Chapter 1: The Girl in the Velvet

The rusty bell over the door of Mystic Relics doesn’t jingle anymore. It gasps a tired, metallic here-sigh that sounds exactly like, “You again? Seriously?”

I kicked the door open harder than I meant to. The papers on the counter lifted in a brief whirlwind, and the wall groaned as the door slammed against it with a crack that practically shouted I’m here to the emptiness inside. Dust, ancient, possibly pre-Y2K, exploded into the slanted beams of light cutting through the grimy front window. The place smelled like forgotten spices, old paper, and the quiet ache of abandoned treasures.

I wasn’t here for antiques. I was here to disappear from the face of the earth. Again.

Twenty minutes ago, my life had become a chocolate milkshake.

Not metaphorically. Literally. It was dripping down the back of my blouse, seeping into the waistband of my jeans, pooling in my shoes while the entire lunch crowd at Cedar Hollow High watched and laughed.

Late April in our town turns the sidewalks into skillets. Everyone had been melting on the patio outside Betty’s Café, seeking shade under the striped umbrellas, when Tammy Jo Harkness decided to “cool everyone off” by using me as target practice. One second, I was trying to stay invisible, clutching my brown bag lunch like a shield; the next, there was a freezing, gut-punch SPLAT between my shoulder blades.

I just stood there. Frozen. Feeling the cold creep down my spine, the sticky-sweet humiliation seeping into places that would haunt me for weeks.

Tammy Jo’s laugh wasn’t normal; it was sharp, glass-breaking, the kind of sound that still rings in my ears louder than any store bell.

Everyone saw. No one helped. Not the students, not the teachers who watched from the periphery, not even Vice Principal Johnson, who stood there with his coffee, enjoying the show like it was lunchtime entertainment. Mrs. Simpson eventually shoved scratchy brown paper towels at me without a word. Principal Hendricks popped out of the building like a judgmental gopher and gave me that look at Maeve, why are you always causing problems? Look.

We all knew the deal. Tammy Jo’s mom runs the school board. Her dad “donated” the new scoreboard and half the athletic department’s equipment. So: no detention, no “see me after class.” Just Hendricks’ damp pat on my shoulder, not a “there, there,” but a “there, go away.”

Going home wasn’t an option. Home meant Mom’s face doing that silent calculus worry first, then exhaustion, then the familiar refrain: Keep your head down, Maeve. Don’t give them a reason.

So I did what I always do: I walked.

Off campus, past the parking lot, around the fence, through rows of houses where normal afternoons were happening. A piano stumbled through scales somewhere. A sprinkler ticked in lazy circles. The kind of day no one would remember.

Through the edge of downtown, past the old post office, past the community bulletin board thick with fluttering flyers: missing pets, yard sales, and one that wasn’t like the others. LILA-BETH McCallister, 14. MISSING SINCE MARCH. Her photocopied smile was fading in the sun, the paper curling at the edges. Someone had drawn a mustache on her. Cedar Hollow’s tragedy, reduced to background noise.

I felt a sick kinship with that poster. Seen, but not really seen.

My feet carried me to the heart of town, to Mystic Relics, the only place that never expected anything from me.

The air inside was thick with dust, decaying paper, and the faint tang of rust, a smell of surrender. Shelves sagged under the weight of forgotten lives: tarnished silver, chipped porcelain, yellowed photographs of people no one remembered.

I leaned against a case of mismatched teacups, the back of my shirt cold and clammy. Just survive, I told myself. One more day.

My gaze wandered over relics: a music box with a broken ballerina frozen mid-spin, salt shakers shaped like somber owls, a cracked globe showing countries that no longer existed. Cedar Hollow’s subconscious, trapped in glass cases.