The Serpent Queen

2.1

Dear Diary, 

I think many of us, maybe the entire town, had been hoping against hope that somehow Jason Blossom hadn't drowned on July 4th. That we'd come to school Monday morning, and there Jason would be. Or that we'd see him and Cheryl in a booth at Pops. But that was before the undeniable, irrevocable fact of his bloated, water-logged body, a corpse with a bullet hole in its forehead, and terrible secrets that could only be revealed by the cold, steel blade of a coroner's autopsy scalpel, or the telltale beating of a guilty heart. Last night, Kevin Keller and what may have been one of his random hookups stumbled upon Jason's lifeless body in Sweetwater River, the same night that I had stumbled upon my mother's journal. I had searched for hours, without a blink of sleep, trying to figure out what these symbols in my mother's journal actually meant. So I have decided I'm going to resort to the smartest person I know. Betty Cooper.

Cali couldn't shake the unease that gnawed at her insides. "Betty," she began, her voice tinged with worry, "something just doesn't feel right about my mom's disappearance."

Betty's brow furrowed with concern. "But Cali, the police are already on the case, aren't they?"

Cali sighed, her eyes fixed on the horizon. "They are, but they haven't found anything yet, and they don't seem to care too much about it. I think we need to take matters into our own hands."

Betty looked skeptical, her gaze flickering between her friend and the ground. "You want us to investigate? We're just teenagers, Cali."

"I know," Cali admitted, determination in her eyes. "But no one knows my mom better than us. She's your mom's best friend."

Betty hesitated, her uncertainty palpable. "Okay, fine, let's say we give it a shot. Where do we even start?"

Cali's lips curved into a faint smile. "Well, I found something last night."

Callista dug through her backpack and pulled out the journal from last night.

"What's that?" Betty asked.

"My mom's journal. Flip through the pages."

Betty began flipping through the pages of the journal. "What do these symbols mean?"

"My question exactly."

"Where do we even begin?"

"Well, my mom loved ancient mythology crap and stuff like that. Maybe the library."

"All right. I'm in."

"Betty. Wherever my mom is, or whatever she did. She didn't want anyone to know."

***

The fluorescent lights flickered overhead as Betty and Kevin navigated the bustling hallways, their steps carrying a sense of purpose. The faint echo of lockers closing and laughter echoed around them, creating a backdrop of teenage life at Riverdale High.

"Now that romance is off the table, I'll just say it. Are we 100% sure that Archie's straight? Because no straight man has that body." Kevin remarked

Betty shot Kevin a playful smirk, her eyes dancing with amusement. "Seriously, Kev? You're relentless. Speaking of bodies... Have you recovered from finding Jason's?"

Kevin's expression shifted, his playful demeanor momentarily fading as they approached the shadow cast by Jason Blossom's unsolved mystery. "Not gonna lie, that was a chilling experience. Sometimes I wish I could just talk about boys and not dead bodies. It was more traumatizing having to explain to my dad what I was doing with Moose at the river. Yet another perk of being the sheriff's son."

Betty chuckled softly, offering a sympathetic pat on Kevin's arm. "Well, at least Moose is alive. That's a win, right?"

Just as they continued down the hallway, Cali appeared, leaning casually against a locker with a mischievous grin on her face.