Hilltop House

Cora, Thirteen

The minute they'd entered the house, the adults started what Cora sensed were some inelegant conversations in need of alcoholic aid, and though she'd rather have stayed with her mother, Alan, in the midst of mixing some drinks, mentioned something about "the young people" being downstairs, the implication that she should join quite clear.

People? Plural?

Cora hesitated at the top of the stairs, debated making some excuse and going back to the house, but suddenly Alan was leaning past her, yelling down that she'd arrived, and so, biting her lips in annoyance, the girl steeled herself and descended. As she stepped warily into Brian's living space, she recognized two of his friends there but didn't immediately spot him. Annoying Addy was sitting on the couch, her hair higher and her makeup heavier than usual, and on a chair nearby was a guy Cora thought was named Dave, though he also could've been a Dan. He was even rougher around the edges than Brian was, flannels and ripped jeans and big boots, something that halfway resembled a beard attempting to grow on the lower half of his sallow face. He had tired eyes, too, although that could've been due to whatever he was high on.

Addy waved a beer at Cora. "Oh come on and sit down," she ordered. "It's Thanksgiving." She said it as if it were the only thing in the world that mattered, and Cora did indeed feel compelled to sit.

Taking the chair across from Dave (or Dan), Cora forced a smile, refused the beer Addy held out to her. "I don't drink."

"Oh come on, don't be boring! It's a holiday."

"I haven't been feeling well," Cora insisted. "I don't want it."

"You still feeling sick?" Brian asked, coming out of his bedroom and approaching, taking the only available seat, next to Addy.

"What the Hell are you all dressed up for?" Addy whined. "You should've told me."

Brian told her to shut up, but Cora had noticed it, too—Brian looked the most put together she'd ever seen him. He looked, actually, pretty nice, collared shirt and sweater, rolled sleeves and stylish jeans and shoes—he even wore glasses, for some reason. He looked about five years older.

"I'm feeling well enough to be here, aren't I?" Cora offered in response to his question. But thinking about sickness made her think of the house, and with thoughts of the house came guilt over leaving it. "Do you need glasses?"

"Yeah," he said, taking the drink Cora had refused out of Addy's hand. "I always have. I just usually wear contacts."

Cora almost told him she liked them but held back, remembering she was mad at him.

"They look stupid. Let me try them on," Addy said, trying to take them off him in what was probably an attempt at playfulness but only came off as irritating. Brian swatted her hand away. Cora played with the rings on her fingers, looked at Dan (or Dave) and made some kind of conversation.

Between the semi-intoxicated ramblings of Addy and Dane (whose name Cora eventually found out when someone addressed him), the television, and the noise and comings and goings of people upstairs, Cora managed to avoid talking to and even, for the most part, looking at Brian. Food happened at some point, and she threaded through the adults in their now uninhibited conversations to fill a plate, which she then sneaked out to the back patio to eat. Alan had set up the bonfire there, but it was still too cold to sit in front of without mittens and a coat and a hat; Cora realized that the minute she sat down but was too stubborn--and too determined to avoid people for a while--to get up and go back inside. Instead, she just scooted her chair as close to the flames as she dared and sat staring into them while she tried to eat turkey and cranberries and whatever else she'd filled her plate with.

Fire was interesting, the girl reflected, nibbling a roll. Her Grandmother Luce had always had a strange relationship with fire--a stupid one, now that Cora was adept enough to say it. Luce burned candles all hours of the day, and she smoked and dropped ash wherever she wanted to. It hadn't always been bad, but the older Luce got, the worse her carelessness became. It was a wonder the old woman hadn't burned her own house down around her yet.

"Kind of cold out here, isn't it?"

Cora didn't need to turn around to know Brian had come out the sliding door. Her chest fluttered. She did and didn't want to see him. Only her eyes rose to greet him as he came into view and took a seat on the chair next to her loveseat, scooting it closer to the fire as she had done. Cora stared back into the flames, not wanting to gratify him with any kind of answer.

They sat in disquieted silence for a minute, Cora putting her plate of unfinished food on a table at her side and leaning over, elbows on knees, fingers laced. She looked absently at her black nail polish.

Brian eventually came to the subject, as she knew he would if left on his own. "Look, Cora, I've said I'm sorry about a thousand times. And I mean it. Will you please just talk to me?"

She sighed, unsure whether she wanted to answer but knowing her silent treatment couldn't go on forever. "I don't really know what to say to you."

Encouraged in spite of her indifference, Brian brightened a bit. "I--I know it doesn't make it better, but I really didn't think you'd . . . you know. And it was--"

"You think I'm just mad that you did it in front of me? That that's it? First of all, I'm not an idiot. Do you think I haven't seen people deal in front of me?" Cora couldn't stop once started. She got to her feet, heating up even in the frosty air. "And yeah, I'm pissed that you only brought me to the beach because it was convenient for you and that you didn't have even the slightest guilt knowing you could involve me in your illegal shit, but you know what I'm most angry about?"

Brian had stood too, seemed taken aback and riveted at the same time. He drew somewhat nearer her, even though she kind of scared him with her ferocity. "Wh-what?"

"You've been lying to me this whole time, acting like you were just taking some time before looking into school, working at that gas station to save up." Cora spoke into her own breath clouds. "You have no intention of doing anything more with yourself! You're entirely content just sitting around dealing and going nowhere, just wasting your life with all these losers and potentially getting your dad in trouble--"

"Cora--Cora! Stop." Brian shook his head, said with some chagrin, "Who do you think I'm dealing for? Alan's not my dad. He's my uncle."

She just stared at him for a minute. "Well . . . well, that's even worse! Why are you doing it for him? You mean, like--"

"Because he's been supporting me my whole life. Or, at least, since I was in fifth or sixth grade. My mom just left me here, and he's taken care of everything for me. I would've been on the street or in foster care otherwise. I . . . I owe him everything."

"Brian . . ." Cora had gotten so worked up that it'd take a moment for her to cool down. She didn't know what to feel and needed to process what he'd told her.

"I just . . . I don't want you to stay mad at me, is all."

"Are you going to stop? Dealing?"

Brian's mouth opened and closed slightly, like a fish. "It's not that easy--"

Cora scowled, narrowed her dark eyes. "Then I'll never stop being mad."

He returned her frown, though his reasons for it were surely different, but before either could do or say anything, Addy's voice cut through the smoky air. She and Dane sauntered onto the patio, Addy giving a suspicious glance at Brian, who kept his burning eyes on Cora. Addy was saying things that Cora couldn't really hear against the rushing sound in her skull but after a moment it was the gaunt, slovenly Dane who suggested it:

"You live in that haunted house up there, right?"

Cora shook her thoughts together, blinked, turned to Dane. "What?"

"Where someone died?" Dane was grinning in a disturbing manner. "Can you show us?"

It was a terrible idea. The house would hate it. Cora was about to refuse, but Brian beat her to it.

"Dane, she doesn't want to take us into her house. Forget it. Let's go--"

"No," Cora interjected, catching Brian's eye. With a smirk, she said, "I'll absolutely take you inside. I mean, if Brian's not too afraid."