Chapter Text
Gravel crushed and crunched under the tires as the navy car slowly pulled up the long driveway to the old house on the hill. Heavy rain fell from a dark sky, the only light blaring through the drops from the car as they lit the drivers way. The driver, a blonde young woman with vibrant green eyes. She’d been away for the last year and a half at college and had been fairly distant from her father and sister. She had moved back to school shortly after her mother’s funeral, not wanting to be a burden to her family due to her appearance. She had always shared her mother’s features; and as she grew she proved nearly identical to her. But from the day her mother, Emily, didn’t come home from the hospital, that resemblance felt like a curse. Every time she, Amelia Deetz, looked into a mirror she felt sick to her stomach as she saw what could have been the ghost of her dead mother staring back at her.
She allowed herself one glance into those green eyes through the rearview mirror as she slowed to a stop. Pausing to breathe and look up at the old and unfamiliar Victorian home before her, a faded shell of a home misted by the rain which had long since begun to fall, she felt her heart sink again.
Of course her father had run away from his problems. Packing up and moving far from their city home in New York to an unfamiliar town in the middle of the Connecticut countryside. Like the death of her mother lingered over the hearts of her family, the house loomed over the town of Winter River from the hill, overlooking the small town in its frail shadow.
Amelia took a shaky breath. She was petrified, having not seen her family in so long. After the funeral, she had tried to take a break from school to care for her father and sister, but eventually it became too much. Her father, Charles, had completely withdrawn from the world, secluding himself in his study save for the few times she could coax him out for dinner. Lydia was much the same, except the few times she did open herself up to speak, Charles had quickly tensed and urged a topic change, if he even spoke at all. Any mention of Emily stung him like a knife, and Amelia could tell her looks were almost the sharpest dagger of all.
She’d thought of dying her hair but could never get the courage. So she darkened it with some lowlights to dim the platinum into an ashy dirty blonde, cutting it to a length of curls that hung just past her shoulders. Hoping it would take the edge off the blade. But no matter what, those green eyes pulled at the heartstrings of her father and sister.
Finally, as much as she wanted to stay to care for Lydia, she felt it best to simply go back to school. At least then her appearance would no longer serve as a constant reminder of the loss of their beloved mother. Maybe without her, her family could begin to heal. So she packed up her things, including her guitar, camera, and a small black bag she carried everywhere with her neatly tucked away, and a small soft black cat plush, and returned to school. She went by the shortened nickname Amy, and tried her best to move forward, whatever that meant.
But here she was, parked and staring at the home her father had chosen to restart in, and afraid to discover any other changes that might have taken place. Most of all, afraid of her fathers reaction to the changes of herself while she had been away. But that could be discussed later. In private.
After another moment, another breath, Amelia pulled her backpack and guitar case out of the car and over her shoulder and walked to the front door, squinting against the rain and boots sloshing in the grit. She looked up at the aged white painted doors and knocked.