Lilly's face went pale as understanding dawned. She looked down at the birth certificate still spread between them, at the name that connected them to centuries of secrets and shadows.
"The book," Lilly whispered. "That's why it responded to you. Why it cut you when you opened it."
Sam nodded slowly, pieces of the puzzle clicking into place with terrible clarity. "It recognizes Ravencrest blood. It was waiting for us to come home."
The weight of inheritance—of destiny—settled over them like a shroud. They weren't just investigating their mother's secrets anymore. They were living them, breathing them, bleeding them onto ancient pages that had been waiting decades for their return.
Dusk dripped slowly across Peachtree Hollow, drawing night over the town like an uncomfortable sweater. The neon sign outside the diner sputtered, unable to fully wake in the murk. Sam and Lilly moved toward it, twin shadows against the bleed of dark. Inside, Walter’s was a ghost of its former self—bright reds dimmed to sickly pinks, cheerful checkered floors muted to dull gray. They sank into the booth, and Sam placed her bag close, clutching its worn edges with possessive resolve. They watched the servers—dreamlike and distant—as they drifted between tables, their eyes vacant, smiles worn thin as threadbare sheets.
The contrast between the library's quiet atmosphere and the diner's jarring forced cheerfulness hit Sam like a fist. Her breath was still tight from her father's revelations. The other patrons seemed to watch her, their attention both casual and invasive, as if they knew she was a stranger here. She shifted her gaze, averted her eyes. It didn't help. Her thoughts kept turning back to the name. Her mother's name. The one she'd never known.
What did it all mean? This supposed curse and the history of the Ravencrest family, her family. One she had never known or had been permitted to know. All she knew were certain town stories or some things her mother had told her. That manor, that house, was part of her family. Her family had helped to establish this whole town. Her mind was going a million miles a minute with all of the possible what if's and none of it really helped her grapple with how she really felt in this moment.
Lilly seemed less fazed, but Sam could see the tension in her shoulders, the nervous energy beneath her attempts at normalcy. They were both on edge, waiting for something to snap, to break, to give way. A server approached, his movements mechanical and oddly graceful.
“Ready to order?” His smile was bright, stretched too far, as though someone had painted it on with unsteady hands.
“Burger and fries,” Sam said, her voice cautious. She shifted her attention to the surroundings. The bag rested beside her, a solid presence in the uncertain world of old news and new questions.
“Chicken salad,” Lilly added, watching the server’s expression for any sign of recognition, of something real.
The man scribbled their order with quick precision, his eyes never quite meeting theirs. “Anything to drink?”
“Just water,” Sam replied, feeling the space around her like an ill-fitting skin. She noticed a woman at a nearby table, staring at nothing with an intensity that made Sam's chest tighten.
The server nodded, turned with dreamlike fluidity, and drifted away. The sisters exchanged a look. A silent question. A silent answer.
“Do you think she planned it?” Lilly asked, her voice low but insistent.
“Planned what?” Sam knew the answer, didn’t want to say it.
“The name thing,” Lilly said, her words threading through the din of the diner. “And the rest.”
“Maybe,” Sam said, her fingers tracing the bag's worn edges. The name. The rest. Her world had been a puzzle, and now she wasn’t sure she wanted to solve it.
Lilly leaned in, her eyes searching Sam's. “Do you think she thought we’d end up here?”
“Maybe she knew,” Sam said, her thoughts spinning like the neon light outside. They both fell silent, the weight of the question pressing against them.
"I think it's best if we focus on boxing up the rest of the bookstore so that we can get out of here," Sam sighed.
Lilly was shocked, "Leave? Now? You just found an interesting book that actually belongs to our family, well yeah it glows and it's sus, but we have history here. I want answers."
The server returned, their meals clattering onto the table. Spaghetti with meatballs for Sam. A club sandwich for Lilly. They stared at the plates, then at each other.
“I’m pretty sure this isn’t chicken salad,” Lilly said, her tone a thin line between humor and apprehension.
The server stood, unblinking, the painted smile etched on his face.
“Or a burger,” Sam added, glancing up at him.
He didn’t speak. Didn’t move. The world seemed to slow, to tighten.
Then he turned, an uncanny smoothness to his movements, and walked away without a word. The sisters watched him go, the strange encounter setting the air between them heavy and thick. They were alone in the booth, the bag a weight that shifted the world around it.
“Are you going to eat it?” Lilly asked, her eyes flicking from the plate to Sam’s face and back again.
Sam prodded the noodles with her fork, as though expecting them to writhe, to come alive. The sauce congealed under her gaze. She wasn’t sure what was safe anymore. She picked up a forkful, sniffed it, then set it down. Her movements were measured, tentative, reflecting the uncertainty that gripped them both.
Sam stared at her plate, but her mind was elsewhere, tumbling through implications like a stone down a cliff face. If they were Ravencrests, if the book had been calling to them all along, then everything that had happened since they arrived in Peachtree Hollow took on a different meaning. The strange dreams, the way the town seemed to watch them, the ease with which they'd found the hidden compartment in the bookstore—none of it was coincidence.
They weren't just visitors stumbling into an old mystery. They were the mystery, the final chapter in a story that had been writing itself for over a century.
Sam's fork hovered halfway to her mouth. The conversation they had been having hung between them like a blade, sharp with possibility and dread.
A cold draft swept through the room, sending a shiver across Sam’s skin. The lights dimmed momentarily, a flickering shadow of the previous night.
Lilly wrapped her arms around herself, rubbing against the chill. “You feel that?”
Sam nodded, glancing around the diner. The other customers sat stiffly, frozen in a tableau of eerie vacancy. The air was taut with something unspoken, a tension that seemed ready to snap.
“It’s like they’re not even here,” Sam said, her voice tinged with unease. “Like no one’s here.”
She watched Lilly, saw the same anxiety etched across her sister’s features.
“It’s the whole town,” Lilly said. “The whole freaking town is messed up.”
"I am a little worried, we are part of this Ravencrest legacy curse thing, which means are we somehow targets? Are we in danger?" Sam asked exasperated.
Sam sighed, picked up the fork again, then set it down. “I don’t know if I can do this.”
Lilly nudged her plate, watching Sam for a sign. Any sign.
The other diners watched, expressions vacant and unchanging. A tableau of quiet judgment. The server lingered behind the counter, still and distant. It seemed as though time itself had slowed.
“Maybe they are on drugs,” Lilly said, a thin edge of humor in her voice. “Or maybe it’s the you know what.”
“Maybe,” Sam said, forcing herself to eat another forkful. The texture was wrong, the taste an unfamiliar ghost.
Sam noticed the server, his figure sharp against the dim backdrop. His movements were slow and deliberate as he picked up a shard of something.
She squinted, disbelief clouding her eyes.
It was glass.
He placed the shard in his mouth and began to chew. A crunching noise resonated, followed by a gradual grinding sound. It was unsettling, reminiscent of fingernails scraping against a chalkboard. Sam froze, her mind refusing to process what her eyes saw. A surreal horror spread through her, a sickening certainty.
He was eating glass.
She looked at Lilly, her expression unreadable.
Lilly glanced at the server, then back at Sam. She saw the fear, the confusion, the sharp sting of knowing that nothing was what it seemed. “You see—”
“Yeah,” Sam said, cutting her off. She needed to be sure. But not like this. Not now.
Lilly reached for Sam’s arm. Her fingers tightened around it, pulling her back to something that might pass for reality.
“We should go,” Lilly said, her voice thin.
Sam hesitated, feeling the town’s grip closing in, tightening around her like a vise. She dropped a few bills onto the table, grabbed the bag. “Yeah. Yeah.”
They made their way to the door, steps quickening, the urgency building with each footfall. The other patrons watched, their stares blank. Hollow.
Sam’s heart raced, a frantic pulse against the heavy air. The thought of last night crowded her, pushed her toward the edge. The lights flickered again, shadows started to form along the walls, they almost looked like people standing there watching and waiting.
She reached for the door, her breath short and fast. Lilly was beside her, eyes wide with fear and understanding. They stepped outside, the neon sign a blurry echo behind them. The cold air hit their faces, sharp and real.
The town loomed large, an unfathomable presence. But it was still better than what waited for them inside the diner.