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conversations hushed. Grown adults tried and failed to pretend they weren’t staring.
    You’re definitely just making this up , she thought.
    But what if Seth did something terrible, and now everyone hates him?
    Well, at least we’re in public. For now.
    “I just like booths,” Seth said, sliding along the red vinyl and grabbing a menu. “This place makes their own cherry coke, with the syrup and everything. It’s really good.”
    Jules scanned the menu quickly. It had about ten items on it, not counting the drinks section, and eight were burgers.
    “Burgers seems like the thing to get,” she said.  
    “I always get the one with cheese, bacon, and jalapenos,” said Seth. “Around here, jalapenos make something pretty exotic.”
    From the corner of her eye, Jules watched the waitress, a middle-aged woman with a ponytail and lipstick that wasn’t quite the right shade for her. Someone at the next table over made a joke and everyone laughed, the waitress slapping her thigh.
    “You’re a card, Jimmy,” she said, flipping a page over on her pad. Then she walked to where Jules and Seth were sitting, and as she came closer, her face totally changed, going from laughing to stony, her mouth forming a thin line.
    “Can I get you two something to drink?” she asked, her speech clipped and formal.
    “I’d like a cherry coke, please,” Jules asked, trying to sound as bright and bubbly as she could.
    “Same here,” said Seth.
    The waitress nodded curtly, then walked away. Moments later, Jules watched her smile at another customer, clearing his plate.
    Jules looked at Seth, her eyes narrowing just a little. By now, she was pretty sure that she wasn’t imagining it: the people in town really were being specifically unfriendly to them.
    “Are we in the beginning of a horror movie?” she asked, her voice low.
    “I hope not,” said Seth, raising his eyebrows.
    “You know, the part where a new person comes to town, and all the townspeople act shady, and then later when she’s walking somewhere alone she gets kidnapped, and it turns out that the townspeople have a monster that requires sacrifices or something?”
    Seth leaned over the table, getting closer to Jules, and she felt her heart go pitter-patter.
    “There is a story about a family who tried to cross the desert in the summer to get to California, only for the father to go crazy and eat his wife and children. They say he was found still gnawing on an arm bone.”
    Jules’s stomach lurched, and she looked down at the table, suddenly horrified.
    “Really?” she muttered, not feeling terribly well.
    “Shit, I’m sorry,” said Seth. “I just made that up on the spot, it didn’t happen.”
    Jules looked up at him askance.
    “Swear to god,” said Seth.
    “Cannibalism makes me queasy,” Jules said.
    “Nothing has ever happened in Obsidian besides puppies and rainbows,” he said. With his forefinger, he drew an X over his chest. “Cross my heart.”
    “I definitely don’t believe that ,” she said. “But thanks for trying.”
    Seth glanced around the room, his face darkening just a little.
    “It’s not you,” he finally said, his voice quiet. “It’s me.”
    “Did you kill all their dogs?” Jules asked.
    “It’s weirder, and you’re not going to believe me,” he told her.
    The waitress came back, face as cold as ever, and they ordered.
    “Try me,” said Jules. “Unless it’s cannibalism. If it’s cannibalism, please lie.”
    “There’s a legend that my great-great-great...” he paused, like he was trying to remember how many greats . “...Great grandfather made a deal with the devil.”
    Jules took a sip of her coke, her eyes going wide.
    “What kind of deal?” she asked.
    Seth shrugged, jabbing his straw at the ice in his drink.
    “For a good harvest,” he said. “His crops tended to do better than other peoples’, but it’s because he had the land along the Elk River.”
    “That’s behind your house?” Jules asked,