Mille
"Welcome to Briewood." I read the sign as we drove past. My mom and her boyfriend decided that we should move here for a 'change of scenery.' I'm not against it, I mean I'm going to miss New York but it was getting old, but they chose the worst time to move. I was getting ready to ask my crush to the upcoming school dance. My sister, Skylar, was having the best time of her life on the basketball team, and there was a big game coming up. And my big brother, well he didn't have anything coming up, but still !
My mom looked back at her three, slightly sad kids, smiling softly, she said "I know you guys are sad about leaving New York but, I think you guys will have an amazing time here."
Silence.
She sighed and sat back down. We soon parked in our new driveway at our new house, the moving truck parked behind us. "Okay, start grabbing boxes and putting them inside." Mom's boyfriend, Gale, said. We started grabbing boxes of our stuff. As we were walking, our neighbors came over,
"Hey there kiddos, you new here?" A man, who looked to be in his late fifties said, his wife by his side.
"Uhh yeah, umm I'm James, this is my little sister Millie, and my other little sister Skylar, my mom and her boyfriend are inside right now."
“Nice to meet you, James, Millie, and Skylar." The man's wife said, putting out her hand. James shook her hand first then me, then Skylar. They introduced themselves, the man's name was Carl and his wife's was Lilith. For some reason, I got a weird vibe from them, their eyes were dark, not like they had dark colored eyes, they were almost scary.
Mom and Gale came out and started talking to them as we walked in.
"Did you guys get a weird vibe from them?" James let out a big sigh.
"Oh my God, yes. They were so weird, I hated that." I groaned
" Yeah they did seem a bit weird, but it may be because we're not around from here, maybe that's what everyone from here is like." Skylar said. I shrugged and we went outside to get more boxes.
We finished taking out our boxes and were cleaning up a bit. It was a two floor house with three bathrooms, one bedroom and two master bedrooms, one kitchen, living room and a basement. Mom and her boyfriend got one of the master bedrooms and James got the other, me and Skylar shared the other bedroom. We took some bigger things from our old apartment, like our couch, tv, some tables and our beds. "Oh by the way, we already set you up in your school you're starting on Monday." Mom said.
"And guess what, the local school goes from 6th to 12th grade so you'll be together" Gale said, smiling.
"Oh that's cool, right guys" Skylar signed."Come on he's trying,"
"I know it's just, it happened too soon. The affair, the divorce, dad's death. " I signed back.
James and Skylar nodded. About four months ago, dad found out about mom's affair, well, all of us found out. He divorced her, and we went with him, but one day on his way to work, he got in a car accident. Then custody went to mom, we talked about the affair, she apologized for the whole thing but she and Gale were in 'love' and she still wanted to have a relationship with him and us.
Things felt like they were just brushed under the rug. I don't know about how James and Skylar feel about this exactly, but we all still have a little grudge against mom. But there's nothing you can do besides cry or deal with it. And you know, my dad died right before my 15th birthday. So, yay.
It was 11:00 pm or so. I was organizing my side of the room. I made my bed, and got in, slowly drifting to sleep.
***
James
I sat in my bed, looking at pictures of my friend. I had a crush on him for almost two years. I had told him about my feelings for him, but it didn't go too well. He started avoiding me, then he blocked me, he started telling everyone, soon the whole school knew. I'm glad we left when we did, I wished I didn't tell him about my feelings. It would have hurt to keep it in but at least I'd still have my best friend. I put my phone on my side table, I rolled onto my side falling to sleep. Though the sounds of mom and her boyfriend having 'fun' was hard to fall asleep to.
I woke up to my alarm, I got up and took a shower. I fixed my amber hair, I looked in the mirror, making sure everything looked right, but it didn't, which is not something new for me. My teeth were crooked my hair was a mess of curly hair that was supposed to be brown but looks more like red. I walked down stairs, Millie following behind me.
Even though she was younger than me by a year, she was taller than me. She was 5,6 meanwhile I was 5,4, and she made sure I knew it. Every time she saw the chance to mess with me she took it. She ruffled my hair, and ran down before I could ruffle her's. I walked down and sat at the kitchen table, Skylar sitting next to me
"Hey mom, after we are all settled in, can you buy me some more hair dye?" Millie asked. Me and Millie both have brown hair and Skylar has blonde hair, like our mom, and we all had blue eyes. But Millie started dying her hair black, and it's not because she is going through a phase or anything, well it kinda is but–nevermind. It's because, out of all of us, she looks the most like dad.
She was basically his clone, she had his golden brown hair, his blue eyes, his nose and mouth, if you made dad into a fifteen year old girl that's what he'd look like is what I'm saying. And Millie was super close with him, we all were but she was definitely his favorite, so she took his death the hardest. She couldn't stand the way she looked, every time she looked in the mirror she saw dad.
"Yeah, I will. But I wish you would stop dying your hair." Mom said slightly pouting. Millie looked away. "Oh also James, you know your best friend's mom." I nodded. “ Yeah she said hi, and that she hopes that you're not too sad about leaving." Mom doesn't know about me being gay, and the whole thing with my friend. Skylar and Millie know, and I think Gale has a hunch, but mom's oblivious.
After we ate breakfast, we got to work. We went back to school in a day, and Mom and Gale would be busy looking for jobs so we wouldn't have a lot of time to fix up the house, so we had a lot to do. Mom was in charge of the bathrooms, Gale had the garage. Skylar was in charge of cleaning the kitchen, living room stuff like that. I was in charge of the basement and Millie was in charge of decorating. I was finishing up the basement, when I saw a weird symbol. A sort of hexagon with a triangle in the middle and there was something else but I couldn't see what it was. It gave off a weird feeling, I couldn't describe it. I decided not to mess with it and went to go help Skylar.
I found her in her room, I flickered the light to get her attention. When I did, I signed to her "Did you finish cleaning?" She nodded, me and my siblings learned ASL, our dad was deaf. Now it's like our own little secret language, I gave her a thumbs up and went to check on Millie.
I found her in the living room trying to put up a shelf. "Need some help?" I asked laughing.
“Yeah, turns out it's not easy to hold up a shelf and drill at the same time." I drilled the screws, while she held it in place. When it was up she started putting up little figures and decorations.
“Dude, I heard mom and Gale last night, I wanted to throw myself out a window." Millie said.
"Same it sucked," I joked.
"So gross," We laughed for a while, making jokes about dumb things.
Mom and Gale came out from the garage, laughing and joking. We stopped laughing, and went back to putting up decorations. "Hey guys, you're almost done?" Mom said, smiling. "Uhh, yeah" Millie said, avoiding eye contact. Millie's and Mom's relationship wasn't great, a lot of times I speak for her.
"Do you need any help?"
"No, James is already helping me." Millie said coldly. "Oh…okay" mom said, her smile slightly fading.
***
Later, we were eating dinner. In silence, it has been like that since dad passed. He always seemed to be happy. No matter what, even when he found out about the affair, he had a smile on his face for us. He had a way of making people smile. That's something Skylar got from him, she is optimistic, even during the darkest of days. I look up to her. I look up to both of my sisters, which is odd since I'm older than them. Skylar can look at the bright side in any situation, Millie is so bold and confident, compared to them…I'm kinda just a blank slate.
It was around 9:00 pm or so. Skylar, Millie, and Me were laying on the couch, Skylar and Millie were sharing a book as I listened to music. Millie tapped me on the shoulder, I took out my earbud and nodded. I gave her the earbud and went back to chilling. Me and Millie have the same taste in music, so we do stuff like that a lot, probably not the most normal thing but ehh. There was a knock on the door.
Mom went to open it, us being the nosey kids we are, we looked up to see who it was. It was some neighbors, they seemed normal, well kinda, they were a bit stiff, and they had weird mannerisms. They seemed to be in their early thirties, so I looked over at the person standing next to them. It was their son I assume. He had black hair, grayish blue eyes, his arms were folded and he was making a slight pouting face. He was cute and he looked to be my age, he had a good body build, he looked up and we locked eyes. I looked away quickly, Millie noticed.
"Aww, do you like him?" She teased.
"Screw off "
As Millie continued to mess with me. I looked at him again. He was looking at me already. We both looked away again. I smiled to myself. Millie looked at him and looked at me, smirking. I flicked her nose and went back to my music. After a couple of chores we went to bed, dreading going to our new school.
This is the first chapter, I hope it's not too bad, and I hope you enjoyed it. I promise later on in the story it will get much more scary and interesting. The first chapters are going to be very soft, nothing really graphic, just to let you know the characters a bit and let you know some of their backstory.-Mads