Burden Falls

by Kat Ellis

  I sigh when I’ve read it. Because I do get why Ford had to say yes to being in the Miller twins’ stupid videos. He wants to be an actor, but there aren’t many opportunities for that kind of thing around here. And there’s no way Ford could pay for drama school—especially not one of the big arty ones in New York. But he still could’ve said something before I made a total ass of myself. I mean, I may not have actually been there looking for Ford, but he doesn’t know that.

  I’ll let him stew for a little while before I tell him he’s forgiven.

  My eyes wander to a framed photo on my desk—one I unpacked earlier. It’s of me and my parents at my sweet sixteen at the manor. I’m not a fan of big parties, so we kept mine fairly low-key: mocktails and cocktail dresses. My parents dressed up too, even though they only hung around long enough to get a photo with me, then graciously got the hell out of there.

  I’m wearing a blood-red dress in the photo, and the beautiful ruby apple pendant my mom had given me that morning.

  “Your father gave me this the day you were born. Now it’s yours, my gorgeous girl.”

  And there I am, wearing it, beaming between my snappy-morning-suited dad and my peacock-blue-frocked mom. I had no idea then that it’d be the last birthday I celebrated with them. They died just a few days before my seventeenth; my eighteenth is next week. And tomorrow marks a year exactly since the car crash.

  Jesus, how can it feel like just yesterday when we were cheesing for that picture? I was so clueless then. I had no idea what it felt like to lose everything.

  Almost everything.

  I pick up my phone, swallowing down hard on the hot lump in my throat.

  Ava: It’s fine, dickhead. We’re cool.

  ELEVEN

  Then

  The car ride was already tense. Mom was pissed at having to drive after Dad said he was feeling woozy.

  “Maybe you wouldn’t be feeling woozy if you hadn’t had that cocktail with your brother,” Mom muttered crisply. Dad pretended not to hear. “You know I hate driving in snow.”

  “I can drive,” I offered from the back, and it was Mom’s turn to act like she didn’t hear me. About the only thing she disliked more than driving in snow was the prospect of me driving in snow. It was one of her excuses for putting off buying me my own car, even though she’d been promising me all year.

  “We decided it’d be better if you saved up for a car yourself,” Dad had added as they handed me the small jewelry box for my sweet sixteenth the year before.

  Don’t get me wrong: I loved the apple pendant. But Dad went on about how I needed to “learn the value of owning something you’ve worked for”—like the paper route he’d had as a kid was some big life-changing experience. He wanted me to get a part-time job, in other words. But when would I even have time to enjoy owning my hard-earned car if I had to spend my weekends waiting tables or choking on exhaust fumes working at the local gas station like Daphne did? His logic was highly flawed. Besides, I knew if I kept working on him Dad would cave about the car thing eventually.

  “I wish Ty would slow down a little,” Mom said now, her voice tense. Her knuckles stood out bone-white where she gripped the steering wheel.

  We were heading out for a fancy dinner to celebrate Uncle Ty moving into the manor with his new wife, Carolyn. It was still weird thinking of Uncle Ty being married. The newlyweds were in Uncle Ty’s slinky sports car up ahead, the taillights growing smaller as he drove a little too fast for the weather. Probably having much more fun than we were in our car, I thought. I should’ve gone with them.

  As if catching the stray thought, Mom turned her attention to me, though I didn’t notice right away because I was busy thumbing my phone.

  “I told you to leave that at home.” Mom’s eyes were sharp in the rearview mirror, just like her tone. “Pass it to your father. Now.”

  “I’m in the middle of a conversation,” I said, not unreasonably, I thought. My friendship with Daphne and Carla was still new, still tentative. I didn’t want to risk looking like a flake just because Mom was in a bad mood.

  “Blake, take her phone.”

  “Seriously? I’m not a little kid, Mom,” I complained, but Dad didn’t turn his gaze from the snowy stretch of woodland outside anyway. We were just passing the northern edge of our property. Because the snow was thick, and the night was clear, the reflected starlight was bright enough to see the manor flashing between the trees butting up against the embankment. They were all bare of leaves and reaching skyward—like ink scratches on a blank page. I wished I was out there, leaving stomping big footprints in the snow, instead of being trapped in a car with my parents.

  That was the very last time I’d ever wish for that, though I didn’t know it yet.

  “Why does everything have to turn into an arg–” Mom was saying when Dad cut in.

  “I see her,” he said.

  “What?” Mom sounded exasperated. I knew it was just because she was on edge, but it was still annoying. “See who?”

  “In the woods . . . It’s her.”

  I peered through the window. There was someone out there—a pale figure outlined against the black shapes of the trees.

  “She keeps moving like—” Dad’s voice stopped abruptly, though I could still see his mouth opening and closing in his reflection in the window.

  “Dad? Are you okay?”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Jesus!” Mom hissed.

  I turned to face her just in time to see an owl swooping in the headlights. It screeched as it winged up over the roof of the car.

  Dad shuddered, tugging at his seat belt. Something was wrong.

  I wasn’t worried about some owl or about upsetting Daphne and Carla now. I knew something big was happening—something bad. My seat belt dug in as I leaned forward to grip Mom’s shoulder a little too hard.

  “Mom, pull over. I think Dad’s having a seizure.”

  “A seizure?” Mom frowned in the rearview. He hasn’t had a seizure in years. I could almost hear her thinking it. “Blake? Honey? Are you—”

  A horn blared. Light filled the car, too bright to see anything else.

  Tires squealed and skidded over the icy road.

  My mouth opened and closed, just as silently as Dad’s.

  The impact happened so fast, but it was drawn with laser-sharp precision.

  Mom screamed as the Hummer rammed into us. Our car shot off the road, barrel-rolling five, six times—it was hard to tell. Glass flew everywhere. I felt the sting of it slicing my skin, and the brutal snap as my collarbone broke against the pull of the seat belt.

  I blacked out.

  When I opened my eyes again, everything was so dark. The car sat silent. I couldn’t tell that yet, though, because my ears were ringing. Then there was a sound—a strange drip, drip, drip.

  “Dad?” I felt the shape of the word, but it sounded like it was being spoken by someone else far away. “Mom?”

  I searched the dark for them, shadows shifting as my eyes adjusted. Blood rushed behind my ears. The seat belt held me in place, a white-hot brand against my broken collarbone. I was upside down, I realized hazily.

  Finally, I saw Mom looking back at me from the driver’s seat. The roof over (under now) the front of the car had caved in much worse than in the back, so her head pressed against it at an awkward angle. She stared at me, wide-eyed.

  “Mom?” I tried again. Then my seat belt shot free, dumping me out onto a carpet of broken glass. I screamed. When I held up my hands, they were covered in deep cuts. A slant of silvery light glinted on a long sliver of glass still sticking out of my left palm. Blood oozed out around it, making the glass hard to grip as I pulled it free, whimpering.

  Mom still hadn’t moved. She had to be in shock or something, I thought. She just watched me silently over her shoulder. I reached for her, lea
ving a smear of blood on her cheek.

  That was when I noticed the way her neck was twisted right around. My mouth opened, a scream crushed deep in my throat.

  “I saw her . . .” Dad’s voice came foggy and weak from the front passenger seat. “I saw her . . .”

  Slowly, no longer really processing what was happening, I turned to face Dad. Then I did scream.

  Dad’s face was a mask of blood, cuts from the shattered window scoring his cheeks. And his eyes . . .

  Drip, drip, drip . . .

  I couldn’t even see where his eyes were supposed to be. There was so much blood.

  “I saw her,” he said.

  I shook my head, even though he couldn’t see me. I couldn’t think past the blood. God, the blood. It was all I could see. All I could hear.

  Something moved behind me, and I startled. Turned too quickly, broken bones grinding together. My torn skin gaped.

  Uncle Ty peered in through the broken rear window, face white with shock. “Oh God . . . oh God . . . Shit. Shit. What do I do? What do I . . .”

  I’d never heard the sound I made then—this awful tortured keening, like a wounded animal. It seemed to snap Uncle Ty out of his daze, but then he saw Mom.

  “Oh Jesus . . .” He reached in and grasped my hand in his. It hurt, but I barely noticed. “Come on, Ava. Just keep looking at me, okay? Where’s your dad? Blake! Blake, help me!”

  I couldn’t move. Literally couldn’t. If I didn’t move, then this couldn’t be happening. Couldn’t be real.

  Uncle Ty used his sleeve to sweep the worst of the glass out of the way, then crawled inside the car to get me. But he froze when he saw Dad’s face.

  “Oh fuck . . . his eyes!”

  Uncle Ty moved so that his body blocked my view. But I’d already seen. I already knew.

  A horrible creaking sound came from outside. Outside but close by.

  Carolyn called out, “Ty? Are they all right? I think you need to hurry . . .”

  He tilted his head, as though that would help him see through the mangled body of the car to whatever was making that creaking sound. It came again, followed by a sharp crack.

  “Crawl out through the window, Ava,” he said tightly. “Go on.”

  “But—”

  “I’ll get your dad. We’ll be right behind you. But we need to move.”

  “I . . .”

  “We all have to crawl.” Dad spoke so softly, I barely heard him. But I did what he said. I started to crawl, each movement a searing jolt to my broken collarbone, but Dad’s words still rang through my head.

  We all have to crawl we all have to crawl WE ALL HAVE TO CRAWL!

  But it wasn’t just in my head—Dad was chanting it, bellowing it now, over and over and over.

  I scrambled for the nearest window, hair snagging on twisted metal, and broken shards attacking me from below. Sharp odors hit the back of my throat—blood and gasoline. They smelled so wrong, so awful. The wreck groaned and tightened around me, not wanting to let me go.

  “WE ALL HAVE TO CRAWL.”

  I dragged myself out onto churned-up snow and, God help me, I was glad I couldn’t hear Dad’s horrible chant now. I clawed my way up the embankment and was immediately swept into Carolyn’s embrace. I stood there, stiff and unyielding. Carolyn was still a stranger then, and I was confused—Why is this person hugging me? I just wanted to see what was happening with Uncle Ty and my dad.

  When I squirmed away, she looked down in horror at where my hands had left bloody prints on her pretty yellow tea dress. Past her shoulder, I saw the front end of the wrecked car crumpled around a tree.

  I searched the shadowy woods where I’d glimpsed the figure before . . . Had I really seen that? Or was it just a reflection playing on the inside of the car window?

  There was nobody there now.

  Across the road, another car sat sideways across both lanes. Steam poured from under the hood. Through it, I saw someone emerging, waving away the steam like nuisance flies.

  Madoc Miller.

  I recognized him right away, though I’d only seen him a couple times since he and his family moved to Burden Falls. The Millers were bad news, Dad had always said. “Our family and theirs . . . there’s history.”

  A loud screech made me and Carolyn whirl to face our car. The tree tilted farther forward over the wreck.

  “Uncle Ty!” I screamed.

  I slid down the embankment. When I reached the bottom, Uncle Ty was already pulling himself free of the wreckage. He staggered with me up the blood-smeared path I’d carved through the snow, back to where Carolyn stood, my ugly handprints on her dress lit up as she called 911.

  I looked back down the embankment, waiting for Dad to emerge.

  “Where is he?” My voice sounded broken. Uncle Ty put an arm around my shoulders, still breathing hard, but I shrugged him off. “Where is he?”

  “It’s too late, Ava.”

  Carolyn was talking to someone on the phone, her words coming out fast as her gaze turned to the other car across the road.

  “We have to get Dad out of there,” I said. “The tree—”

  “He’s already gone. They’re both gone.” Uncle Ty’s statement was punctuated by an awful metallic crunch.

  The tree fell almost in slow motion. When it landed, it was the sound of the world ending.

  “Dad!”

  I tried to run back to the car, to get him out, to save him—but Uncle Ty held me tight, even though he was shaking too.

  “I saw exactly how it happened. It was the other driver’s fault.” Carolyn’s voice was adamant as she spoke with whoever was on the line.

  Footsteps crunched toward us, and I held my breath, thinking for one insane moment that Mom or Dad had made it out after all.

  “Goddamn, these icy roads are a pain in my ass. Everyone all right over here?”

  I looked up into the face of Madoc Miller. His steely gray eyes surveyed me, Uncle Ty, Carolyn. They narrowed as he took in the wreck of the car below us.

  “Guess not,” he said.

  TWELVE

  I wake up breathless. The nightmare is fresh on my tongue, trying to slither its way down my throat to wrap around my heart. Sadie among the trees; the screeching tires mingling with the shriek of the owl. The explosive crack of the world ending; the car rolling over and over and over . . .

  I have this dream a lot. It came every night at first, while I was lying in the hospital with my hands in bandages. Sometimes I’d relive it while I was awake. I’d be sitting in class, the slow tick of the clock lulling me into that headspace where it would come blazing back to life, and I’d live through it over and over again. Feel the air torn out of me every time because Mom and Dad were gone.

  They’ve been gone an entire year today.

  Dr. Ehrenfeld—my grief counselor—said the nightmares would fade eventually. They have, kind of. I don’t get them every night now. She also told me it might help if I wrote a journal, like a confession or something. Just get it out. But I’ve never been great with words. So I used my art, as soon as my hands had healed enough to hold a paintbrush. I re-created the scene over and over again, every detail. That’s what’s inside the pavilion. That’s what Dominic and Freya Miller are probably going to home in on for their stupid show. Because I painted Dead-Eyed Sadie too. Just the way I saw her that night, standing among the trees.

  Of course I know she wasn’t really there. She isn’t real.

  I know . . .

  I scrub a hand over my face, as if I can rub away the images. The feelings.

  This is it. I have lived a year without my parents.

  I get dressed in my usual all-black, add my funeral coat, and head through to the kitchen. Carolyn is there, and she wraps me in a massive hug as soon as she sees me.

  “Is Uncle Ty ready to go to
the cemetery?”

  I didn’t see him or Carolyn last night when I got in after that shitshow with Ford at the manor, but this was always the plan for the anniversary: We’d all go to the cemetery together, lay fresh flowers, maybe go for a walk before school.

  Carolyn sighs, finally pulling away. “Sorry, Ava. He’s in bed—”

  “Hungover?” I snap. “Today?”

  “Not hungover,” Carolyn says. “He’s running a fever. Ty was up and down all night, poor guy.” Judging by the dark circles under her eyes, he wasn’t the only one whose sleep was disturbed. I immediately feel like a turd for assuming the worst. “I’m going to take the day off work to stay home and take care of him. He looks awful.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  “I think it might be better if we go to the cemetery when you get home this afternoon. Hopefully, Ty will be feeling much better by then. What do you say?”

  It’s not ideal. I wanted to go before school so I wouldn’t spend the whole day dreading it. But it’s not like I’m going to stomp my foot and demand she goes and drags Uncle Ty out of bed.

  “Of course, that’s fine,” I tell her, and Carolyn smiles gratefully. “Oh—I wanted to wear Mom’s apple necklace today, but I couldn’t find it in my jewelry box. Did it get packed away in the safe?”

  “No, I don’t think so . . . unless you put it in there?”

  “No,” I say, a sick feeling taking hold of my stomach. “Could you . . . would you mind checking for me?”

  The safe is in their room, so it’s not like I can go in there and see for myself.

  Carolyn heads upstairs and returns a minute later with a worried look on her face. “It’s not in the safe, and Ty hasn’t seen it. Do you think you might’ve packed it somewhere else for the move?”

  I shake my head, mouth gone dry. I’ve only ever kept it in my jewelry box, but I didn’t even think to check it before we moved. I only wear it on important occasions. I haven’t actually seen Mom’s necklace in weeks. It feels wrong not to wear it today.