Not that this had made things any better, however. Instead, the noises had just started coming from the room she was in. She’d had to stay up for the rest of the night, glaring at the possibly alive rocking chair in the corner with narrowed eyes. And then of course she’d been so tired the next morning that she’d accidentally buttered a sponge.
She was still picking bits of yellow fluff out of her teeth when dinner rolled around.
So it was almost a relief when she finally found something normal. Something that she remembered from her time here with her grandmother. Specifically, the time right after the whole school had laughed at her getting Stephen Kinged, when she’d needed a distraction desperately.
The journals. The ones her and Gram had filled with mad recipes, in her ramshackle kitchen.
Every one of them disgusting and ridiculous, but all of them imbued with meaning she still remembered so clearly.
Like the potato pie she’d declared a cure for aches and pains, when her Gram had told her the weather was biting. And how her Gram had enjoyed pretending a slice of it had worked, just to make her happy. Or the one for plum cake that supposedly made it rain. Then the laughter when a downpour had hit, just as they threw a handful of crumbs up into the sky.
Coincidences like that had felt almost magical.
And so much so she had never wanted to stop. In fact, it had only been her own lack of skill that had made her.You should really quit cooking before you give someone food poisoning,her grandmother had said. And she had quit, too.
She wasn’t even sure about getting too engrossed in the journals again.
Until she came across one particular recipe.
“Feel Better Soup,” it was called. Even though she couldn’t imagine it ever making anyone feel better. It sounded completelybananas. You had to simmer everything for twenty-four hours. And the main ingredient seemed to be garlic.
Seventeen cloves, it required. But for what reason, it didn’t say. It just instructed whoever was cooking it to throw them all in, skins and all, then add a few other things in amounts that made no sense. There was a “speck” of rosemary, and a “whiff” of chili oil—and then for some reason it suggested thickening this unholy brew with ground-up beans. It was mystifying. And yet at the same time Cassie had the strongest, strangest urge to give cooking a go again. Like maybe this time she might make something good. This time, it would work. She wasn’t going to poison anyone, she was sure of it.
So she checked the stone-floored and stuffy pantry for ingredients.
And when that yielded very little, she searched through the ancient bulbous refrigerator. But aside from the necessities she’d stacked in there, she found next to nothing. There was just a collection of jars inside—none of which had labels on them. Heck, two of them didn’t even have visible contents. A strange gray murk clung to the insides of the glass, obscuring whatever was in there from view. So god only knew what it was.
And she wasn’t about to check.
She shoved the jar back among its equally unsettling siblings, and made her way down to the shed at the bottom of the garden. And sure enough—there was her old bike. Still where she’d left it, and not even covered in cobwebs like she’d imagined. In fact, it was almost in as good shape as she remembered, shiny as a star and so well-oiled that it barely made a sound when she wheeled it out. All she had to do was recall how to ride it.
Shakily, at first. Like she’d forgotten how.
But then faster and faster, until she was barreling down the final hill that slid into Main Street. Hair a black streamer behind her, those tarot cards her grandmother had put between the spokes clicking away, furiously. And all the sights and sounds barely more than a blur of color and a few snatched details.
Though she knew what all of them were anyway. Nothingseemed to have changed much in the seven or so years she’d been gone.
There was the old movie theatre, somehow limping on despite a million multiplexes and streaming services—and the fact that they were still spelling all the films wrong on the awning outside. She caught a glimpse of the words “Classic Horror Month,” and then underneath:Scram, The Winches of Eastlick, Candyland.
And was that Mira Parvati unlocking the double doors, and wearing Mr. McKellen’s old manager’s waistcoat? She thought so, but went by too fast to say for sure. All she got was a glimpse of that shaggy black hair before she was past the place and on to the library, the tiny town hall, the office of theHollow Brook Gazette.Each of them as familiar as ever, even though she knew they were mostly run by entirely different people now.
The mayor was no longer that red-faced blowhard Arthur Dollard, according to her mother. It was some tough old lady called Kathy Yates. And Tabitha Kendall—who Cassie remembered from a million story hours at the library, sitting at the head of a circle of kids with her soft brown hands clasped in her lap, telling tales she never needed the book for—had finally managed to oust that permed and pearled sourpuss Mrs. Vernon.
Or at least that was what Cassie had managed to gather from the online version of theGazettethat she’d read that morning. “So-Called Committee for a Clean Town Behave like Clowns Again,” the headline had hilariously read, over an actually pretty serious report on Vernon’s involvement with said committee, and all the ways their book-banning activities had led to her downfall. Which made sense, considering the kind of person Vernon was.
And who the writer of the article had been.
Marley Maples had been the byline appearing underneath the headline. Marley Maples—smart as a whip, sassy as a sexy cartoon cat, and the person Cassie had most wanted to make friends with in high school. But of course had never dared to go anywhere near.
She’d have probably written a headline like that about me. “Loser Makes Fool of Self During Hollow Brook High Talent Show,”Cassie thought, as she slowed just enough to see the curve of onewinter-pale cheek through the window and knew immediately it was Marley. Then she sped up, pushing harder on the pedals, like going faster would somehow leave that idea in the dust.
Even though more reminders of miseries past were coming up.
There, outside her little bookshop, was the one other friend Cassie had almost sort of managed to have in high school. Still as cheery looking as ever, still all snub-nosed and pink-cheeked and so much like someone who wouldn’t let you down.
And honestly, Nancy hadn’t.
After the talent show, she had come calling. Sent Cassie flowers, said she was sorry about how awful that whole thing had been. But Cassie had been too sore and embarrassed to respond, and that had felt like the end of that.
