Despite spending five years apart, Amelia and Charlie Treviano carried out their morning routine as if they had done their exact actions the day before — the small kitchen that often overflowed with a thick silence was once again filled with the clinking of dishes as the pair of them ate their breakfast.
Both were aware of the awkwardness that hung above the room like an ominous storm cloud, but because who they were as people, neither of them chose to acknowledge it. Amelia had always enjoyed her coffee black, inwardly rejoicing as the bitterness would burn at the back of her throat — but as she sat in the silence that seemed to stretch on for days, she found herself longing for anything sweet.
Finally, after spending several minutes inspecting the crust on her toast and doing everything in her power to avoid making eye contact with her father, Amelia looked up at the man who sat across from her and smiled feebly at him. Five years stood between them, but her father looked just as she remembered — shadows of stubble still traced up his jaw, his brown eyes were sharp, his ever-present police badge was pinned to his chest, his wedding ring still on his left ring finger, flashing in contrast against his tanned skin. In fact, Charlie Treviano had changed so little in the past five years that Amelia almost felt like she was dreaming; that she was imagining him as she had last saw him.
But, unfortunately for the both of them, Charlie, along with the awful silent breakfast, was very real.
As their eyes met inside the kitchen that had been decorated decades before, Charlie hesitated before offering a tight-lipped smile in return, as always, the warmth of his gesture dwelling in his eyes. They sat there for a few seconds, a ghost of a smile on each of their lips, before Charlie returned his attention the morning newspaper. Although abrupt, the end of their somewhat affectionate moment didn't bother her, Amelia's relationship with her father was like a sandcastle, despite the strong foundation it was constantly crumbling around her. She was used to Charlie shutting his emotions down when he felt the slightest bit of uncomfort, a nasty habit she had inherited at a young age and it was something she couldn't shake, no matter how hard she tried.
"You picked a hell of a time to come back."
As he spoke, Amelia's eyes swept across the walls of her childhood home — every inch was covered with papers from his current cases, taped hastily to the faded flowery wallpaper. The MISSING PERSON posters stood out amongst the sea of clutter, the bold red letters flashing in the early morning light. Amelia had lived her entire life in Arcadia, but nothing like this had ever happened; seven people disappearing into thin air sounded like a podcast about an unsolved mystery from the 70's, not something that was happening in her own backyard. As she looked at all the information her father had haphazardly strewn about her home, Amelia couldn't help but chance another glance at her father, fighting down the urge to ask : how did you let this happen?
Her childhood had been painted with her father filling their living room with cases — as the town police chief, Charlie tended to blur the line between his profession and his personal life to the point of nonexistence. He would come stomping in through the backdoor, grabbing the tape dispenser off the kitchen counter, and set to work covering their living room walls with his papers. That was how he operated, like his daughter, Charlie functioned best while under pressure and completely surrounded with all the facts. He would spend hours squinting at the case files, shuffling the papers into categories only he understood — once he had even connected all the push pins together with red yarn, creating a zig-zag pattern that had grown too complicated for even him to decipher. Charlie would always solve every case, too.
But not this one.
"I'll be careful." She told her father, ignoring the clawing worry that had taken up stay in her stomach, "I'm just here until I can stand on my two feet. Like, two weeks tops." Amelia paused, biting her bottom lip, grimacing at how chapped they had become in such a short frame of time. "Besides," she continued, "If there's some psychopath slinking around town kidnapping people, I'm probably at the bottom of his list." Charlie grunted in sign of agreement and Amelia did her best not to feel offended by how quickly he had responded.
Unknowingly to the both of them, Amelia had just echoed Candice Bradshaw's thoughts from thirteen days before — right before she had become the seventh missing person.
"I'm just here until I can write again." The bitter aftertaste of her coffee was practically overwhelming when Amelia mentioned her writer's block. It was like talking about that one cousin no one in the family really likes, but you couldn't avoid them, no matter how you tried.
Charlie glanced up at her, his face unreadable. Writing had always been Amelia's dream — it had been her mother's dream, too. Amelia was messy, her plans never worked the way she thought they would, she always managed to spill whatever she was drinking down the front of shirt, her bedroom carpet was stained with spilled nail polish — but her writing had always been neat. It was direct, and straight to the point. There was no room for her readers to question whether or not Amelia truly was dedicated to the story, her writing was everything she was not: controlled, calm, and precise.
And Charlie knew this about her, he knew that writing had always been the balance that Amelia was lacking, he knew she would go the ends of the earth to solve her problems. So instead of telling her in the condescending tone that every father was capable of (that she would definitely be staying longer than two weeks) Charlie only shrugged, his thumb tapping a steady beat against the worn wood of their kitchen table.
"Take your time," He spoke, his attention now fully focused on his cup of coffee. Almost as an afterthought, he looked up to Amelia's eyes one last time, "The diner is hiring."
*
The winter sun politely warmed the sidewalk under Amelia's feet as she walked through the town, watching as every memory of her past blossomed from the pavement, trapping her in a never ending hurricane of nestalgia. For the past five years, Amelia had grown accustomed to the sounds of the city around her — the shouts of tourists, the rattle of train tracks below her apartment window, the heave of exhaust from all the trucks, the constant chatter of every life in the city — but now, all that greeted her was the sleepy silence that can only be found in a small town. The path she walked through the town was one she would remember on her death bed — the familiar twists and turns forever tattooed in her memory.
The still morning air was familiar, reminding her of being twelve years old, with arms too long and lengthy for her body, her chipped nail polish flashing at her in every storefront window, walking nervously to the town coffee shop to meet her classmates for a History project. As she walked, Amelia watched as the town began to stir awake, like a rusty machine slowly cranking up to speed after decades of unuse. In the frosty early morning, Amelia tucked her coat tighter around her body, wishing for the thousandth time she could just slowly fade into the mist.
Since leaving her house, the backdoor swinging lazily on its hinges behind her, Amelia's walk had been similar to a nightmare she had once had — everywhere she turned, people from her past were grasping her arm with their bony fingers, loudly exclaiming their emence delight in her return, before fading into the cool winter shadows and disappearing altogether. Amelia Treviano had never been popular, the fact that people even noticed she left was a wonder in itself, but in a town as small as Arcadia Falls, even the smallest things — such as Amelia moving back into her childhood bedroom — were considered town gossip.
Amelia had driven past the old city limit sign at exactly 2:34 am the night before, grimacing at the familiar sinking feeling that had taken bloom in her heart. Five years before, Amelia had packed her entire life into the trunk of the very same car, high on the ideas of freedom that her future possesed, blissfully unaware that she would one day be shamefully returning in the dead of night.
The only diner in town was situated right at edge of city limits, the whips of smoke that curled from the kitchen floated lazily upward, mixing with the mist from the mountains. The windows of the small building were decorated with orange window paint and fake cobwebs and someone had gingerly placed a plastic skeleton near the entrance. Rolling her eyes at the NOW HIRING sign that had been taped to the smudged glass in the early 90's, Amelia tugged the door open, letting a small smile settle across her lips as the familiarity of the diner invaded her senses. She had worked as a waitress all through high school, scribbling orders in her journal, writing stories about her customers every chance she got.
The night before Amelia had left Arcadia Falls in hope of forever, her best friend, Penelope, had decorated the entire diner with cheap paper streamers of all different colors. After the last customer had sleepily drifted into the night, Penelope had gripped Amelia's hands tightly, their identical waitress uniforms standing in contrast against the new colorful background.They had talked into the night, their laughter dripping into the darkness and their tears sticking to their cheeks. It had been a funeral for their friendship — but suddenly here Amelia stood, back from the dead.
It didn't take long for the owner to discover Amelia standing in the entryway of the diner like some long forgotten, poorly placed statue and engulf her in a hug that lasted for what seemed like days. Twan had always loved everything about Amelia, down to the roots of her hair — she reminded him of his younger sister he'd left behind in a country he'd never return to.
Twan was, for lack of better words, quite spiritual. Maybe even a Witch on his better days, but most days were just fine, so most of the time he just appeared to be very into crystals. With tattoos tracing over every inch of skin and thick curls that reached his mid back, Twan was the sort of person that had always been out of place in Arcadia Falls, but in his own words: "If you don't want Uncle Sam to find you, hide in the last place he'd look." His worn fingers were adorned with rings with colorful gemstones that flashed in the light, and when he smiled, the room seemed to brighten.
"So tell me mija," he said twenty minutes later as Amelia adjusted the tie on her apron, "was the city everything you dreamed it to be?" As he spoke, Twan glanced up to meet her eyes, his crooked grin practically splitting his face in two. Whenever he smiled, the inked teardrops around his eyes would crinkle upwards, as if the tears wanted nothing more but to return to his eyes.
He had rehired her on the spot, refusing to listen to Amelia's long winded speech about how she deserved to be treated like the average new hire, thank you very much and proudly presented her with her old apron. Although overwhelmed with his apparently neverending kindness, tying the faded green apron around her neck had felt like a prison sentence. After five years of another life, here she stood, back on square one. Yet, Twan's smile was warm and familiar, the smell of cooking pancakes was overpowering in all the right ways, and the sun was shining softly through the open kitchen windows. "It was everything and more." Amelia heard herself say, doing all she possibly could to keep his smile from fading, "Like a dream I never wanted to wake up from." She didn't tell him about how uneasy the town made her feel, nor about the queasy feeling of failure that was lodged in her chest; instead, Amelia Treviano did what she was best at — she kept her feelings to herself.
Twan's grin grew as he began to sprinkle flower on the wooden surface of the counter — the first step to making his mothers biscuits — and touched Amelia's arm as she breezed past him, leaving behind a white handprint on her skin. "When I have never ending dreams," he called after her, "they usually involve endless bottles of tequila and Rihanna!"
Perhaps square one wasn't so bad afterall.
*
Amelia glanced up at the mountains that towered over her town and for once, felt a glimmer of home take bloom in her chest. The wisps of fog that tangled about in the evening air made it harder than usual to glimpse the tip of the mountain she was always so desperate to see. Somewhere at the top of it, in between the clouds and trees, the town of Mountain Ridge was situated — always watching over Arcadia Falls, and in a way, always watching over Amelia Treviano. Who knows? Amelia thought to herself as she locked up, I can use all the luck I can get.
Once Twan had finished locking up, the pair of began to walk home, her arm around his, her coat tucked tightly around her waist. The evening sun was spilling onto the sidewalks and casting monumental shadows to slip into the street, creating a warped painting of light and dark.
"Now don't get me wrong, I'm glad you're back in town," Twan spoke up easily, his bright smile breaking the comfortable silence that Amelia had eagerly accepted, "but if I remember correctly, you told me you'd never return."
"Yeah, I also was wearing a Supernatural T-shirt and thought I'd be able to support myself financially with a creative writing degree." Amelia rolled her eyes, coming to a stop outside his cozy house, turning to face him. Twan lived three doors down from the diner, the bricks were painted a startling shade of blue, and his herb garden was the neatest thing anyone had ever seen. "Clearly, you shouldn't of listened to anything I said."
Twan shook his head as he headed up his front walk way, pausing to glance back at her — "You alright walking the rest of the way alone, mija? There's some magia negra going around this town, I wouldn't want you to get swept up in it."
The dim light of the fading sun couldn't hide the way Amelia's eyes narrowed upward at Twan, her hands finding their own way to her hips. "First of all, I can take care of myself Mr. I'm-A-Big-Strong-Man-Who-Assumes-All-Short-People-Are-Secretly-Twelve — secondly, don't tell me you still actually believe in all that," she tossed her fingers carelessly up into mock air quotes, "Black Magic shit, I thought you got over that when you found out Bette Midler secretly hated filming Hocus Pocus. There's a perfectly reasonable explanation for all the disappearances, and I can guarantee that it doesn't involve anything Magic-y."
"Get home before dark Amelia," Twan said, his smile not quite ringing true, his eyes flickering to the quickly setting sun, "Not even you could run away from what's happening here. You picked a hell of a time to come back."
"So I've been told." Amelia said with a forced grin, beginning to wish she was literally anywhere in the world other than her bosses front yard, talking casually about black magic, as her town slowly fell apart around her. "See you tomorrow."
*
"Oh, fuck a duck." Amelia hissed to no one in particular, coming to an unhappy stop — her house keys were hanging on a hook in the back of the kitchen, waiting to be remembered. The sun was fading into darkness fast, and per her father's request, the town of Arcadia Falls was shutting down quicker than Amelia had ever seen. She was also really, literally, five minutes away from home — so the trip back through town would undoubtedly be laced with barely contained bitterness.
As she stomped back towards the diner, Amelia's eyes found the familiar image of the ominous mountain once again and despite her earlier mission of retrieving keys, she stopped and stood in the center of the street. In the evening air, with the town traffic light casting a yellow glow across the sky, the mountain almost looked magical. With all the mist and fog swirling around the peaks, and the distant glimmer of a town she would never know inviting her into the darkness, it looked like a storybook painting from her childhood. And for the first time since returning to Arcadia, Amelia let a smile — a true smile — fall across her lips.
Almost as if she was drawn to it, Amelia began to walk down the sidewalk that ended at the edge of town, her keys forgotten, her eyes narrowing ever so slightly into the distance. Whether she admitted it or not, the mysterious mountain town had always been an incredible source of inspiration for Amelia. Even if she couldn't see the tops of the trees through the fog, just being in the near vicinity of the mountain was reminding her of the endless stories she had written about the elusive town of Mountain Ridge.
The sidewalk ended abruptly at the the edge of Arcadia Falls in a pile of rubble, as if whoever had built it had given up right before reaching the finish line. Unlike her 12 year old self, Amelia was hesitant to stomp into the darkness to solve the mysteries only she knew the answer to. People were literally disappearing, this was neither the time nor place to become the hero — maybe her time was tomorrow....when the sun was up.
So there she stood, the tips of her shoes poking over the edge, looking at the old, unused road that lead up the side of the mountain. Remembering a trick she had learned from a lifetime of looking up the narrow road, Amelia tilted her head as far right as it possibly could go and saw what she was looking for.
More road.
"What if. . ." Amelia breathed out loud to herself, the heat of her breath swirled around in the quickly darkening air.
For the first time in months, the wheels in Amelia's brain were cranking back to life and she was suddenly filled with questions — what if the answer to all her problems were at the top of that mountain? Was something similar slithering about in the forests surrounding Mountain Ridge? Was there someone up there, unknowingly waiting to begrudgingly answer all her questions?
It felt like an electric shock was coursing through her body, a feeling she'd only felt while writing. I returned home to write, Amelia thought to herself in the darkness, repeating the same mantra she'd invented for herself only hours earlier, So why not write about this? The perfect mystery had just stomped into her life and collapsed messily in Amelia's lap — and who was she to turn down a challenge?
And a challenge it most certainly was, Amelia wasn't a journalist (honestly? Amelia hated journalists. With their dumb notepads and caffeine addictions) , nor was she very good at asking invasive questions in
a casual way. But she had to try, she had to see if Mountain Ridge had all the answers — and if they didn't, she would find the answers in the woods around town.
Perhaps she was desperate to fix her writer's block, and was convincing herself the chill in the air was that oh so familiar shock, or maybe Amelia was determined to help save her fathers career, and just wasn't acknowledging that quite yet. Regardless, in that moment, Amelia Treviano decided to do WHATEVER it took to solve the mystery that was ripping her town apart — it was a moment she revisited in her mind's eye often, a memory that she credited as the start of when her life went to shit.
Because as determined as Amelia was to fix this mess, she was in no way prepared for what — or who — was to come.
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magia negra — Black Magic
I don't have much to say, I'm nervous and hope y'all like it, but other than that....I'll leave you with what I had written in my drafts for this chapter;
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hey bitch u thought i had written something PSYCH ur lazy and NOTHING HAS BEEN WRITTEN pls write something anything literally anything thank u goodnight luv u bitch xoxo
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In complete honesty, I've wanted to publish this story a million different times, but stopped because I thought it was dumb, or too wordy, or even just like...poorly written. But I have to try, I have to put this idea out into the world, because this story is special to me. It was the first story I wrote that wasn't a fanfic that I seriously believed and created a world for. Do y'all read authors notes? Am I the only person reading this? If so, empty your dishwasher.
Lots of love always,
Wendy
p.s. I would pay 700 dollars for the Doll That Would Kill Again... I honestly would.