The Monday before the Harvest Moon Ball arrived with a chill in the air and a hum of anticipation beneath the halls of Ravenshade High. It crept in like a whisper, stirring the fallen leaves along the sidewalk and threading through the open bus doors with a promise of something just a little off-kilter.
Elle stepped off the bus and into a corridor that had transformed overnight. Posters shimmered along the walls — glittering paper moons, curling gold script, silhouettes of dancers surrounded by spiraling leaves.
Harvest Moon Ball – This Friday at 7PM in the Gym
The words were everywhere: taped to bulletin boards, pinned on lockers, even stretched across the doors of the cafeteria. Someone had drawn a tiny ghost in a tuxedo on one sign, holding a leaf-shaped corsage in his floaty little hand. It was trying too hard to be cute. It almost worked.
As she passed beneath the shadow of a paper crescent moon, the intercom crackled to life with a sharp buzz.
“Reminder to all students,” came the voice of Principal Harrow, too chipper for a Monday morning, “tickets for the Harvest Moon Ball are still on sale during lunch. Come celebrate the season and make some magical memories under the moonlight!”
Elle rolled her eyes but couldn’t help the faint tug at the corner of her mouth.
Magical memories. Right.
She moved toward locker — 237, still cloaked in faded yellow tape like a crime scene that had been forgotten but not forgiven — and felt the shift in the air before she noticed the eyes. Students glanced her way, some subtle, some not, then bent toward each other in whispered fragments. She didn’t meet their gazes. Instead, she turned down the hall and spun the dial on the combination of her temporary locker with practiced indifference.
“You going to the dance?”
Elle jumped, heart jolting. Luke stood beside her like he’d simply stepped out of the shadows, backpack slung carelessly over one shoulder, hair damp and unruly from his morning shower. He smelled like soap and cinnamon gum.
“Geez, warn me next time,” she said, closing her locker with a metallic clank.
He grinned, all sunshine and dimples. “So… are you?”
“I don’t know.” She shrugged, suddenly aware of how heavy her own voice sounded. “Doesn’t really feel like my thing.”
Luke tilted his head, studying her with that maddening gentleness. “Come on. You’ve been dealing with way too much creepy mirror nonsense lately. You need one night to not think about weird symbols or haunted lockers or foggy windows.”
She snorted. “That’s not exactly how I’d put it.”
“Well, I’m going. I have a suit. And a pumpkin-shaped boutonniere. Just sayin’.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, suspicious. “Are you… asking me?”
His grin faltered — just a breath, just long enough to feel — before returning, softer around the edges. “I mean, if you’re going. As friends. Obviously. But if you’re not… I might just cry into the punch bowl all night.”
Elle laughed, a surprised kind of laugh that cracked something open in her chest. Warmth spilled in. Real and sudden.
“Fine. You’ve convinced me.”
“Victory!” he declared, throwing a fist in the air. “I’ll pick you up at seven.”
They walked to the homeroom side by side, shoulders nearly brushing. But the moment they crossed the threshold, Elle felt it again — the shift.
Like the air had tilted slightly. Like something had slipped out of place without a sound.
Ashriel was already there, sitting by the window, his face half-shadowed by the angle of the rising light. His dark hair fell just past his collar, unruly and soft-looking, though nothing about him ever felt soft. He wore black — always black — but today it looked sharper somehow, more like an intention than an absence. The light barely clung to him. The shadows, on the other hand, seemed to approve.
Three girls lingered near his desk, too close, their giggles shrill and fluttering like moths around a flame.
“Hey, Ashriel,” one of them said, twirling her hair. “Are you going to the Harvest Moon Ball?”
He didn’t answer.
Another tried. “You’d look amazing in a suit. You could totally win King if you—”
“I’m not interested,” he said, voice flat and final. He didn’t turn. Didn’t blink. Just kept looking out the window, like the sky held better company.
The girls exchanged looks, then drifted away in a flurry of wounded pride and cheap perfume.
Elle slid into her seat. She didn’t mean to look.
But Ashriel’s eyes met hers for a single heartbeat.
Dark. Direct. Unreadable.
Then, like fog lifting from a mirror, he looked away.
Her heart kicked against her ribs, loud enough that she swore someone might hear it.
The rest of the day passed in a blur of gossip and glitter. Whispers about dress colors and playlists and who was going with who circled every classroom like autumn wind. But underneath it all, something else stirred — darker, quieter, just out of reach. The mirrors in the bathrooms were still covered. The hallway around Locker 237 remained cordoned off, even though maintenance still insisted it was a “pipe leak.”
And every time Elle passed Ashriel in the hall — between classes, near the library, once by the stairwell — he wasn’t talking. Wasn’t laughing.
Just watching. Always watching.
And with every glance, Elle felt the dance drawing closer — not just the one on Friday, but the one she wasn’t ready to name.
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