The Maple Murders Read online

  Copyright © 2019 by Archie Comic Publications, Inc.

  Photos ©: 12 leaf: Benton Frizer/Shutterstock.

  All rights reserved. Published by Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  First printing 2019

  Cover art by David Curtis

  Cover design by Jessica Meltzer

  e-ISBN 978-1-338-56648-2

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Prologue

  Part One: Revelry

  Monday

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Part Two: Revenge

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Tuesday

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Wednesday

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Thursday

  Chapter Eighteen

  Part Three: Reparations

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Friday

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Saturday

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  JUGHEAD

  Riverdale: our town. Loosely translated, it means “the valley by the river,” and indeed, our town rests against the snaking, rushing path of the Sweetwater, carrying on its rapids the sharp, sticky runoff of maple-tapping season.

  Another thing the river carries? Secrets.

  If there was one thing we had learned since Jason Blossom first vanished, it’s that Sweetwater River has known a lifetime of secrets.

  Several lifetimes, to be precise.

  Our town was officially established seventy-five years ago, but as the founding families know, it was settled long before then. Our land holds centuries of legacy within its soil—much of it, we were slowly coming to realize, fetid and damning. The sinister secrets and bloodstained pages of our history books date as far back as the very first settlers themselves: from the Hatfield and McCoy–esque feuding of the Coopers and the Blossoms—cousin shooting cousin, brother with his own brother’s blood on his hands—to the decimation of indigenous people.

  Our town knows darkness, violence, and plague. Most of it brought by its own population. By people. If you’d still call them that, knowing all that’s finally begun to come to light.

  We were learning, we children of Riverdale, that echoes remain. From Jason Blossom’s murder (only one of the most recent manifestations of what could reasonably be called a curse upon their house) to the Black Hood, a serial killer stalking sinners.

  More recently: a local institution with a thorny past where more than a few of our very own classmates had once been imprisoned and forced to endure traumatic forms of so-called therapy. Gryphons and Gargoyles, an addictive role-playing game that preyed upon its players, driving many to compulsive self-destruction. And a newcomer with a promise of welcoming and acceptance, with a farm he presented as a sanctuary, had a following whose purposes were deeply unclear and wholly suspicious.

  All these cryptic and multithreaded dynamics wove back to the town’s earliest days, becoming the cornerstones on which our town was built. On which our folklore, our history, sprouted, twisting and coiling like a cluster of vines. Rotting foundations and shaky fault lines—that was the Riverdale we were coming to know.

  Our shadowy history comes to us in slow-burn revelations: that the modern-day rivalry between the Blossoms and the Coopers stems from a violent and deadly feud that pitted brother against brother. And the warring factions still yearn for—still demand—blood, to this day.

  That Barnabas B. Blossom massacred four hundred native Uktena natives to secure his own empire. That the native people have been forced to endure the violence and humiliation of defeat and displacement, not to mention the ongoing pain of near-total cultural whitewashing and a denial of their own collective birthright.

  These are the truths that have been revealed, layer by layer.

  And if the truths are hardly believable, if they sound more like legend to the casual historian? Well, the legends themselves seep even deeper, into the soil of our town, into our very bones.

  The Sugarman, for example: Cheryl Blossom thought he was a boogeyman, a demon fabricated by none other than her own mother, to keep her and her brother afraid and in line. “Behave, or the Sugarman will whisk you away.”

  Little did she know that even the darkest of fairy tales are rooted in some semblance of truth. That the Sugarman wasn’t one man but many, an endless continuum. That he wasn’t—they weren’t—a fairy-tale ogre but criminals.

  Criminals who worked for her father.

  Another campfire specialty: the Maple Man. A cautionary tale of a beast in the proverbial jungle. The Sugarman would steal you off, abduct you for sinister purposes. But the Maple Man? The Maple Man would devour you whole.

  Some dismissed the story as pure urban legend. Some took it as a variation of the Sugarman fable itself—what is maple, after all, if not another form of sugar? But many of us—in fact, I’d venture, most of us—hadn’t even heard of the Maple Man. Not until the festival. Somehow, that slice of our town’s spoken heritage remained shrouded in a veil of obscurity, skipping an entire generation of Riverdale youth.

  But all of us were learning: Though fairy tales themselves may not be real, the wolf is nonetheless always at the door. It wasn’t a metaphor.

  Not in Riverdale. Especially not in Riverdale.

  In our town, there is always an ugly truth lurking beneath the lie.

  Now, with Archie Andrews’s latest brush with danger finally fading (ever so slightly) in our collective mental rearview mirror, all of us—Archie, Betty, Veronica, and me—wanted life to be “normal,” or some semblance thereof. We wanted the life that Riverdale’s history books, its lauded oral traditions, had promised to us. Maple syrup on Sunday mornings and milk shakes at Pop’s after school.

  It wasn’t just the four of us, either. Normalcy was something every student at Riverdale High craved. Normalcy, and a respite from our realities: that our parents could turn on us, whether it was to disown us, to commit us, to betray us, to abandon us … or to disappoint us, yet again. That our teachers and others who were charged to protect us were, on occasion, the most vile predators of all. That evil was a many-headed hydra, and that the idea of triumph was more fantastic than the origins of the mythological beast itself.

  Triumph, safet
y, security—we knew this would never happen, could never happen. Our town’s past and present were hopelessly tangled in a messy web that would give us no peace in our lifetime.

  But still: We hoped. We held it out, a glimmer of optimism. That we could somehow, someday, find our way back to the promise of what Riverdale had intended to be. Riverdale’s history wasn’t all stained and sordid. Our town knew pain, yes: We were learning this over and over again, as our innocence unraveled in the distance.

  But Riverdale also knew revelry.

  And some of us—those, perhaps, who were familiar enough with the darkness to have made their homes within that waking nightmare—were determined to find our way back to it.

  No matter what the cost.

  FP Jones:

  So we’re a go to announce the Revels at the school today?

  Hermione Lodge:

  I’m en route as we speak.

  FP Jones:

  Gotta say, Penelope wasn’t thrilled to hear about the tradition coming back. And she wasn’t the only one.

  Hermione Lodge:

  The day I worry about what Penelope Blossom thinks is the day I voluntarily remove myself from office.

  Hermione Lodge:

  You know the drill—the time capsule was meant to be opened at Riverdale’s Jubilee. We may have missed that boat, but nonetheless, I think the timing is perfect to resurrect a happy tradition of CELEBRATING our town. And not one person on the town council could give me a good reason why we shouldn’t.

  FP Jones:

  It’s your call, Madam Mayor.

  Hermione Lodge:

  Indeed it is. And I’ll appreciate your support.

  FP Jones:

  You got it.

  CHERYL

  “Oh, j’adore!” I clapped my hands together, jubilant. “The Riverdale Revels! The Royal Maple pageant! What a delightfully OTT festivity we have in store, my darling TeeTee.”

  It was Monday morning, and we were poised, waiting outside the school auditorium, clustered among throngs of anxious Riverdale High students, all as eager as we were to learn more about the Riverdale Revels. Principal Weatherbee had announced this assembly in an email blast late last night, and we’d all been abuzz with wonder ever since.

  I could have done without the various and sundry sweaty elbows in my ribs, but I wasn’t exaggerating to Toni; I was absolutely dying to hear more about the Revels—such a fun interlude in our oh-so-quaintly small-town lives—and therefore, willing to be more patient and tolerant of the proles than usual.

  Toni, however, seemed less than convinced. She tilted her head and gave me some spectacular side eye. “I hear you, Cher,” she said. “Revels sounds like a good thing, sure. But—a pageant?”

  I watched her face while she considered it, obviously not enthused. She’s not really one for pageantry, literally or figuratively (opposites attract, after all).

  “Don’t get me wrong; I’m in for all the other stuff—a burger-eating contest? Fun times. Pie throwing? Sign me up. But seriously … a pageant?” She looked at me, askance.

  “I know, I know, it doesn’t sound particularly empowered.” I bit my lip, tasting Chanel Rouge Allure. “But Weatherbee specifically said it’s gender inclusive, which fits perfectly within the mission of our new LGBTQIA group, n’est-ce pas? Promise me you’ll at least listen with a truly open mind.”

  I felt a squeeze on my forearm.

  “Whose mind is closed? That’s a travesty. Did you hear that supposedly it used to be called the Miss Maple pageant? But they updated the name to the Royal Maple to match the pageant’s new ‘all teens welcome’ direction.”

  It was Kevin Keller, bright eyed as ever, looking every bit the earnest and stalwart do-gooder in his RROTC uniform. I gave him a look and pulled my arm from his grip.

  “Careful, please. My skin is not only as pale as fine porcelain, dear Kevin—it’s equally fragile. I bruise easily.” The curse of being a titian redhead for the ages.

  He rolled his eyes. “Of course. Sorry. There, there.” He patted my arm—softly this time. “But how fun, right? Quote-unquote ‘gender inclusive’ ”—he actually said quote-unquote as he made the gesture with curled fingers—“and I am all in.”

  I smiled. His enthusiasm would have been infectious even if I hadn’t already been all in myself. “Likewise, mon ami. Now all we have to do is get this ravishing creature on board with us.” I gestured to Toni, who still wore that coy expression of strained-but-bemused tolerance. (I knew that look well.) “Frankly, I’m so determined to ensure her participation that I’d give up my own chance to compete in order to throw my full support and attention behind this goddess.

  “You’re already my queen,” I told Toni. “It’s time the rest of the town recognized you as the royalty I know you to be.”

  Kevin looked genuinely shocked to hear that anyone would need persuading to participate in a pageant of any kind. (It was refreshing to have at least one like mind around.)

  “Wait, Toni—you’re not sold? But your dancing is on point—you’d have the talent portion totally sewn up. And obvi, you’re beyond gorg.” Now he seemed to reconsider. “Actually, I probably shouldn’t try so hard to convince you to sign up. Not if I’m hoping to take first prize.”

  “Convince her? Do we have another conscientious objector in our midst?” It was Veronica herself, resplendent (I could admit, albeit reluctantly) in a black, lace-trimmed A-line dress that would have looked better in red, and on me. (Beauty is truth and truth, beauty, after all.)

  “I don’t care how inclusive this thing is going to be; it still feels like a throwback to Neanderthal days, if you ask me.” Veronica was on a veritable warpath. And over something so silly.

  “So you’re saying you wouldn’t want to see Archie take his turn in the spotlight during the swimsuit portion?” Kevin teased.

  “Dude, that is so not happening.” Archie came up behind Veronica and kissed her on the cheek. “Sorry to disappoint you.”

  “Oh, my Archiekins,” Veronica said, smiling at him. “Always such a heartbreaker.”

  “There’s not going to be a swimsuit portion.” It was Betty, at Veronica’s and Archie’s heels, quelle surprise, blond ponytail bobbing, a flurry of dove-gray and millennial-pink cashmere. She turned to her hobo of a boyfriend, Jughead. “Wait—is there?”

  Jughead shrugged. “No one knows anything about this so-called tradition. It’s all more of a rumor at this point.”

  “A pageant is bad enough, but a swimsuit portion? I will not stand for the objectification,” Veronica said. “I’ll bypass conscientious objection and fast-forward straight to full-on protest.”

  “Uh, I might have to start an opposing picket line, in that case.” It was Reggie, on cue, leering only semiteasingly.

  I held a hand up to dismiss him, focusing my attention on Veronica. “A valiant thought, Norma Rae,” I said. “But I think we’re getting ahead of ourselves. As I told Toni, I think it behooves us to keep an open mind. I, for one, want to know more about these Riverdale Revels. Why don’t we have a seat and hear what our esteemed principal has to say?”

  The air in the auditorium was thick and humid, and the seats were packed to capacity. My Vixens had saved seats for Toni and me in the front row, of course (location, location, location), so at least we had the benefit of some leg room in all the chaos and squalor.

  Archie, Veronica, and Reggie were a few rows behind us, and from the corner of my eye I saw Betty and Jughead sidle along the edges of the stage, grabbing seats to the right of Weatherbee’s podium. Always so stealthy, those two—even when there was nothing particularly untoward underway. Betty had a look of extreme consternation on her face. I doubted it had anything to do with the lingering question of a swimsuit portion. I reached over and took TeeTee’s hand in my own, resting our clasped hands in my lap.

  Once everyone was seated and the chatter had mostly subsided to a low, unobtrusive murmur, Principal Weatherbee stepped from the wings of the stage and up
to a podium centered before us.

  “Good morning,” he began, his voice smooth. “Thank you, all, for being here.” As if it weren’t a command performance. As if we weren’t dying to hear more about these so-called Revels.

  “By now, you’ve all most likely read the email about the forthcoming Riverdale Revels, to be held this week, starting tonight and going through the weekend. We realize it’s short notice, but the decision to revive this beloved town tradition was only just confirmed as of our most recent Town Hall meeting last night.”

  “Principal Weatherbee—” It was Betty, rising from her seat and chiming in with urgency. “Why the haste? And can you explain why a tradition you’re referring to as ‘beloved’ is something we’ve never even heard of?”

  Weatherbee gave her a strained smile. “I understand that you have questions, Ms. Cooper.” He gazed out at the auditorium. “That you all may have questions. Luckily, we have a guest with us this morning who will be happy to tell you all about the Riverdale Revels.” He turned toward the wings, gesturing at someone standing just offstage. “Please give a welcoming round of applause to our visitor, Mayor Hermione Lodge.”

  From somewhere just behind me I heard a derisive snort that could only be Veronica.

  Louder than Veronica’s breathing, though, was the sound of Mayor Lodge’s killer heels as she strode onstage, her thick black hair falling perfectly over her shoulders as she moved.

  Mayor Lodge certainly looked the part of elected official: poised and calm at the front of the room. She took over the podium from Principal Weatherbee with utmost grace.

  “Hello,” she started, her voice loud and clear. “Thank you for having me today. And thank you to Principal Weatherbee for making the announcement this morning. And”—her eyebrows rose, as though she were only just remembering something—“to Evelyn Evernever, for her help in launching our revival of the Riverdale Revels. Evelyn was kind enough to volunteer her time to help us create the schedule, and she’s to credit for the document you all saw in your emails.”