Chapter 45

Conclusion

The events of that Homecoming Weekend made their way into gossip that night, and local news the next day, and legend thereafter. Everyone speculated about what drove Adam to cut himself like that. Some thought he was driven mad by guilt. Others thought that Burton had given him hallucinogenic drugs that caused Adam to truly believe he was Heather’s source. Indeed, most Thunderbolts doubted that someone of Adam’s character would turn on his team like that.

When asked, Mr. Bates denied having seen anything at all on Adam’s bare torso. As to the viral videos and pictures circulating on the Internet, many purported that they had been doctored.

Heather did not tell anyone where she was going, lending more intrigue to the whole story. Her disappearance caused more speculation: after Melanie William’s expulsion, Melanie’s friends told everyone that Heather had gotten expelled along with her. Jared’s cronies spread rumors that Jared had seen Heather in one of the wards of his juvenile reform center.

Whether Heather continued to monitor these rumors on the social networks is unclear: if she did, she certainly did nothing to dispel them.

Perhaps the person who benefitted the most from the whole incident was little Ruby. Besides Burton’s unprecedented gift to her, Ruby had absorbed so much from watching her sister interact that she knew just what to expect by the time she made it to high school. Indeed, well into her young-adulthood, after she had become a journalist of her own, Heather would receive clippings from news articles, first from high school papers and later in college and professional publications, containing all the artistic photography of her younger sister.

Back at Orchard Valley, as the students involved in the incidents graduated and moved on, the story of Heather Primm decomposed into legend. Every now and again, people would tell an exaggerated version of the tale of Heather Primm, each time speculating on a more unbelievable way in which the heroine received her scar. And every now and again, a professional news article would appear posted on the alumni board of Orchard Valley’s library featuring the work of its most mysterious former student.

Years passed, and the legend of Heather Primm faded almost to obscurity, most often discussed at Halloween when, rumor now purported, Heather haunted the hallways as a ghost with her ghostly husband. It was said that her husband, too, had been a student at Orchard Valley and had been with Heather during her most trying times.

The ghost story found itself to have more credibility than it ever meant to, for finally one day the elderly figure of an English teacher entered the main office at Orchard Valley to complete some paperwork. Walking down the long line of principals’ portraits, she noted that one was obviously missing.

With her paperwork completed, she took up residency in the classroom at the end of the English wing at Orchard Valley. It was the room long ago occupied by the late Ms. Phillips. Faded on the wall was a quote that had been painted there when Heather was a student: This above all, to thine own self be true. It was a quote she discussed with her students almost daily because it was one around which she had built her life.

As she spent her twilight years teaching, her reputation grew, and many students hoped they would have her as a teacher because she was tough but fair, and she possessed sympathies far beyond those of any other teacher—especially for those students who were troubled. With her children grown and her husband deceased, she arrived earlier than most teachers, and she stayed later than any of them, always willing to tutor students in writing or lend an ear—even to students who were not on her class rosters. Her room was always bright and welcoming, and every once in a while, Ms. Primm would post a glossy article boasting professional photographs from National Geographic or a travel magazine on her bulletin board.

But as much as the students respected her, they couldn’t help but speculate about the faintest hint of a scar on her face. When asked directly, Ms. Primm would never discuss her scar, or the legends haunting the hallways of Orchard Valley. But when asked indirectly, she would offer clues to her former life in the form of wisdom she hoped to impart to her students. She taught there for countless years, never dyeing her whitening hair, and never speaking but the truth.

One year, however, early in June, Ms. Primm gave in to her students’ questions. She pulled up a seat to her circle of student chairs and spread her hands on the desk, a silver and ruby ring catching the light from the ceiling. She took a deep breath and spent the entire class period regaling her students with tales of what had happened at Orchard Valley so many years before. She spoke with passion, though the tale was sometimes grim. Still, her students listened without making a sound. And during that entire class period, not a cell phone vibrated and not a single student asked for a restroom pass. They absorbed the story and went out into the world as messengers, sharing their teacher’s experiences with a new generation.

That following September, Ms. Primm’s name was no longer on the roster of Orchard Valley High School English teachers. That same year, as the students trickled in to begin a new school year, they saw instead that a new trophy had been added to the school’s prodigious display near the front office. It was a broken obelisk, its main shaft standing upright on an ivory base, a golden plaque no less bright despite its age than the very day it was inscribed. On the red velvet beneath the trophy lay the broken tip of the obelisk. It can still be seen there to this day. Against the scarlet velvet, the black trophy remains, its golden plaque winking to passersby, luring them in to wonder about the most famous legend of Orchard Valley history, the legend of the girl with the scarred letter.

-The End-