✨ Epilogue — One Year Later, Moaning Myrtle Warren

 

✨ Epilogue — One Year Later

The library looked different now.

Not physically — the shelves were still tall and shadowed, the lamps still buzzed with tired electricity, and the old wooden tables still bore the scratches of students who etched their boredom into their surfaces.

But the air was different.

Lighter.

Like something had been lifted — a presence released, a silence soothed.

I walked through the main aisle slowly, the soft thud of my steps echoing in familiar rhythm. Students studied in quiet clusters, unaware of the ghosts this place once held and the secrets that had slept beneath its floors.

A year changes many things.

The investigation into Myrtle’s death made quiet ripples at first, then loud ones, then waves. The bully faced disciplinary action and legal inquiry — the kind that follows you for life, even after sentences fade. The institution revised its entire harassment policy. The dean stepped down. A committee formed in Myrtle’s name to protect students who felt unheard.

And every day, I wore her blue scarf on my commute to campus.

A reminder.

A promise.

A memorial.

As I reached the corner table — our table — I noticed something pinned to the bulletin board behind it.

A new plaque.

Carefully engraved.

Softly lit.

Modest enough to fit the tone of her story.

“In Memory of Myrtle Warren (1986–2004):

A student whose voice was lost,

But not forgotten.”

I exhaled deeply.

“She would’ve liked this,” I murmured.

The air shifted gently, brushing my hair back from my face.

Not cold like before.

Not the sharp bite of a trapped ghost.

Just a warm, passing breeze, like someone walking by with gratitude in their steps.

A soft whisper drifted through the silence — so faint I wasn’t sure whether it was memory or presence:

“Thank you.”

I sat down at the table, pulling out the book I’d been working on — Myrtle’s story, written with care. Not sensationalized. Not dramatized. Just true.

The truth she never got to speak herself.

The final chapter was nearly complete. All that was left was the dedication.

I flipped to the blank page and wrote slowly, deliberately:

For Myrtle —

who deserved to be heard

long before a ghost had to speak.

When I closed the notebook, the lights above me flickered once.

Not a warning.

Not a cry.

A farewell.

A gentle acknowledgment that a story once buried had found soil again — this time where it could grow, not rot.

As I stood to leave, I felt something light brush my hand. When I looked down, a single page rested on the table.

Archival paper. Old. Crinkled.

Written in Myrtle’s own handwriting:

“I’m free.”

My chest tightened — not in fear, but in warmth.

I tucked the page into my notebook, placed her scarf gently around my neck, and walked out of the library.

And for the first time since meeting her, the doors closed behind me without a single gust of wind.

Just the quiet peace of a soul finally at rest.

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