The school building buzzed with activity that fall. Therapy sessions filled out the mornings, art therapy filled the afternoons, and the thunder of children’s laughter echoed down once-vacant hallways.
But Tasheena was never able to shake the feeling of eyes focused on her a moment too long.
One evening, as she locked the front doors, a figure stood across the street beneath a flickering lamp. Broad-shouldered, with a tilted hat, unmoving. When a car passed, the man was gone.
—
At Sunday dinner, she told her family.
“Leon,” Douglas muttered, setting down his fork.
“You think he’s back?” Keon asked.
“He never left,” Desmond said grimly.
Tasheena tried to steady herself. “Then let him watch. He’ll see we’re not backing down.”
Douglas looked at her with a mix of pride and worry. “Baby, sometimes strength is knowing when to fight and when to fortify.”
—
That week, Malcolm installed the new security system at the schoolhouse. Cameras, motion lights, even encrypted locks.
“You’ve got more protection here than a bank,” he joked, though his jaw stayed tight.
“Good,” she replied. “Because if Leon thinks intimidation will send me running, he’s mistaken.”
Malcolm put his arms around her. “Just promise me one thing don’t try to fight this war by yourself.”
She nodded, realizing on some level that certain wars were already mapped out for her.
—
Two nights later, Tasheena woke up to her phone buzzing.
It was a message from an unknown number.
A photo of the schoolhouse, snapped that evening.
Below it: “The will doesn’t change blood. And blood remembers.”
Her hands shook. She texted Desmond immediately.
He arrived at her door a few minutes later. “He’s trying to get a rise out of you. That’s all. He wants you riled.”
“But he knows where I live,” Tasheena panted.
Desmond’s face hardened. “Then we make him understand we’re not prey.
Meanwhile, rumors circulated in town. Some people doubted the Armstrongs’ story, asking themselves if Miss Mayfield’s second will was real. At the coffee shop, at church, even at the farmer’s market, Tasheena overheard snatches of disbelief.
“You know how people are,” Lesa said softly. “Fact doesn’t always count as much as the narrative people want to believe.”
That hurt more than the graffiti ever did.
—
The following community board meeting, Leon Shepard himself appeared.
A little intimidating, older but still sharp-eyed, he walked in as though he owned the place.
“I hear the Armstrongs found a miracle will,” he declared. “Convenient, ain’t it?”
Rumors swirled. Tasheena stood, spine straight.
“It was not a miracle. It was Miss Mayfield’s truth. And she chose my father. She chose legacy over bitterness.”
Leon’s lips curled. “Let’s see what the courts have to say about that.”
Then he departed, leaving the atmosphere thick with tension.
—
That evening, Tasheena accompanied Malcolm on the riverwalk once more.
“What if he draws this out in court for years? What if people in the town begin believing his fabrications?” she asked.
Malcolm took her hand. “Then just keep doing what you’re doing. You create something that can’t be taken away. Even if the papers get muddled up, they can’t reverse the work, the lives you’re changing. That’s your case.”
Tasheena looked out over the water, rippling under moonlight. “I went home to heal. But maybe I was also meant to struggle.”
Malcolm clamped his fingers tighter around her hand. “Then you won’t struggle alone.”
—
The next day, Tasheena rose before dawn and returned to the schoolhouse.
She walked down the deserted halls and heard a groan in the cellar.
Her heart pounded faster. She picked up a broom handle and descended the stairs.
The air was damp, the light dim.
And then she saw it.
Another stone wall, not the old one that they had broken through. This one more closed by, but one brick protruding.
Tasheena pulled it free. Behind it, pushed into the darkness, was a metal tin.
Her breath caught.
Rolled in oilcloth within was a packet of letters to Douglas Armstrong.
The first one she opened, dated 1979, read:
“Dear Douglas, if you’re reading this, then you’ll know the truth about Leon, about what he attempted to steal from me and from you…”
—
Tasheena pressed the letter to her heart.
This had nothing to do with the schoolhouse any longer. It was about secrets within the family, a buried history deeper than anyone had ever confessed.
She looked at the cellar stairs, her heart pounding.
The war had only just begun.
And Newberry’s past would rise.
—
To be continued…
Thee Juju Aura 
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