xxxx
In a conservatory, Frank Sinatra was playing softly. Occasionally it juddered from the retro status of the record it was playing off of, but never so much as to distract from his old time melodic tone. Soft beams of light refracted perfectly across the room, the glass expertly positioned, leading observers to suspect that the whole room was constructed to entertain that ethereal aspect. The botanical centre pieces were, unsurprisingly, clipped to perfection. But then again, there was little else to be expected from the reputable Thornhill.
Halona took a seat on one of the offered antique stools, and attempted a smile in the farce of polite company.
"Thank you for taking time out in your busy schedule to invite me over for tea, Mrs Blossom."
Said lady smiled back in response, though it was stretched so tightly across her already thin lips that the outcome resembled more of a pained grimace. Penelope Blossom was famous for those sorts of expressions. Despite the traditionally warm gesture, her eyes remained as cold and unforgiving as steel. She gestured to the table before them which was sparsely decorated with modest morsels of what was probably the fanciest finger food that she could possibly fathom being presented with. In all her time meeting similarly wealthy individuals, Mrs Blossom was perhaps the only American lady to opt for a more English tradition when attending to her guests.
"Come, now. Afternoon tea is the proper way for us ladies to properly catch up. It's be so long, hasn't it? 2 years?"
Her words positively dripped with her own, unique, saccharine kind of venom. Two steaming cups were poured into priceless porcelain cups, and, ever the proper hostess, Penelope pushed forwards the condiments for her company to adjust the strong beverage to her taste.
Halona measured out the correct proportions for her preferred sugared sweet tea, never once dropping a hard gaze, expertly matching the older woman's.
"3 actually, I believe."
If Penelope had been more akin to something more human, she would've laughed at this moment. Over the years, however, her way of expressing her amusement was to lightly exhale through the nose with a smug expression in regards to whatever she found to be so terribly comedic.
"Oh, but of course, you would remember more clearly than I would, wouldn't you?" Pathetic, thinly veiled attempted insults were, admittedly, her speciality.
Halona raised an eyebrow (a week of living with Jughead had unconsciously resulted in a more frequent usage of her brows for an additional, if frivolous, dramatic flair). "And what exactly are you insinuating with that, Mrs Blossom?"
Penelope paused before answering to delicately blow on her tea, perhaps to appear more elusive, perhaps to add a theatrical pause, or perhaps to honestly cool the liquid. Perhaps even all three; the most likely scenario.
"You didn't think that we would catch drift of the gossip that's going around this town? I didn't expect for a young mother to forget how long ago it's been since her own child's conception. It was in this very town, after all, was it not? When your family last visited?"
Afternoon tea, ladies, gentlemen, and all those outside and in-between, is indeed an occasion for people to attend in order to catch up over delicious hot teas, accompanied by a selection of delectable sweet and savoury snacks. They are not, however, designed for one party to attack another with invasive and uncomfortable questions.
Halona felt her own mouth set into a rigid line, but she had the decency not to even try to pretend that she was attempting a smile. Tiny threads of anger laced themselves through her body, furious at how Penelope had tried not only to insult her, but to bring her son into something that she had no right in getting him into.
"Mrs Blossom, I would highly recommend that you keep your accusations about me and my son out of our catching up."
"Penelope, please," she said, placing down her cup on the coffee table before them. "We're not strangers." She smiled again, though this time as though she were entertaining the idea of playing with her prey. "Far from it I would say."
Checking the teapot for warmth, she poured the two of them fresh cups.
"At one point," she continued, eyes flashing dangerously at her over their beverages. "We could've even been family."
Of course. The little titbit of information Halona hadn't actually told Jughead. Or FP, for that matter. Halona quickly swallowed some fresh tea, counting on the scalding sensation to burn away all the nausea that threatened to come out. There had been talk between the Ridgemounts and Blossoms about potential marriage between herself and their son, the now infamously deceased, Jason Blossom. Thankfully, the idea had been shut down pretty quickly, due to Elena Ridgemount quickly intervening to remind them that arranged marriages were not in alignment with either family's preferred method of securing deals, and perhaps that they should stick with business arrangements.
Seventeen year old her had been thankful for that, seeing how Jason then was a pale, knobbly, sickly sort of kid, feeble at his grand age of thirteen, who spoke as though he had more authority in a room than he actually did. Present day her was even more thankful, as she was fairly sure that if she were to marry into the insanity that was the Blossoms, she wouldn't've been saved from their gothic horror. She was certain she would've fallen into complete madness, in traditional distressed gothic heroine fashion.
That had actually been the reason she went out the night she met FP for the first time, she suddenly realised with a start. Plucked from her subconscious, the glowing memory of her figure sneaking out to metaphorically escape the spidery prison of the Blossom family, and escape any more possible connections with the lot of them, burned with a warm familiarity.
Funny how things turn out, she thought to herself dryly, reaching for the milk.
"So imagine my surprise..." Penelope was still talking, smoothly stirring her tea hypnotically, her voice sharpening to an even harder edge than before, if that were possibly conceivable. "When I hear that you've been, not only with, but engaged to FP Jones this whole time."
Ah, Halona noted, spooning more sugar into her drink. There it is.
"And that you're working to get the confessed murderer of our own son out of jail." All pretence of an amicable conversation had drained away, with Penelope sat as regal as a queen in her own villainous fortress, looking down to pass final judgement on the perceived traitor in her midst.
"Imagine my surprise," she repeated, practically spitting out the words at this point.
Halona thought about her word selection very carefully, before producing a response.
"It is extraordinary the lengths we go to, to keep our loved ones out of jail, wouldn't you agree Penelope?" There was no attempt to mask her sarcasm.
She didn't actually have any concrete proof or knowledge that the Blossoms had actually done anything illegal, as her pointed comment suggested. She didn't need to. The family were rich and powerful – of course they had.
Her words had a wonderfully poisonous effect; Penelope's face had faded to a hue reminiscent of an ashen grey, and when Halona was quite sure she wouldn't continue their conversation, she sat down her cup and stood up.
"Forgive me for rudely cutting our chat short, but I simply must visit the ladies."
With that, she strode out of the room, internally smirking at the look on the pitiful woman's face.
xxxx
"So Joaquin huh?"
"Yeah."
"Shit."
"Shit," Betty agreed, screwing the top of the nail varnish she had just been brandishing as Veronica wiggled her toes appreciatively, newly painted a deep mulberry red. Neither girl had been let off lightly to paint their nails, shock horror, without the expected militant drilling from Alice Cooper warning them both about spilling a drop of the stuff on any conceivable surface present in Betty's room.
Veronica hugged one of Betty's baby pink throw cushions, and pouted in her quintessentially Veronica way (although she would've tried to deny that she pouted like a child to hell and back).
"How does Kevin manage to pick the one other guy to possibly be involved in a murder to be his boyfriend," she sighed, flopping back onto Betty's comforter dramatically.
Betty poked the sole of her foot, causing the Very Dramatic Girl No.1 to squirm. "Oh sure, he definitely went up to this guy and asked 'just to be clear, my gorgeous friend wants to make sure, but have you been engaged in any murders lately?'"
"Well, this is why you do a background check on everyone you want to get involved with!" countered Veronica, rolling onto her stomach to examine her friend's dismal selection of nail polishes at a more preferable angle. "Especially if they live in this fucking dystopian town."
"Well..." Betty started, before realising that she couldn't really argue that their town was exactly as peachy keen as everyone (bar Veronica) pretended it was, so she settled for, rather lamely, "It used to be...nicer."
The brunette cocked an eyebrow, disbelievingly. "And the five star reviews are rolling in."
She held up a dusty rose shade. "Are we thinking of staying on brand, Miss Cooper?"
Considering her options, the aforementioned Miss Cooper hummed as she let her nail trace over the few glass bottles resting on her bedspread, gently clinking, before coming to rest on the newest purchase; an impossibly dark midnight blue.
"Ooh," Veronica crowed, clearly pleasantly surprised. "Well, she's just full of surprises!"
This earned her a playful shove, resulting in giggles and a half-hearted poke war between the two of them, and Betty allowed herself to revel in the good natured, goofy wholeness of the moment.
With murders and accusations buzzing around their town every which way, Betty had almost forgotten what it felt like to relax with a friend, doing something as arbitrary as painting nails.
In the soft pastel shades of her room, with autumn evening darkening the sky, whatever playful, current pop playing on the radio and chatting with her best friend, she felt probably most at peace than she had for a long time. Because even before Jason's murder, even before all the pestilence that issue brought with it, Riverdale hadn't been the idyllic haven she had so desperately wanted it to be. Jason had been the catalyst, but the town had been rotting for far longer than a few months. Behind every door, every lace trimmed curtain, every nuclear family cereal box appeal, there had been the unmistakable stench of countless despicable things. Putrid decay. Deceit. Buried truths. Cowardice. Feeble morals.
And she was sick of it. Absolutely sick, sick, sick of it. Maybe that's why she cared so much about solving Jason's murder. Because Betty Cooper was on a war path, exposing the pathetic characters behind all the town's dishonesty and quick judgement, and Lord help anyone who dare intervene.
"B... would you mind if I came tomorrow?"
So wrapped up in the deep expanse of her own mind, Betty had failed to notice how quiet her friend had become. Uncharacteristically so, with even a hesitant note in her voice and her pretence that her entire focus was on painting Betty's toenails.
"To talk to Joaquin?"
Veronica nodded. She finished her handiwork with a final glob of dark polish, and screwed the lid back on with, again, not-quite-so-honest intent staring at her task.
"Well, you know...just in case- with my dad, I mean." Veronica wriggled uncomfortably, not meeting Betty's eyes. "I...I just need closure. I need to know if me and my mom are welcoming a murderer back into our family."
"I know. Of course you can come."
Veronica blinked, and looked up, clearly surprised at the response she got. Betty had a strong inkling as to why, as well. It hadn't been that long since both Archie and Veronica had gone behind her and Jughead's back to search FP's trailer for evidence, after all, hut Betty could empathise. More than even she thought initially. Veronica just wanted the truth, same as her. And she could relate with the need, edging into near crazed hunger for peace of mind about the whole ordeal.
Veronica smiled at her, took her hand and squeezed it affectionately. "Thanks, B."
"Don't mention it." She held up a dark purple polish, and grinned. "Now, for fingernails, this or the red to match?"
xxxx
Even the bathroom could've been a miniature castle. Halona shook her hands free of the water droplets running down her fingertips, and mentally shook her head as well. When she had visited last, her mother hadn't found the more exuberant interior design choices of Thornhill to her taste, agreeing with her husband that there was a difference between money and class, and that the gothic family only had one of the two.
It appeared they hadn't changed in the 3 years in had been between her house calls; the Blossoms continued to favour flaunting their wealth in showy, distasteful ways. And the bathroom hadn't been spared.
She opened the door to exit the toilet, and crept into the hallway. Creeping was apparently the only way one could get around the place, as everywhere you went deathly silence would follow you. With a house as old as theirs, she'd expected creaking floorboards, groaning doors, maybe the haunting chime of a grandfather clock. Instead, she was presented with the wholly unnerving stillness. As though she had to hold her breath in an attempt not to disturb the air.
Prickles of a slight draught trickled down the back of Halona's neck, invoking an involuntary shiver, as she continued to stalk the corridor, deliberately taking her time, soaking up every detail she could. Particularly to postpone her inevitable reunion with a potentially filicidal family.
She hadn't put it past them yet.
Perhaps it would've been seen as moronic to voluntarily visit a people she suspected of murder, sure, Forsythe had certainly thought so. And maybe she was holding onto the fact that they wouldn't try to pull anything on her due to the fact that they knew her family, but she decided not to dwell on it.
Blind faith; why not. It was just becoming that sort of day.
Her eyes flickered around, taking in potential leads (is that what investigators did? Search for clues?), eyeing up the several doors she passed. A gentle try at the door handles revealed most of the doors to be locked, and she certainly hadn't come equipped to pick locks – namely, she didn't actually know how to. But then, she reminded herself, would they've just had a room dubbed 'evidence' and dumped all the incriminating items in there and locked the door? Doubtful was the most optimistic she could get.
Halona, feeling any sense of finding anything useful deflating pretty quickly, tried the last door, expecting the now familiar tug of resistance and soft metallic clink.
It glided open.
Halona frowned. Then tried the doorknob again, slower this time. It smoothly swung open again, but she felt what she was looking for the second time round. Twisting the doorknob, it was slack, and loose. She crouched down so that she could better examine the lock, tracing the knackered metal with her fingertip, uneasiness building up in her throat.
The lock had been busted open. Not by opened by a lockpick, but actually busted.
Who would lock a door, in their own house, and then bust it open later? If maybe the door was locked and other family members wanted to sneak in, surely they would do it as discretely as possible?
The room itself didn't appear to be particularly mysterious, just a standard study, if with the trademark Blossom exuberance. A lamp softly glowed in one of the corners, partially illuminating a pin-neat desk adorned with leather bound books, folders, photographs; again, nothing spectacular.
Slowly she stepped inside, watching the shadows curl and snarl around an ornate bookcase and a standing globe from the light of the hallway, as she pushed the door further open.
"They lock these doors to keep me out, you know."
Halona whirled around, heart thuddering painfully in throat, at the unexpected voice from the shadows. An ominous creak followed, as the unexpected voice revealed themselves. It was an elderly woman, slowly moving herself forward in a wheelchair, eerily blinking up at Halona revealing glass-like eyes, one baby blue in colour, and the other a misty white.
"They don't like me wandering off. Too many secrets, this house has." The woman cackled heartily, as though that were the funniest thing she'd ever heard, gleefully slapping the arm of her armchair.
"But Nana Rose always has her way of getting in! Those fools, thinking they've got the better of me." She became wistful for a moment, leaving Halona to still just stare at the woman, and desperately try to calm her erratic pulse from the unappreciated jump scare the crone had provided.
"My dear Penny..." she murmured, leading Halona to assume she was talking about Penelope Blossom. "Oh, she was ever so good, she was. Why, I still keep a photo of her close! They try to hide them away, of course, but I always manage to steal them back."
She's mad, Halona thought, faintly, sinking into the plush desk chair as Nana Rose rummaged in her pockets. Completely bonkers.
"Ah, here we are!" the crone proudly presented it to her company, gesturing for Halona to take it. Not wishing to cross the lady who had broken into her own home, occasionally talked in third person, and was talking as though her daughter who was sitting downstairs was long gone, she complied.
"My darling Penny, just a little slip of a thing back then!"
Three children were standing stiffly next to each other, two girls and a boy, all dressed in stuffy, formal clothes, only around ten years old. She assumed one of the girls was Penelope Blossom, but both were as red-headed and slight as each other, it was hard to determine which one it was. Whichever one wasn't her was probably Penelope's cousin, or something along those lines, seeing how they looked so similar. The boy was clearly the most bored of the three, a shock of dark hair slicked back in an unflattering manner, but it was very apparent that it was unlikely that he was related to the two girls.
She flipped the photo over, looking for any information about the time or subjects in the photo. Disappointingly, it was blank.
"The Blossom lineage is matriarchal, you know."
Halona looked back up to Nana Rose, who had moved so that she was examining the photos on the desk, lip curled in distaste.
"It always has been, and yet that buffoon stomps around as though he is head of the family."
Clifford Blossom?
"That's...unfortunate," Halona said hesitantly, unsure how to respond to the elderly woman spouting out random pieces of information. She sure as hell didn't know how to respond when Nana Rose suddenly moved as though she'd been struck by lightning, shot out and grabbed her hands in a vice-like grip.
"Don't let them get away with it! Promise me, promise me that you won't let them get away with it!"
Her blue eye and white misty eye were trained on Halona, burning with a sort of intent that Halona had scarce seen before. She nodded, if mostly out of surprise and to keep the old woman happy.
"I promise! I promise," she said hurriedly, even if she wasn't quite sure what she exactly was promising to.
The woman froze; not with any particular emotion, just more eerily as thought time had just simply stopped around her, and she loosened her grip.
"I would get out of their house, if I were you. They don't like Nana Rose sneaking around, the certainly won't like a stranger sneaking around. But don't worry!" Nana Rose mimicked zipping her lips. "Nana Rose won't tell. She'll keep your secret. But don't forget your promise! Keep that photograph as a reminder of what you promised!"
Halona nodded, quickly standing up and heading for the door.
"I won't forget," she agreed, pocketing the photo before making her way to escape from the ghoulish haunting of Thornhill for good.
xxxx
"I'm telling you, they're all completely mad."
"Funny enough, that notion doesn't come as a shock to me."
Despite her only audience on the other side of a phone line, Halona rolled her eyes. "As always, Jug, your dry sarcasm isn't really helping."
"From the woman who complimented that exact dry sarcasm just earlier this morning, I call hypocrisy."
"I said it had potentially comedic aspects! For certain situations!" Halona hopped into Jughead's truck (still technically Forsythe's, come to think of it) which was neatly parked in the Blossom's overly elaborate driveway. Since living together, just under two weeks at this point, he had grudgingly given her a spare pair of keys, as a sort of 'thank you' for his current living arrangement. She started up the ignition, and pressed the phone to her ear using her shoulder, freeing up a hand to readjust the overhead mirror.
"Amazingly, this isn't one of those situations!"
There was a deep, drawling sigh on the other line, and Halona had absolutely not a trace of doubt in her mind that the squirt was being deliberately overly theatrical just to annoy her.
"Thank God I have you to handily point out correct situations to properly be sarcastic."
She scoffed, quickly tapped the speakerphone button and threw the phone onto the dash. Maybe not the most technically legal action, but she figured she was probably good for now; Riverdale had truly became somewhat of a lawless zone, so to speak.
"Whatever, smartass."
Their strange relationship had evolved into something a whole lot more comfortable, thankfully, as Halona was very aware of the palpable awkwardness of two relative strangers living together under more than special circumstances. Sure, in her gut she knew it was the right thing to do, but still. She felt weird about living with the kid of an old flame who was only a few years younger than herself, and was sure that he felt the same about some girl who had boned his dad once.
But, as always, a little midnight bonding over bowls of cereal and only one partial breakdown, and they had both fallen into a familiar routine with each other; mutually exchanged affectionate insults.
"Where are you anyway? It's getting late, I'll pick you up."
"You're really nosy, you know that?"
"Really? You're trying to tell me that I'm nosy?"
"If we can get Pop's, we've got a deal."
"Seriously?" Halona quickly thrust a hand out to the dashboard to prevent her phone from going flying across the truck. Reversing apparently was too much for the stability to handle.
"Uh-huh." Over the phone, she could hear various tinny electronic booms!.
"Nice try, kid, I can hear the videogame. See you at Archie's in five."
"How do you even know the way?"
"Small town. It wasn't that hard."
xxxx
Archie Andrews, Halona decided, as she was ushered into the kitchen with earnest questions such as would you like a drink Miss Ridgemount?, was the actual living epitome of the American Dream. Except far less toxic.
Jock, athletic, build like a tank, respectable to guests and welcoming. He was like one of those poster boy in those little handbooks that were everywhere in the 50s about how to be the Perfect American kid, dimpled cheeks and said things like gee whiz! and the like. Even his teeth fitted the Perfect American image.
"No drink, thanks," she said warmly, shrugging out of her coat. "Jughead should take long collecting his things."
Archie raised his eyebrows. It was only then she noticed the tiny scar in between them. Probably received saving a cat from a tree, or whatever other Pleasantville shenanigans she could fathom. "You have met Jughead, right?"
She laughed, unwrapping her scarf from around her neck. "Point taken."
Archie smiled. He was most likely the only citizen in the whole town wasn't particularly bothered that FP's fiancée had mysteriously materialised, or was just appreciative that someone was helping his buddy out. He was wondrously clear cut that way, with the sort of moral of you did something good? great!
"Oh, you dropped something."
Archie had already dove into action before Halona had even processed what had happened, bending down to where something had fluttered out of her coat pocket when she had removed it. When he straightened up, his thumb and forefinger pinched the corner of the photograph the insane crone, Nana Rose, had give her.
"Hey!" Archie's eyes widen, almost comically. She imagined one of those cartoon lightbulbs hovering above his head lighting up. "I know this picture!"
That was probably one of the most unlikely things Halona anticipated coming out of that boy's mouth. "Wait, you do?"
How did Archie Andrews recognise something that she had received from Thornhill?
He nodded. "Yeah, my mum had a copy on her desk before she moved out."
"What?" She frowned, confused at that. "How come?"
Archie snorted softly, as if to point out the obvious that she was completely missing. "Maybe because she's in it? That's her in the middle."
Halona slowly moved her eyes from staring in disbelief at the kid, to following where he was pointing. One of the red-haired girls. With the other being Penelope Blossom. Which, again, didn't make any sense, as far as she'd heard via Jughead, the Andrews and the Blossoms were hardly very chummy.
"Do you know who the other two kids are?" she asked slowly, eyes flicking back up to him, gaging his reaction. He only shrugged blithely.
"No, they're just a couple of kids my mum knew when she was a kid, she grew up out of state."
So his mum didn't tell him. But why? Halona flipped the photograph over, running her finger over the back, as if willing it to reveal itself
Her fingernail caught on the smallest of ridges. A small patch of the back which felt unusually chalky compared to the surrounding card. Victory.
Scrape. Scraape.
"So...how did you come about this photo anyway?" Archie asked, as his guest had opted to focus all her attention on furiously scraping the back of the photograph with a thumbnail, picking up bits of a dusty white substance.
She showed no signs that she had heard him. Or Jughead, for that matter, when he bounded down the stairs and announced his presence by saying "What I miss?"
Halona had gone very quiet, responding by only pushing over the now-scraped clean photograph, revealing cursive writing that someone had tried to cover up.
Summer, 19**
Penelope Blossom, Mary Bolt, Forsythe Pendleton II
xxxx
Any comments, thoughts and concerns are welcome x
- Alex