𝗥𝗲𝗰𝗶𝗽𝗲 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗮 𝗱𝗶𝘀𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗯𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗿𝘆:
Two meddling teenagers and one very, very small town.
Slowly add a growing body count.
Mix well until mystery thickens.
One serial killer? Optional.
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Friday
Scene I
SUNNY WATCHES THE OUTSIDE OF HER HOUSE, ON THE HEATED FLOOR, WITH HER CHEEK PRESSED AGAINST THE COLD GLASS. The Finch house is half castle and half glass and steel, surrounded by green overgrowth. It makes for a very dark background during the night, when movements are sly and if the moon isn't bright enough, cast suspicion on every movement in the corner of your eye.
Her father, Vaughn Finch, had always been fascinated by old castles when he was a kid.
He was raised, practically, by an older sister who had passed before Sunny could meet her. And as they grew up; her, her father, and the young brothers who are only months apart, she had taught them to love fairytales. Read well-worn Grimm brothers books at night, just before bed. She translated them in Czech in a soft, scratchy voice, her father said. 'Agáta said the words as if she sung the story to life. She smoked since young, so her voice is very rough, but she always dabbed vanilla on the tip of her tongue so we wouldn't be able to smell it. We could, of course, but she was always sweet when she tried.'
These copies are kept in her father's office, beloved and encased in glass.
Sunny had once asked to see it, and her father had carefully taken it out with gloved hands, pointing at notes his sister had made in different times with different pens. The last one, he said, was the blue-inked words left on the last page of Iron Heinrich 'Finch musí vždy číst.'. A personal mantra, a promise, just before she died.
Sunny had never learned Czech, or Japanese for the most part, but her father had brushed back her black hair, that of her mother's, and pinched her red cheeks, that of her father's, the easy way they burn in splotches of reds and pinks, and translated it for her curious little eyes and ears.
'A Finch must always read'.
"You have to be able to read between the lines, Sunny," he had said. "There are so many layers to the human mind, speech, and act. Just like books are never just ink on paper. You have to see it, the several layers of meaning and truth. Ink on paper is just the beginning."
"Ink on paper..." Sunny murmurs, her breath fogging up the glass. With a pinky finger, she draws a smiley face.
"You staying there, malá myš?"
Sunny slowly turns at the familiar voice and outline of one of her uncles, Charles Finch. He's tall with a seemingly lanky frame and light hair. There has always been a boyish air to the younger Finch boys. A seeming mischievous glint. Charles Finch had an air of a light prankster, an easy guy in the eye, but he was ruthless in his job, a cunning tilt hidden under a layer. A face.
