Page 29 of Mate Night Snack
It wasn’t even about ghosts.
It was aboutthe town.
The way it reached into people like Mabel and Eliza—people who had gut instincts and curious eyes and questions they weren’t supposed to ask. The way itletthem glimpse something just enough to feel chosen. Special. Seen.
And then it erased them.
Erased them in quiet ways. In gaps. In “she left one night” and “she was always strange” and “maybe she wasn’t right in the head.”
Her throat burned.
Because they didn’t sound strange to her.
They sounded familiar.
Too familiar.
Her fingers curled tight around her pen as she flipped open her own notebook and began scribbling. She copied passages, names, dates. Symbols in the margins. Any connection. Any overlap.
She didn’t stop until her hand cramped and her eyes blurred.
And when the first tear hit the paper, she didn’t even realize she was crying.
It wasn’t fear. It wasn’t sadness.
It wasfury.
No one had warned these girls. Just like no one warned her.
They handed out bundles of herbs and cryptic tea and looked at her like she should alreadyknowhow to survive this place.
But knowing wasn’t enough. Survival wasn’t supposed to be a riddle.
The difference?
She was still breathing. And she wasn’t going to stop digging.
Not until the town coughed up everything it tried to bury.
That night,Katniss sat on the edge of her bed, fingers brushing the protective charm in her coat pocket.
Wolf fur. Silver thistle.
She thought of Emmett. The way he bled for her without hesitating. The way he didn’t flinch when she leaned against him. The steady beat of his heart under her ear.
He knew more than he was saying.
They all did.
But the town whispered louder and it was finally starting to make sense.
12
EMMETT
The forest spoke to him in ways most people didn’t hear.
The way a twig snapped too clean. The pause in a bird’s song. The rustle of leaves moving against the wind instead of with it.
