R/Nosleep (Get Spooked)

So I Met Francesca's Family... (Suburbia Part 11)

By u/firesidechats451

I had a thousand questions, but I did my best to stifle them. As curious as I was about Francesca's family and mysterious past, we had bigger problems right now.

She and I sat at the kitchen table, Francesca staring at the phone in her hand. We'd been like that for nearly twenty minutes.

I cleared my throat. "If you'd rather I step out, I can—"

"No," Francesca said quickly. She sighed. "It's just—it's been a while. Since I talked to them."

"How long?"

"Eight years."

I let out a slow breath. Yeah, that would be awkward, popping in after so long. Hey Dad, sorry I haven't called, but I'm trapped in a magic bubble with people who melt faces, what do you know about hags?

"Okay." Francesca hit "send" and lay the phone on the table as it dialed out. "Here we go."

Someone picked up on the second ring.

"Hello?" The voice was surprisingly normal—it could've belonged to anyone's father. "Francesca, honey, is that you?"

Francesca took a long, shaky breath. "Yeah, Dad. It's me."

"It's so good to hear from you, baby!" My jaw dropped. I was expecting disbelief or even anger—but Francesca's dad sounded genuinely thrilled. I shot Francesca a "what the fuck?" look and received only a shrug. "Frankie, how you been, honey?"

"I'm okay." Francesca cleared her throat. "Uh, just so you know, Dad, you're on speaker phone."

Forgetting it was phone call, I waved. "Um, hello," I said.

"That's Kate. She's my—friend." Francesca shot me an apologetic look, but I got it—now was not the time to explain our complicated relationship. "Dad, I was wondering if you could look up something for me. In Great-Grand-Mère's library."

Francesca's father was quiet for a moment. "Baby, are you in trouble?"

"I'm fine." At a blank look from me, she added, "We're in bit of a situation, but we're handling it. We just need to know how to get rid of a hag."

"Okay. Okay, I can do that."

There was a bit of background noise as Francesca's dad moved around. "Frankie, baby, it's gonna take me a moment to look up. Is it okay if I hand the phone off to Pops?"

"No—wait!" Francesca tried to protest, but the phone was already getting passed off. There was a brief murmur I couldn't quite hear, then another voice, a little gruffer, said, "Hello, Frankie? Kate?"

"We're here," Francesca said. She rubbed her forehead, hiding her eyes. "Hi, Pops."

I leaned down, trying to catch her eyes. She batted me away with her hand.

"It's good to hear your voice." Something scraped against the microphone as the phone shifted. "We all miss you."

"I miss you, too." For the first time since we met, Francesca looked like she was going to cry.

"Um, your sister's at a friend's house. Otherwise I'd put her on."

I stared at Francesca, who blatantly ignored me. Sister??

"It's okay. I don't think Marie would want to talk to me, anyway."

"I don't think so. I know she was angry after you left, but she's your sister. She still loves you."

"I know."

There was shuffling in the background and a familiar voice. "Okay, I'm gonna hand you back over to your Dad."