Glamoured: A Modern Fairy Tale

2. The Drudgery of Suburban Leaf Raking

Brandon held out his phone, pointing to an article. Eleanor blanched when she read the title: Homicide Victim Discovered at Pinnacle Rock State Park.

"See you've heard," he said, watching her reaction. Suddenly, Eleanor didn't feel so hungry.

"Yeah, because I found it," she muttered.

"What? It just said a hiker...oh shit, that was you. No way! Was there intestines strewn everywhere? It said animals got to the guy..."

"Didn't do a double take, but yeah, it looked right out of an Eli Roth movie," she said, putting away the pretzels for later. The smell of the open stomach and the rotting muscles haunted her, making the sandwich sit precariously in her stomach.

"I asked Chief Higgins not to mention my name in the report," Eleanor said. "I didn't know the guy, I just called it in. Guess he kept his promise."

Brandon clicked off his phone, shaking his head. "Could be a serial killer," he said. "Guilliford's very own Zodiac Killer."

She rolled her eyes. "We could have our very own Lifetime movie."

He thrust a finger at her and said, "No way. Nothing that sappy."

"Did they identify the guy?" she asked, realizing she hadn't read anything else about it.

"Some guy who had a vacation house nearby," Brandon said. "They said he was from New York and was up for the weekend. They said the circumstances around the death were still 'mysterious.'"

"That's all I wanted to know," Eleanor said, cutting Brandon off with a wave of her hand. She was already nauseous thinking about the body again and didn't want any more news. She'd been afraid it was still someone local, and part of her felt guilty for being relieved that it wasn't. Maybe that made her a bad person, but it was hard for her to care about some random guy from out of town. Now, if it had been one of their own...

"Gotta go," Brandon said, slinging his messenger bag over his shoulder. "Software design calls."

She saluted him, and he waved and walked off. She called, "Rock Park at 7!"

He gave a thumbs up over his shoulder, and she settled down to write up an essay for her modern literature class, which was in an hour. She actually kept up with the reading in that class, and the current assignments were about the concepts of modern horror. You could write a novel on modern horror yourself, she thought while writing about Gillian Flynn's reconceptualization of the psychopath in Gone Girl. It didn't do wonders for her mode to continue thinking about murder.

After class, Eleanor put off going to find a tutor for economics and went home instead. She wanted some time to catch up on reading before she went climbing. Certainly not doing anything related to passing classes, she scolded herself when she slunk through the door.

"Eleanor," her mom said, stepping out of the kitchen. She suppressed a groan and gave her mom a tight smile.

"Yeah?"

"You need to rake the yard. There's leaves everywhere," she said. "And I saw that pile of clothes on your floor. That's like four loads worth of laundry."

"The leaves never bothered you before," Eleanor snapped. Ah, great—she was going to start another fight with her mom. Just another Monday.

Her mom gave her a tight-lipped glare that was a perfect mirror of Eleanor's expression. She'd taken after her mom's mannerisms honestly. Her mom said, "It matters to me now. We've got a yard, not a field."

"Yeah," Eleanor said sourly. "We'd still have a field if—"

"Today is not the day for this," her mom snapped. "Rake the leaves and bag them."