,” she said. “And I trust that you’ll share your findings with me. I can’t wait to see what you discover.”

Neither could I.

I was shaking as we walked back to the car, holding the yellow envelope close to my chest like it was something sacred. Chase opened the driver’s side door and leaned over the roof of the car, taking in my dazed appearance with an amused smile. “Do you want to head to the library to work on it? We’ve got the whole day, no assignments.”

I hesitated, feeling the words forming before I even realized what I was saying. “Would you be comfortable if we just went to my place?”

Chase tapped his fingers on the roof of the car, staring at me like he was waiting for me to change my mind. “Uh, yeah. Your place. Your place is good.” He covered up his awkwardness by rushing out the words, “Because I know Wanda misses me.”

“Uh huh.” I rolled my eyes as we both got into the car. I hoped he didn’t expect anything more than a nerdy sigil-decoding session, because it was all I could think about.