ten shades of crazy ✂ miles fairchild

round the bend

round the bend: crazy; insane.

HASTILY BITING the skin of your lips, you turned your head to watch as another car zipped down the street, kicking up still puddles of water as it went. It was pouring outside and while the bus stop offered some sort of protection, you could still feel the cold biting at your skin even under all those layers. God. Maybe it wasn't all that great of an idea to drop out, just like that. You had nowhere to go now, considering the reason you'd dropped out in the first place.

You pursed your lips as the reminder of your parents' untimely death resurfaced in your mind. It wasn't like... the two of them were exceptionally young or anything, but they were too young just to kick the bucket like that. Stupid car crash. Stupid slippery roads, stupid cliffs. It was always the same when you thought about them. It was utterly pointless, the way they died. And now you couldn't finish your education, since you had no remaining family to stay with while everything blew over.

...Which was the reason you were standing under that stupid, leaky bus stop. Just a few days after your parent's death, you'd begun scouring every newspaper you could find in order to locate a cheap apartment or something. In the following weeks, you'd just been bouncing in between hotels while you searched. While you didn't find some rickety apartment or dodgy condo, you found... a peculiar job listing. Said job listing was for a live-in nanny (which you just considered to be a glorified babysitter) for a young girl whose parents were dead, accompanied by a housekeeper and a private tutor. In all honesty, you'd just glanced over the listing at first—but live-in? Meaning housing? Meaning you'd get paid to live there? Well, aside from the babysitting part, it seemed like a free paradise. But that could be handled.

And so you'd called the number listed and spoken with a woman who sounded like she was too old to know how to work a phone, and secured a time and method for your arrival at this alleged "Bly Manor" (in your opinion, it sounded nine parts dramatic and one part pants-pissing. It was too good to be true—the manor had to be haunted or something).

So here you were, watching as cars meandered back and forth on the street slick with rain, silently cursing Mother Nature for the dreary weather. Someone was set to come to pick you up, but you didn't know exactly when or how. In a limousine? A party bus? ...God, it could be a unicycle for all you cared about. You just wanted to be out. of. the. goddamn. rain. You'd practically torn up the skin of your lips while waiting by the time a car pulled to a stop in front of the small shelter... thank goodness it'd come sooner than later. You thought for a moment that maybe you hadn't struck a chord with the gods or something. Flashing a half-smile and a wave at the driver clad in black, you awkwardly clamored into the backseat with your bag alongside you. "Hey! Thanks, I uh, was getting tired of standing around," You laughed exasperatedly, trying to get a good look at the driver's face from the rearview mirror. Granted his unwillingness to take his eyes away from the road, you could easily pick up that he knew what he was doing. "To the, um, you know where I'm going."

...you silently berated that you were not born under a rhyming planet.

—

THE RIDE to the manor was slow yet relaxing. Despite the suffocating silence emanating from the ever-stoic driver, the gentle pitter-pat of rain against the windshield and the occasional squeak of the windshield wipers put your mind at ease. The downpour did let up eventually, though, de-escalating from a sprinkle to just cloudy skies. Maybe it was a good omen of what was to come of this job. At that point, you'd shrugged off your rather garish red raincoat, instead clad in a simple red crew neck and jeans. The weather hadn't been terrific as of late so you figured you should dress to accommodate just in case. People always said 'April showers bring May flowers', but it seemed like the 'showers' part was extending even into May. How typical. You would've continued lamenting this fact if it weren't for the literal fucking cathedral of a house that slowly faded into view. You could feel your mouth go agape as you leaned towards the window to get a better view. This is the Bly Manor? No, yeah, definitely haunted. ...But also, hauntingly gorgeous.