Julianna had heard the phrase “raining in sheets”, but hadn’t entirely understood it until spending a stormy season in Florida. It was doing just that as she made her way down the dirt road just off of State Road 50. The Honda’s headlight bobbed and heaved with the severe dips cut into the mud by the afternoon showers for the past week. She struggled to see through water pouring onto her windshield as the wipers made pitiful attempts at slicing through it, providing only the weakest amount of visibility.

The old bag’s probably asleep, as usual, she thought to herself, straining to see the flimsy black mailbox that would signal the Tethers’ house. She probably wouldn’t even notice if I skipped this stop. She pressed onward, though, knowing it would be just her luck for Reeva Tethers to be waiting up for her and call into the office to give them an earful of just how lazy and inconsiderate her caretaker was.

Julianna’s eyes flicked to the clock one her dashboard; 8:46 P.M. Darkness had fallen an hour prior, but even before that it had been dreary and grey with storm clouds crawling across the sky around 1 in the afternoon. She suppressed the urge to be upset she wasn’t back at her house, reading a book with her new tea she had picked up the day before instead of inching down a sorry excuse of a clay road in Florida swamp lands, praying she wouldn’t get stuck.