Burden Falls

by Kat Ellis

  “Where should I put my stuff?” I ask, nodding at the box I’m kind of struggling with at this point.

  “Here, let me show you your room.” Carolyn takes the box from me easily and heads down the stairs. “I think you’re going to love it!”

  I follow Carolyn out of the kitchen, through that weird garage extension, and into the round building of the mill. The space has been divided into two half-moons. The first is full of boxes, but the second half is apparently my bedroom. Inside, it’s cold and smells like fresh paint.

  It’s . . . nice. I mean, the mill’s got to be well over a century old, just like the manor, which kind of makes it feel like home. And there’s a tiny window, round like the porthole of a ship, which looks out over the river. It whistles faintly where a draft sneaks in through a crack in the old window frame.

  The bed is already made up for me, and they’ve painted the walls a calm, dusty blue, just like my old bedroom at the manor. Carolyn sets the box down on my desk by the window.

  “It’s bigger than that dingy little room upstairs,” she says, “and it has its own bathroom, so you won’t have to fight with Ty over who gets to shower first in the morning. Plus, if you wanted to, say, sneak in and out late at night, you could do that without waking Ty or me.” Carolyn winks and nudges me. “Do you love it?”

  “Sure. It’s great.”

  Her face falls. “Oh no, you hate it, don’t you? Damn it, Ty told me I should run it by you. But I wanted it to be a surprise—a space that’s all your own. I thought it’d be one nice thing at the end of a tough day.” She picks up the box she just put on the desk, looking thoroughly bummed. “Sorry, I’ll get you moved upstairs right away.”

  “No, Carolyn, honestly—this is perfect,” I insist, taking the box and setting it back down. I hate that I just sounded like such an ungrateful brat after everything Carolyn has had to organize and get done today. I think shiny, happy thoughts, trying to funnel even five percent Carolyn-ness onto my face. “I’m just tired, so my brain isn’t keeping up with everything.”

  She pauses, studying me. “Are you sure? Because we can get you set up in the little room next to ours, no problem . . .”

  “I’m fine in here, really. I love it. I promise.”

  * * *

  * * *

  Uncle Ty is quiet over dinner. He glares at the fast-emptying pizza box like it’s to blame for where we are. But pepperoni never did anyone dirty.

  “It’s weird thinking about strangers in the manor, huh?” I say, aiming for sympathetic rather than salt-in-the-woundy. Carolyn’s knife and fork (because she’s the only one of the three of us who eats pizza that way) clatter down onto her plate.

  “Ty, seriously? You still haven’t told her?”

  I almost choke on a giant mouthful of pizza. “Told me what?” The half-chewed bite lodges uncertainly in my gut, waiting for bad news to land on top of it. Maybe I was too hasty with my pepperoni endorsement.

  Uncle Ty takes a deep breath, cuts Carolyn a put-upon side-eye, then turns to me. “I meant to tell you this sooner, but there never seemed to be a good time, and you’ve already had so much to deal with this year.”

  Shit. This is definitely not going to be good news. Uncle Ty sounds like he’s rehearsed this a hundred times in the mirror.

  “Tell her, Ty,” Carolyn urges softly. “Can’t you see you’re freaking her out?”

  He sighs. “Madoc Miller bought the manor. He’s moving his family in tomorrow.”

  Something wet hits my cheek, and I vaguely register that I’ve dropped my pizza slice onto the table, splattering tomato sauce everywhere. “You . . . sold the manor . . . to Madoc Miller?”

  It’s a joke—a totally sick, unfunny joke. There’s no way Uncle Ty is actually telling me he sold our home to the guy who killed my parents. Who damn near killed me.

  But he doesn’t crease up into a gotcha grin like I expect. Uncle Ty just spreads his palms. Then, probably realizing that isn’t helping—what with the fact that my palms are covered in scars thanks to Madoc Miller—he laces his fingers together in front of him.

  “We only had one offer on the table.”

  “I don’t believe you,” I say, looking at Carolyn for backup. She just sighs and reaches out across the table like she’s going to touch my hand, but then I see she’s holding out a napkin for the pizza sauce. I ignore it. “There’s no way you’d sell the manor to him.”

  Even if Uncle Ty overlooked the fact that our family and the Millers have been at each other’s throats for generations, there’s no way he’d take money from Madoc Miller after the crash. It’s blood money.

  “I didn’t have a choice, okay?” Uncle Ty shoves away from the table, grabbing the last slice of pizza and his car keys. “I’m going out.”

  “Where are you—”

  Carolyn’s question is cut off by the slamming of the front door.

  “I’m really sorry, Ava,” she says after a long, awkward moment. “But Ty’s right—he didn’t have a choice. The bank would’ve seized everything if we hadn’t sold when we did.”

  Somewhere in my mind, I know Carolyn must be right. There’s no way Uncle Ty would’ve sold it to that man unless there was no other option. But I’m still reeling, imagining him and his smug wife and their two venomous offspring in our home.

  Carolyn takes a deep breath, then grabs a glass of apple juice and one of my favorite chilled coffees from the refrigerator.

  “At least we can toast our new home, right?” she says, raising her glass. There’s a fragile note in her voice, and I know I can’t take this out on her. I can’t really take it out on Uncle Ty, either. This is just the kind of outrageously unfair shit that happens to us now.

  “Home sweet home,” I say flatly, and drink.

  * * *

  * * *

  Despite how tired I am, I don’t sleep well later that night. The river is a constant whisper outside my window. Whenever I think about it, it makes me want to pee. And I have the dream again—the memory, I guess—about the crash. I feel it: the impact, the fear. Crawling, alone, from the wreckage. Seeing Madoc Miller standing next to his barely scratched car.

  At around one a.m. something shrieks upstairs in the rafters of the mill, jolting me awake. For a second, I have no idea where I am, or what the screaming was, but it slowly clicks into place.

  I’m at the cottage. There’s no ax murder being carried out nearby. It’s just a barn owl—probably the same one I used to see around the manor grounds sometimes.

  And my parents are still gone.

  I let out a choked sound, trying not to let it turn into outright sobbing. Gradually, my breathing evens out. A screeching owl is as familiar to me as the creaking floorboards of my old home, or the random cold spots that seemed to spring from nowhere in the manor—those little things that might give my heart a quick jolt, but are nothing sinister, really, even if Mom would always arch a knowing eyebrow and declare the place haunted. But she’d grown up listening to the superstitious rumors about Burden Falls. I’ve lived in the manor my whole life, and its creaks and mutterings—and, yes, occasional screeches—are just part of its charm.

  Looks like the old mill has charm too.

  I drag myself out of bed and climb the rickety ladder up to the floor above mine. The light from my phone casts eerie shadows as I shine it around the loft space, but the damn bird is nowhere to be seen. Everything is silent and still.

  My foot lands on something crunchy. I recoil, thinking it must be a cockroach, but it’s actually an owl pellet.

  Owl pellets are what the owl pukes up after it’s eaten some small creature. It usually contains all the bits it has no use for—bones, fur, that kind of stuff. This pellet is old, dried to a white crust, and where it’s crumbled apart under my foot I see a perfect little skull. I lean closer, shining my light on it. I think it’s from a mouse at firs
t, but then I notice the teeth. They’re pointed, with elongated fangs. A weasel’s skull, maybe.

  It’s pretty cool, though. Or it would be if finding it hadn’t involved getting dried owl puke between my toes. I’ll come back in the morning and see if I can clean up the bones. Might look good on my windowsill.

  After dealing with the foot mess, I go back to my room. I know I won’t sleep, though. I’m too on edge. Instead, I sit at my desk, doodling on a sketchpad. But my gaze keeps getting drawn back to the window, and the silvery line of the river winding north to the waterfall, and Burden Bridge, and the manor.

  Home.

  Except it’s not home anymore. No lights shine from the manor house. It’s barely a smudge against the distant landscape. For a moment, I swear I see something on Burden Bridge; it’s only a speck from this far away, but I think there’s someone crossing the bridge, heading toward the manor. I lean closer, my breath lightly misting the window.

  Is it her?

  I reach up to clear it with my sleeve, but the figure is gone.

  THREE

  My friend Daphne works at the Pump’N’Go with me most weekends. It’s a gas station, if you were wondering, despite its name making it sound like Fuckboy HQ. Maybe that’s why some of our customers act like assholes.

  Daphne’s dad drops her off in his squad car in the front lot, probably on his way to work. Officer Chavez gives a little whoop on the siren as she opens the gas station door, just like he always does, then roars with laughter when Daphne yelps in fright. She stomps inside, shaking her head. Her deep brown skin is flushed, and not just from the cold.

  “He gets me every. Single. Time,” she groans as she takes up her spot next to me behind the counter. I know she doesn’t really mind her dad’s pranks. Daphne and her dad are super close, the way I was with mine. “It’s totally his fault I just stepped in that puddle. Look at the state of my favorite boots!”

  I look down at the tan leather slouch boots, and yeah, they’re fucked.

  But, in fairness to Daphne’s dad, all her boots are her favorites. I’m smart enough not to point this out, though.

  Daphne’s big on upcycling clothes she finds in thrift stores and online. She puts together mixed-retro outfits that shouldn’t work, but weirdly do. Today, for example, she’s wearing a 1960s orange shift dress, red Cheshire Cat wool tights, and her beloved tan boots. Her hair is in fresh two-strand twists, held back by a green silk scarf. She also makes all her own jewelry, and today has on three necklaces that I happen to know started out as parts of an egg timer, a ukulele, and a lamp.

  Dressed all in black next to her, with my batwing eyeliner and chipped black nails, I know I look every inch the pasty, white goth I am.

  The Pump’N’Go is pretty hectic this morning, with no fewer than three whole customers stopping by in the hour after opening. It almost justifies having two cashiers.

  “How was your first night in the new house?” Daphne asks between customers. She and Carla—the third member of our little triad, and Daphne’s girlfriend—already checked in with me last night on our group chat, so they know about the Millers buying the manor. They were both suitably outraged on my behalf.

  “It was—” My words are cut off by the jangle of the bell above the shop door. Liam Walsh, a college student who works part-time at the public library on River Road, stomps the worst of the snow off his boots as he walks in. He’s a tall, wiry white guy with too-neat hair that makes him look younger than he is. Liam nods hello when he sees me.

  I’ve been spending a lot of time in the library lately. Specifically since we had our Wi-Fi cut off at the manor, though I’ve never told Liam that’s the reason. I don’t know him well, but I get the feeling he’d be sneery about it.

  Liam picks up a candy bar and newspaper and places them on the counter.

  “Heard you had to move out of the manor,” he says. I feel my jaw clench. But I’m not surprised he knows. The people of Burden Falls are probably all gossiping about my family’s fall from financial grace. “That must suck.”

  “Yep.”

  “What’s your new place like? It’s not far from here, right?”

  “It’s okay,” I say. I’m not trying to be frosty, but I also don’t want to talk about it. “Can I get you anything else?” I ask, and throw in a smile that makes Daphne wince, so I guess it doesn’t give off the friendly vibe I was going for.

  When Liam leaves, I find Daphne staring after him, eyes narrowed.

  “What’s that look for?”

  She shakes her head. “Something about that guy gives me the squicks.”

  We’ve been friends for over a year now, and this is the first time I’m hearing about “squicks.” Still, it’s not hard to guess what Daphne means by it. She’s wearing the same look she gets whenever some sleazy straight guy learns she has a girlfriend and asks if he can “watch.” As far as I’m concerned, that’s a green light to throat-punch, but Daphne manages to tear most of them down with just a look. It’s truly impressive. She says she inherited it from her witchy ancestor—specifically one of the Red Road Witches, a group of women who fled Massachusetts during the witch trials. Five of them made it all the way to Burden Falls and settled here, and one of them was a Black woman named Dorcas Dane—or, as Daphne refers to her, Grandma Dorcas.

  Personally, I think Daphne’s withering look is entirely her own. And pretty much everyone in Burden Falls says they’re descended from a Red Road Witch.

  “Anyway, I know what’ll cheer you up. Let me give you a reading.” She whips out her tarot cards. “You haven’t let me read for you in ages.”

  I slump onto the counter, big drama. But that just puts me eye to eye with her tarot cards.

  The deck itself is really cool in my very biased opinion. I made the cards for Daphne as a gift for her birthday last November, right after she started getting interested in tarot. I hand-illustrated each one, using the jewel tones I know she loves, and the four corners of every card have evil eyes on them. An evil eye is drawn in concentric circles: the black pupil, the blue iris, the white outer, and the dark blue outline. It almost looks like a target, or a tool for hypnotizing someone.

  To me, asking a deck of creepy cards for guidance always feels like shaking a wasps’ nest and expecting to get honey out of it. After the first few times I drew the cards and produced spreads that could only be summarized as “DEATH DESTRUCTION EVERYWHERE YOU’RE GONNA DIE HORRIBLY,” I decided to hard-pass on all future readings.

  “Shuffle, and ask your question,” Daphne says hopefully, ignoring my scowl. “Come on. You know you’re not actually cursed.”

  “Tell that to every other person in this town,” I grumble.

  The rumors about my family run thick in Burden Falls. The curse is apparently tied to the waterfall, and the awful luck we Thorns seem to be having—especially considering what happened to my parents. I don’t believe in curses, though. I’m pretty sure most of the bad turns my life has taken are because of Madoc Miller. If I looked back through my family history, I could probably pin all episodes of shittiness on one Miller or another. They have a long-standing tradition of being assholes.

  “So that’s a yes?” Daphne says, nudging the tarot deck toward me.

  Before I can reiterate my hell, no, the shop door opens. Carla stands in the doorway, brushing off snow.

  “Hey, villainesses.”

  The greeting is a new one. Last week Daphne and I were “she-devils,” although I think Carla also includes herself in the names she gives us. I have a horrible feeling she’s hoping one of them will catch on, and we’ll be like an emo version of the Plastics.

  Carla is a strong supporter of boyfriend jeans and rock-band hoodies, and she wears different colored contacts almost every day. Today’s hoodie is a washed-out thrift-store find featuring the album cover of some nineties band called The Flys. Her naturally blue eyes are curr
ently black and violet (one of each) and her hair is bleached white-blond with a buzzed undercut, which she’s wearing screwed up into two high knots like a punky Minnie Mouse.

  “You won’t believe what I’ve had to put up with at home this morning.” Carla advances toward us like it’s somehow our fault, then switches gears as she leans over the counter to kiss Daphne.

  “Is Corey still trying to learn to play the glockenspiel?” I ask, pretending not to see the dopey grin they share.

  Carla’s expression turns thunderous again. “He’s switched to violin.”

  Her younger brother, Corey, is not as smart as his about-to-be-valedictorian sister. He’s convinced he’s secretly a musical prodigy—he just needs to find the right instrument. Pretty sure Corey’s gone through eight or nine different ones just in the past year. It hasn’t exactly made it easy for Carla to study at home, or to keep her already short-fuse temper. But her dads refuse to “stifle Corey’s self-expression” or whatever. If I were them, I’d intervene before Carla resorts to stifling Corey’s self-expression with a pillow over his face.

  Carla glances down at the counter and sees the tarot deck. “Oh no . . .”

  Daphne turns on her most winning smile. “The only way I’ll get better at reading is if you two let me practice.”

  “That’s a no from me,” Carla says firmly. “Ask Corinne. She’s into that shit.” Corinne is Daphne’s cousin, and drives both Daphne and Carla to school most mornings. And she is actually into that shit, as Carla so bluntly put it.

  Tarot is one of the few things Carla and I actually agree about, though our reasons are different. Carla is a stone-cold skeptic about anything she can’t measure or explain or . . . I don’t know . . . math away somehow. I just think the cards need an attitude adjustment.

  “What’s got you looking like such a joy-vacuum, anyway?” Carla says, turning on me with narrowed eyes. “Are you sulking about your birthday again?”