Chapter Text

Arcadia Bay is a quiet, boring hick town in which nothing happens, and no one knows it better than Chloe. Weird occultist shit just isn't its style, and it never has been.

The cult of the goddess, then, takes everyone by surprise.

The first time Chloe sees them, they're hardly a cult at all. It's just two girls sitting in the Two Whales on a Monday morning, which makes them identical to basically anyone at all. They're talking quietly but intensely, the way serious girls do, and the girl with her hair all swept up in a bun is bent over the table, sketching. Chloe doesn’t even realize the other girl is Rachel until she’s come up to take their order.

“Whoa, hey, good morning,” she says, setting the coffee pot down and putting her hand on her hip. “And, uh, hi Kate. What’s up?”

Rachel smiles sunnily up at her, tossing her hair over one shoulder and leaning forward on her elbows. “Morning, angel. Just grabbing a bite before class. Bacon shortage hit Arcadia yet or is the regular good?”

“Uh huh,” Chloe says, slow and skeptical, then yells over her shoulder, “Joyce! Rachel and Kate Marsh!”

There’s an affirmatory yell from the griddle, and Chloe turns back to the girls. Kate has stopped sketching and is leaning forward so her forearm is blocking the pad, looking more apprehensive than usual, her gaze flickering between Rachel and Chloe uncertainly. Rachel just keeps smiling guilelessly up at her.

Deciding to cut right to the chase, Chloe reaches for their coffee mugs, starts pouring, and says, “So, is this some kind of study session? Or have you found yourself a new best friend?”

Kate sits up straight, looking guilty, but Rachel just laughs, tilting back in her seat. “Don’t be jealous, babe. Kate and I just realized we have something in common and wanted to have a chat, that’s all.”

As far as Chloe knows, the sum of what Kate Marsh and Rachel Amber have in common is exactly zero. “And that something is… you’re both blonde?”

Kate giggles a little at that, and Chloe smiles jauntily at her. She doesn’t have anything against Kate Marsh, of course not, Kate is the sweetest person at Blackwell. Chloe’s just not entirely getting why she’s here at the diner early on a Monday with Rachel, of all people.

As if reading her mind, Rachel looks between the two of them, thoughtfully, then says, “Actually, Chloe, maybe you can help us out. The thing is, Kate and I both keep seeing these symbols- Kate, could you show her? Would you mind?”

After a cautious glance at Chloe, Kate slides her sketchbook towards the edge of the table, a little shy. “They’re not that great, but-”

“Oh, hush,” Rachel says as Chloe bends down to look, hastily lifting up the coffee pot to prevent spilling on the page. Kate blushes and tugs at a loose lock of her hair, and Chloe shoots an absentminded smile in her direction before gazing downwards.

There are four distinct figures spread across the page, in surprising detail for pencil and paper- a deer, a butterfly, a Polaroid camera, and a swirling mass that maybe looks like a tornado. She frowns at them, balancing the pot in her left hand.

After five years of friendship, Chloe’s become accustomed to feeling when Rachel is looking at her intently rather than seeing her do it. “Chloe, are any of these familiar to you?”

Chloe frowns at it some more, glances between the two earnest-looking girls, then shrugs. “No?”

Both Kate and Rachel sigh, falling back against the booth, and Chloe straightens up, hand back on her hip and regripping the coffee pot with her other hand. “I mean, the camera looks kinda like my dad’s old one? But that’s where the resemblance stops. What does it matter?”

Rachel shrugs with one shoulder, looking despondent. “I’ve been seeing those things for weeks,” she says. “You’re sure you’ve never seen any of these things, Chlo? Ever dreamed about them, maybe?”

There’s a beat of silence.

“Excuse me?” Chloe says, blinking slowly. “Dreamed about them?”

She’s spared what would surely be a nonsensical response by Joyce’s shout of, “Chloe! Order up!” and has to give the girls a short gesture of be-right-back before scuttling to the griddle.

Passing two plates to her over the counter, Joyce leans forward with one elbow, spatula in the air, to eye Chloe cynically. “Don’t forget that your shift don’t end just because Rachel’s here.”

Rolling her eyes, Chloe scoops up both plates onto her forearms and nods. “Yeah, yeah.”

Joyce straightens up and pokes her in the nose with the spatula fondly, and as Chloe wrinkles her nose and splutters, she goes on, “Now hold up. Did you mean to say that Rachel and Kate Marsh are here together?” Chloe nods again, a little disgruntled, and she frowns. “Whatever for?”

“That’s what I’m working on, Mom,” Chloe says, “I’ll have to get back to you on that one,” and she moves back towards the booth, laying the two plates down to put her hands back on her hips. “So, sorry. You were talking about some new age bullshit?”

Kate is twirling her pencil absently between her fingers, and when Chloe says ‘new age’, she drops it. But to Chloe’s surprise, she doesn’t immediately come to her own defense, or lets Rachel come to it. Instead, she just taps the page twice with her fingernail.

“I’ve been seeing these things for a while now,” Kate murmurs. “Mostly in dreams, but… I get flashes during the day too. I’ve been seeing this deer in real life, and sometimes when I look at something bright, it’s like there’s a camera behind… I don’t really know how to explain it.” She looks up at Chloe, in a way that seems almost pleading. “At first I thought it was God trying to tell me something, but I think it’s something else. I think there’s something else, here. You’ve never felt it?”

As if Chloe’s supposed to be able to tell one god from another, or interpret what some bullshit signs mean. Then again, she’s pretty sure psychics get paid better than waitresses, so she keeps her mouth shut and looks to Rachel again.

She’d been looking at Kate too, eyes narrow with focus, and now when Chloe’s gaze lands on her, she goes back to looking at the sketches, drawing the book towards her and tracing one hand over the picture of the deer. “I’ve seen this deer ever since I was little,” she says, slowly. “I’ve told you that, Chloe.”

Rachel’s always bought into spiritual nonsense better than Chloe has- Chloe blames it mostly on Blackwell’s weird janitor, all his talk about spirit animals and the town being alive- but this is really taking the cake. “You told me that you liked deer, that’s not the same thing!”

“Oh, is that what I said?” Rachel says distractedly, tracing one finger over the butterfly’s wings now. “My bad. Anyway, it’s like Kate said, it’s not just that anymore. The butterfly and the camera, I see them sometimes too, in real life and dreams. I keep dreaming about this tornado hitting the town, I have been for months, and if Kate’s having the same one then it’s not just a nightmare, it’s a sign. There’s something out there, Chloe.”

Here’s the thing. Chloe knows Rachel. Maybe not inside and out, but she’s sure that she understands Rachel better than anyone else in the world does. And yeah, there are times when she’s seen Rachel’s eyes wander, seen her expression grow dreamy and strange, and Chloe had always wondered what she was thinking about but never asked. Part of what made Rachel Amber Rachel Amber was that she was mysterious, and Chloe liked that about her, knew it wasn’t her place to take that away.

But this is different. There’s a light in Rachel’s gaze Chloe’s never seen before, a fierce determination that makes her shiver a little. Hesitating for just a second, Chloe reaches forward to take her empty mug. “Come on. What’s out there? Out where, anyway?”

Kate and Rachel glance at each other again, and Chloe’s beginning to hate this, hating this feeling of being on the outside when she’s standing right here. Then Rachel looks back at her. “I don’t know yet,” she says. “But I’m going to figure it out. You’ll help us out, right Chloe?”

Just like Rachel- no is never an answer. Still, she’s never roped Chloe into bullshit this weird before. This is on a whole other level from trying LSD once at a party. “I mean. How the fuck am I supposed to help you? I just said I’ve never seen any of that shit before.”

“That doesn’t mean you won’t,” Rachel says patiently. “Besides, everyone who lives in this shithole comes by the diner eventually, right? Ask around for people who’ve seen the deer or something. I’m willing to bet Kate and I aren’t the only ones this is happening to.”

Chloe gives it a full second, but Rachel just keeps looking up at her, dead serious and tirelessly earnest. She opens her mouth, closes it, then tries again. “Okay... okay. Kate, no offense, but Rachel full offense- you guys are out of your minds.”

Looking away to poke at the eggs with her fork, Kate bites her lip, but Rachel just smiles up at Chloe again, this time with a note of challenge to it. “Think whatever you want, sweetheart,” she says, “but this is gonna be big. I can feel it.”

Before Chloe has time to think of a good retort, Joyce’s voice sounds from the counter again. “Chloe! What did I say!”

Muttering, “fuck,” Chloe quickly refills Rachel’s mug and sets it back down. “Whatever, I gotta go. Listen, if you guys start fucking with a Ouiji board or something, call me, all right? I wanna be there if shit gets really freaky.”

Rachel just smiles her slow smile again, hand settling around the mug’s handle. “You got it. I’ll text you after class, try to sneak out so we can go to the beach.”

It’s not really sneaking out if Joyce expects her to do it, but Chloe nods anyway, gives the two girls a brief salute, and heads back to the counter. Joyce hands her three more plates, looking more amused than chastising. “So what drama does Rachel have cooking up now, pray tell?”

Even with three plates stacked up on her arms, Chloe still manages to shrug helplessly. “She’s crazy, Mom.”

Joyce just chuckles, and turns back to the burner. “Oh, honey, I could’ve told you that.”

---

Five months later, and this truth still stands- Rachel is always right.

The cult of the goddess isn’t the second coming of Scientology or anything like that, but it’s getting a good number of people in the country interested in Arcadia Bay. In the end, it seems like bizarre shit and pretty girls will bring people anywhere.

The girls who run it still don’t have much to their name, besides an abandoned warehouse that serves as some kind of church, a shoddy collection of drawings and dream journals that constitute a holy text, and a two-minute news clip on NBC Nightly from a few weeks ago. But town-wise, it’s the biggest thing to have happened in ages. Once the Good Word starting spreading, half of Arcadia Bay started coming clean about dreaming about tornados, seeing deer (because that’s so fucking weird, out here in the middle of goddamn nature), seeing signs. Besides that, almost every girl Chloe knows from Blackwell is part of the cult’s hierarchy now- of priestesses and acolytes and all this old-sounding shit Chloe can’t wrap her brain around.

And Rachel’s their leader. Their head priestess, she says. And now she’s always busy, nearly too busy for Chloe, and even when they’re together, she’s always distracted, drawing lines in the sand, eyes flitting to somewhere Chloe can’t see, can’t be.

Chloe doesn’t ask her about the goddess, because she doesn’t care, she doesn’t, she won’t let dreams take more of Rachel from her than they already have. So when they’re together, Chloe doesn’t ask, Rachel doesn’t tell.

So because Rachel doesn’t tell, this is all the concrete knowledge Chloe has about the goddess: she’s a deer, or a girl, or a storm, or something else bizarre; she has a preference for girls, which Chloe doesn’t necessarily condemn her for; there’s a ninety percent chance she isn’t real, and Chloe hates her anyway, for taking Rachel away from her.

At least she’s good for business.

A lot of people come in for the goddess, anyway, and they all need to eat. Before, Arcadia Bay never saw many new faces, but now there’s always someone from Washington or Nevada here to scope out Religion’s Next Big Thing.

It’s the middle of the afternoon, and Rachel’s still in class so Chloe’s at the diner, working, when Joyce pokes her in the shoulder. “Got a leftside booth for you, Chloe.”

Chloe finishes stacking the plates next to the washing machine and peers over her shoulder. It’s a teenage girl, alone in the booth, but probably not from Blackwell- school day’s in full swing, and any art student Chloe knows never skips out on photography class.

“Chloe,” Joyce repeats, and Chloe shrugs, grabs the pad from her apron and heads over. The girl looks up, and she’s mostly in shadow but Chloe catches a hint of her face- angular but soft-expressioned, pretty in a quiet sort of way. Her hair is ruffled, like she’s just woken up from a long nap, and a thin brown.

“Hi, I’m Chloe,” she says, automatic, “welcome to the Two Whales, can I offer you some coffee?”

The girl just stares at her. The shine of her eyes is barely tangible in the sun’s cast against her, but from what Chloe can tell, she just looks stunned, like someone’s hit her or something. Normally Chloe would be flattered, but the way the girl looks- it’s kind of unsettling. “Um. Coffee?”

That snaps the girl out of it, and she sits up straight, nodding awkwardly. “Oh, yeah. Please.”

A little relieved, Chloe sets down a mug and pours, and the girl leans back in the booth, watching her hand tilt. There’s a strange focus to her gaze that makes Chloe feel odd, not uncomfortable but rather out of place.

She has to make some sort of conversational topic, if just to get a handle on the girl.

Chloe hands her a menu and says, offhandedly, "You here about the goddess?"

Mousy Brown blinks a little, then smiles wryly. "Depends what kind of goddess we're talking about."

Good question. What the hell kind of classifications do deities have anyway? It's not like Chloe would know in the first place, Joyce never brought her to church. "Is there any other kind? The Goddess. All-powerful, all-knowing, likes animals and tooling around Arcadia for some reason."

For a moment, the girl's expression flickers, from neutral geniality to an emotion too quiet for Chloe to recognize. Then she chuckles. "A goddess, okay. Don't tell me you believe in that shit."

Until this moment Chloe's never even thought about how her own belief factors into the grand scheme of things. Now, she smoothly deflects. "Well, you know, it's quite the rage around here so I wouldn't talk too loud if I were you."

"Huh," the girl says, as she leans back into the booth. "A goddess cult in Arcadia. I never would've thought."

Sitting in the sunlight, it's even harder for Chloe to get a good look at her. She's translucently pale, washed out by the light, and when Chloe looks down at her the girl's eyes are still in shadow. "Are you from around here? Past or present?"

For some reason, the girl chuckles, low in her throat. "Past," she says, "I used to live here," and now she looks out the window. Maybe she's nostalgic or maybe she's bitter; either way, Chloe can't see her face. "I'm just visiting."

Chloe presses the menu closer to her chest, reaching for her attention again. "And the Arcadia Bay in your past wasn't a creepy witch town?"

At that, the girl laughs. She has a nice, sweet laugh, and the sound of it makes Chloe simultaneously smile and feel a mysterious pang in the center of her chest. "Oh no, it definitely was," she says. "Just not as eager to support... female figures."

"Well," Chloe says, flipping her pad to a fresh page, "in that case, you actually might like the change. The girls who do the whole goddess club thing will be here soon, you should meet 'em. Their ringleader, Rachel-" And she can't help it, she starts smiling, like a fool. "She's something."

When she looks back at the girl, she looks so indescribably sad. Her gaze is far away, like she's miles and years away from the café, from Chloe.

Then the expression's gone. She smiles up at Chloe, eyes scrunched against the light. "I'd love to meet Rachel," she says, and the break in her voice could be natural, but she's been acting fucking weird this whole time so probably not. "I'd love to. But first, uh- pancakes?"

"Coming right up," Chloe says, and pretends to write on the pad so she can look at the girl some more. Her eyes are gone again, on the lighthouse, but the profile of her face is like a painting, rays of sun painting over her cheeks. "What's your name, by the way? I said before, but I'm Chloe."

That startles the girl back into reality, and she stares at Chloe just long enough to be uncomfortable before breaking into a soft smile. "Max," she says. "I'm Max."

There’s a strange flash of - something, in Chloe’s head, when she says so. Not like a camera, like Kate used to say, but of something else, like deja vu. Then she snaps out of it, looks back into Max’s expectant face.

“Max,” she repeats. “Cool. Be right back.”

Professed Max smiles wanly up at her, and for a moment Chloe thinks she might say something else. Her eyes focus on Chloe’s, then just beyond her on Joyce, and she looks troubled, but in the end she just says, “Thanks, Chloe.”

As she’s waiting on Joyce, Chloe finds herself looking back at her- all the booths are empty except for Max’s, after all, and she’s easily a nicer sight than any of the truckers at the counter.

It’s not the fact that she’s pretty that has Chloe hung up, though. There’s something else to it. The way she crosses her legs, the way she keeps looking out the window to the lighthouse, the way she glances over at Chloe, curious, and immediately looks away, shy.

It feels like she’s been here before.

There’s a sharp jolt in Chloe’s head, and she winces and looks away just as Joyce calls, “Order up!”

But when Chloe takes the plate and crosses back to Max’s booth, she’s not there anymore. Instead, it’s Rachel, backpack straps looped around her crossed ankles and tapping a toe methodically against the table.

Chloe comes to a stop in front of her, raising an eyebrow. “You kick that poor girl out of her seat?”

“Hi to you too,” Rachel says, grinning before her brow furrows. “What girl?”

After a furtive look around, it does seem that Max has left the premises, but. “The girl that was just here, she was sitting there literally a second ago. You didn’t see her?”

Rachel frowns, then shrugs. “Nope. She must’ve gone out the window or something.” She looks to the pancakes and grins. “You get dine and dashed, then? You and Joyce had a pretty good run going for a while there.”

“Well, she did dash but she didn’t dine,” Chloe says, sliding into the booth opposite her and laying out the pancakes, “so these are ours now. How was class?”

Grinning, Rachel reaches for her knife and fork. “Kinda boring. We’re doing nature shots now, not really my speed. Let’s talk about something more interesting. I have a proposition for you.”

If Chloe’s stomach goes into her throat, that’s her business. “A proposition? Holy shit, Rach, it’s three in the afternoon.”

Rolling her eyes and grinning, Rachel stabs the dough with her fork and tears some away. “Not that kind of proposition, you wish you were that lucky. Anyway, I wanted to ask you to come help me out at the warehouse today.”

“Ew,” Chloe says, stomach settling back into place, “why.”

“Because you’re my best friend and I’m asking you to,” Rachel says easily, biting off the pancake. Swallowing, she continues, “Besides, I want you to check out the church. It’d be cool if you were involved. We’d get to spend more time together, and I really think it could, you know, open your mind.”

Chloe scoffs, reaching for her own fork. “I’m already open minded,” she says, “and I’ve told you a hundred times, I’m not into that voodoo shit.”

“Just give it a try,” Rachel says insistently, knocking Chloe’s fork out of the way to get to the more syrupy bits. “You never know. Chloe,” she says, and now she’s giving Chloe her look, the one under the eyelashes, the one that always gets Chloe to do whatever she wants. “It would mean a lot to me, okay?”

Well, fuck. “Fine,” Chloe says sullenly, and tears off her own piece of pancake, shoving it in her mouth. “Fine, I’ll come. But I’m telling you, the goddess or whatever, and me, I can guarantee there’s no connection there.”

Rachel just grins, in satisfaction, and extends her own pancake-stabbed fork in Chloe’s direction to give her a bite. “We’ll see.”