Only one house sat at the end of Weller Drive. Hunter had no idea where the private drive had got its name from, who built the property, or when it was constructed. He didn’t know why the main house had uneven steps up to the front door, why the road up to the house was lined with eastern white pines instead of a much more ecologically consistent redwood, or why there was an attic hatch in his guest house that led nowhere. Nor did anyone in his family. Years and years ago, when he had asked his father, he told Hunter he had no idea and that he was being bothersome. Then, when he asked his mother, then Candace, and was dismissed twice again, it became apparent that no one who lived in that house, other than he, particularly cared for history.

1 Weller Drive was by no means the nicest domicile this side of Redwood Cove, ‘the Ridge’ as they all seemed to know it as. Hunter would never delude himself into believing his family wasn’t wealthy or at least well-off beyond the national average. Marcie never let him hear the end of it when he claimed his family was ‘just comfortable’. But, while his drive had a garden, the garden of the house a mile down the main road was greener. While his house had a TV room, a pool, a gym, some other lucky asshole down the road had an in-home theater, an indoor pool with some Greek-as-fuck marble, and a basketball court.

Tucked away behind the main house, was a one-room lodge meant for guests the Campbell family never had. When Hunter outgrew his childhood bedroom, he petitioned to move into the guesthouse. And so, rehomed his wardrobe, his Pokemon and Batman posters, Origami cranes, Tennis rackets and at home workout gear, empty ant farm, film-accurate replica Hellraiser cube and Freddy Kruegar glove, all the other trinkets from years of obsessive yet fleeting hobbies, and had clung his privacy there ever since.

Hunter and Marcie had fallen asleep in each other’s arms still in the clothes from the night before. Grains of sand peppered the bedsheets. Marcie hadn’t realized truly how much sand could pack itself into a chest cavity. Much of it had been washed down the shower drain. Marcie insisted on cleaning up the rest of what they’d tracked in herself but he would never let her clean it alone.

Cold water dripped from Hunter’s brown curls and Marcie sat on the lip of the tub, while he brushed the last stuck bits of sand out of her hair.

“Tell me if this is too soon,” Hunter said.

Marcie went silent. Probably expecting what he was thinking.

“But, what’s…after?” He finished.

“Hmm,” Marcie considered her answer, “Nothing.”

“Nothing?” Hunter asked incredulously, “Wouldn’t there have to be something, I mean, we talked. You spoke back to me when we called to you.”

“I know. But to be honest, I barely remember what it was like. Nothing is the only way I can describe it. I didn’t have eyes, or ears, or a body. There’s no space or time. It’s just…nothing. I feel like so much of myself was stripped away. I think maybe that’s why I can’t remember much from the year before I died. Like it was shaving my essence down top to bottom. And then you pulled me out.”

Hunter still pondered whether or not this was comforting or disturbing. He never landed on an answer.

“I’m so glad you never went back to a three in one. This coconut butter is doing wonders for dead girl hair,” she said, obviously taking the conversation in a different direction.

They each brushed their teeth. Though, the Necronomicon, in Hunter’s best translation, suggested that Marcie’s body was now in some sort of necromantic stasis. Whatever that meant for the merits of fretting over tooth decay was still up in the air.

Marcie borrowed one of Hunter’s T-shirts, which fit her more like a dress. But, she happily scrunched up the fabric and took a very conspicuous sniff the moment Hunter had turned his back to her. Hunter dressed himself in his usual ensemble. Corduroy pants, a well-fitted shirt which was sage green that day, and a collared shirt, unbuttoned and tucked in. Marcie made him do a little spin to show off the fit and whistled in approval when he did, in fact, do a little spin.

Last night's events and revelations had left him in a tornado of turbulent emotions. But going through a morning routine with Marcie again, he couldn't help the grin that crept across his lips and overtook his worries. He could breathe for the first time in over a year.

A knock came at the door to the guest house. Hunter had closed the blinds weeks ago, priming his family to expect to be unable to see anything going on inside the room. However, he still jolted with a smidge of anxiety when he heard his sister’s voice.

“Hunter! Family meeting!” Candace chirped, about as pleasantly as birdsong at two in the morning while you’re trying to sleep. He saw her shadow waiting behind the door, waiting like a hawk.

Quickly and quietly, he told Marcie, “Lay low. I’ll be right back. If I’m gone long, there’s a new Flannigan show that you could binge if you wanted to. Password’s the same.”

Small falters in Marcie’s smile asked him not to go. But she relented. “Aight.”

He shut the door to the bathroom slowly leaving Marcie safely tucked away from view. Then popped open the front. Many other bird comparisons came to mind when seeing his sister. She always did her eyes up with wild colors. That day red eyeshadow made a thick border around her pupils like a secretary bird.

All three of the Campbell children had rather distinct noses. His was crooked from a break it suffered in highschool, which was his own fault. But by the will of genetics, Candace’s nose stuck out like a beak. And she always liked to stick that beak where it didn’t belong.

“Who were you talking to?” she asked, nudging Hunter with a bony elbow. On second thought, he didn’t think boney could accurately describe anything with skin anymore.

Hunter thrust his hands into his pockets. It only slightly helped to settle their jittering. “A friend from college,” he said.

Candace made a ‘hmm’ sound like she’d come to some conclusion, then looped her arm through his. “I heard you laughing. Hunter, it’s okay to be happy again. I know it’s probably still really fresh, but don’t wait if you’ve found something good.”

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Whatever look Hunter must have responded with probably looked like a blend of horrified and bewildered because Candace’s face fell quite quickly in response.

“Sorry,” she rushed to say, “It’s just, I met Bradley, not even a year after I lost Todd.”

Hunter’s bewilderment deepened, “Yeah but Todd didn’t die. He had to move to France for work.”

“Yeah, that’s not quite the same thing, is it?” Candace asked, innocently and rhetorically. Some pep in her step returned, the source of which was a mystery to the universe. She walked them both to the house, more or less dragging Hunter along with her.

Mom, Dad, and Beth were already seated at the table. Dad, at the end, already had a plate of waffles, eggs, bacon, and hash browns, all slathered in a flaming red hot sauce. He was dousing his eggs in black pepper when Hunter and Candace took their seats at the dining table.

“Here you go.” In a rush, Mom set down two full plates in front of both children with singular focus.

Evidence of the concerning crime that was her cooking laid bare on the plate. The eggs were overdone. The bacon was floppy and underdone. The waffles she served ranged between over and underdone. And the hash browns were from frozen patties, whose quality she could hardly be held responsible for.

Mom's cream colored blouse was stained with oil splatters, syrup, ketchup, and brown speckles of ashy pan residue. Sunlight of early spring refracting through the kitchen window illuminated her sleeves like washed out stained glass.

If Helen Campbell was cooking that morning, it meant she had insisted upon doing so. Which she only did when she was anxious. Which meant that Dad and her had an argument in the last twenty-four hours. Which meant this family meeting was going to be a blast.

The only person who seemed to be in a worse mood than Dad was Beth, who for whatever reason was scowling in Hunter’s general direction.

“Honey, can you sit down?” Dad hadn’t touched his red and black speckled abomination of a breakfast.

“In a moment,” Mom called from the kitchen, “Would anyone like any strawberry preserves? Ooo we also still have maple syrup. Oh, where did I put the preserves?”

Dad had a way with words. Not that Hunter thought him a great orator, just that he could move mountains without yelling or portraying any emotion. In fact, in all of Hunter’s twenty years, he never even heard his father raise his voice. Not when he got his first C on a test. Not when he got the first scratch on his first car. Not even when he snuck out with the bottle of Barolo his father had been saving for his sixtieth birthday. Dad could discipline you or command you with the same energy one uses to talk about mild weather, in five words or less to boot.

“Helen, sit down.” He commanded in a topically mild tone.

Mom sat down.

In the silence before he spoke, Dad cleared his throat and drank a sip of water.

“Candace, have you found a venue yet?” he asked.

Candace smiled her annoyingly persistent smile. “Shouldn’t we wait for Bradley? He’s calling his parents right now about travel arrangements.”

Dad gave Candace’s question a moment to linger in the air like a fart everyone knew was of her origin. Beth took her glowering eyes off of Hunter only long enough to roll them. Hunter didn’t even so much as touch his fork, despite actually being pretty hungry. The only person who dared to move was Mom, who couldn’t have guessed the record speeds at which breakfast was going down hill and was then consoling herself with a bite of waffle. Candace’s smile didn’t waver. Not one bit.

“I addressed my question to you, Candace, not Bradley.”

“Well, Dad, it’s a family meeting–”

“–Yes. This is a family meeting. Bradley won’t be part of the family until you pick a venue. And travel arrangements can’t be made until you know where you’re sending the Dannhausers.”

Dad had a way with non-verbal communication too. If he let his neck down, only slightly in a diagonal, that meant ‘what I just said was so unbelievably self-explanatory and the fact that I had to explain it to you would be a federal crime’. He was, at that moment, letting his neck down slightly in a diagonal.

Candace’s smile was beginning to crack. “We were thinking maybe the beach if we can get a permit. If not, the Lovetts offered their property with a family friend discount which was very kind of them.”

A single hand was raised from across the table. It was Mom this time who had halted Candace in her tracks. “Your father wanted you to pick a real venue. Somewhere memorable. We can help you with the wedding, baby, you don’t have to worry about that. And you know how we feel about the Lovetts.”

Mom glanced at Hunter. He wanted to slink back even further. But, he remained as still as possible. This family meeting was definitely going to run long. Was Marcie okay in his room? Does she need food? Normal food or like human flesh? The book described what Marcie had become as a spirit returned to its body at the time of its death. Hunter worried that was a fancy roundabout way to say zombie.

“Bradley and I have already consulted with local florists and decorators. I’ve told you, we want to afford our own wedding with our own money.” Candace was beginning to sound defensive.

“Our money is your money,” Mom said.

“No. It’s not.” Candace pounded her fist into the table. It wasn't hard, but it was enough to jostle the silverware, clatter the plates, and make Mom jump.

“No. It is not,” Dad agreed. “Helen, a proper venue and any travel is a gift from us. Candace, get me a list of venues by the end of the week. Proper venues.”

Candace parted her lips to speak again but never got the chance. She was never given one.

“Elizabeth. You got another F on a test,” said Dad.

Then breakfast turned to chaos.

Dad’s first mistake, one he very frequently made, was using Beth’s full name. His second was even more obvious of a blunder. Hunter would advise anybody and everyone who came into contact with Beth Campbell that they should never, under any circumstance, be blunt without it ending pooly. With her, you can’t shoot for the heart. You more-so have to take a chisel and mold her with soft whacks. But, no one, especially Dad, ever listens to Hunter.

Reasons turned into excuses. Excuses into accusations. Accusations into insults. Typical teen angst. Those insults flew mostly in one direction, away from Beth and mostly towards Dad, then Mom when she tried to chime in. On and so on it went like Beth put ‘It’s not my fault Mr. Denton hates me’ through twenty languages in google translate until she eventually said, “Fuck off, Mom. Would you stop putting more syrup on your plate? If you get diabetes and lose your legs, I won’t wheel you around.”

To which Candace stepped in. Which began an unadulterated barrage of unpleasant euphemisms to Bradley’s penis and how tiny it must be. Dad tried to speak over the other three, get them to settle down. Eventually, realizing his efforts were futile, started speaking simply to add his voice to the storm.

Hunter looked out the back window. Across the backyard, through the obscuring of the closed blinds, he thought he saw the TV glow. Marcie was safe inside. Maybe she’d have to stay inside. Yeah she looked dead, but worlds worse was she looked like Marcie. Even if people didn't know Marcie by name, she was the girl who fell off the cliff. The girl who's death constructed extra warning signs and higher railing. But that was a problem for later. For now she was safe.

“Hunter!” Someone at the table said, he wasn’t fully sure who.

It wasn't until Beth pointed at Hunter and everyone went silent that he snapped out of his thoughts. He missed what she said but whatever it was cast a dark shadow over the room and made everyone grimace, like Dad had dumped a metric butt-load of black pepper onto everyone's head and they were all about to sneeze. But it wasn't Dad who brought down the mood. They were all staring at him.

Dad asked, in a tone somehow even more flat than he'd ever heard before, “Hunter. I was under the impression you were taking a voluntary gap year. Did you or did you not fail out of your last semester?”