Welcome to Penny’s Diary, a contemporary urban-fantasy serial. Read new diary entries every Thursday. Supporting readers can also access a weekly Writer’s Commentary, along with immersive audio and eBook editions, after each entry.
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Saturday, May 9, 2026
Cupcake System Glitch
It was one of those weirdly perfect hot days Meridia Falls throws out like a bribe. Full T-shirt-and-shorts weather. No jacket. No layers. No argument with the sky.
So obviously I went to Cascades straight after breakfast, because that’s just what Saturdays are now.
Cupcakes and diaries.
Except Ellie was already there.
At the counter. Holding a cupcake box. Wearing a light summer dress that made my brain just… stop.
Fully.
She turned like she felt me come in and smiled.
Tiny smile. Maximum damage.
“Not fair,” she said. “You’re always the one buying.”
I somehow kept my face mostly normal. Which deserves recognition.
“That is the system.”
“Yeah,” she said. “System upgrade.”
Classic.
She’d already picked the ones I would’ve gone for, which either means great minds think alike or she’s been paying way too much attention to me.
Not that I’m complaining.
We headed back to the Meridian, close enough that I kept being very aware of her beside me.
And yeah.
There was a moment where I almost took her hand.
Just—did it.
Like that would be normal.
But we’re not doing that.
Not yet.
So I didn’t.
Still wanted to, though.
Which was somehow worse.
I also ducked into the Celebration card shop on the way back for Mother’s Day flowers and a card for Mom, because apparently that was tomorrow, whether I was emotionally organized for it or not.
I checked with Ellie first, just in case.
She said she was okay.
Quietly.
So I bought them, and we kept going.
By the time we got back to the Meridian, I could pass as normal again.
Mostly.
Truthweaver Online
Teddy showed up not long after me and Ellie had settled in at the Meridian, carrying a backpack that looked suspiciously heavy.
He barely sat down before pulling out the laptop.
Except calling it a laptop felt wrong almost immediately.
It still looked like one, sure—but in the same way a knife still looks like a knife when it’s suddenly sharper than you’re comfortable with. No stickers. No wear. No crumbs in the hinge. Just sleek, dark, and very intentional.
He opened it. The screen came on instantly. No lag. No loading. Just a clean, controlled interface that didn’t feel casual at all.
A lot of words I understood emotionally and not at all technically.
Ellie asked actual questions, which only encouraged him.
I let that happen for about thirty seconds before cutting in.
“So what are we calling it?”
Because obviously it needs a name.
Everything important does.
Teddy hesitated. “I was thinking Ruby.”
Ellie and I shut that down at the exact same time.
“Yeah, no,” Ellie said.
I looked at Teddy. “I am not saying ‘I’m spending the evening with Ruby’ out loud in public.”
That landed.
Ellie laughed. “You better not.”
Teddy blinked, got it, and immediately looked annoyed with himself for not getting it sooner.
Then Ellie tilted her head. “What about something connected to her? Just… not her actual name.”
Teddy nodded slowly. “Her alias.”
And there it was.
Truthweaver.
I said it once under my breath, testing it.
“Truthweaver.”
Yeah.
That fit.
Teddy did that small, trying-not-to-look-pleased smile of his, and suddenly it didn’t feel like a school project anymore.
It felt like a tool.
A real one.
Clearwater Pattern Lock
We didn’t dive straight into the Truthweaver laptop.
Instead, we went back to the diaries, because apparently we prefer suffering in familiar formats first.
We dropped back into Younger Penny’s third diary from 2018 and kept going. Me and Ellie took the memory blasts, Ellie translated what she caught, and Teddy logged everything in the Matrix like the world’s most stressed-out archivist.
With the missing-people stuff filtered out, what kept hitting wasn’t one big reveal.
It was the pattern.
Same visits. Same sessions. Same weekends.
And every time Logan showed up, so did Ellie.
So did I.
Younger me called them games.
They didn’t read like games anymore.
There were always rules. Clear ones. Stay here. Do this. Finish that. Move on.
And always that feeling of someone watching.
Not dramatic.
Just constant.
I looked up without meaning to, and Ellie was already looking at me.
“You see it too?”
I nodded.
Because it wasn’t just that we were there together.
It was that we were being grouped.
Repeatedly.
Deliberately.
Me.
Logan.
Ellie.
Over and over.
Assigned.
That was the word that landed wrong.
Then we hit one of the magic-mirror memories again—Younger Penny’s name for that eye-shaped reflective rock—and this one hit harder than most.
The three of us, stuck in front of it. Unable to move. That pull like it wanted to drag us inside.
And behind us, distorted but unmistakable, a woman’s voice ordering us to keep still.
By the time the blast let go, the black veins under mine and Ellie’s eyes were hanging around longer than usual.
Teddy noticed.
Teddy freaked out.
Reasonably.
And the worst part?
Ellie said the voice sounded familiar.
Not the reflection.
Someone else.
Someone from Clearwater.
That stayed with me longer than the veins did.
So we called it there.
Not because we were done.
Because whatever Clearwater was doing with the three of us—
It wasn’t random.
And suddenly it felt a lot closer than before.
The Collins Hit
Once we’d recovered enough to function again—thank you, cupcakes—Teddy opened the Truthweaver and ran one of Ruby’s search worms on the names we’d been circling for weeks.
Logan.
Cassie.
Collins.
No buildup. No “let’s see what happens.” Just Teddy typing like he already knew this was going to hurt.
The results came up wrong immediately.
Not public records. Not anything normal. Just buried files, hidden reports, and layers of stuff shoved as far out of sight as possible.
Which meant we were finally in the right place.
Then it hit.
Collins was their last name.
Logan Collins.
Cassie Collins.
Siblings.
From Meridia Falls.
And Cassie went missing in November 2016.
My brain caught on the date and refused to move.
Because I knew that time.
Not as a news story.
As the shape of my life splitting open.
I kept reading anyway.
Cassie wasn’t just missing.
She was murdered.
By her father.
Patrick Collins.
Ellie said, “That can’t be right,” in the exact tone people use when they already know it probably is. Teddy kept scrolling, pulling up more proof that this wasn’t some local rumor that got out of hand.
I barely registered any of it.
Because those names weren’t abstract anymore.
Not scribbles in a diary.
Not half-clues on Bobby.
A real family.
From here.
From this town.
From that big cabin out by Shadowmere Lake.
Which—of course—it was.
Then Ellie went still beside me.
Not confused-still.
Recognition-still.
“That line,” she said quietly.
She reached for the Matrix before I even answered, scanning back until she found it.
My stomach dropped before she read it out.
“It will have to be the Collins kid.”
And just like that, everything shifted.
That line wasn’t vague anymore.
It wasn’t background noise from an old memory blast.
It was specific.
A decision.
About a person.
About Cassie or Logan.
Nobody said anything for a second after that.
Even Teddy stopped moving, which is basically the emotional equivalent of the power cutting out.
Because now we weren’t looking at a mystery from the outside.
We were looking at something that knew exactly who it wanted.
And I still haven’t said the worst part out loud yet.
Because once I do, it stops being theory.
But it was already there.
Sitting between us.
The Collins kid.
Murder.
The accident.
Dad.
Sean.
This wasn’t random.
It never was.
Meridian Quiet Mode
Teddy left not long after that, muttering something about running more searches later, which I’m pretty sure means he’ll be awake at 2am picking fights with encrypted files.
Classic Teddy.
Once he was gone, everything went quiet in that weird aftershock way.
Not empty.
Just quieter than my head felt.
Ellie asked if I was okay.
I said yeah.
Which was probably only true in the loosest possible sense.
Then she pulled her bag up onto the bed.
Her overnight bag.
That was it.
No speech. No awkward “should I go?” moment.
Just her bag, there if I needed it.
And that… landed.
Because she’d planned for this.
Not in a big way.
Just in case.
So I didn’t ask.
She didn’t explain.
It just… settled into place.
Again.
We went out for a walk along the boardwalk while the sun was still hanging on, the sea all gold and glittering like it had no idea our town was quietly horrifying.
And for a few minutes, the Collins stuff softened.
Not gone.
Just not the only thing there.
Ellie walked close enough that our arms brushed once or twice.
Accidental enough to ignore.
Not accidental enough to miss.
Not yet still applied.
But it counted.
By the time we turned back toward the Meridian, the sleepover had already settled into place without either of us saying it out loud.
Which somehow made it feel even better.
Quiet Reset
We didn’t go straight back into anything heavy once we got back to my room.
No more diaries. No more timeline spirals. No more trying to force answers out of things that clearly enjoy ruining my life.
We ordered pizza instead, which is apparently becoming our sleepover tradition.
Ellie kicked off her shoes the second we got in, and it was one of those tiny things that got me a little. Like my room already belonged to her a bit.
I grabbed plates, she put something easy on the TV, and for a while we just let the noise fill the space without asking anything from us.
We talked, but only about safe things. School. Teachers. Teddy becoming more powerful and therefore more dangerous.
The kind of stuff that doesn’t open trapdoors under your feet.
Every time the conversation drifted toward today, one of us pulled it back.
Not awkwardly.
Just… not tonight.
And I didn’t realize how much I needed that until we were already in it.
That small space where not everything had to be solved immediately.
We sat close.
Closer than earlier.
Not because either of us said anything. It just happened.
Her leg against mine. Her shoulder brushing when she leaned in for another slice.
And that was it.
Everything else went quieter.
Not gone.
Just… softer.
I looked down at her once, then back at the TV without taking in a single thing, because my brain had picked a different problem.
Which was that this felt easy.
Too easy, maybe.
Not in a bad way.
Just in a slightly terrifying I could get used to this way.
After a minute, she looked up like she knew I was thinking something I wasn’t saying.
“Hey,” she said softly.
And all I gave back was, “Hey.”
Which turned out to be enough.
More than enough, actually.
We stayed like that for a while. Longer than we probably needed to.
Talking less.
Not needing to.
And at some point, the evening became one of those things I’m not writing out in detail.
Just—
Personal time.
Sunday, May 10, 2026
Morning Reality Check
Waking up was weird.
Not bad.
Just… immediate.
For one second I forgot where I was, and then I remembered Ellie was there beside me, and right behind that came everything from yesterday.
Logan.
Cassie.
Collins.
Classic.
Ellie was still asleep when I sat up, hair everywhere, one arm across the pillow like she’d moved around a lot in the night.
I watched her for a second before my brain fully caught up.
Apparently that’s a thing I do now.
We didn’t rush into anything.
No diary scramble. No “let’s solve the mystery before breakfast” energy.
Just toast, eggs, coffee for me because I’ve officially become that person, and the kind of quiet where both people are thinking the same thing and neither says it first.
Ellie got there before I did.
“Logan,” she said.
Just his name.
And yeah.
That was the part that mattered now.
Cassie mattered too—obviously, horribly—but Logan was still here.
He saw something.
He survived something.
And then he disappeared.
Which feels less like coincidence every time I think it.
“If he’s still alive…” Ellie started, then left it there.
Didn’t need to finish.
If he’s still alive, he knows something.
If he’s still alive, he matters.
If he’s still alive, then we’re not the only ones tied into this.
Then the next piece clicked.
“There was the cabin,” I said. “Shadowmere Lake.”
She looked up straight away.
The name landed heavier now.
A real location.
That place.
The big cabin out by the lake everyone avoids.
“Where something started,” Ellie said quietly.
And yeah, the haunted part came back immediately.
Not because I suddenly believe every dumb town rumor, but because this town has a habit of burying real things under stories and hoping nobody digs deeper.
We didn’t over-plan it.
Probably should have.
Definitely didn’t.
The only part of the day that was already decided was Mother’s Day.
Mom was on her usual Halifax shift, so there was no big fuss. Same as her birthday, really. I’d give her the card and flowers after school tomorrow.
Teddy had lunch with his family first, and I knew he’d be doing the actual decent-son thing and spending some time with his mom before meeting us.
Ellie got quieter after that. Not in a big, obvious way. Just enough that I noticed. Second Mother’s Day without her mom. That kind of thing doesn’t need saying out loud to fill a room.
So we decided we’d meet Teddy after church, head out together, and see what was there. And yeah, part of me hoped church might give her something solid to hold onto before we went chasing the exact opposite.
Simple.
Which usually means not simple at all.
Paddy’s Looking
Teddy met us at Cascades looking like sleep had personally offended him.
He already had coffee. We didn’t sit, didn’t linger. Just a quick check-in, then we were moving, heading out of town while the morning was still quiet enough to pretend this wasn’t a terrible idea.
The further we got from Main Street, the quieter everything became.
Not empty quiet.
Pressing quiet.
The kind where the road narrows, the trees crowd in, and your brain starts noticing things it absolutely did not need to notice.
By the time we reached the edge of the forest, even the light felt different. Dimmer. Green in that swallowed-up way trees do.
Ellie slowed beside me, glancing toward the darker stretch ahead.
“When it gets darker in here,” she said quietly, “it feels like someone could just be standing behind the trees and you’d never know.”
That did it.
Because the second she said it, something old clicked into place so hard it almost felt physical.
“Paddy’s looking,” I said before I even realized I was going to.
Ellie looked at me. Teddy slowed a step.
And once it was there, I couldn’t stop.
“Paddy’s looking,
Paddy’s near,
Hide yourself,
Don’t let him hear you breathe.”
The words felt wrong under the trees.
Like they didn’t belong in the same world as a normal Sunday afternoon.
Neither of them interrupted.
Which somehow made it worse.
“Count to ten,
Don’t make a sound,
If Paddy sees you,
You’re found.”
Then I stopped.
Didn’t need the rest.
Ellie had never played it, but most kids in town had. It’s one of those things you don’t question because it’s always just… been there.
Except now it hadn’t.
Patrick Collins.
Paddy Collins.
Paddy’s Looking.
That’s not an accident.
That’s this town taking something awful, sanding the edges off, and turning it into a game kids can chant without knowing what they’re saying.
Classic.
And suddenly I remembered the rules that came with it.
Not written anywhere.
Just known.
Don’t hide near water.
Don’t joke about Paddy when it’s dark.
If someone freezes, you stop playing.
That last one hit hardest.
Because that’s not a game rule.
That’s something left over.
We kept walking after that, quieter than before, and the whole thing shifted in my head.
We weren’t just following a lead anymore.
We were walking into something this town had been carrying for years—
Disguised as folklore.
Pretending it was harmless.
Which feels worse.
Forest Pushback
The closer we got, the harder it was to ignore the feeling.
It didn’t arrive dramatically.
Just a slow tightening.
Like the path was narrowing—and something in me was narrowing with it.
Teddy checked his phone and frowned. “No signal.”
Of course.
Ellie’s shoulder brushed mine, and that’s when it really hit.
Not outside.
Inside.
A pressure in my chest.
Quiet. Steady.
And not mine.
I took another step—
And stopped.
Not because I chose to.
Because something in me just… didn’t.
I tried again.
Same thing.
Stronger.
“Do you—” I started.
Ellie nodded. “Yeah.”
Teddy looked between us, then went still too. I watched the exact second he got it.
“Oh,” he said quietly.
Yeah.
Oh.
We all stood there with the same thing pressing through us.
Don’t go further.
Not a thought. Not a voice.
Just a very clear no.
I looked ahead.
Trees thickening. Shadows deeper than they should’ve been.
Nothing obvious.
And still every part of me was saying stop.
Fear makes sense.
This didn’t.
This felt placed.
“Maybe we should just—” Teddy started.
“No.”
I said it too fast, too sharp.
Because if we turned around then, we’d be listening to it.
Whatever this was.
And I hated that more than I hated the feeling itself.
So we stepped forward.
Together.
And the moment we did, it pushed back harder.
Like we’d crossed something invisible and it had expected us to stop.
That was when I saw the first carving.
Just something slightly off in the bark to the left of the path.
I kept walking.
Then stopped.
Stepped back.
Two curved cuts.
Too clean.
Too deliberate.
An eye.
I tried to hand myself a rational explanation.
Kids. Knives. Boredom.
Nope.
I could’ve taken a picture.
Should have.
But stopping didn’t feel like an option anymore.
Because once I saw that one—
I saw the next.
And the next.
Tree after tree.
Some higher. Some lower. Some deeper in the woods so you only caught them once you were already looking.
Eyes.
Watching.
Ellie had already gone still beside me. Teddy stepped closer, squinting at the bark.
“Someone carved those,” he said.
Yes. Thank you. Not the part I was stuck on.
The part I was stuck on was how many.
I turned slowly, scanning the trees.
Not random.
Not scattered.
A stretch of forest marked with those little carved stares.
The pressure in my chest tightened again.
Something sharper.
Like the forest had stopped ignoring us—
And started noticing.
I wrapped my arms around myself without thinking.
Standing there suddenly felt wrong.
Too open.
Too exposed.
Like we’d stepped onto something without meaning to.
And now it knew we were there.
“This is… a lot,” Teddy said.
Understatement of the year.
I kept looking for a pattern and couldn’t find one.
Some carvings obvious.
Some barely visible.
Some deep enough in the trees that you only saw them once you were already close enough to regret it.
That felt intentional.
Like they were meant to be seen.
Just not from far away.
And then the thought landed.
Simple.
Horrible.
This isn’t decoration.
This is marking.
And whatever put those eyes there—
Wanted us to know we’d crossed into something.
The Empty Cabin
We saw the cabin through the trees before we reached it.
Straight lines where there should’ve been none. A shape cut into the forest that made everything feel worse, not better.
Because now there was something real to walk toward.
We stepped into a small clearing, and there it was.
Old, but not ruined.
That was the first thing I noticed.
No broken windows. No collapsed roof. No signs of bored teenagers trashing it for fun.
It didn’t look abandoned.
It looked untouched.
Which is not the same thing.
Teddy frowned and muttered that it should be on maps.
Which, sure. It should.
But things connected to this never seem to show up where they’re supposed to.
Ellie reached the door first. No dramatic pause, just enough hesitation to make sure it was real before she pushed it open.
No resistance.
That felt wrong too.
Inside, the whole place was empty.
Not abandoned empty.
Not moved-out empty.
Just…
Bare.
Walls. Floor. Ceiling.
All intact.
All wrong in exactly the same way.
No furniture.
No marks.
No signs anything had ever been there.
Nothing.
It looked erased.
“That doesn’t make sense,” I said.
Because it didn’t.
Places like this don’t stay like this.
They get trashed. Used. Broken into.
Something happens to them.
Except apparently not here.
Ellie moved farther in, scanning the walls.
“Or it does.”
I looked at her.
“Think about everything else,” she said. “Logan. Collins. The files.”
Hidden.
Buried.
Hard to reach unless you already know where to look.
And that was when it clicked for me too.
This wasn’t emptiness from neglect.
It was maintained absence.
Like something had made sure no trace stayed here.
No history.
No leftovers.
No accidental proof.
I stepped farther in, half expecting the floorboards to react.
Nothing did.
Just thick, pressed-in silence.
And the longer we stood there, the clearer it became.
This cabin wasn’t empty because nothing happened there.
It was empty because something made sure nothing stayed.
Which meant we hadn’t found answers.
Just proof that someone had worked very hard to erase them.
Storm Break
When we stepped back outside, the air had changed.
Heavier. Charged.
I looked up, and the sky had gone dark so fast it felt like a bad special effect.
Then thunder hit.
Loud. Close.
The kind that makes your whole body flinch before your brain catches up.
And then the rain came.
Hard.
Instant.
Like the sky had been waiting.
Teddy said, “Go,” and that was enough.
We moved fast.
Not well. Just fast enough to count.
The path felt longer on the way back. Branches catching, ground slick, the carved eyes flashing past through the rain like they’d been waiting for exactly this kind of exit.
I very deliberately did not think too hard about that.
At one point I glanced back.
The cabin was already harder to see, blurred into the trees like it was folding itself back into the forest the second we turned away.
Figures.
We didn’t stop—
But at one point, Teddy pulled his phone out anyway.
Snapped a picture of one of the carvings as we passed.
Nothing.
He frowned, like that wasn’t what he expected.
Or maybe exactly what he was afraid of.
I did the same with the Polaroid.
Quick. Automatic.
Like we were forcing something normal into a place that didn’t want it.
Didn’t even check it.
Just needed it to exist.
Then we kept moving.
Eventually the trees thinned, and the pressure eased.
Not gone.
Just… less.
Enough to breathe.
We hit the road soaked through, breathing harder than any of us wanted to admit.
Teddy shoved wet hair out of his face, muttered something about checking things, and peeled off toward Forest View Drive. Chen Print.
Ellie stayed with me.
We didn’t say much.
Didn’t need to.
We just turned toward the Meridian and kept walking through the rain with all of it still sitting there between us.
No answers.
Just confirmation.
Whatever that place is—
It does not want to be found.
And now we know exactly where it is.
Aftermath Quiet
By the time we got back to the Meridian, we were fully soaked.
Not “a bit damp.”
Actual squelching-shoes, hair-stuck-to-face, why-did-we-think-this-was-a-good-plan levels of drenched.
The second I got the rear door open, the warmth hit hard.
Cold to warm.
Forest to not-forest.
And with it came that first real sense of release.
Not total.
Just enough.
Ellie laughed under her breath as she stepped in behind me—not because anything was funny, but because relief sounds like that sometimes.
Gramps was out at some charity thing, which, for once, felt like a gift from the universe.
No questions.
No explaining why we looked like we’d just crawled out of a haunted swamp.
We squelched upstairs, kicked off our shoes wherever they landed, and grabbed towels.
I tossed one to Ellie, took one for myself, and tried to dry my hair like that was somehow going to wring the forest out of the day.
It didn’t.
“Clothes,” I said after a second. “You’re not staying like that.”
I pulled out a hoodie and sweatpants and tossed them onto the bed.
“Best I’ve got.”
“Works.”
We took turns with the shower, then got changed, and by the time we were both in something dry, the room felt less storm-adjacent and more real again.
For a minute, everything went quiet.
And that was when it all came back.
Not the headline version.
The details.
The pressure in the trees.
The carved eyes.
The cabin being empty in a way that didn’t feel natural.
None of it felt finished.
If anything, it felt like we’d barely scratched the surface.
Ellie sat beside me on the bed without saying anything, sleeves too long, hair still damp, shoulders brushing mine.
And that was enough to shift the whole tone of the afternoon.
No more adrenaline.
No more forest.
Just quiet.
I leaned into her slightly without thinking, and she didn’t move away.
We stayed like that for a while, not talking, because there wasn’t anything either of us could say yet that would make the day smaller.
Rain tapped softly against the window.
Nothing like the storm before.
Just steady.
Distant.
And somewhere in all that quiet, one clear thought finally landed.
This isn’t over.
Not even close.
If anything—
Today wasn’t an ending.
It was the moment whatever’s been sitting under all of this finally let us see the edge of it.
Monday, May 11, 2026
Lunch Break Intel
By lunch, school had mostly turned into background noise.
We didn’t bother pretending otherwise.
Teddy was already there, looking more tired than usual—which, considering his usual baseline, is saying something.
“I stayed up,” he said.
Of course he did.
Ellie gave him a look. Not disapproving. Just… expected.
I sat down opposite him.
“What did you find?”
Because that’s the only question that matters now.
Teddy didn’t stall.
“Patrick Collins,” he said. “I went deeper.”
That was putting it lightly.
He’d gone past the buried stuff. Past the things we already knew didn’t want to be found.
Further.
“There’s a reporter,” he said. “Name keeps coming up.”
That got my attention.
Fragments. Mentions. Half-erased references that never fully disappeared.
Which, at this point, feels like this town’s favorite move.
“Same pattern,” he said. “Activity, mentions… then nothing.”
Gone.
No follow-up.
No ending.
Just cut.
I leaned back, that familiar feeling settling in again.
Because we’ve seen this before.
People don’t leave.
They vanish.
Message Sent Anyway
By the time I got home, I already knew what I was going to do.
No debate.
No “maybe we should think this through.”
Just—do it.
I’d picked up the Mother’s Day flowers and card from the Meridian after school, so I handed them to Mom before I came upstairs.
No big moment. No surprise emotional breakthrough.
She just gave me that slightly caught-off-guard look she does when she wasn’t expecting me to remember something, thanked me, and told me I didn’t need to make a fuss.
Which, considering she’d spent the day in Halifax on her usual shift, felt about right.
Then I shut myself in my room and pulled up the contact Teddy found.
Sapphire Bliss.
Still not convinced that’s a real name, but it’s all we have.
I hovered over the email field for a second.
Because looking things up is one thing. Reading, connecting, watching patterns form—that still feels safe.
This didn’t.
This was reaching out.
And once you do that, you don’t control what comes back.
If anything comes back.
I pulled out the Polaroids.
The cabin.
The carved eye.
Proof that yesterday wasn’t just in my head.
Or at least something solid enough to pretend.
I set them on the desk, looked at them for a second, then back at the screen.
Keep it simple.
Logan Collins. Just questions.
Enough to matter.
Not enough to sound completely unhinged.
Hopefully.
I read it once, decided reading it again would only make it worse, and hit send before I could stop myself.
That was it.
No dramatic music. No instant reply. No sign I’d just done something that might turn out to be either very smart or catastrophically stupid.
Which was almost worse.
Because now it was out there.
Maybe the address is dead.
Maybe she never sees it.
Maybe it goes nowhere.
Or maybe she does.
And if Sapphire Bliss disappeared for the same reason Logan did—for the same reason people tied to Patrick Collins seem to—
Then that message isn’t just a question.
It’s a signal.
And now it’s sent.
There’s no taking that back.
Tuesday, May 12, 2026
Flashbulb Fallout
Today was yearbook photo day.
Normally that means minimum effort. Show up, stand there, try not to blink weird, leave.
Done.
Except apparently not this year.
I actually tried.
Not full makeover levels. Just… more than usual. More checking my reflection than I’d like to admit.
Which I told myself was because photos are permanent.
True.
Just not the whole truth.
Also, still no reply from Sapphire Bliss.
Which my brain was being super normal about.
By lunch, the whole school had shifted into yearbook mode. Outfit checking. Hair fixing. People suddenly acting like lighting is a human rights issue.
Normal chaos.
Until Candy’s table imploded.
I didn’t see the start. Just the shift. Voices going sharp. Chairs scraping. That weird cafeteria hush where everyone goes quiet while pretending not to stare.
Then Marilyn tipped her tray.
Not an accident.
Not even slightly.
Ketchup, fries—the whole thing straight down the front of Candy’s very pink, very planned outfit.
Which, considering certain past ketchup incidents, felt like karma.
The cafeteria just… stopped.
Candy froze.
Which was worse than screaming.
Marilyn didn’t stay for the fallout. She just walked out like she’d already made her point.
Then everything snapped back at once.
Candy stood. Too calm. Way too calm.
Her whole group followed as she headed for the bathroom in full damage-control formation.
Ellie hesitated, then went after them.
Did not blame her.
By the time afternoon rolled around, the energy hadn’t settled.
It had condensed.
You could feel it in the hallway outside the photo setup before you even saw them.
Candy and Marilyn stood opposite each other. Not yelling. Not fighting. Just locked in that quiet way that means the actual fight is still happening somewhere underneath.
Ellie drifted back toward me, then got pulled back to Candy.
Teddy stayed where he was, watching it all like he was already trying to map it.
Which made sense. Chen Print was doing the yearbooks, so this wasn’t just school drama anymore. It was school drama headed straight for print.
A second later, my phone buzzed.
Ellie: She won’t say what started it, but there’s a mandatory Candy Gang meeting after school.
Of course there is.
Because nothing says “under control” like forcing a group of angry teenage girls into a room together.
Marilyn’s photo was first.
Crown on. Miss Teen Canada. Front and center.
The photographer making a huge deal of it.
And judging by Candy’s face—yeah. That mattered.
Because Marilyn got the spotlight first.
Then Candy went up and tried to take it back.
You could see the effort. Sharper posture. Tighter smile. The whole I am still the moment energy.
But it didn’t land the same.
Because Marilyn had already taken the air out of the room.
The rest followed. Kaelyn. Sally.
Then Ellie.
And that, as usual, was enough to derail my brain for a second.
Classic.
The flash went off, and for everyone else, that was the end of it.
Not for them.
Because whatever started at lunch carried.
Into the hallway.
Into the photos.
Into whatever’s waiting after school.
And now, apparently, we’re not just dealing with diaries and Clearwater.
We’ve got something else building too.
Something closer.
Something right here.
And for the first time in a while—
I’m not sure which one hits first.
Wednesday, May 13, 2026
Nothing To See Here
Today was… normal.
Suspiciously normal.
Science. Drama. Teachers teaching. People answering questions.
No food fights. No walkouts. No crowns indoors.
So, you know. Progress.
Except it didn’t feel like progress.
It felt like avoidance.
Like everyone had collectively decided—without saying it—that yesterday just… didn’t happen.
Lunch was the weirdest part.
Same tables. Same people. Same groups.
But not one mention of it.
No “did you see—”
No “what was that about—”
Nothing.
Just homework. Weekend plans. Someone complaining about cafeteria food like that was the real issue.
Classic.
I sat with Ellie and Teddy, waiting for someone to slip.
To crack it open.
No one did.
And that somehow made it worse.
Because gossip would’ve been normal. Messy, but normal.
This felt flattened.
Like the whole thing had been pressed down before it could spread.
Ellie caught my eye at one point.
That look.
You see it too, right?
Yeah.
I did.
We didn’t say it out loud.
Didn’t need to.
Because the absence of it was the loudest thing in the room.
By the afternoon, I was running on autopilot.
Math blurred.
Then History turned into a documentary. Lights off. Projector on. Everyone pretending this counts as learning.
Perfect.
Because darkness means no one’s really watching.
And apparently that matters now.
Ellie sat beside me.
Same as usual.
Except not.
Because at some point, her foot brushed mine.
Light.
Accidental.
Probably.
I didn’t move.
Neither did she.
Then it happened again.
Less accidental.
Okay.
Not accidental.
I kept my eyes on the screen like I cared about whatever historical thing was happening.
I did not.
Classic.
Her foot pressed lightly against mine again. Just enough. Not obvious. Not something anyone else would notice.
But there.
And for a second, everything from lunch—the silence, the tension, the nothing-happened-but-something-definitely-did—just eased.
Not gone.
Just quieter.
I shifted slightly. Matched it.
Not pulling away.
Not making it obvious.
Just… there.
And that was it.
No words. No looking over.
Just this tiny, under-the-table moment while the whole class sat in the dark pretending everything was normal.
The documentary ended. Lights came back on. Everyone snapped back into place like nothing had happened.
But this time it didn’t feel as heavy.
Not because things were better.
Because something small had cut through it.
Something quiet.
Something real.
And as we packed up and left, that was the part that stayed.
Not the silence.
Not yesterday.
Just that.
Which, right now, feels like the only thing that actually makes sense.
Thursday, May 14, 2026
South Bay Invitation
Ellie asked if I wanted to hang out after school.
Not vague. Not “we’ll figure something out.”
Her place.
Which, yeah.
That’s a different level.
I said yes before my brain could get involved, because obviously I did.
The real surprise was Mom.
The second I mentioned South Bay Peninsula, she was suddenly very available to drive me. Anything even remotely connected to the mayor and she’s fully in. No hesitation. No chill.
Classic.
The drive felt longer than it should have.
Not because of distance.
Because of the buildup.
The South Bay Peninsula isn’t just another part of town. It’s that part. Big houses. Gated drives. Views that look like they belong on postcards instead of attached to actual people.
And then we reached the entrance.
The wall. The gates.
The place where I left that letter.
That hit harder than I expected.
Just for a second.
Then the gates opened.
Smooth. Automatic. Like we were expected.
We drove up the long driveway, the house coming into view piece by piece. Not huge in a ridiculous way, but still… impressive. Art Deco lines. Clean. Polished.
Like the Meridian, if the Meridian had serious money and fewer ghosts.
Before Mom had even switched off the engine, Ellie was already outside waiting.
That helped.
Just seeing her there—normal, easy—made the whole place feel slightly less like I’d walked into the wrong version of Meridia Falls.
Then I saw him.
The mayor.
Standing just behind her.
Watching.
Not intimidating exactly.
Just… very there.
“Joseph,” he said.
Not Mayor.
Joseph.
Right.
Mom lit up instantly. Full performance mode. Smiles. That slightly too-bright tone she uses when she’s trying to sound effortless.
Painful.
I mostly stood there trying to take up less space, which is harder than it sounds when everything around you feels polished on purpose.
But the weird part wasn’t him.
It was her.
The feeling that this wasn’t the first time.
I don’t have proof of that. Nothing solid. But something in the way she looked at him—and the way he responded—felt familiar enough to make me notice.
Which feels like a problem for future me.
Not today.
After a few minutes of painfully polite conversation, Ellie glanced at me.
“Come on.”
Best sentence of the day.
Drawn Close
Her house is…
Okay. Yeah.
It’s a lot.
Not in a cold, museum way. More like everything’s been chosen on purpose. Art Deco everywhere. Bigger than anything I’m used to, and somehow still casual about having a pool overlooking the sea.
No big deal.
I tried not to stare.
Failed.
We cut through the kitchen on the way upstairs, and that’s where I met her sister.
Felicia.
Older. Red hair. Same face structure as Ellie, just sharper. Dressed all in black, like she’d taken Ellie and pushed her fully into goth mode.
She was halfway through making something—toast, maybe—and gave me a quick once-over that somehow felt more accurate than anything anyone had said all day.
“Penny,” Ellie said, like a soft introduction.
Felicia nodded once. “Yeah. I figured.”
That was it.
No interrogation. No awkward small talk. Just… processed and filed.
Which, honestly, I respected.
Then Ellie grabbed my hand and pulled me upstairs before I could overthink it.
Best decision of the day.
Her room—
That was her.
Pink. Fully committed. No apology. The kind of soft, perfect, almost too put-together space that looks like it belongs on someone’s Instagram.
Drapes over the bed. Light, floaty, princess-level commitment.
And then the rebellion.
Doctor Who posters. Star Wars. Star Trek. Harry Potter. Collectibles tucked into shelves like they’d quietly claimed territory.
None of it matched.
All of it worked.
“Welcome,” she said, like she’d been waiting to say it.
Which did something to me.
Then she asked if she could see my diary.
No hesitation. No weirdness.
Just trust.
So I handed it over.
She flipped through a few pages, slower than I expected, like she wasn’t just reading—she was checking something.
Then she paused.
“Can I have—”
I already knew what she meant.
“Yeah.”
I tore a page out for her.
She took it carefully.
Like it mattered.
Which… yeah.
It made sense.
This paper stays.
Even when everything else doesn’t.
“I want to draw something,” she said. “Keep it here.”
Keep it.
That landed.
“Can you do it now?” I said. “I want to watch.”
So she did.
No hesitation. No fake start. Just lines—fast, confident, like she already knew where it was going.
A dragon.
Long, coiled, almost moving across the page. Pink scales, green details—sharp and bright in a way that didn’t feel random.
Detailed enough to feel alive.
I stayed quiet.
Didn’t want to interrupt whatever that was.
When she got up to grab snacks, I looked at the page.
At the dragon.
At the space above it.
And before I could stop myself, I wrote:
E, I really wish this could bring you back to me. P
Simple.
Honest.
Too honest, probably.
Figures.
She saw it the second she came back.
Didn’t say anything at first. Just looked at the words. Then at me.
And then she kissed me.
Not quick. Not hesitant.
Certain.
“I wish it could too,” she said softly.
And for a second, everything else dropped away.
The house. The mayor. Mom. All of it.
Just… this.
Then she pulled back slightly. “Do you want to stay?”
Like it wasn’t a huge thing.
Like it wasn’t that question.
I nodded.
Because obviously.
“I don’t have pajamas,” I said.
She smiled. “I’ve got you covered.”
Of course she does.
So I texted Mom and told her not to come back for me. She replied way too fast and way too happily, which I am absolutely not unpacking tonight.
And just like that, I was staying.
Later we ended up on her bed, scrolling through movies, trying to agree on what counted as “safe” viewing after this week. Pizza on the way. Lights softer. Everything finally slowing down.
And somewhere in all of that, I realized this didn’t feel like escape.
It felt like balance.
Like everything else is still out there.
Still building.
Still waiting.
But right then?
We got this.
A movie. A quiet night. And then…
Personal time.
Which I’m not writing out.
Obviously.
But I am saving it.
Because this matters too.
Maybe more than anything else right now.
Friday, May 15, 2026
Secure Lines Only
Lunch was not quiet today.
Not even close.
Teddy was already mid-explanation by the time we sat down, which meant one thing.
He’d found something.
Obviously.
“I stayed up,” he said.
Of course he did.
“You’re going to like this.”
Which, historically, means we’re about to get dragged deeper into something we probably shouldn’t be touching.
Classic.
“What is it?” I asked, already leaning in.
“I dug deeper,” he said. “Into the USB.”
Ellie leaned forward. “And?”
Teddy looked pleased in that very controlled Teddy way.
“There’s an app,” he said. “Secure messaging. Calls, texts. Everything.”
I frowned. “Encrypted?”
“More than that,” he said. “Ruby built it.”
That landed.
Because anything with Ruby attached to it is automatically not casual.
“It doesn’t just encrypt,” Teddy said. “It isolates. No logs, no outside tracking. Nothing you can intercept unless you’re physically inside the system.”
Okay.
That’s a lot.
“And you can install it?” Ellie asked.
Teddy nodded, tapping his phone. “Already did. On mine.”
Ellie immediately held hers out.
“Not here,” he said. “It needs a wired upload.”
Of course it does.
“Tonight?” I asked.
“Meridian. After dinner.”
Done.
No debate needed.
Because if this works, we stop being easy to listen to.
And based on everything we’ve seen so far—
That matters.
Everything Drops
By the time I got to the Meridian, Teddy was already outside with Gramps.
Which is never a quiet combination.
Gramps was mid-explanation, arms moving like he was physically building the renovation in the air while Teddy tried to listen and clearly failed because his brain was somewhere else entirely.
Normal.
Or as close as we get.
I slipped past with a quick wave before I got pulled into a full breakdown of structural things I do not understand and definitely do not deserve.
By the time we reached my room, Ellie had arrived.
Perfect timing.
Teddy didn’t waste a second. The Truthweaver out. Cables lined up. That look on his face that means focus now, jokes later.
More serious than usual.
Which was not comforting.
He connected my phone first, then Ellie’s. Fast. Controlled. Screens shifting in ways I didn’t follow, which at this point feels like the standard Teddy experience.
“It’s safe,” he said. “As safe as anything can be.”
Important difference.
Then—
“RGN,” he added. “Ruby calls it the Rogue Ghost Network.”
I blinked.
Because that is… a name.
At least now we had something.
Or someone.
Or at least a name tied to it.
Teddy had us test it. Messages sent. Received. No notifications outside the app. No trace.
Clean.
Contained.
“From now on,” Teddy said, looking between us, “this is what we use. For everything.”
Calls. Messages. Anything that matters.
No more normal.
I nodded. Ellie did too.
Because after everything—
Yeah.
That matters.
Teddy glanced toward the window seat. “If the Truthweaver stays here, the install should hold. There’s a record. Something anchored.”
That word landed.
Anchors.
We know what those do.
So just like that, the laptop stopped being a laptop.
It became part of the system.
Part of how we stay ahead.
We ran one last test.
And that’s when Teddy’s phone rang.
Not through the app.
Normal.
Loud.
Wrong.
He froze for half a second, then answered.
“Mom?”
Everything in his face changed.
Not gradual.
Instant.
“What?” he said, quieter now. “When?”
Ellie and I looked at each other.
No words.
Just—
Something’s wrong.
Teddy turned slightly away, gripping the edge of the desk.
“Is he—” he started, then stopped.
Listening.
Then—
“I’m coming.”
He ended the call and didn’t move.
Just stood there like his body had already reacted and the rest of him hadn’t caught up yet.
“What happened?” I asked.
Careful.
He looked at us.
“My dad,” he said. “He collapsed.”
That word just… stayed.
“Mom called an ambulance.”
And just like that—
Everything else dropped.
Not patterns.
Not Clearwater.
Not anything hidden.
Something real.
Immediate.
“You need to go,” I said.
He nodded once and started packing, fast now. No hesitation. Just movement.
Ellie grabbed her jacket. I followed without thinking, the room suddenly feeling too small.
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