May 15, 2022

It's a late Spring evening in Morales, cloudless and warm, and Jamie Carrera is having a good time.

She's sitting on Stella and Gino's patio; the couple recently moved into this new suburban home together and Jamie, eager to see what they made of it, came over for the house tour the first chance she got. Stella and Gino succeeded in turning the house into their own, she soon noticed as the two proudly showed off their hard work, and the end results are beyond awesome. Even the backyard around her, lush and filled with plants, is groomed to perfection. Jamie's certain her sister and future brother-in-law will be happy here. With that thought and the pleasant buzz of her second glass of red wine in her mind, Jamie's happy, too.

It's a really nice evening.

"So I'm interviewing this trailer park lady about her project, and the longer we're talking, the more I'm starting to think she's not actually trying to make an amateur horror movie, but rather, you know, a snuff film of sorts. And at first I was like, well, maybe that's just how things go in Appalachia. But then I didn't feel like taking the risk of potentially getting murdered on camera, so I noped the fuck out of there. Got the rest of my filming and research in the area done and steered clear of her for the rest of my stay."

Jamie's telling this to Gino alone, because he hasn't heard this story before. Which, given how wild and fascinating a story it is, is pretty much unacceptable. Stella, who has heard it far too often and therefore treats this particular near-death experience of Jamie's with vexation, decided that her latest rendition of the tale was the perfect moment to take a bathroom break.

Gino proves himself an excellent audience. Maybe the story takes him by surprise or maybe it's the alcohol, but he laughs, setting his glass on the table to avoid accidentally spilling his wine. Jamie likes Gino. He's a good guy, genuinely, always kind and showing interest in other people's lives. Even in all the weird shit Jamie encounters while making her videos.

(Though she supposes Gino's mother back in Italy is kind of into tarot, so perhaps he's used to a dash of strange in his life every once in a while).

So she'll forgive Gino for being a little boring here and there, with his always-colouring-between-the-lines attitude and his tedious job at that big pharmaceutical company of which Jamie always forgets the name no matter how hard she tries to remember. Stella really vibes with boring sometimes, so they're basically perfect for each other.

"Did you report her to the police?" Gino asks as he adjusts his glasses. Despite having spent nine years living, studying and working in the States, there's still a slight Italian lilt to his words. "I mean, whether she was up to no good or just strange, it may have been worth reporting, no?"

Jamie thinks about it for a second, trying to recall. She shrugs. "Oh, yeah, I did drop by the police station at the end of my stay to ask if they'd heard anything about her. Turns out she got arrested for tax fraud in the meantime, so..."

Gino finds this even funnier, laughing again and shaking his head. "How do you even find these people?"

Jamie doesn't, actually. They just seem to keep finding her. She's about to say so, but realises the question was probably more rhetorical than literal when Gino speaks up again before she has had a chance to reply.

"Listen," he says, "you may already have heard about this, and maybe you simply haven't done anything with it because of the pandemic, but there's an interesting place back home in Venice that would be right up your channel's alley. You should consider making a video about it sometime."

Jamie, always open to new ideas, lights up. "Do tell me more."

Gino obliges, launching into a story so morbidly intriguing it's a miracle Jamie didn't stumble across it before. He tells her about an island in the Venetian Lagoon with a history stretching back centuries—a history marked forever by disease, insanity, death. He tells her the island is supposedly so haunted, so full of spirits, that visiting it is prohibited by law. He tells her it's a wilderness now, not much more than a collection of ruined buildings nature reclaimed, but that the place's inaccessibility hasn't stopped the more adventurous types from checking it out, anyway.

He tells her it's said that not every one of those adventurous types returns.

Which is, indeed, right up Witchcraft Wednesday's alley. And because Jamie's slightly drunk and a normal amount of interested in all this, she's immediately ready to rush off, grab a taxi to the airport and catch the first flight to Venice she can find. "Gino," she says, delighted. "Gino. That's mind-blowing. How the hell haven't you told me about this before?"

"Oh, I can explain that," Stella says from behind her, startling Jamie right out of her excitement. There's a sharp edge to her words, irritation in her eyes, tension in her posture. Jamie knows her sister well enough to realise this is her being positively pissed. "Because I remember us agreeing, Gino, that you wouldn't say a word to Jamie about that terrible island."

Gino pales, staring guiltily at the bottle of wine on the table, which must've loosened his tongue and weakened his memory. "It slipped my mind. But, I mean, is it really such a big deal–"

"Yes, it's a big deal," Stella fumes. "Have you heard yourself speak about the place? There's nothing about it that doesn't sound dangerous or like a surefire way to get injured or killed. It's absolutely not worth messing around with, it's a recipe for disaster, and we agreed you wouldn't bring it up."

Gino keeps sputtering apologies, continuing to downplay the gravity of his apparent crime, while Stella goes on voicing her frustrations in no uncertain terms. Jamie sits and listens to their back-and-forth, swirling the last of her wine in her glass before downing the contents, trying not to let the unfortunate turn this conversation took bother her. It was such a nice evening and everyone was having a good time and now this.

Which, truth be told, indeed doesn't strike Jamie as that big of a deal.

Because what's the damn problem, anyway? Gino accidentally telling her a ghost story she wasn't allowed to hear because Stella believes she'll get herself killed over it? Jamie considers joining this fight she's apparently the crux of—considers saying everything on her own mind about it, allowing every sassy provocation she can think of to spill out, comments like I'm twenty-two, Stel, not five anymore, comments like it's just ghost stories we were discussing, not your goddamn sex life, and only one of those subjects would be way out of line.

She even, for a brief moment, considers derailing the fight entirely in favour of starting a new one. She could ask Stella why—if she cares so fucking much—she seemed pretty okay making Jamie pay hundreds of dollars of extra rent money for months on end, never coming clean about that deception.

In the end, she stays quiet about all these things, especially the money issue. Stella doesn't know that Jamie knows and Jamie, unsure how much Gino knows about that colossal dick move on Stella's part, refuses on principle to shoot her sister point blank in her boyfriend's presence. She won't risk potentially wrecking a good relationship by throwing all the dirty laundry from years ago on the table now. That's just about the last thing she wants to have on her conscience.

Unleashing that drama, ripping old wounds open, simply isn't worth it. One day, Jamie keeps telling herself, she'll confront Stella with her more dishonourable actions in private. But not now. It's not the right time.

(It never seems to be the right time.)

But it's fine, it's not the end of the world. Jamie's mostly content letting the past be the past at this point.

Mostly.

So she bites her tongue and, with no small amount of effort, manages to keep her mouth shut, even though Stella and Gino's bickering gnaws at her in increasingly uncomfortable ways. Because what's the damn problem, anyway?

If Jamie thinks about that question for a little too long, she knows perfectly well what the problem is. This fight in front of her wouldn't be taking place if it wasn't for her. If Stella wasn't so convinced she'd get in trouble, everything would be fine.

Jamie doesn't try to be a source of conflict, but somehow becomes one way too often. And though Stella and Gino may both be adults responsible for their own actions and reactions, Jamie still can't shake the thought that their pleasant evening wouldn't have been tainted like this if she'd just been a little less, well... Jamie.

But she doesn't like it in the slightest, being the root cause for the damn problem. It always makes her feel a little guilty of a crime. The crime of... existing or something.

And because she doesn't at all enjoy the trajectory that train of thought takes, she tries her hardest to tune out the quarreling in front of her, choosing to focus on the gaggle of other thoughts perpetually and simultaneously floating around her brain in varying degrees of intensity. Like how maybe she should redye her hair (forest green isn't really her colour), like how the Nyan Cat song has been lowkey stuck in her head for two solid days and it's getting kinda concerning (has it legit been eleven years since the Nyan Cat meme? What the fuck–), and like how being able to blend in with the garden furniture would actually be pretty cool.

Jamie bets lawn chairs aren't ever bothered by anything at all. Those bitches have it easy. God, what Jamie wouldn't give to be a lawn chair for a few days.

It's only then that she has an epiphany: there's no need for her to remain seated here. She's been hanging out at Stella's house for a few hours now, she's clearly overstaying her welcome, and there's zero reason she can't just get up, say goodbye and leave. Because seriously, if she was looking for a fight, she'd just go back to an ex. Either one of the two would work. They're both complete assholes, anyway.

But yeah. Leaving starts now.

"Look, I think I'm just gonna... go," Jamie says a little sheepishly, standing up; Stella and Gino pipe down at once. "It's getting late and you have your..." She gestures at nothing in particular. "...things to figure out, and I'll, uh... I'll go home."

Stella blanches the moment she's reminded Jamie was still there the whole time, looking as guilty as Gino did before. "No, wait, you don't have to go. I'm... I'm sorry, all of that was incredibly rude, wasn't it?"

Maybe. Sorta. Jamie doesn't care all that much. "It's fine. I'll get out of your hair."

"Again, you don't have to. I'm very sorry. Let's just... forget that happened, okay? Go back to where we left off." Stella tries to smile, which looks awkward most of all, and picks up the bottle of wine. "How about one last glass to make it up to you?"

Jamie stares at the bottle for a while, frozen in place, pondering what to do, though she supposes the flight to Venice is certainly off the table for now and the foreseeable future, the plan defiled by the negativity surrounding it now. She sorta does want to go home after everything, even if the conflict is shelved for the time being, but on the other hand... It was a really nice night before everything kind of went to shit. And who the hell says no to free alcohol on a weekend?

"Alrighty, then." And now that Jamie's thinking about it, who the hell still says alrighty? "One more for the road."

"For the road?"

"That's a joke, Stel, chillax." Nobody says that anymore, either. Jamie sits back down, holding out her glass for Stella to fill. "Figure of speech and all that. I'll get an Uber or something. No worries."

Stella chooses not to provide further comments and simply pours her the proffered final glass. Jamie manages to find a smile somewhere within herself, wondering if Stella, perhaps, is hoping the alcohol will be enough to drown out the memory of Gino's ghost story. Hoping Jamie will have forgotten all about it by the time the morning hangover rolls around.

But if that's the case, Jamie fears she's going to end up disappointing her sister—it wouldn't be the first time, and not the last time, either.

About that freaky little island in the Venetian Lagoon, she never does forget.