Chapter 24 –The Empty Desk** First week back after spring break, March 2027**
The flyers go up on Tuesday.
**MISSING**
**Rowan "Holly" Holiday**
**Age 17 · Red hair · Green eyes**
**Last seen March 22, 2027**
**If you have any information, contact Hot Springs PD**
They're taped to every locker bank, every bathroom mirror, every bulletin board.
Her yearbook photo (the one she took the day she transferred) smiles out at everyone like nothing's wrong.
The office calls me, Remy, Seras, Malik, and Vera down one by one.
Principal Hargrove sits behind her desk looking ten years older than she did last semester.
**Hargrove (quiet):**
"We've discovered some… irregularities with Holly's transfer paperwork.
Both parents deceased since October 2026.
No legal guardian listed.
No emergency contacts.
We're trying to understand how she was even enrolled."
She looks at us like we might have answers.
We don't give her any.
**Celeste (flat):**
"She was here.
She sat right there."
I point at the empty desk in the back row of first period.
**Hargrove:**
"I know, Celeste.
That's what makes this so difficult."
They bring in a grief counselor.
They have an assembly about "reporting concerns for fellow students."
Half the school is crying because Holly was loud and bright and impossible to ignore.
The other half is whispering about runaway theories, human trafficking, worse.
Malik stops talking in class.
Vera punches a locker so hard she dents it and gets three days ISS.
Seras's flames keep slipping out (tiny green sparks when she thinks no one's looking).
Remy and I walk the halls like ghosts ourselves.
We can't tell them the truth:
- That she died on a ridge fighting things that eat faces.
- That she's singing right now under the city with Al Capone and a room full of dead gangsters.
- That she's happier than she ever was alive.
Mortals without magic would never understand.
So we say nothing.
At lunch we sit at our usual table (five seats, four bodies).
There's an empty spot where Holly's tray should be.
Malik finally speaks, voice barely audible over cafeteria noise.
**Malik:**
"She'd hate this.
All the sad faces.
She'd tell them to stop moping and go do something reckless."
Vera snorts, wet.
**Vera:**
"She'd steal the PA system and play jazz until they dragged her out."
Seras's hand lights under the table (small, controlled, copper-colored flame shaped like curling hair).
**Seras:**
"She's not missing.
She's just… downstairs."
I nod once.
We don't cry in public anymore.
That night we go to the Ohio Club basement.
Holly is on stage in a copper dress, mid-song, when she spots us.
She finishes the verse, hops off the stage, and hugs each of us so hard our ribs creak.
**Holly (grinning):**
"Stop looking like someone died.
I'm literally right here."
**Malik (voice cracking):**
"They put up missing posters."
Holly rolls her eyes so hard the ghosts laugh.
**Holly:**
"Tell them I ran away to join the circus.
Or that I'm Elvis's secret love child.
Anything but the truth.
Mortals can't handle the truth."
She drags us to the bar, pours ghost-root beer that tastes real, and makes us dance until 3 a.m.
When we leave, she stands at the top of the basement stairs that only the dead can see.
**Holly (soft):**
"Keep my seat warm upstairs, okay?
I'll be here when you need me."
Back at school the next day, the posters are still everywhere.
I walk past one in the hall, reach up, and straighten it so her smile isn't crooked.
I don't take it down.
Let them keep looking.
The girl they're missing is exactly where she wants to be.
And every night, under the streets of Hot Springs, Holly Holiday sings for an audience that never has to let her go.
Some stories don't need to be told to the living.
Some legends belong to the Dead. The Next Day .
A Normal Thursday (or as close as we get)**
Thursday March 25th, 2027**
**Period 2 – Photo Lab with Julian**
The darkroom smells like developer and cedar (Julian's doing).
He's got the red safelight on low, prints hanging like ghosts from the line.
I'm supposed to be finishing my final portfolio, but I'm just watching Julian work.
He's nineteen now, pack archivist, quiet as ever, but his hands are steady as he agitates the tray.
**Julian (without looking up):**
"You've been staring at the same negative for ten minutes."
**Celeste:**
"Thinking about Holly."
He nods once, like that explains everything.
**Julian:**
"She'd hate these."
He gestures at the black-and-white prints of the ridge after the battle (snow churned red, claw marks, empty space where bodies used to be).
"She'd say they're too dramatic."
I laugh, wet.
"She'd demand color and glitter."
Julian finally smiles (small, real).
**Julian:**
"I kept one of her alive."
He slides a print across the table.
It's Holly on stage downstairs, copper dress glowing, mid-note, eyes closed in pure joy.
Somehow the safelight makes her look like she's burning from the inside out.
**Julian:**
"Proof she's not missing.
Just… relocated."
I trace her outline with one finger.
**Celeste (whisper):**
"Thank you."
**Period 5 – Chemistry with Remy**
Mr. Hayes pairs us for the titration lab (of course he does).
Remy's already in the back corner, sleeves rolled up, hair tied back with one of my scrunchies because he lost every hair tie he owns.
He grins the second I slide onto the stool next to him.
**Remy (low):**
"Hey, lab partner."
**Celeste (deadpan):**
"Hey, guy who was literally naked in the snow a month ago."
He chokes on air.
**Remy:**
"You promised never to bring that up in public."
**Celeste (sweet smile):**
"I said no such thing."
We spend the entire period pretending to measure pH while actually whispering about pack stuff and stealing glances.
At one point he reaches past me for the phenolphthalein and his wrist brushes mine (bare skin to bare skin).
The locket between us thumps so hard the beaker rattles.
Mr. Hayes glares.
**Mr. Hayes:**
"Tsatoke. Morau. Less flirting, more titrating."
The whole class snickers.
Remy just smirks and adds one perfect drop that turns the solution exactly the right shade of pink.
**Remy (under his breath):**
"See? Chemistry."
I kick his ankle.
**After school – Seras's bedroom (mandatory girl time)**
Seras yanks me through her window before I can knock.
She's in pajamas already, hair in space buns, room lit by fairy lights and one suspicious green flame floating in a mason jar.
**Seras (flopping on the bed):**
"Okay, spill. How many times did Remy blush in chem?"
**Celeste (groaning):**
"Shut up."
**Seras (cackling):**
"Spring Break ,mud and grass up to his very naked a—"
**Celeste (throwing a pillow):**
"HE WAS IN FULL SHIFT, YOU HEATHEN."
She catches the pillow, hugs it, grin fading into something softer.
**Seras (quiet):**
"It's been deep lately, huh?"
I sit on the floor, back against her bed.
**Celeste:**
"Yeah.
Missing posters. Empty desk.
Ghost best friend singing jazz under the city.
Ten thousand blood symbols in my head and none on my skin.
Remy saving for a car like we're normal teenagers.
Like any of this is normal."
Seras scoots down next to me, shoulder to shoulder.
**Seras:**
"We're the least normal people on the planet…
and somehow we still have homework."
I laugh, tired.
**Celeste:**
"I just want one week where nobody dies.
One week where I'm not bleeding on ancient clay tablets at 3 a.m."
Seras bumps my shoulder.
**Seras:**
"You'll get it.
After you finish the 8,000-year-old magical PhD, obviously."
We sit in silence for a minute.
**Seras (soft):**
"You know Holly's happier now, right?
She told me last night when I snuck downstairs.
Said the dead throw better parties than the living anyway."
I nod, throat tight.
**Celeste:**
"I know.
Doesn't make the desk less empty."
Seras leans her head on my shoulder.
**Seras:**
"We keep going.
For her.
For all of them."
Outside, the March sun is setting pink and gold over the valley.
**Celeste (whisper):**
"Yeah.
We keep going."
Another normal Thursday in the life of a storm queen.
Tomorrow there will be more symbols, more fights, more missing faces we can't explain.
But tonight there's just me and my fire girl, fairy lights, and the echo of a redheaded ghost singing somewhere under the streets.
It's enough.
For now, it's enough.