#here’s the worlds roughest draft presented as the final product

[horseshoe-bay-ledger]

Beginnings

Okay, so, it’s kind of a New Year’s thing but also… not really. Basically the idea is, what if I forced Nancy and Ace to kiss at midnight. I wrote it in like half an hour and edited it in way less so you and you’re expectations have been warned. It’s a bit contrived.  (Also please ignore the timeline issues—we’re post season 3 and The Curse TM is still in play.)

Horseshoe Bay is celebrating New Year’s Eve but a supernatural threat’s got other plans. It’s nearly midnight and the problem might require more from Nancy and Ace than they had accounted for.

———

“Back that truck up. You’re saying we have until midnight tonight to fix this or the ground might actually split and a ‘beast’ will emerge?” George asked. “Are you for real?”

“Mmm hmm, ‘Happy New Year’ to us,” Nancy said with none of the cheer this expression warranted. “Epicenter is in Stratemeyer Woods. Roots of a tree there. Ash tree. Found it before, and it had some symbols carved into it. The beast part was unclear.”

“Doesn’t sound like a good thing,” Nick shouted from the kitchen. There was never a private conversation to be had in the Drew Household.

George made a noise of agreement.

“That’s not a lot of time,” she added, quieter.

Nancy raised her eyebrows and inclined her head in response.

“And why the deadline?”

“Something about a hundred year cycle ending tonight and the relevant sacrifices not being made. You know, the usual.”

“Sounds about right.”

Rustling in the entry way notified them of Ace and Bess’ arrival. They were bickering about something behind the door but Nancy couldn’t make it out from her spot on the couch arm despite her eavesdropping. She did manage to catch her own name, though. Curious.

“You going to break the news to Bess or shall I?” George asked.

“They already know it’s not good,” Nancy said. “That’s why they’re here.”

As she looked up she made eye contact with Ace over George’s head. Her heart threatened to burst out of her chest. She did very well to keep her face from giving the game away right then and there. Or so she thought.

“Uh huh,” George hummed meaningfully which Nancy did not appreciate, drawing the sound out as she turned her head to follow Nancy’s gaze.

“Hey guys,” Bess came in with too much energy. Ace inclined his head in greeting.

Nick came back out with five glasses of orange juice which Nancy did not question even though she had heard the kettle boiling.

“Getting one more supernatural battle in before the end of the year?”

“Yeah, sorry Bess I know you had plans. We can always try and handle it on our own—"

“No, no, it’s alright,” Bess dismissed. “Besides, there’s always next year for Addy and I to have our midnight kiss.”

“Next year, huh?” George said, not unhappily.

“Yeah,” Bess gave a small smile. “I hope so.”

“Good,” George replied approvingly.

Ace hadn’t said anything but Nancy had caught his eye a few times as they both tried (and failed) to not look at each other.

This time though, when they each caught the other’s gaze something got it’s hooks in her— refusing to let her look away or get her breath back.

It was so painful, and Sisyphean, loving him now. It’s still not something she would ever give up or give away. Even though it hurt, even though she had lost count of how many times her heart broke over and over, she would not change a single thing about how she felt. She just wished she could ease some of the pain she saw reflected back at her.

Temperance’s cards had suggested one of them would lose their heart but Ace hadn’t lost his, and she hadn’t lost hers.

She thought back to her mum telling her the story of Pandora and her jar. But what stuck with her most of all was the ending in the version her mother told. Hope alone was caught behind, she would say, the lid closed so it could never escape.

But hope’s a good thing, the younger her pointed out one time.

Yes, but not always, her mother had replied. Sometimes we’re better off without it.

It was something she became to understand more and more every day. Hope could be the most evil of all—it’s that which kills you while you still breathe. Completely unbearable.

What she found in Ace’s eyes was just that: unbearable. But she also couldn’t find it in her to look away.

It took a second for her to realise Bess was asking her something, so she pulled her attention back to the task at hand and explained the situation.

She avoided looking at Ace again.

———

“Plan is to go out there tonight and prevent it somehow. We just need to figure out how to stop it.”

“I think I might have figured out how.” Bess had been looking through something on her phone while Nancy had been filling everyone in. “But there’s a few things we need.”

“Okay, what are they?”

“A lotus flower.”

“Sure.”

“We can probably blackmail Conor into letting us into Lily’s.”

“Or we could just ask Lily nicely.”

“Both viable options.”

“My mum has some at home,” Ace said.

“Okay, we also need eight eggs in place of an animal sacrifice,” Bess added flinching.

“In the fridge,” Nick offered like it was his house.

“A duck feather,” Bess continued to list.

“This is feeling like a real mix of cultures but sure. That’s doable,” George said. “What else?”

“And blood.”

“Obviously.”

“… of two tied to a new beginning.”

“Ah.”

“…under an Inguz rune,” Bess finished turning her phone so they could see. She zoomed in on a rune that looked like two arrows facing different directions crossing. The same one Nancy had seen carved onto the tree earlier.

Nancy showed them the matching photos of the trunk.

“Any more qualifiers on that last one?”

“No that’s all.”

“Well, let’s get to it then,” Ace said, swiping up his keys, “time’s a-wasting.”

———

They had divided and reformed again finding everything they needed to complete the ritual. Nancy wasn’t convinced by the blood they’d collected in storage at the morgue but it was the best they could come up with the time they had. There was a story that went with it about an elopement gone wrong.

The ground rumbled slightly beneath them threateningly as they made their way through the dark woods into the clearing with the ash tree.

As Bess instructed they laid down their offerings at the base of the tree. Nick went about carving a new rune under the freshest looking one on the trunk.

Ace stepped forward when he was done thumbing some of the blood just under in two clean strokes.

The instant he did, the ground stopped rumbling.

“Is that it?” George said cautiously.

But, almost in response, the ground started to shake even worse than before. It sounded almost like a roar.

“It hasn’t worked,” Nick pointed out.

“Obviously,” George added.

“It’s not enough,” Bess said, sounding distraught as the rumbling sound started up again.

“What do you mean it’s not enough,” Nancy said, only slightly less panicked.

“They have the blood what more do they want?”

“A new beginning.”

“How are we going to get that?”

“It’s New Year’s so maybe we could use that? Birth something new?”

“Like what?” Nancy shouted over the threatening rumble. “Are we talking metaphorically or literally?”

“I’m not finding a pregnant person and dragging them out into the woods,” George said, “even if we had the time for that.”

“Uh, what about like when people kiss at the stroke of midnight? That can be a first time. A new dawn. A beginning.”

“Very romantic,” George said. “Is that what’s about to prevent this ancient beast snapping all our heads off and running rampant? How are we supposed to pull something like that off within the next…” she consulted Nick’s watch, “two minutes.”

“I could kiss Ace,” Nick suggested, throwing out ideas.

“No, that won’t work. It needs to be to mean something to be a beginning. It needs to be a punctuation of something like the breath you take before you start to speak.”

“You should write poetry,” George replied sarcastically.

The ground underneath them, if it were possible, was starting to make a scratching sound that made the hairs on the back of Nancy’s neck stand up.

“Yeah, okay, so it needs to mean something in and of itself. Got it,” Nick said ignoring George’s bite. He was stressed but trying to remain level-headed. “Can’t just be a kiss.”

It all suddenly fell into place and Nancy knew what she needed to do. She wasn’t quite ready to admit the entire truth of it to herself just yet though. She was sure Bess had known as she had made the suggestion but she didn’t know what it would cost.

“Nick and George?” Nancy suggested immediately, desperate, knowing the alternative. Dreading it. “You two could…”

“That won’t work either,” Bess said hurriedly. “It means something but it’s not a beginning.”

Out of the corner of her eye Nancy could see Ace roll his shoulders as he’s thinking. She knows he’s figured it out too but he can’t possibly know it would be his life he would be sacrificing.

“Bess, it would be really great if you were in love with Nancy and were just holding out on us,” George pointed out, waving her arms in frustration.

“Yeah, no, sorry,” Bess said, eyes sliding quickly to Ace and then back to Nancy. “It’s not that you’re not—"

Nancy waved her off. They did not have time for this right now.

“Nancy,” Ace said, quietly and earnestly, calm and firm, cutting through all of the noise and chaos.

It was all he needed to say.

She closed her eyes for just a moment to centre herself and turned to him, meeting his eyes again at last. Her heart beating uselessly against her ribs.

Just the way he had said her name and how he looked at her now said everything.

It said, I know what’s going on.

It said, I know what we have to do.  

It said, I know what’s at stake.

It said, I know you.

It said, I know you love me, too. It said…

“I know,” she heard herself say.

Tears were coming now, thick and fast. She never even had the chance to fight them back. She couldn’t save him. She’d failed and yet she was going to be rewarded with something she had been desperate to do for a long time.

“But we can’t—,” Nancy half-hearted protested, her voice breaking. (The way she had said that, too, may just have triggered the curse in its own right.)

She was mourning a loss she had already suffered and was yet to suffer. It was entirely overwhelming and all she needed was to know the man she loved would be okay—but there was no version of this story where that was the ending.

She didn’t explain it was his life he would be surrendering. She didn’t need to, he already knew. He always had her figured out. Sometimes it was wonderful. Sometimes it was infuriating.

Right now it was both.

He said nothing else but stepped closer, his quietude started rubbing off on her as it always did. As he drew nearer she felt more and more grounded—more sure that everything would be okay even though it was about to be very, very not okay.

Strange how that happens even when it’s the last thing she thought possible.

“Okay,” she said, steeling herself. “Okay. Knife?”

Bess silently handed her a pink switchblade that was clean.

The tree was now perfectly between her and Ace on his left, her right. Wordlessly Nancy pricked her finger, swiping it over the fresh carved rune this time, tracing one of the arrows. Ace wiped the knife and did the same but on the arrow pointing the other way, also without a word.

He turned back to her and she found her hands clutch at his coat, probably staining it.

Words began to spill out of her. “I never wanted it to be like this. I—”

“It’s okay,” Ace said lowly. He was close enough now that he had raised his hands to her face, wiping away her tears with the pads of his thumbs. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”

But there was. He was just being brave.

“How long ‘til midnight?” Ace asked.

“Uh… ten seconds.” Bess answered.

“That’s all we need,” Ace said. “Are you ready?” This question was for Nancy.

She took a shaky breath and nodded.

“Three seconds now,” Bess said, somewhat urgent.

“I…” Nancy began, feeling as if she needed to say something. In this moment she came up short; she had neither the adequate time or words.

But Ace, who under other circumstances would give her all the time and space to figure it out, surged forward instead. He wouldn’t let her logic her way out of following her own heart. Not again.

She had stumbled back half a step but his lips still found hers, a hand on her back steadying her. Despite everything, his other hand on her face—just for a second—felt a little unsure. Then she kissed him back and it felt like she was letting go of a breath she had been holding for weeks. She heard far away fireworks go off in the direction of the town signalling the new year but even the sound of them faded away as all her senses were caught up in this moment.

And it was real. It was real.

It seemed like the ground was still moving but she was realised it was just her heartbeat thrumming through her entire body, utterly disorientating. She felt every cell in her vibrate with the rightness of it, with adrenaline, with relief. Nothing in the world existed but this.

They were tangled up in it for seconds, for centuries.

It was much, much more than a kiss.

But, in the end, it was just a kiss and finally, eventually, very reluctantly they pulled apart.

The clock read 12:01. The ground calm beneath them.

There was a weightless quiet as Nancy opened her eyes. Ace swallowed deeply before he opened his. And when he looked at her, she wouldn’t think twice about living in that moment for the rest of her life.

But, of course, she couldn’t. That luxury was never afforded to them. Reality was waiting for them both.

“It worked,” Bess laughed with relief.

Nancy felt completely relieved for just a moment, then the panic came in a flood.

The clearing was eerily quiet, completely dissonant with what was to come. They’d averted one disaster but there was a another one waiting for them now.

Ace still looked unnervingly calm. Her eyes didn’t stray from him for even a second.

“There’s a curse on Ace,” she announced immediately.

Straightforward. Succinct. Detached. As it had to be.

“Temperance left it there to tempt me into sparing her life so if I—“ she hesitated for the briefest of seconds before resuming, “when I acted on my feelings for Ace it was triggered, and Ace would die somehow.”

Ace didn’t even blink. His lips tucked into his mouth, making it into a flat line. Something in his eyes shifted but Nancy could tell this was more of a confirmation than a realisation.

With effort, she pivoted away from him and was met by the other’s reactions.

Bess had a knowing look. Nick had let out an ‘ah’ and pursed his lips. George looked sympathetic and on the verge of tears, which was the worst of all. But George blinked then and squared her shoulders.

“Come on, then,” she said more resolutely and lighter than her face warranted. “These woods aren’t going to help us save my back-up dish washer from imminent death.”

George stepped toward Ace. She gently pushed and ruffled the side of his head—Ace mockingly scrunched his face as she walked beyond him.

“Unless there is some wizard in them we can make a bargain with,” her voice was slowly fading away. “You never know with this town.”

Nick shook his head slightly amused, shrugged and said, “What’s another death curse between friends?” Before following George back the way they had come.

“I’ve done some of the groundwork already, I think,” Bess said almost smug.

“What? How?” Nancy said in disbelief. None of this is what she had been bracing for at all—a burden shared, a probable way out of this.

Bess turned back and tilted her head somewhat playfully at her. “Call it… intuition. Oh, and I have this…”

She handed Ace a small package she had tucked away in her coat. He untied it and found an annulet.

“Just in case. This should temporarily suspend the effects of any curse—for now,” Bess explained. “It’s only good for a day or two. Make sure it’s touching skin or it won’t work.”

Bess stretched out to grasp them both by the shoulder for a second and sauntered off after Nick and George.

For the first time in a long time, maybe ever, Nancy had a confident hope they could work this out. They would save Ace; her heart.

Her and Ace were left alone in the clearing.

She looked at him, her mouth open worrying over something she has no idea how to say. She was overwhelmed for so many reasons.

“Hey,” he said, holding out his hand, “it might be what happens next… but it’s not the ending.”

She looked out at his hand stretched out towards her.

She took it.

It was a beginning. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have worked.