Everyone knew Arts & Crafts was the ultimate slacker class—an easy A handed out to anyone with a pulse and a glue stick. Cassidy Bloom, with her pastel notebooks, glitter pens, and a voice that squeaked like a TikTok filter, needed that A.

“Bookbinding? Ew, boring,” she’d said, twirling her hair in the counselor’s office.

“You just fold paper and stitch it,” her bestie Rachel told her. “Half the class naps. You’ll be fine.”

So Cassidy signed up. It was either that or Trig, and Cassidy didn’t do math. She barely did reading.

The classroom looked like a time capsule from 1978: high windows stained by decades of sunlight, a cracked linoleum floor, and long drafting tables that wobbled when leaned on. Each table had its own set of drawers. Cassidy was assigned Table 6. Its bottom drawer stuck.

Mr. Lorenz, the teacher—some weird old guy who smelled like paper and soup—told her, “Don’t worry about that one. It’s been stuck for years.”

Which made it even more irresistible.

She tugged it open on day three, using a ruler for leverage. It gave way with a grunt and a puff of dust, revealing an object nestled in velvet like a relic from a museum.

A long, smooth tool, pale and pointed at one end. It was warm, unnervingly so. It looked like ivory. Or bone.

Attached was a small card, yellowed and cracked:

BONE FOLDER – DO NOT REMOVE

So of course Cassidy did.

Cassidy started using it for her assignments. At first, it worked like magic. Her pages folded cleanly, her creases were sharp, and her projects were always chosen to be displayed in the hallway. Mr. Lorenz even smiled at her once—a creepy, tight-lipped smile like someone forcing back a scream.

Then Rachel went missing.

“Weird,” Cassidy muttered, chewing gum as she ran the bone folder down a new spine crease. She hadn’t seen Rachel since they walked to class together last week. No texts. No DMs.

She was halfway through binding a leather cover when a line of red appeared along the seam. Blood. From her thumb. No… she wasn’t cut. It wasn’t hers.

The blood soaked into the pages.

Cassidy dropped the bone folder. It clattered on the table, then rolled to a stop, pointing toward the bottom drawer like a compass needle.

She picked it up, using a tissue this time.

That night, she had the dream.

Rachel was there, in the classroom, crouched under Table 6. Her skin looked like wet paper, her hands folded into awful shapes. Her mouth opened, but instead of words, stitched parchment spilled out.

“You found it,” she wheezed. “It finds you.”

Cassidy woke up screaming.

She left three voicemails for Rachel the next morning, all breathless and panicked. Then she stomped into class and slammed the bone folder down in front of Mr. Lorenz.

“I think this thing’s cursed.”

He looked at her with something between pity and revulsion.

“It’s not the folder that’s cursed,” he said softly. “It’s the table. The drawer. The class. You opened the contract.”

“What contract?” she demanded.

“Binding,” he said. “You think it’s about books? No. It’s about binding. Souls. Lives. Mistakes. Each student who opens that drawer leaves with less than they came in with.”

Cassidy backed away. “That’s psycho.”

“I didn’t choose this either,” Mr. Lorenz whispered.

She skipped school the next day. Then the next. When she finally returned, her skin pale and sleepless, she made for Table 6 like a magnet. Her backpack bulged with supplies—tape, glue, scissors, and yes, the bone folder. It had been in her bed that morning, nestled beside her like a pet.

There was a new student at Table 7. Cassidy didn’t remember her name. It didn’t matter.

She sat. The bottom drawer opened easily this time, like it wanted her back.

Cassidy started folding. Pages from textbooks. Pages from old novels. Pages from her own diary. She bound them all into one thick, lumpy book, sewn with her own hair. She added the missing posters she found in the hallway. Rachel. Mark. Denice. Each one got its own page.

She bled into the spine.

When she was done, she slid the book into the drawer and shut it. The folder slipped in last, clicking into place like the lock on a coffin.

Mr. Lorenz watched from the door, eyes glassy with dread.

“You’re the new binder,” he said.

Cassidy turned to him and smiled sweetly, head tilting like a broken doll.

“Yay me.”