Willowcreek; Within The Roots

Part One ─ Welcome To Havensville

 Visitors were rather uncommon in Havensville. Outsiders would pass through fairly quickly and rarely stayed long enough for anyone to learn their names.

On the unique occasion that a visitor lingered longer than usual, a buzz would flow through the small shopping district. The strip of local businesses would open their doors and tried with all of their might to be the shop that pulled the outsider in,

This time around, Al's Diner was the lucky business chosen.

Charlie and Evie Pogue waited by the register for their food to be brought out to them, Charlie half lost in conversation with the owner of the diner.

As always, Albert was trying to pull any and all information out of them, most importantly their purpose for being in town. When they received outsiders, they were typically older couples, not teenagers, as the siblings were.

For Charlie, engaging conversation was easy. He was the one talking to the middle aged man and giving him just the right amount of information for Albert to continue the conversation, continuing being nice to him.

For Evie, the younger of the two, she found all of the attention unpleasant. She could feel a particularly piercing pair of eyes on her. Her skin itched and burned, but whenever she glanced over to where she believed the eyes were, no one was looking at her.

And yet, it seemed everyone was staring.

Evie's concentration had steered to the deep aubergine awning across the road from the diner, the green rimmed door calling to her. From where she was, she couldn't read the name on the sign, but from the odd symbol on the glass display, it was obviously an occult store. Somewhere interesting for her to visit when she returned later on.

"So, you said you two are just passing through?" Albert asked Charlie, bringing Evie back into the conversation as their breakfast rolls were brought out.

Albert was a rotund man in his later fifties, she assumed, with salt and pepper hair, a bulbous nose with liver spots on it, but the warmest smile a stranger had ever graced her with. With a smile like his, it was no wonder that he worked with people for a living. Evie had already deduced that he was a people person, that he enjoyed helping people. They had picked the perfect place to get directions.

"Yeah, our dad is working nearby," explained Charlie as he passed a cup of coffee to his younger sister, warning her to be careful because it was piping hot.

"Where nearby?" they were asked by one of Albert's customers. A woman in her forties smiled at the two, her hand already in her bag trying to find something, perhaps a notebook. She looked like she could fit the bill of a teacher.

"Just let me check," Charlie patted down his pockets.

Evie began to sense that unpleasantness again. She wasn't sure who it was coming from, but she had eyes on her. They weren't just boring into her back, they were scraping at her skin, trying to dig beneath the surface. Her face began to burn, she felt uneasy, anxiety bubbled in her stomach. Something about the situation didn't feel right.

"Ah, here we are," he said with a smile, pulling out a lime green post-it note that he had to unfold. The address of where they were going wasn't really an address. It was simply two words scribbled on the post-it. "Willowcreek Estate?"

The air in the diner shifted.

Albert's smile folded into a grimace, glancing between the pair. It seemed her brother had said something wrong, judging by the change in Albert's demeanor. His warmth had frozen over, the welcoming atmosphere that he'd been exuding disappeared.