Chapter One: Grayson
I woke up to the least pleasant sound one could possibly wake up to: a screeching middle-schooler. “Grayson?!” my little sister, Heather, yelled up to my room. I should have just responded, but I was in no mood for conversation. Not after the dreams. Then again, they had been happening so consistently, my family had probably forgotten I used to be a morning person.
“GRAYYYYSOON,” Heather yelled up again, as if she wasn’t loud enough the first time.
I heard some thumps coming up the stairs, and I knew my time in bed was coming to an end. My mom would have knocked, so even though I kept my eyes closed, I knew it was my sister barging in. “Gray, Joe is here for you. Again.” As if I needed another reason to not answer her. Heather stood at my door, I assume with one hand on her hip and her other tugging at her blonde braids. It was her default stance. “Hmph, you’re not fooling me. But I’ll tell him you’re asleep.”
She slammed the door behind her and once she was safely down the stairs and out of earshot, I reluctantly peeled my blankets off and put my feet on the ground. I almost checked my phone, but I decided to take a look at my sketch wall first. Directly across from the foot of my bed was my desk, which was a mess with schoolwork. Above it, though, was a mostly bare bulletin board, save for a couple of old photos. I carefully gripped the edges of the board and pulled it off the wall, revealing dozens of frantic sketches I had made over the past couple of years. There was no real rhyme or reason to them. Some were landscapes I couldn’t place, some were of people and creatures I didn’t recognize. The sketch at the center—the first one I did—was of a house I knew all too well. To its left was a sketch of a boy, probably a teenager like me, with dark eyes and pointed ears. I don’t know what it was about the boy, but whenever he appeared in my dreams, I would wake up the next morning in a cold sweat. The sketch felt like it was staring at me, and an uneasiness crept its way through my body. I put the bulletin board back up.
I grabbed my phone off my nightstand and started scrolling through my notifications. Anything to get myself in the right headspace. I absentmindedly swiped away social media alerts, e-mails, and news stories, but I always paid attention to my texts. I had several from Joe, which admittedly, I did ignore. I used to be really close to Joe, but a couple years ago, we had a falling out. Lately, he had been trying to get in contact with me again, but he only wanted to talk about the house and Old Town. Not something I really wanted to discuss, and not with him.
I also had a text from a friend of mine, Dani. She was only texting about our group project in French class, but seeing her text made my uneasiness melt away. I saw the timestamp on the text was 3:16 am. Was she thinking about me late at night? Or was her sleep schedule just messed up?
Okay, maybe she was more than a friend. Or at least, she was to me.
I was going to respond to her, but then I saw I had a text from one other person. “Violet?” I asked to my empty room. “Why?”
Her text read, “Hey, just so you know, I’m coming back to Gravenbridge. Maybe we can catch up?”
Yeah, maybe.
Violet was another one of my old friends who I had found myself estranged from. After everything went down in Old Town, Violet and her family left Gravenbridge, and Canada as a whole. Part of me blamed her for our group of friends falling apart. She was always the level-headed one. But I knew it wasn’t her fault—it was mine. I was the one who took us out there, I was the one who pushed Wes a bit too hard.
No. I had to stop thinking about it. I had to stop thinking about him. Moving on was hard enough, but I was only making it harder on myself. I ignored Violet’s text. I wasn’t going to be able to avoid her, but at least I could delay thinking about it.
I cracked my door open and yelled down, “Mom! I’m going to shower! Don’t run the water!”
From the kitchen, I heard, “Yes, honey. But hurry up, I don’t want to have to confirm your absence from first period again.”
I grunted in agreement and headed to the bathroom. The shower was always the place I did my best thinking. Why was Violet coming back into town? Did it matter? Why does she want to catch up? Should I ask Dani to the upcoming dance? Do I need to talk to Joe? Lots of questions, but unfortunately, the shower failed me, and I came up with no answers.
After tossing on whatever clothes were at the top of my drawer, I shuffled down the stairs, but stopped halfway down. We had lots of family photos along the staircase wall, but one always stuck out to me: the last photo our entire family took together.
I was eleven years old, as was my twin sister Haley. We both had blonde hair and sea-green eyes, but that was about as far as our resemblance went. Her hair was long and in braids, and mine at the time was close cropped. She had freckles flecking her cheeks, and my face was a solid shade of pasty white. Must have been a cloudy summer, because usually I tan. I had changed a lot since then. Had she? I wasn’t sure. I hadn’t seen her in awhile.
In the middle of the photo was five-year-old Heather, who had a big toothy grin, and her signature braids that Haley had done for her. And sandwiching us were our parents. Dad, on the right, with his slicked-back dark hair and winning smile. He had the same eyes as me, but his looked like they were shining brighter. Mom stood beside Haley on the right, their blonde hair matching, though hers was straight. Nowadays, Mom’s hair looked greyer. Being a single mom really took a lot out of her. I chided myself—Mom wasn’t a single mother. Technically, Dad was raising Haley, and if my mom was to be believed, my parents still very much loved each other. But if you asked me, Dad couldn’t wait to leave and used Haley’s prep school as an excuse.
Looking at the photo, I couldn’t help but sigh. This might have been the last time the entire Gabriel family had been together—and happy, at least. Well, I hoped everyone was happy. I know I was.
As I reached the bottom of the stairs and entered the kitchen, I gave my mom a kiss on the forehead. “Morning, family,” I said. I started rummaged through the cupboard looking for my box of granola, and asked “How’s everyone doing today?”
“Oh, you know. Another case of the Monday blues.” Mom shrugged, talking over Heather’s loud chewing. “Hugo called and told me I have a few new cases to work on.”
Mom worked in real estate law, so her “cases” were never all that exciting. Maybe they would be, if she stayed in Toronto where she grew up. But here in Gravenbridge, where our population rested somewhere around 3,000 people, not including the cottagers? Nothing ever really happened here. Most of the land had been in people’s families for generations or was owned by the town itself. However, what she said next made me perk up.
“Including a case filed by a Mr. DuBois.”
Mr. DuBois. Violet’s dad. That must have had something to do with Violet’s imminent return to town. “What’s the case about?”
Mom looked at me with a small smile. “That got your attention, huh? Did you know Violet was coming back into town?”
I found the granola, placed it on the table, and opened the fridge before answering. “Yeah, she texted me this morning. That’s all I know though.” I grabbed some yogurt and a bowl and took a seat across from my mom. “The case isn’t anything serious, is it?”
“Nope, they never are,” she said, shaking her head. “He’s just looking to purchase a small piece of land currently owned by the town and had to file an appeal. No big whoop.”
I mixed my yogurt and granola absentmindedly as I thought about it. Why were they coming back into town now? And what did Mr. DuBois want with more land? Before I could ask my mom any more questions, she stood up and put her empty plate in the sink. “Speaking of which, I should get going. Heather, don’t forget your lunch, and please thank your brother for driving you.”
Heather looked up, her mouth full of cereal, and said something that sounded like, “Yes, Mom,” but I couldn’t be sure.
Mom grabbed her keys and left, and Heather and I finished our breakfast in silence. After I finished, I tossed my bowl in the sink and told her, “I’ll wait for you in the car.”
I didn’t often drive Heather to school, considering I was usually late to wake up. Despite my slow start, today I seemed to be ready in good time, so she didn’t have to go with my mom. I grabbed my keys and my backpack and headed to the car. The car used to be my dad’s, but after he and Haley left, it just collected dust in the garage. After I got my license a year or so ago, it became mine. It was old when my dad drove it, so it was even more of an antique now. I called her The Speeder ironically, since she was usually the slowest car on the road.
I hopped in the driver’s seat, and turned on the ignition. It was a pretty frosty November morning, so I wanted to heat her up before we were on our way. Heather took a couple of minutes to come out the door, as per usual, but before long we were on our way.
“Big day at school?” I asked her. She didn’t really talk about school with me. When I was her age. Haley and I were in the same grade at the same school, and talked about everything. But Heather was distant. Even though she now went to the same school that I went to, I didn’t really know much about the daily life of my little sister.
Heather scoffed. “Not really. I’m ahead in all my classes. I have this stupid social studies assignment I’m working with Billy on, but he’s been smoking weed behind the equipment shed every lunch. He’s no use by the time he comes to class.”
“Geez, kids your age are smoking?” I asked. I knew people in my grade did drugs every now and then, but I don’t remember any kids getting high when I was a pre-teen. Far be it from me to judge—I got into my share fair of trouble. Drugs never really interested me though.
“Some of them,” Heather told me. And that was the end of that.
We got to Gravenbridge Middle a couple of minutes after the conversation died down, and Heather opened up the door. “Thanks for the ride. See you at three?”
“I’ll text you if I’m going to be late,” I responded. Heather nodded and closed the door. She shouldered her backpack and ran to meet her friends, who were waiting for her by the front. As I pulled out from the front of the school, I saw one of my old teachers, Ms. Yates. I waved, but she glared back at me. Yeah, that checked out. I was never a bad student, but I was definitely the less-liked twin. Plus, the rumours about my friends soured a lot of the town on us. It was a shame, but I didn’t take it personally.
The thing was, my friends were always kinda problematic. Not the worst but we had our share of asshole moments. Fart noises during class, not turning in homework, that sort of stuff. I say “we,” like it was everyone. It was not. Mostly it was me and my friend Mina, but Wes almost always tagged along. Looking back, we were probably bad influences, but it never felt like we really forced him into anything. He just went along with it—at the time, I thought it was because he wanted to show off for Haley, but even after she left, he still went along with everything. Maybe he just wanted to belong. If it wasn’t for the princess of Gravenbridge herself, Violet, and my overachieving twin sister, along with the occasional help of Joe (when his parents let him out of the house), the three of us troublemakers would have been suspended many times over. Instead, our friends were able to pull our asses out of the fire.
Maybe that’s why things went to shit after Haley left—she helped balance me out. Or maybe I was just looking for anyone else to blame.
I pulled away quickly and The Speeder chugged along towards Gerald Graven High, my school. It was only a couple minutes away, so I figured I’d actually be early. Mr. Holmes was going to be surprised to see me in class before the bell. I pulled into the lot and parked the car as close to the school as possible. I grabbed my backpack, locked up The Speeder, and headed inside. As I was going through the door, I bumped into a figure heading in the opposite direction.
In unison we both said, “Oh, sorry,” before realizing who the other was. Mina had pale white skin and dark hair with ends dipped in blue. Her eyes were brown but seemed to darken when she looked at me. They kind of reminded me of the boy from my dreams.
“Oh, it’s you. Hey,” she said, tugging at the zipper on her leather jacket sleeve, not making any eye contact. She was a good six inches shorter than me, so it wasn’t hard to avoid looking directly at my face. Not that we’d be making eye contact anyway, since I had coincidentally become interested in a poster on a nearby wall.
“Hey,” I said awkwardly, not sure what else to say.
We both stood there for a second, before Mina broke the silence. “Have you talked to Joe?”
“Yeah,” I lied. “We talked this morning. Why? Have you?” I don’t know why I couldn’t be truthful with her. I guess part of me still wanted her approval, and I don’t think she would have been jazzed about me giving Joe the cold shoulder. It would only prove her assumptions about me correct.
“Yeah. Yeah, I did,” she told me. I could tell she was lying. She had stopped fiddling with the edges of her zipper, as if she was focusing on the lie. She did all the time when we were kids. It worked on others, but never the rest of us. I wondered if that meant she could tell that I lied too. If she did, she didn’t show it.
“Cool,” I said.
“Yeah,” she trailed off, “See you around, I guess.”
“Yeah, take it easy,” I said, and then kept going on my way inside. Surprisingly, that wasn’t our worst interaction. For awhile, she and I were very antagonistic to each other, but ever since the end of our sophomore year, we had eased up. It was still awkward, but at least she wasn’t yelling at me. We usually maintained a healthy distance. She had her friends, I had mine.
Speaking of friends, it wasn’t long until I saw my usual group. Leaning up against my locker was my good friend Carson. “Oh, did you need to get in here?” he asked, giving me a sideways smile as I approached. His goofiness was enough to shake me out of my funk and had me feeling more like myself.
“I don’t need to, but I’m sure it would make Mr. H happy if I brought a binder to class,” I said. I gave him a light shove, but ever the drama queen, he over-exaggerated, and threw his round head and dark curly hair back in disbelief.
“I can’t believe you would assault me like that!” he cried out, in mock fear.
I rolled my eyes and scoffed as I unlocked my locker, and a voice to my right said, “Shut up, man.” I looked over, and a couple inches down, and saw Dani, leaning up against a neighbouring locker. She stood up straight, and began tying back her strawberry-blonde hair. “And I say that with love.”
“With love, right,” Carson responded, dropping his façade. “Sucks for you that I don’t swing that way.”
“Yup, my loss.” Dani chuckled, rolling her eyes.
“Bell’s about to go, guys,” our buddy Mac said from behind Carson without looking up from his phone. Mac was the type of guy who easily blended into the background, with his black and grey wardrobe and long dark hair that rested over his eyes, but we all knew he was there. We might have been the only ones.
“Thanks for the reminder, dude,” I said, closing up my locker. “I would love to actually get to class and not get marked late.” I tossed my books in my bag and slung it over my shoulder. “Well, D, shall we go?”
Dani flashed me a pair of finger guns and said, “Lead on! Or do you not remember the way? I know it’s been a while.”
“If this is how I’m treated for getting to school early, I’ll just keep showing up late,” I teased.
Carson snorted from behind us, “You guys have a great time in French. Mac and I are just going to go kill it in History.”
“Well, I will, and you’ll ride my coattails,” Mac shot back, deadpan but with a smile on his face.
“Same difference,” Carson said, as he started to stride down the hall. Mac plodded behind him, clearly not in a rush.
The bell rang, and Dani linked her arm with mine. “Come on, we have a project to work on.” I nodded and walked along, hoping my cheeks weren’t as red as they felt.
Mr. Holmes, thankfully, gave us a work period for our group project. Dani and I sat next to each other, poring over our textbooks for information about Parisian culture. Occasionally, I’d catch myself looking at her while she was reading. She had really pretty hazel eyes that were as round, though not quite as big, as the frames of the glasses she hardly wore. As she read, she tapped her pen against her rounded chin and stuck her tongue out, ever so slightly. It was adorable.
I had been staring too long. Yikes.
I tried to keep reading, but I found it hard to focus. “You find anything?” I asked.
“A couple interesting points. I kind of want to talk about the culinary side of things.”
“En Francais!” Mr. Holmes shouted at us. He was a nice enough guy, but he pushed hard for us to speak French in class. Granted, that was the whole point of the class, but I still wasn’t a fan.
“Oui, je pense que…” I said, as Mr. Holmes eyed us. When he turned his focus to a nearby pair of students, I switched back to English. “Yeah, works for me. I’m down for whatever, honestly.”
Dani nodded and jotted down a couple notes. “You going to the dance on Friday?” she asked, not looking up from her paper. Very casual.
I was not as smooth. “Oh, uh, yeah I think so,” I stumbled. “Are you?”
She put her pencil down and nodded. “Yeah, I am. If I can get a ride anyway.” I swear I saw the slightest hint of a smile at the corners of her lips.
“You want me to drive you?” I ventured. Was she trying to get me to ask her? I wasn’t sure, but it was possible.
“Mr. Gabriel, are you asking me to the dance?” Dani asked in a teasing tone, raising an eyebrow. Before I could even respond, she said, “Sounds great. Pick me up at eight?”
It took me a second to process what had just happened, but I was pretty sure I had a date. “Yeah,” I eventually said, fighting a grin from spreading across my face. “I’ll see you then. Don’t be late or else I’ll leave without you,” I said sarcastically.
“Oh, and who would you take instead?”
“Not sure. Maybe your dad? He is kind of awesome.” Not a lie, I loved Dani’s dad. I just hoped he liked me too.
“He’s a terrible dancer,” Dani said, laughing to herself.
“Guess I’ll settle for you.” I shrugged.
“En Francais!” Mr. Holmes shouted at us.
“Désolé!” Dani and I said in unison. This seemed to satisfy Mr. Holmes for now. We both went back to looking at our notes, but I couldn’t help myself from smiling the rest of the period. Out of the corner of my eye, I could have sworn that a similar expression graced Dani’s face as well.
The rest of the morning was a blur. I had my Business class, and then Chemistry. I was definitely better at the former than the latter. Even though I barely passed my Chemistry quiz, nothing could ruin my mood as I headed to the cafeteria for lunch. Well, mostly nothing.
I took a seat next to Mac and across from Dani at our regular table. “Hey boys, how was History?” I asked as I opened up my lunch bag.
“Carson spent the whole class flirting with Darren,” Mac said, before taking a bite of his sandwich. “I did all the work, as expected.”
“You’re the ultimate wingman,” Carson said. He passed Mac his bag of pretzels. “Here, repayment.” Mac didn’t say anything, but he immediately broke open the bag. He loved pretzels, but he never brought his own.
Dani laughed at the two of them, and then turned her attention to something over my shoulder. “Hey, who’s that?”
Carson leaned over to match her gaze. “Gray, that’s not…?”
I whipped my head around and from across the cafeteria, I saw her. “Violet. Yeah, it is.” Striding across the cafeteria was my old friend, dressed in a sensible jeans and wool sweater. Her silky black hair rested just below her shoulders, and her blue eyes locked with mine. Even though I couldn’t read her expression, I figured this was bad news. Not only because of Violet, but because of the two people flanking her. Mina was to Violet’s left, and she looked at me like I had just shoved her into traffic. And to her right was my old pal Joe Webb, a short boy with close-cropped chestnut brown hair in the shape of a turtle shell, and thin-framed glasses. I regretted turning around.
“Violet DuBois?” Mac asked, turning around as well. “Why is she back in town?”
“I think we’re about to find out,” Carson said, as the three sets of footsteps approached. Even though my head was unwilling to move and break eye contact with Violet, I could feel the eyes of the cafeteria on us—or rather on her, and then over to me. People hardly moved out of Gravenbridge, so when she moved five years ago, people remembered, especially considering we had been going to school with roughly the same one hundred people since kindergarten and her dad was a fairly well-known figure in town. Mr. Henry DuBois had made a fortune in New York City before moving to Canada. His family had a cottage here in Gravenbridge, and eventually, he decided to renovate the place, turn it into a mansion, and move his family here full-time. Until his disapproval of Violet’s choice in company (read: me, Mina, and Joe), became too much and they moved out of town. They still owned DuBois Manor, but it had been left vacant now for years. I guess its residents had returned sooner than I anticipated.
Violet stopped in front of me, and my friends fell silent. She pursed her lips, as she decided what to say.
“Hey, Gray.” Joe waved meekly, breaking the silence.
I didn’t really know what to do, so I very timidly waved, and gave a weak, “Hey.”
“Grayson, we need to talk,” Violet said, her tone scarily even.
She used my full name. This wasn’t going to be a fun reunion.
