by Micol Ostow
“Thriving?” Jughead repeated, shaking his head. “Fizzle Rocks. Seizures. Dangerous games with deadly consequences.”
She held her hands up. “My point is: This is what Riverdale is. What it has always been. This is our town’s legacy. Rot and ruin … And our people? They revel in it. So why not let them?” She smiled, wistful. “It’s so much easier than fighting it, swimming upstream.”
“Maybe for you,” Betty said, truly disturbed by what we were hearing, just as I was. “I still believe in Riverdale. I believe we can do better.” It was what she had said at the Jubilee, two years ago, and it seemed that she meant it, believed in it, now more than ever.
Mumsie’s expression turned tight. “Well,” she said, suddenly brusque, “if I were you, I’d reconsider your course of action. I have no idea whose bones were found in the maple barrel, and I have no idea how they ended up there. But I suggest you find your friends, enjoy the Revels, and put all this ugliness aside. Because what you need to remember, children, is this: It doesn’t matter who put that body in the maple barrel. There are plenty of people in this town who would do it, happily, if their tranquil existence was threatened.
“And there are plenty more maple barrels where that one came from.”
A tiny buzzing sound came from her handbag, and she pulled her phone out and glanced at it. “Now, if you’ll excuse me.”
After she’d left, I exhaled a huge breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding.
“Is it just me, or did Penelope Blossom just low-key threaten to have us killed and stuffed in syrup barrels?” Jughead asked, incredulous.
“I don’t think it’s just you,” I said. “And given how many people in our family have murdered other people in our family? I think you’d do well to take heed of her warning.”
“I’m on board with that plan. But wait.”
We all looked at Jughead. “What is it?” Betty asked him.
He pointed. “Pop Tate. All dapper and dressed up.”
I looked. “Adorbs. And?”
“And, check out what he’s wearing. Betty, look what he’s holding. Think of the torn photo. The necklace and …”
Betty gasped. “… and the pocket watch.”
“As fascinating as Pop’s sartorial choices are,” I said, cutting in, “I’m so over this. Can we please go find some freaking food?”
I turned on my heel, confident that anyone reasonable wouldn’t be far behind me.
BETTY
Dear Diary:
Pop’s pocket watch was some pretty telling evidence. But he was swarmed at the cocktail party, and no matter how hard we tried, Jughead and I couldn’t snag a private moment with him. It was super frustrating, but we weren’t going to let the rest of the night pass without any further investigation. Especially now that the Revels were drawing to a close.
“So what now, Jug?” I asked, feeling totally tapped out of brilliant ideas.
He shrugged, the expression on his face telling me he felt the exact same way that I did: lost, and confused. The pageant sabotage wasn’t related to the body in the maple barrel, and nobody seemed to know anything about the old Revels—or if they did, they weren’t talking. So when it came to the murder (or at least, what was feeling pretty likely to be murder), we were running out of leads.
One mystery solved, one to go. Why did it always work that way? Why didn’t things ever tie up neat and tidy, like in the movies? I knew Jug had the same questions.
“I don’t know,” Jughead said. “But Penelope Blossom was being shady as ever. And the Blossoms are one of Riverdale’s founding families. So, if we can’t talk to Pop about the pocket watch …”
I finished his sentence for him. “Maybe we do another round of recon over at Thistlehouse. If there were ever a time to snoop around without being noticed, this is it.”
“Snooping around? You definitely don’t have to ask me twice,” Jughead said, pulling his beanie down over his ears.
“I know.” I smiled. “That’s why I love you.”
Once we arrived, it took me about ten minutes to pick the lock to the front door with a bobby pin—an oldie but a goodie.
“It’s like if MacGyver and Nancy Drew merged their genetics into the ultimate sleuth-slash-escape-artist,” Jughead marveled.
I smiled at him and rolled my eyes, holding a finger up to my lips in the universal symbol for “shh.”
“Okay,” he stage-whispered. “But you know, we’re actually alone here. Everyone in town was back at the cocktail party.”
I shrugged. “Force of habit?”
We crept as softly as we could up the stairs to the second floor, and the various Thistlehouse bedrooms.
“Okay, so, we’ve got two leads in play, regarding a Blossom connection,” Jughead was saying, turning to speak to me over his shoulder. “Besides the family’s general history of nefariousness. One: The necklace from the torn photo we found at the library is the same design—if not the exact same necklace—as the one Nana Rose gave Polly.
“And two: The time capsule of death was actually a Blossom maple syrup barrel. Could be coincidence, I guess … but I think my feelings about coincidences have been made abundantly clear.”
“Indeed,” I said. “And I agree.”
At the top of the stairs, we paused, gathering ourselves. “So if Polly said the necklace came from Nana Rose …” I started, slightly tentative.
“Then it stands to reason, we start in Nana Rose’s room?” Jughead suggested.
“I think so? Who knows. Maybe we’ll be lucky, and there’ll be a jewelry box just sitting out in the open, with one of those damning crosses lying right inside.” It was a fun fantasy, for a moment. But when was the last time luck played any kind of factor in Riverdale life?
“Start in Nana Rose’s room for what, dear?”
I gasped and looked to see Nana Rose wheeling herself out of the bedroom, gazing at me with such intensity I immediately felt uncomfortable. Her skin was powdery, translucent, and thin like onion paper. I could see a road map of blue veins tracing a lacy, snaking pattern across her temples, where her pulse beat lightly.
She looked fragile, yes—every bit her age—but she somehow looked steely, too. Like a person who knew things, dreadful things—but somehow wasn’t afraid of anything.
“Nana Rose—what are you doing here?” I faltered.
She laughed. “I could ask the same of you, dearie. I have missed your visits. Of course, I understand. It must be hard for you. Since we lost Jason.”
Jughead glanced at me, his meaning clear: She thinks you’re Polly. It had happened before. He tried to suppress a telling smile: That probably made this whole thing a lot easier.
“It’s been a while,” I said, feeling guilty for misleading an old woman but unable to take the chance that was being offered up on a silver platter. “I’m so sorry. I’ve missed you. But”—I said, in a burst of inspiration—“I’ve been wearing the cross you gave me.”
A warm smile crept across her face. “The cross! How delightful. Oh, I’m so glad to hear that. The design has been in our family for generations. We give that particular charm to all our Blossom daughters on the eve of their confirmation.”
“So there’s more than one?” My heart sank. That definitely lowered our clue’s stock value, even if only slightly. There was no telling which Blossom’s necklace was the one from the newspaper article. Were we at another dead end?
“Oh, don’t you worry; you’re still one of a kind, Polly. And what have you been up to, lately?”
We’d wanted a chance to ask someone about the Blossoms’ history with the Revels. But then again—Nana Rose thought I was Polly. Was she even fully lucid right now?
I had no idea. The only thing I did know with any certainty was that I didn’t want to have had come out to Thistlehouse, to get this close to a break, only to turn back because I’d been spooked by a slightly batty old lady.
I looked at Jug, and, together, we decided: It was worth a try. She w
as right here. We probably wouldn’t get another chance like this one.
“I, uh … well, we’ve been busy at the Farm, of course. And”—it was now or never—“preparing for the Revels.”
Her face darkened. “The Revels,” she spat. “An abomination on this abominable town. It should have stayed an ugly footnote in history, where it belonged.”
“But why?” Jughead couldn’t help himself; he rushed to Nana Rose’s side. “It was a celebration. For a long time. But it’s not in the town historical record. Why does no one want to talk about its history? Why aren’t there any articles about it in any of the Riverdale papers? The only thing we could find—barely—was a piece on the Miss Maple pageant. A piece that had been destroyed.”
“Well, good riddance to that,” she huffed.
“Nana Rose, why do people want to act like the original Revels—all of it—never happened?” I asked, trying to keep my voice even.
“Because the original Revels were an atrocity!” Nana Rose shouted, suddenly vehement and filled with rage. “And that pageant you speak of? It was built on a river of blood and a bed of bones.”
A chill ran down my spine. We were so close. I thought of the skull tumbling from the maple barrel, that long, straggly hair entwined with earthworms, maggots … all the creatures that slither in the dirt. “What does that mean? Whose blood? Whose bones?”
Maybe Nana Rose was exactly the person we needed to be speaking with. Maybe the truth was that only someone semi-lucid would be able to relay something truly horrific to us.
She gave a deep sigh. “As you know, child, Riverdale was founded seventy-five years ago. But the settlers who built this town arrived much earlier than that.”
“Early 1700s,” Jughead said. “That was what Weatherbee told us.”
“Yes,” she agreed, “1701, or thereabouts. It was a different era. Primitive. Savage. People had … funny superstitions. Even our people.”
“Meaning, the Blossoms?” I guessed.
She nodded. “The original Grandpappy Blossom first came to the banks of Sweetwater River to make his trade in maple syrup. He struggled, at first, but after his first bountiful harvest, he and the other settlers celebrated.”
“The original Riverdale Revels,” I said, recalling Weatherbee’s speech at the school assembly.
She nodded again, shorter this time. “It was 1706. The settlers were so grateful, they decided to … well, they felt they had to do something. So they chose to devise a ceremony. To appease the higher powers going forward, to ensure that the taps wouldn’t run dry, ever again.”
“Nana Rose, what was the ceremony?” I asked, dread forming a block of ice in my belly. I doubted it was something great and harmless. Unwittingly, I clenched my hands so tightly I felt an immediate stinging in my palms from where my fingernails had broken the skin.
“Like I say, our forefathers were … a superstitious group. They thought what might be needed was … a sacrifice.”
I clapped my hands over my mouth in horror, tears springing to my eyes. “A sacrifice?” I echoed, unable to believe the words coming out of my mouth.
“To appease the powers that be, just as I told you,” she said. She was short, matter-of-fact.
“Let me guess,” Jughead said. “They’d find the prettiest virgin in town?” He exhaled, long. “Fun times.”
“They held a … contest of sorts.”
I could barely breathe. “Like a pageant.”
“Well, you could call it that, dearie. Of a sort, in any case. A small group of local girls would be gathered, rounded up every few years. The elder settlers—they would be considered the town council, I suppose, in modern times—would select one of the young women—the most innocent, most pure of heart, yes. She would be their tribute. It was considered a great honor.”
My stomach seized. “A great honor?” I repeated slowly. “To be murdered and crammed into a maple barrel?”
“Maple barrel? Where are you getting that from, sweet Polly? No, these girls were hanged. From that large maple, the resplendent one just in the center of the clearing beyond Fox Forest. After the hanging, they’d be buried beneath the tree.”
I knew the tree she was talking about. It was stunning: towering higher and thicker than any other around for miles. I felt queasy, thinking about what it had been thriving on for so many years. My vision tunneled, and the room went dark. Blood rushed to my ears.
A young girl … every few years. Sentenced to her death, and hung from a tree in Fox Forest? How many … ?
It was more gruesome than I could ever have imagined. “Sacrifice?” I echoed, numb. She nodded.
“How?” Jughead asked when he could manage to speak again. “I mean, we’re talking about … something like, what? Fifty girls, over the years. Just vanished. So how was this happening and no one in the town was doing anything to stop it? How did no one notice?”
Nana Rose regarded him with frank curiosity. “Notice? They all noticed, of course. You seem to be missing one simple fact: They were all a part of it. All our citizens, all our neighbors. There was nothing to stop, you see.”
“But …” I was still struggling to put the pieces together. “These girls, these”—I choked the word out—“these sacrifices … they had families, people who cared about them. Someone in their lives who would notice they were …” I trailed off, already knowing where this was going, what her answer would be.
“Child,” she said, softly chiding me, “you come from a world of ViewTube and SpaceTime. You can’t imagine how different it was then. When the Revels first started, it was an easy enough plan to execute, with the whole of the town complicit. Witch trials had mostly subsided by the 1700s, of course, but they weren’t completely gone from consciousness. And it was believed that there were several covens settled nearby, hiding in plain sight, so to speak. In the area we know today as Greendale. It was easy enough to vilify young women.”
“The more things change …” Jughead muttered.
But I didn’t have time for that now. “So the girls …” I said, pushing.
“Ah, yes. Our ancestors had help there. It was a nunnery, one which bore only the faintest resemblance to the one you knew.”
“The Sisters of Quiet Mercy,” I breathed.
“Yes, although they hadn’t yet adopted that name for their church at the time. They found orphans, girls who had slipped through the cracks. Girls who wouldn’t be missed. Devout girls, even amid a time of dark arts and alleged witchcraft.”
“Nuns. Fed the town human sacrifices?” Jughead asked.
She gave a small shrug. “As time went on, it did become more of a challenge to keep the girls aligned with the town’s vision.”
“I’ll bet,” Jughead said.
“It was the Blossoms who kept their doors open with our financial generosity—which in turn led to a more amenable attitude on their part.”
“When did it stop?” I asked.
“The practice was abolished right before the Civil War, with the arrival of a so-called progressive mayor—though he wouldn’t have been called mayor then. Theodosius Little. Surely you learned about him in civics class?”
“What?” I was delirious. “Oh, uh, yes.” Hazy details floated in the back of my mind, slippery as fish. I dimly recalled one specific point, from the photo we’d seen at Pop’s earlier in the week, back when the Revels had first been announced. That felt like ages, a lifetime, ago now. My head spun just thinking about everything that had happened since that day. “His family and the Tate family were old friends, right?
“Yes, that’s the one. It was his initiative, to put an end to the ‘revelry,’ but by all accounts, he didn’t meet much resistance. Most felt it was about time. The revels were replaced by an actual pageant and a simpler, happier festival. To keep the tradition of celebrating our harvest alive.”
“Wait,” Jughead said, his eyes sparkling as he thought it through. “The Miss Maple pageant was actually a reboot of a tradition of virgin sacri
fice?”
“Exactly, dearie. A revival, as my generation would say.” She gave a coy, girlish smile, endearing even though it was at odds with her whole general countenance.
Jughead pulled off his beanie and ran his fingers through his hair, looking manic and totally taken aback. “Veronica really wasn’t wrong about the misogynistic undertones of this event,” he muttered, more to himself than anyone else.
“But …” I was still struggling to put the pieces of this utterly insane story together. “The new festival, and the pageant, too. That was completely excised from all the local history books, erased. Why?”
“Hmm.” Nana Rose squinted, concentrating. “Oh yes! The Revels were abolished in 1941, along with the Miss Maple pageant, when the town was officially founded. Another one of those so-called modern mayors—he didn’t want any reminder of our town’s sordid past. That’s what the time capsule was for—to bury the past, metaphorically speaking. Although it seems someone did take it literally.” Nana Rose giggled, a sound that was totally jarring within the context of our horrifying conversation.
“And they left it for others to puzzle out, seventy-five years later. That is some hard-core passing of the buck,” Jughead said.
“Many were opposed to abolishing the pageant,” Nana Rose explained. “The time capsule was a bone to throw—that if we were ending the tradition, we would go out on a bit of a bang, you know. Leave a legacy for future generations.”
I exhaled. “Well, that you definitely did.”
“Clearly the Revels have always been fraught with great controversy. Not even our family could escape its toxic reach.” She peered at me, the milky blue of her cataract-covered eyes so laser sharp I felt myself taking a step back from her.
“I myself never had the chance to compete in the pageant,” she said, sounding mournful at the thought. “But it was the source of an enormous conflict for my cousins Adelaide and Emmaline Blossom. They were twins, great beauties. Both considered top contenders to win the crown. Then Emmaline had a … tryst with a traveling salesman. When it was discovered, her reputation was irrevocably tarnished.” Nana Rose looked down, clearly shaken by the memory. “The two sisters quarreled, and Adelaide turned on Emmaline. She was run out of town. The two sisters never repaired that rift. It was tragic.”
