. : The Hurly-Burly House of Sunset Falls : .

 𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕳𝖚𝖗𝖑𝖞-𝖇𝖚𝖗𝖑𝖞 𝕳𝖔𝖚𝖘𝖊

In Sunset Falls, at the end of a dead end street, atop a hill, backing onto a wooded strip of land that abruptly ends in a cliff, there sits the Hurly-burly House.  No one can recall who owns it now.  The last attempt to live in it was more than 30 years ago, and it's front approach is wildly overgrown.  The gingerbread is in rough shape - it hardly looks worth the effort despite the size.  

The locales all know the story, and yet, none of them know the true tale.

Jas. Hurley, Esq., built the house in 1722 for his dramatic young bride Sibella, and they immediately set about having a dozen children, five of which survived to adulthood: the third, Sophie, the sixth, Dorothea, the ninth, Bridget, the twelfth, Rose, and the eldest, James Hurley II. 

The four sisters were classically educated by tutors, as their father was progressive enough to believe that daughters should become wives that their husbands would want to talk to  Armed with math and reading skills, Dorothea lead the sisters in successfully defending their inheritance from their swindling brother when their parents died in a blizzard in 1754. They bought their brother out of the house and business, Bridget took the reins of the company, and the sisters settled into a happy life of spinsters.

in 1785, a new pastor came to town. In his sixties, he was soft-spoken and preached a more subtle fire-and-brimstone than the Johnathan Edwardses of the First Great Awakening.  The sisters almost immediately became his target. Unnatural, that was the word, with their Latin and numbers and Dorothea’s pants. His audience knew what he meant, and soon every action of the sisters became a strike against them, and a new word that was whispered under breath, because Massachusetts had put a stop to the trials decades prior: witch. 

In 1792, an angry mob, riled but not accompanied by the preacher, stormed the Hurly-burly House, drug the women out, and murdered them. The deaths were recorded as natural, but over a dozen contemporary accounts reference the witch-hunt, calling it the hurly-burly.  The pastor was not seen in the town again, and the contemporary references document the town’s belief that the Hurley witches murdered the pastor.

James Hurley II returned to town and took up residence at Hurley House. Six months later, on the night of the full moon, he dropped dead in the night. One account remains of finding his body, which was described as wretched and wasted with a horrorstruck expression. Children began calling it the hurly-burly house  

Since then, the house has had 11 owners and 27 attempts at residency. No resident has lasted more than six months, although only three have died.  They speak of drafts and strange noises, but none have been willing to talk much about the Hurly-burly House.  When the last owner passed away in 1989, no relatives came to claim the deed and none could be found.  Bona vacantia. Funny thing though... the town didn't want to deal with it either.  And so it sits.

And that, is what "everyone knows".

But here’s what you know, dear reader. They. Were. Witches.  The sisters did not have time to defend their home as they were performing a ritual to ensure that their spirits would remain to revenge themselves against the misogynists and zealots of the world. So long as they persist in the world, so will the sisters. Bound within the property lines, they’re waiting for you to come calling. With tea and scones, and a place for your bones, if the world would be happier without you.