Black Bird ✷ Max Dennison

I: Sweet Dreams

        Esther's window is slightly cracked, allowing an autumn breeze to seep into her room and dance across the floorboards. She startles awake, bolting upright as the traces of a hazy nightmare linger in her mind.

Esther doesn't know when the dreams first started. She doesn't know what they all mean, either, just that something's not right.

As she traces the lines on her palm, Esther recalls her latest nightmare: a cottage lives tucked into a thicket of woods nestled on the outskirts of a settlement. Inside, a chorus of cackles rise and linger in the brisk air, followed by the hum of voices and burble of a cauldron brimming with bright green liquid. "Sisters," shrieks a voice, "we will share her!"

Then the colors of the dream fizzle and bleed until she is awake, eyes darting around the comfort of her bedroom and a thin sheen of sweat clinging to her. "Good morning, Cinnamon," Esther softly whispers, grinning as her cat leaps onto her bed and delicately stretches out across the quilt draped over her legs.

A hollow knock carries from the front door to Esther. She motions for Cinnamon to follow, cloaking her shoulders in the quilt as she pads down the staircase, Cinnamon at her heels.

"Coming," Esther calls as another pattern of knocks sound through the house. She reaches out and unclasps the brass lock, cracking the door open a sliver. "Hey, Leo."

"Morning, Cousin!" Leo beams, striding into the house and collapsing on the cold leather couch.

"You're in a really good mood," Esther says, ambling into the kitchen to fix a cup of tea.

Cinnamon gingerly jumps onto the couch and nuzzles Leo's red sweater, snuggling into his lap. "I saw Allison this morning at that coffee shop near my house and she said hi to me. That's a sign, right?"

"A sign that you're delusional," Esther mutters, pressing the rim of the mug to her lips. On her way to sit next to Leo, she pauses in front of the thermostat, moving it up a few notches.

"Aunt Aimee is going to kill you," Leo states, petting Cinnamon. "You know she hates it when you touch the thermostat."

Esther side eyes Leo, shuffling toward the couch in a careful effort to keep the tea in its mug and the quilt loosely resting on her shoulders. "She won't have to kill me if I freeze to death first. Anyway, tell me more about the girl you're stalking."

"I wouldn't even call it stalking. Chance, destiny, fate, perhaps. I think I'm finally going to ask her out," he muses.

A loud thud echoes on the street, beckoning Esther to the window. She pulls the lace curtain taught, sunlight spilling into the room and clinging to her features as she peers out. Esther's gaze fixes on a moving van and a family trickling into the house beside her own. A strawberry blond clutching a worn bear to her chest laces her hand in her mother's, disappearing through the front door. A tan boy in a tattered blue crewneck hangs behind with, presumably, his father, whose face is an aged reflection of his son's. They haul boxes into the house, temporarily disregarding the heavier one that now lays cushioned in the grass by the curb where it had slipped.

When the boy returns for his forgotten box, his gaze sweeps up, catching Esther's dark-brown eyes as he allows the ghost of a grin to play across his lips, a half smirk apparent. Esther smiles back, brushing a handful of raven hair behind her ear. This is the first of many exchanged smiles.

"New neighbors!" Esther shrieks, twirling toward Leo, who's sinking his fist into the candy corn bowl perched on the end table, "let's make them pumpkin cookies!"

YAY CHAPTER ONE IS OUT!! chapter two should be coming thursday. how do we feel so far? i know this chapter is definitely on the shorter end, but the others should be nearly double the length of this one.