After the death of her mother, Hannah Dinzel and her younger sister Molly venture across the United States in search of their estranged father. Along the way, fragments of their hidden past reveal that they may not be as ordinary as they believe.
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Song: One, Harry Nilsson Content Warnings: Blood, Strong Language, Violence, and Smoking. This chapter contains a brief mention of sexual assault. ◃───────────▹
A girl lights a cigarette. In the distance, thunder rolls over the artificial green hills. A cloud of smoke surrounds her, feathering against the big brim of her hat. Thick polarized sunglasses sit atop her upturned nose decorated with a single silver hoop. Perching the cigarette between two gloved fingers, she takes a long drag.
Below her, an oak casket with gold trimmings sits six feet deep, sucking up all the air around it. A mound of dirt, ready and willing to seal the box in an eternal tomb, lingers in the background.
She scoffs despite herself.
She'd always imagined herself in that box, with someone staring down at her.
The irony is amusing.
"Miss Paritch," the grave digger addresses.
She shoots him a nasty glare. "It's Dinzel. Paritch is my stepfather's name."
"My apologies, Miss Dinzel." It still doesn't sound right.
"Hannah is fine."
"Hannah. Are you ready?"
Pursing her lips, she nods. She leans forward to flick some ashes into the pit.
"Good riddance, Mom."
The sentence leaves a bitter taste in her mouth as she spins, heels tearing into the wet grass. She doesn't stay to watch, it doesn't matter whether she does or not. It's just a corpse in a box, she tells herself. Finishing her cigarette across the cemetery to the parking lot, she crushes it under her toe on the asphalt. She doesn't look back once. Not when they start shoveling dirt into the grave or finish filling it; not even when the funeral director and gravedigger pack up their shovels and bibles in a white van and drive away.
The girl slips into a silver Porsche 9-11 and pulls out her phone.
2:23.
A heavy sigh vibrates off her lips. Dragging the shifter into gear and zipping out of the parking lot, there's a sense of urgency to her speed.
She's late.
Her vision blurs and she blinks rapidly against it, fighting off sleepiness. The doctor had warned her about the side effects of starting medication again. Drowsiness—but he'd also cautioned her not to drink or smoke on the stuff, and look how well that'd gone.
She'd temporarily lapsed in taking the pills on time then stopped altogether when her mother disappeared. A part of her hoped that in the death of Evelyn Paritch, the things that go bump in the night would die with her. After all, it was she who had invited the visions to rent recesses of Hannah's mind.
