Maria Anna Marie was named Maria Anna Marie by her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Marie, who at the time thought it would be quite lovely to have a child whose first name complimented their last. Later, Mr. and Mrs. Marie realized, as did Maria, that “Maria Anna Marie” was, obviously, a terrible name. Their daughter would have probably been much happier off with Name Option #2: Cassandra Luna Marie, or Name Option #3: Penny Angela Marie, but alas, time is not something we can change.

Of course, neither parent ever told poor Maria this, as it is a common knowledge that anyone who royally messes up on something important should never under any perceivable circumstance admit to it. Instead, they told Maria how her name was “charming” and “full of character” and left it at that.

Maria was 27, now, and for the past nine years had been this close to changing her name to something more desirable. “Nova James Marie,” was the current forerunner, as of the past five months, though she would probably change her mind again before she actually got around to changing her name. Maria thought space-oriented names were “charming” and men’s names on women were “full of character,” and though her parents would never admit it—as they only ever actually admit anything about 29% of the time—they both loathed that name more than they loathed rasins in bread.

So, naturally, they set their efforts to changing their daughter’s mind.

“‘Cassandra,’ is a great name,” her father mentioned once during the family dinner they held once every two weeks.

“Have you ever considered something like ‘Penny?’” said her mother on the walk they took afterward.

Maria Anna Marie was too busy wondering if the N and the J in “Nova James” should curl high or low in her cursive signature to pay attention.

I will do it, Maria Anna Marie had been caught saying on more than one occasion. After a moment during which she looked unsure, she would add, I will do it as soon as I have the time, but I am so busy.

It is worth noting, at this point in her introduction, that Maria Anna Marie, above all else, hated being called “Maria Anna Marie.”  There is a reason, she reckoned, that people have multiple names instead of just one, and it’s so you don’t have to call them by the whole thing all the time. Instead, she preferred to be called simply “Maria,” and was not opposed to reminding people of this preference. Unfortunately, when you have a name such as Maria Anna Marie, it is an unavoidable fact that you will not be called anything else for as long as you live. Perhaps if she married someone whose last name was Fitzherbalightopaphagus, her name would be graciously shortened to Maria Anna, but since that was not the case—due mostly to the fact that all the Fitzherbalightopaphaguses left town in the mid ‘60s—she was, to everyone but herself and per parents, Maria Anna Marie.

But enough about that, and onto the present.

Maria lived in a tiny white house on the end of Blake Street. She was the last house on the block, and the sidewalk that traveled down her side of the road ended unceremoniously in the center of her overgrown, grassy property. Inside the house was a bathroom with mold in the tub, an old tile floor in the kitchen, a measly bedroom with poor wifi, and a young man she liked to call Catch, who usually moved about as he pleased.

She called him Catch not because he was one (though he was certainly attractive), but because she had no idea what he was actually called, or if he was called anything at all. Catch was a Local, and this was different than being a lowercase-local, because Locals are cryptid-type creatures that break into houses and eat odd food combinations while locals are simply people who live somewhere.  (Because this would obviously make for many miscommunications, the people of Villa Falls came up with a simple system: the mysterious cryptid-people are called Locals, the locals are called Neighbors, and everyone else is an Outsider.)

Maria stood outside her home and peered disdainfully at the wide-open window that rested next to her garage-sale-find sofa. The screen that was supposed to keep things like bugs, robbers, and, worst of all, spiders, out was tossed haphazardly into the middle of her uncut lawn. Primly, she picked it up by its corner and walked it inside.

Catch stood at her kitchen counter, supremely focused on dipping grapes into a bowl of yellow mustard. When he did not react to per presence, Maria shut the door loudly behind her and dropped the screen on the floor with a clang. His head whipped up in a preylike frenzy as he stared her dead in the eyes, his hand hovering in the air above his bowl of fruit. Even through the startled expression, Maria could tell he knew exactly what type of talking-to was coming his way.