𝕯𝖆𝖒𝖆𝖌𝖊𝖉 ☽ 𝕒𝕙𝕤

𝕮𝖍𝖆𝖕𝖙𝖊𝖗 𝕹𝖎𝖓𝖊

𝚒 𝚌𝚊𝚗'𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚗𝚔 𝚘𝚏 𝚊 𝚜𝚘𝚗𝚐 - 𝚑𝚎𝚕𝚙 𝚖𝚎

☽

It's Sunday, and Tate hasn't come over. I'm starting to worry about him - he killed someone yesterday, that's gotta be pretty traumatic.

I decide to go next door to check on him.

'Where are you going?' my mom asks from the kitchen as I walk past.

'I was just going to Constance's to see how Tate's doing.'

My mom asks me to come and talk to her. She takes a seat at the island and beckons me over, taking my hands and rubbing my palms gently with her thumbs.

'Are you doing okay? I've barely seen you since last night... If there's anything you want to talk about-'

'I'm fine mom... really.'

She gives me a half smile and releases my hands.

'Be safe, honey,' she says and I nod as I walk back down the hallway.

As I step out I notice an ambulance parked a little way down the road. I hear the clattering of the metallic wheels as a bed is lifted in.

Someone in a navy uniform shuts the doors behind it. The white text on the back of his shirt is revealed as he turns. 'coroner', it reads.

That's weird.

I make it to Constance's house and knock on the door. She opens it and sighs when she sees me. It's obvious she's been crying.

'Look what the wind blew in...' she mutters waving a cigarette around in her shaking hand.

'Is Tate here?' I ask.

'No,' she says, looking away dismissively as she takes another puff of her cigarette.

'What's with the amb-'

'Come in,' she says, narrowing her bloodshot eyes at me.

I follow her as she walks down the hallway, confused at what's going on.

She leads me to the first room on the right and takes a seat at her dining room table.

There's another woman, she looks about in her 40s, and she's clearly tried to pack her newly forming wrinkles with cheap makeup. She has blonde hair with brown roots peeking through with tacky coral press-on nails. I'd hate to see the abuse her can of hairspray has to go through. I take a seat.

Constance half-heartedly stubs out her cigarette before dropping it into the ashtray.

'Adelaide is dead,' she mutters, looking down at the table. 'My baby is dead... because of you'

Her tone shifts from sorrow to vengeance and she looks around to glare at me.

'Wh-what?' I stammer. What happened? She never deserved to die...

'You filled her head with all these... ideas,' she says, her eyes welling up and her voice starting to crack, 'she wanted to go as a 'pretty girl' for halloween,' she continues, raising her voice and making quotation marks with her fingers as she stands up angrily.

'I'm sorry... I was just trying to hel-'

'You've done more than enough!'

As if you were such a great mother to her.

'I only wanted to make her happy, I would never have meant for anything bad to happen...'

'Well it has...'

She clumsily pours herself a glass of whisky, tossing the bottle to the side and downing the golden liquid.

'You should stay away from this one. Wherever she goes, death will always follow. I can sense it,' The other woman says, piping up for the first time.

She looks at me judgingly as she waves her cigarette around, creating smoky trails in the air.

'And who are you?'

'Billie Dean Howard, medium to the stars.'

'And why should I trust some wanna be hollywood psychi-'

'Medium, dear,' she snaps, 'I've seen it before. I don't know what it is, but people like you are like conduits for evil. Somehow trouble will always find you. You're an omen of death to anyone that gets close to you. No matter how hard you try, you cannot escape your curse.'

My curse?

'I can tell you know what I'm talking about. Weird things have been happening to you haven't they...'

'No... they haven't...' I retort, not entirely truthfully. The dresser, the cut... how could she possibly know that there have been strange things happening to me?  'I'm leaving,' I announce, avoiding having to hear more of her lipstick clad mouth, as I hastily stand up from the table.

As I go to walk out, Constance grips me firmly by the wrist.

'And whatever you do, don't tell your little boy toy about this... he can't know his beloved sister is dead,' she urges, 'He's a delicate boy and... who knows how he could react.'

It's funny that Tate never mentioned Addy before.

Her breath smells of tobacco and alcohol, and there is a look of pleading in her eyes, almost as if she's scared of what Tate might do. Why does she talk about her son like that?'

I nod hesitantly and pull away confused, not looking back as I close the door. By the time I get to my house, the ambulance is gone.

When I check my watch it's 9:26 pm. I decide to sort through the rest of the things I needed to unpack from moving in an attempt to distract myself from what Billie Dean had said.

There's no way that what she said is true, right? That death will always follow me? It's stupid of me to even entertain the idea that this budget circus bimbo knows anything about me.

✧