Sponge: Thanks for your patience! I'm traveling for the holiday, so I wasn't able to upload *right* at 10pm, so I appreciate your understanding! Enjoy! Warnings: dark/scary scenes, some *implied* Fraphne activity, and a reference to suicide and mental illness. Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Scooby Doo characters. They belong to Cartoon Network, Warner Brothers, and Hanna Barbera.
Chapter 12: A Different Story.
Velma woke up in the kitchen. She hadn't had the energy to go back to her room the previous night, so she'd just laid her head on her arms and slept right there at the kitchen table.
Her back was killing her. So was her head.
Probably from all that crying.
Blearily she rubbed her eyes and put her glasses on to glance over her shoulder at the clock on the microwave. It was quite early. Gray morning light was filtering in through the kitchen windows, accompanied by the soft pitter patter of rain.
Quietly she pushed her chair in and slunk down the hall toward her room, trying not to let guilt and shame overwhelm her as she passed by Shaggy's closed door. Had she ruined things between them forever? Not just their former romantic relationship, but their friendship as well?
She didn't have a chance to dwell on it, though, as she opened the door to her own room and froze at the sight that awaited her.
Firstly, her glasses – the ones she normally wore – were on her nightstand. She stared at them from the doorway in disbelief. She knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that they hadn't been there last night when she'd woken up from her dream. That was why she was wearing her spare pair right now.
But more disconcerting than that was the open Book of the Dead beside them.
Velma drew in a nervous breath and shut her door. She gave the room a quick once-over, searching for anything else that might be out of place, but saw nothing. The window was closed. There was nothing under the bed. Everything seemed normal, apart from the book.
With nothing else to stall her, Velma sat on her bed and pulled the book toward her.
She gasped.
Another new story had been written. It was entitled The Dream.
And it was about Velma.
x.X.x
Daphne woke up to the sound of rain.
Lifting her head from the pillow, she squinted across the room to the window, where droplets of water plinked against the pane. It was only a light drizzle, but it seemed to be the kind of rain that would go all day. She remembered that Velma had mentioned that it was supposed to rain today.
Daphne rubbed her eyes and sat up in bed, smiling ruefully at Fred's sleeping form next to her. He was turned away from her on his stomach, one arm dangling off the bed. She pressed a kiss into his shoulder blade before getting out of bed and grabbing a pair of bath towels. She slunk across the hall to the bathroom where she turned on the shower, removing her purple camisole and sleep shorts before stepping in. She took her time washing her hair, relishing the warmth of the water as it cascaded down her slender frame. By the time she'd finished and carefully wrapped her hair and body in the towels, she felt much more awake.
Fred was too, when Daphne arrived back in their room. He was still wearing just a white undershirt and his boxers, which he always wore to bed. He was leaned up against the pillows checking the weather on his phone, but looked up when Daphne entered.
"Hey," he greeted her with a smile, his voice a bit husky with sleep.
"Morning," she replied. She reached up to keep her hair towel in place as she bent toward the bed to kiss him.
"It looks like it's supposed to rain all day," Fred said, showing her his phone.
"I know," Daphne replied. "We're going to the library today, remember? To try to learn more about the Laddertons and Mayor Nettles."
"Oh, yeah," Fred said, recollection dawning across his face. "I'd totally forgotten."
"It's okay, I did too," Daphne admitted. She walked over to the standing wardrobe where she pulled out a casual flowy skirt. "The shower is free, if you want to hop in," she told him, considering her options between two lightweight sleeveless tops. "I'm going to get dressed."
"Do you have to?" Fred asked, half-jokingly.
Daphne giggled. "I bet the others will be waking up soon if they haven't already. We should get a move on."
Fred came up behind her and gently wrapped his arms around her waist. "We should," he agreed, turning her around and kissing her deeply. Daphne closed her eyes and kissed him back, dropping the shirts to entwine her fingers in his mussed blond hair. She felt the towels she'd secured around herself slip away, and did nothing to stop them.
What the hell. They could be a few minutes late to breakfast.
x.X.x
Velma was still on her bed, staring open-mouthed in fright at the book. How was this possible?
She'd read the story several times already. It had been quite a short story, so it wasn't some incredible feat for her. But it had been…shockingly prescient. Like whoever had written the story knew the real Velma.
In the tale, Velma was a detective who traveled the country with her friends solving mysteries. One night she had a dream – a nightmare – about a woman with a pale face and long dark hair. In the dream, the woman warned her away from an evil house. But Velma, as a detective, didn't listen, and instead went directly to the house to solve the mystery of why it was evil.
That was when the story had turned bone-chilling.
She and her friends – who in the story, were nameless – arrived at the house to search for clues. They looked for so long that eventually it grew dark, and Velma realized she was alone. She went through every room, looking for her friends frantically, but they were gone. Eventually she found herself in a dark, dank room with a mutilated dead body, one that Velma recognized as "the boy she loved." As she screamed with terror and sorrow, the pale woman appeared and slowly began to approach her.
The story ended there, her fate open ended.
It was the most terrifying story yet. More than Harold, The Big Toe, and The Red Spot combined.
And still the question pounded over and over again in her brain: How had this story come to be in the book? Velma hadn't told anyone about her dreams, or the pale woman. Except Shaggy. But as mad as he might be at her, Velma knew there was no way he would write something like this.
Which raised the question: who would?
It wasn't a witch. Or a ghost. Or a witch's ghost. Of that, Velma was absolutely certain.
But then who was it?
x.X.x
Eventually, Fred did get showered and changed into a blue polo shirt and khaki shorts. By the time he and Daphne finally made it to the kitchen, almost everyone else was already there. Brad and Judy were hard at work at the stove, flipping pancakes and turning bacon while Scooby and Nova casually stood nearby, hoping pieces of food might drop. Shaggy sat at the kitchen table scrolling through his phone, wearing a green henley shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows. Only Velma was still absent.
"Morning Shag," Daphne greeted him. "Where's Velma?"
"Like how should I know?"
Daphne blinked, taken aback by the hostility in Shaggy's tone. Fred furrowed his brow in confusion and the dogs exchanged a significant glance. Brad and Judy appeared not to notice.
"I'll uh…go find her," said Daphne at last. "She might still be asleep."
Shaggy made a noncommittal noise and went back to his phone.
Shaking herself, Daphne did an about face and went back down the hall. The animosity that Shaggy and Velma were showing for each other was really starting to grate on her. She had to try to make it better somehow.
She knocked on Velma's door. "Hey, Velm. You awake?"
There was a very long pause.
"Uh…yeah," came the reply after several moments.
"Can I come in?" Daphne asked.
There was another moment of silence.
"Okay," Velma said at last. Daphne let herself in just as Velma stuffed the Book of the Dead into her messenger bag.
"You're still in your PJs," Daphne observed, taking in Velma's rumpled appearance.
Velma looked down at her nightshirt. "Oh, yeah," she said, a bit absentmindedly.
"I think breakfast's almost ready," Daphne said. "Are we still planning to go to the library today?"
"Um…" Velma seemed distracted as she reached for her phone. "Yes. It looks like they open at ten a.m."
"Plenty of time then," said Daphne, feeling a bit uncertain. There was something odd about Velma's behavior this morning. She seemed skittish, jumpy. "Are you okay?" she asked.
"Oh, I'm fine," said Velma, perhaps a bit too quickly. "I just didn't…sleep very well is all." She reached for the extra pair of glasses on her nightstand and placed them in a pocket of her messenger bag.
Daphne jerked her chin toward it. "Anything new in the book?"
"Nope," was Velma's immediate response.
Daphne frowned, sure Velma was hiding something. "Are you sure you're okay?" she asked again.
Velma hesitated. "I…" There was a pregnant pause. "I guess I was thinking about how we never told Ben about Mai Le yesterday," she said at last. "We should call him later, right?"
Daphne sighed, sitting on the edge of Velma's bed. Honestly, Daphne wasn't sure they should keep involving Ben. After the way he'd acted with Velma the previous day, Daphne had started to get some weird vibes from him. Plus, things between Velma and Shaggy were contentious enough as it was, especially if his behavior this morning was any indication.
But Daphne also knew that the book belonged to Ben, and it was because of him that they even had a mystery to solve in the first place. It was probably best to solve it as fast as possible so the gang could enjoy the rest of their vacation in peace.
"Let's wait until after we visit the library," Daphne suggested diplomatically. "We'll see what kind of dirt we can dig up on the Ladderton's and Mayor Nettles, and then bring him up to speed."
Seemingly satisfied with this answer, Velma nodded. "I'll get dressed and meet you in the kitchen."
Daphne smiled and squeezed Velma's arm kindly before getting up from the bed and closing the door behind her as she left. Once she was gone, Velma sighed and looked over at her messenger bag. She felt as though the Book of the Dead was burning a hole through it. She wasn't sure why she hadn't told Daphne about the new story in the book. Maybe because she didn't want Daphne to worry. Or maybe because she'd already told Shaggy about the pale woman and didn't want to talk about her anymore.
But she couldn't deny that the story had really freaked her out.
She shuddered and stood abruptly. The sooner they solved this mystery, the better.
x.X.x
Velma arrived in the kitchen, wearing clam-diggers and a casual orange top, to find everyone else just sitting down to breakfast. She took the empty seat between Judy and Daphne, deliberately not making eye contact with Shaggy as she did so.
"Well," said Brad, doling out pancakes. "Sorry about the weather today. You're welcome to come to Ricky and Cassidy's house with us today if you'd like."
"Actually, we're going to visit the library," Fred told him. "We want to learn about the history of Crystal Cove and some of the families from here." Not strictly a lie.
Brad nodded. "That's a fine idea. Do you need a ride?"
"We can walk," Nova assured him. "It's not raining too hard yet. We don't mind."
The gang finished breakfast swiftly and bid Brad and Judy farewell. The rain was just a light drizzle, more of a mist than anything. It wasn't unpleasant.
"I think it's supposed to start raining much harder this afternoon," Fred said to the group. "So we should get as much research done at the library as we can before then, so we don't have to walk home in a downpour."
The route to the library took them down the boardwalk a ways, then through the downtown part of Crystal Cove. The walk wouldn't be more than ten minutes, but they did meet a slight delay as they walked down Main Street.
"What's going on over there?" Fred wondered. Through the gray fog, there appeared a crowd of people standing in front of Town Hall.
"They're reporters," Daphne replied as they drew closer. She was right – a gaggle of reporters stood in front of the building, each holding personal recording devices and a pad of paper, presumably for note-taking. On the steps leading up to the front door stood the mayor, Janet Nettles, behind a podium.
"Aye," said a voice near them, startling the gang. The large frame of Skipper Shelton sidled up behind them. "The mayor is giving a press conference. Folks are curious as to what's been going on." He shrugged. "It's a terrible, grievous thing, what's happened to those kids. The disappearances of Ethan and Gary – and I'm sure you heard about what happened to young Mai Le. With the spiders."
"Yes," Fred said.
Skipper Shelton shook his head. "Stranger things have happened," he mused. "But I reckon all this will cause our tourism to skyrocket, you mark my words."
"Mayor Nettles!" called one of reporters, holding up a hand. "Do you have any comment on the recent attacks on young people that have been occurring in the town lately?"
"It's truly a tragedy," she said, her voice magnified through the microphones on the podium. "Crystal Cove takes the safety of its citizens very seriously. However, it's unfortunate that this is not the first time something like this has happened. Crystal Cove is, of course, the most haunted place on earth, though we haven't seen anything this tragic occur in recent history. The last time something like this happened was in the 1800s, while Sarah Ravencroft the Second lived here."
Another reporter held up his hand. "Harrison Cole, from The Crystal Cove Chronicle. My sources tell me that Sarah Ravencroft's descendant, the famous horror writer Ben Ravencroft, is here in town. Do you think that has anything to do with the recent disappearances?"
"Absolutely not," the mayor said clearly, her eyes blazing. "Ben Ravencroft, though he may be descended from witches, is not involved in any of the events we've seen here in town."
"But he is descended from witches?" clarified the same reporter. "Could his mere presence in the town have been a catalyst for these disappearances?"
"What are these people on?" Velma muttered, casting the reporters a dark look. "They don't honestly think witches have anything to do with this, do they?"
Scooby shifted his weight. He thought it was just as likely that something supernatural was going on, but he didn't dare say it aloud. He knew no one but Shaggy would take him seriously.
Daphne sighed, gently tugging Velma's arm. "Come on," she said. "We're almost there."
x.X.x
There was no one else inside the Crystal Cove Library, except for an ancient librarian who was sleeping so soundly, Scooby was actually worried she had died. But then he noticed the subtle rise and fall of her chest and he relaxed as they tiptoed past her. The library itself was pretty small, and the genealogy room was even smaller. One tiny table sat in the center of the room, while much of the wall space was taken up by file cabinets and shelves of archived newsprint. An ancient computer was installed in one corner, and a sad understuffed armchair took up residence in another. The third corner housed a bulky, outdated microfiche machine, which had an "out of order" sign taped to the screen.
Scooby sighed. Not the most promising place to find answers. But they would make do.
They spent the rest of the morning reading and researching. Daphne sat at the computer and scrolled through reports while Fred flipped through a hardbound tome of old newspapers from the armchair. The dogs paced, occasionally glancing over shoulders or laying under the table, where Velma and Shaggy had been forced to sit, to keep them from strangling each other.
Velma could feel the anger from last night permeating off Shaggy like heat, and did her best to ignore it as they flipped through files on the Laddertons and Mayor Nettles. She was looking for evidence of corruption or bribery with the police, anything that might point the finger at them as the perpetrators behind the strange happenings in the town. But all she could find were business transactions, medicine patents, and election records. Eventually she felt her eyes glaze over. She was starting to wonder if they were barking up the wrong tree.
Shaggy was having trouble concentrating too, but it had more to do with Velma's close proximity to him than anything else. He still felt upset over what had happened last night, the way she refused to take the blame for the end of their relationship. When he was unable to stand it any longer, he got up and started rummaging through the drawers of the file cabinet again. His thoughts were elsewhere – namely with Velma – so he didn't realize that he'd been looking in the wrong drawer until he came across a familiar name.
RAVENCROFT, SARAH ELIZABETH II.
There were a few more files about various other Ravencrofts, no names that Shaggy recognized. But he pulled out Sarah's file and leaned against the cabinet to read it.
The first document that he discovered was a family tree. Ben had been right the other day – from the first Sarah Ravencroft back in Massachusetts to the second Sarah Ravencroft here in California, no women had been born in the family for two hundred years. Ben himself was not on this family tree, but it ended with Sarah II and looked as though it hadn't been updated since. Shaggy wondered idly if there was a more up-to-date family tree somewhere as he flipped through more documents in the folder.
Then he found something that made his blood run cold.
"Uh…like guys?" he said, his voice low. "I think I found something weird."
"About the Laddertons?" asked Fred, looking up from the newspapers. "Or the mayor?"
"Neither," Shaggy murmured, shaking his head. "About the Ravencrofts."
Everyone glanced over at him now. He brought the file over to Fred. The girls and the dogs followed.
"Is it this?" asked Fred, holding up the family tree.
Shaggy started to shake his head again, but Velma grabbed the paper before he was able to.
"Jinkies!" she exclaimed after staring at it for a few seconds. "Did you see this?"
Shaggy glanced over at it, wondering if he'd missed something. Velma was pointing to the top of the family tree, where the name of Sarah Ravencroft I was linked up with two people. The first was a man named Henry – Shaggy assumed this was Sarah's husband, with whom she'd had her son Thomas. But the second name she was linked to was "Hester Ravencroft (nee. McKnight)."
Hester's name was the one Velma was pointing to.
"What's so interesting about that?" Daphne wanted to know. She vaguely remembered Ben telling the gang that Hester had taken Sarah's last name so they could appear as sisters, even though they were more likely romantically involved. Perhaps that's what Velma was getting at.
"Do you remember The Hex Girls?" Velma asked.
"Like of course," Shaggy replied. They were Velma's favorite music group, and the gang had gone to see them in concert once.
"The lead singer, Thorn?" Velma went on. "Her real name is Sally McKnight." She pointed back to Hester's name. "I think this is her ancestor. It would make sense – the Hex Girls are from Oakhaven too, same as Ben."
Shaggy rolled his eyes. "Okay like, as interesting as that is," he said, unable to help the derision in his tone. "This is what I was trying to show you." He produced another document out of the folder with a flourish.
It was a copy of an archaic newspaper article from at least the late 1800s, given the antiquated typeface. But the article's headline was the thing that gave everyone pause.
LOCAL BUTCHER'S DAUGHTER THROWS SELF OFF CLIFF
"Jeepers," Daphne murmured, eyes darting back and forth as she read the article. "This is about Sarah Ravencroft. The second."
"I know," Shaggy said.
Fred frowned. "I don't understand," he said. "Didn't Ben say she was chased off a cliff by an angry mob? I don't see a reference to the mob here."
"They might not have put that detail in an obituary," Velma pointed out.
"I don't think this is an obituary," Nova murmured, jumping into Fred's lap and peering at the article so she could see it better. "This is just a news report."
"And a news report would have definitely mentioned the angry mob," Daphne added. "It would be a different story entirely. But from this, it seems like she…jumped off the cliff on purpose."
"Roes it say rhy?" Scooby wanted to know.
Daphne shook her head. "It just mentions Sarah being 'disturbed,' and that her family had no comment."
Velma furrowed her brow, brain reeling. Ben had specifically told them that Sarah had been chased off the cliff because the townspeople found out about her book. But according to this news story, that wasn't what happened at all. The Book of the Dead wasn't even mentioned in the article. Had Ben's family been passing down an untrue version of the story, exploiting Sarah's troubled mind for drama? Or…had this really happened and no one in the family had known the truth? Was it possible that Ben didn't know this part of his history?
And even if that were true – wouldn't he have discovered this article while he'd been in the library searching for information himself?
Without thinking about it, she took her phone from her messenger bag and dialed his number.
"Hello Velma," he answered warmly. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"Hi Ben," she replied, feeling her face color at his friendly tone. "Uh, my friends and I are at the library doing some research and we discovered something…kind of strange. Are you around? Would you be able to meet us here?"
Ben sighed. "Unfortunately not," he told her, sounding a bit glum about it. "I'm down at the hospital, checking up on Mai Le. I assume you heard about what happened to her last night?"
Velma nodded, even though Ben couldn't see. "Yes. She was out with Shaggy when it happened. I'm sorry we didn't call you right away –"
"No need to apologize," Ben said. "I figured you all were hard at work trying to figure out what had happened to her while staying out of the way of the police. They're here now, by the way, so I wouldn't recommend you coming by."
"Thanks for the warning," said Velma.
"Listen." Ben sounded thoughtful. "I'm just about finished here – I got everything I needed from Mai Le before the cops showed up, so I'll be heading back to my beach house soon. Why don't you and your friends meet me there and you can tell me about this information you found? I should be there in about ten minutes or so, and perhaps we could all have lunch together?"
"Uh…okay," said Velma, a bit taken aback. "Sure. Where are you staying?"
Ben gave her the address for the beach house, as well as the code for the front door. "Feel free to let yourselves in and make yourselves at home," he told her. "I'll be there shortly."
He disconnected the call and Velma looked up at her friends. There was a short pause, then she gestured to the file that held the newspaper article.
"You think we can smuggle that out of here without the librarian noticing?"
x.X.x
It turned out that it was easy to slip the file into a slim pocket of Velma's messenger bag and leave the library unnoticed. Especially since the librarian was still sound asleep, now snoring loudly.
The address that Ben had given them wasn't that far from the library, but the rain had started to pick up so by the time they'd arrived at his house, they were all quite damp. Scooby and Nova shook themselves out on the covered porch while Velma fumbled with the keypad to enter the code. The door unlocked and they let themselves in.
"You think he has any towels on hand?" Daphne wondered, shivering as she rubbed her wet arms. "I'm soaked through."
"Let's look around," Fred suggested. "He probably won't mind."
Shaggy scowled. He really did not want to be here right now, inside Ben's beach house. He looked around the entry hall as his friends went in search of towels. The house was a bit smaller than the one the gang were staying in with some other minor differences in the layout – the kitchen and living room were in the back of the house, for example, and a door to the right led to the room where it appeared Ben was staying. Shaggy definitely did not want to go in there.
Daphne did, though. She was glad that Fred had suggested searching for towels. While he and Velma had moved forward in the direction of the kitchen and bathroom, Daphne had ducked into Ben's room. She wasn't sure what she'd been expecting, but it seemed pretty normal. A large bed, neatly made, with a laptop computer set up on a desk nearby. A suitcase was partially hidden beneath the bed, and a large stack of hardbound books towered on the nightstand.
Daphne paused, then crept closer to the books. The titles on the spine gave her pause – they all appeared to be about witchcraft and spellcasting. A cold shot of unease pierced her. She knew Ben was a horror writer with witches for ancestors, but some of these books seemed…evil.
Daphne picked up the topmost book; a dark, heavy tome with a disturbing illustration of a screaming woman in a pentagram on the cover. She flipped through it, pausing at the unsettling pictures and gruesome descriptions.
"What'd you find?"
Daphne gasped at the voice and whirled around. But it was just Fred, entering the room with a bundle of towels in his arms. Velma hovered by the open doorway looking agitated.
"What are you doing?!" she hissed, drawing her own towel tight around her shoulders. "You shouldn't be in Ben's room! Have you no respect for privacy?"
Daphne laughed out loud – she couldn't help it. Velma had once broken into their homeroom teacher's house when they were in high school because she suspected him of a crime. As far as Daphne was concerned, Velma didn't have a leg to stand on. But her laughter died away as she remembered the book she'd found, and held it out wordlessly to her friends. Still fidgety, Velma entered the room as Fred took the book from Daphne.
Scooby and Nova appeared in the doorway next, followed by a rather reluctant Shaggy. "Like what is that?" he asked, jerking his head toward the book despite himself.
"It's a grimoire," Velma replied, taking the book from Fred, confusion lacing her tone. She flipped through the pages, her frown growing deeper as she read. "A book on black magic. I've seen texts like this before, back when I used to volunteer at the library in high school. But this one's…really really dark. Like there's stuff on blood sacrifices in here."
Fred frowned. "What is Ben doing with a book like that?"
"Research?" Nova suggested. "He said he wanted to learn more about his ancestors."
Daphne knit her brows together. "Sarah Ravencroft didn't seem like a bad witch," she pointed out. "At least not from the stories Ben told us. She was an herbal healer, wasn't she? That's good magic."
"Yeah but like, that was the first Sarah Ravencroft," Shaggy reminded her. "Didn't the second Sarah Ravencroft murder people by writing about them in her book?"
Velma rolled her eyes. Had everyone lost their minds? "Witches aren't real," she told them witheringly as she gestured to the heavy text she held. "The spells in this book aren't real." She indicated her messenger bag, which was slung over her shoulder and held the Book of the Dead. "And we know that neither of the Sarahs wrote anything in that book because when we found it, it was blank."
"Ruhhh…guys?" Scooby had ventured into the room after noticing the partially hidden suitcase under the bed. Something had drawn him to it, and he'd rummaged around inside it until he'd found something shockingly familiar.
A very old and battered leather-bound book.
Identical to the one that they had discovered in the wall at the Ravencroft House.
Sponge: Thank you for reading! I'll be taking a brief hiatus during the holidays, but I should be back to posting in the new year if not sooner! Please consider leaving a review in the meantime. Thank you!