Chapter Text
You could tell that Tabitha was trying to make your journey to Scarlet Hollow as bearable as possible. She even bought you plane tickets to spare you over twenty hours of bus drives. You would have to thank her again for that one, you reminded yourself.
Still, Scarlet Hollow was a small town in the middle of nowhere, and you still needed to take three additional buses to get there from the airport. You were slowly starting to feel that it wasn’t the cursed town, the family of occultists or even your own supernatural abilities that will make you finally lose your mind - it will be this singular asshole who was talking nonsense at you for the last hour. You were doing your very best to ignore his disturbing stories that he was trying to sell as funny anecdotes, and you absolutely did not take any suspicious food that he was trying to force onto you.
You sighed with relief when he finally got out of the bus.
Forty five minutes later, you finally arrived at your destination - a small bus station that looked more like a kiosk. Tabitha was already waiting for you.
Even if your cousin looked somewhat annoyed to be there, you could tell that it didn’t have anything to do with you specifically. It was a mix of her usual attitude and overwhelming exhaustion of the last few days. You were almost certain that you had a pretty similar resting face, and the thought almost made you chuckle.
“Hi, Tabby.” You gave her a tired smile. “It’s nice to finally meet you in person, even if I wished it was under better circumstances.”
“You knew better than anyone what the circumstances would be, Alex.” She rolled her eyes at you. “But it is nice to finally meet you, too. I don’t like talking out here, where anyone can hear us, though. Let’s get out of here, shall we?”
“Sure,” you nodded.
You quickly packed your suitcase to Tabitha’s dusty BMW and took the passenger seat.
“Thanks for buying the tickets again,” you said awkwardly. You knew that both you and Tabitha weren’t good at managing social situations, but you felt like you knew her well enough not to worry about it too much.
“Don’t mention it. I’m the one who invited you to this supernatural death trap, after all. It wouldn’t be fair if I made you pay for it, too.”
Though Tabitha’s tone was dead serious, you couldn’t help but chuckle. She gave you a side eye, and then smiled, too.
“I’m really trying to make it comfortable for you, you know?” she continued, somewhat more relaxed now. “I even decided to move for the week. The Estate is falling apart, and I don’t want you to fall through a hole in the floor or anything. I’m sure we’ll have to visit it at some point, anyway, so you’ll see what I mean. Our family owns most of the houses in town. We’ll be staying at one we didn’t rent for a long time. I was using it as sort of a vacation home, especially when I needed to get away from Pearlanne.”
“Thanks, Tabby,” you said, your smile growing wider. You did not expect just how much thought your cousin would put into making you feel welcome. “I really appreciate that.”
“We’ll see if you’ll thank me when the week ends,” Tabitha shrugged. “Does your sixth sense detect any disasters yet?”
You closed your eyes for a moment. For the first time since you could remember, the tugging at the back of your head grew silent.
“For now it just tells me that I’m finally where I’m meant to be.”
“Of course it does,” Tabitha sighed.
A few minutes later, Tabitha parked in front of an old house. It looked surprisingly normal, and you were grateful that you were going to spend the week in an actual house instead of a place that had literal holes in the floor.
You took a deep breath as you stepped inside. You could tell that no one actually lived in this home for a long time. It was clean and furnished, but it lacked any traces of a soul.
Still, you could only imagine that the small, almost sterile room Tabitha showed you was ways better than whatever would await you at the Estate.
You quickly left your things in your room and used the very small, but clean adjoining bathroom. The last step on your tour was the kitchen.
The first thing you saw there was a beautiful tuxedo cat. You heard about her before, of course. From what Tabitha told you, Frou-Frou was about as pleasant as Pearlanne herself. You could tell from the look she gave you that she did not want to be here, and she was very much blaming you for her misery.
“Don’t mind Frou-Frou,” Tabitha said before the cat had a chance to actually say anything. “She isn’t happy that we moved here, and I don’t want to know what she has to say about it.”
Frou-Frou kept staring at you intently, obviously not interested in conversation.
“Frou-Frou is already giving me a silent treatment,” you explained. It was kind of ironic - it was the first time you could use your Gift in front of another human, and the pet in front of you wasn’t interested in talking at all.
“That sounds about right,” Tabitha shrugged. “Anyway, we’re stocked at mac and cheese, banana ice cream and PB&Js. Help yourself to whatever you want.”
“Huh, two out of these three options are kinda out of question for me,” you chuckled. “It’s weird that I’ve never mentioned it before, but I’m vegan. You know, considering the whole talking to animals thing.” Frou-Frou snorted at you with contempt. You decided to ignore her. “Are you seriously only ever eating these three things?”
“You city people are so fancy.” Tabitha rolled her eyes. “It’a a perfectly normal diet.”
“Uhm, no, it’s really not.” You frowned. You were suddenly surprised that Tabitha seemed to be in relatively good health. “You know what? I’m going to get to town and buy us some actual food. Kaneeka’s family owns a general store, so it would be a good opportunity to meet her in person, too. Are you coming?”
“I really can’t today. I still have to make sure that the mines are functioning, at least for now. There's still a lot of formalities regarding Pearlanne’s death, too. And besides, I don’t think Kaneeka would be happy to see me. We’re not exactly friends, you know that. I’ll be back in the evening, and maybe then we can actually talk about everything. Please, try not to get into any supernatural trouble before I’m back, okay?”
“I’ll do my best, but no promises,” you smiled apologetically. You knew that your fate now wasn’t exactly under your control.
Tabitha groaned.