INT. SULLIVAN KITCHEN - MORNING

 

A kooky kitchen. Black and white floor tiles, an unnerving cat-eye clock. Clutter, mostly in the form of plates scattered but also a large amount of jewelry– bracelets, necklaces in various states of unfinishedness, on jewelry stands or sitting in piles on the kitchen table.

 

At the kitchen table, a GIRL: MARY SULLIVAN, 16, wayward hair and overly patterned clothes. She’s like if a hippie had never heard of Stevie Nicks, completely individual in her strangeness. She eats cereal and drinks orange juice, a normal breakfast for a girl who’s clearly not at all normal.  

 

MARY (V.O): My dad’s the only coroner for about a hundred miles. You’d think people would be nicer to us. 

 

She crunches on her cereal. 

 

MARY (V.O): It doesn’t matter now, I guess. Once school gets out I hardly ever see anyone– alive people, I mean. I’m lucky on days I get to even talk to my dad. 

 

She looks over to a large framed photograph amidst the cluttered countertops. Draped with jewelry at the corners, the photo is of a redheaded woman in her forties, wearing a great deal of necklaces and big pendant earrings. Clearly she is (or was) the reason for all of the cluttered jewelry. 

 

MARY (V.O): My momma died five years ago. People still talk about it, about how big death is in our family. They think she died ‘cause she was a witch and they think my dad’s tryna bring her back with rituals, or something. He’s not. I’d know if he was. I know that kinda stuff. 

 

She puts her spoon down, stands. The old chair scrapes and protests the movement. 

 

EXT. SULLIVAN CHICKEN PEN - SAME

 

Mary walks towards the hen house, a basket draped over her arm, making the bracelets on her wrist jangle. Her yard is expansive and largely empty.  

 

MARY (V.O): Only time I see people is when me and my dad go to the farmer’s market. Not a lot of people buy our eggs. We got ‘em thrown back at us one year when these boys said they tasted like dead people.

 

She opens the slot in the side of the henhouse and begins feeling around in the small opening. 

 

MARY (V.O): They don’t know what they’re talking about. Except for when they say my momma was a witch– because she most definitely was. 

 

Just over the hill behind the house, a hearse pulls up her driveway.