Breath In The Dark // P. BLACKWOOD

Chapter 4

(Not Edited) 

"It's Thanksgiving week, class, and I want to talk about you and this town. Your family trees tell the tale of Greendale. So, how well do you know your roots?"

Ms. Wardwell swiftly turned on her heels and made her way down the rows of her students' desks, arriving at her intended target. "For instance, you, Ms. Kinkle. Uh, you as well Mr Kinkle." She refrained from rolling her eyes forgetting about the young man sitting in front of Mora and tried to include him in the topic but her sights were fixated on the female brunette.

"When did your family come to Greendale?"

"I'm not exactly sure."

"How did they come to own the mines? And why?"

"I don't— I don't know."

"Well, you've got some digging to do." She caught herself again, "All of you do. The assignment this week is to research your own family history. It's time we got to know ourselves and each other... better."

From where she sat, Mora could practically hear Harvey gulp. To be honest, she was a bit uncomfortable too with the way Ms. Wardwell was scrutinizing them, mainly her.

"Class is dismissed." She announced when the bell rang.

* * *

As a thanksgiving tradition, the Kinkle family members (save the only female) gather to spend some quality time while Grandpa Kinkle pays a visit. They mostly spend their days drinking beer, talking sports, eating a delicious homemade dinner prepared by Mora (with the help of Tommy, though she only lets him cut the onions and such. Because, bless his soul, no matter how hard he tries, he can't cook for shit) and —most importantly— go hunting.

Once Harvey and Mora got home from school, they had found their brother, father and grandfather, Jefferey Kinkle, all sat in the living room.

The twins shared a look, knowing that the torturous week had begun. After greeting him and sending Harvey a look that meant 'good luck', Morasha left the men to their own devices and headed upstairs to her room. Jeff never allowed her to participate, not that it bothered her, because he said, "We wouldn't want to keep you away from housework, sweetheart." And then proceeded in demanding a beer from the fridge. Now that, that bothered her.

"Grandpa, I'm supposed to write a paper on our family history. Have we always been miners?"

"Not always. Back in the early days, when we were Von Kunkles, we hunted and trapped. And then there was that terrible winter. And those people."

"What people?"

"Well, no-one knew where they came from but they lived on the outskirts of town. And the townsfolk used to say that they were tunnelling in them hills. They claimed we stole their land."

"Did we? Steal land from them?"

"The hill people scared the town folk. And it was decided that someone should get rid of them, and that duty fell to us." "And after they were gone we made use of the land."

"So it wasn't a 'claim', our family chased them from their homes." Harvey was irate but hid it. It seemed it was much worse than that because he felt he was implying that they killed them, but he could be wrong. "What happened to the people? The hill people?"