The waitress in the Killhook Diner is late middle aged, her hairstyle dates from the time she was a young woman, the 1990’s frozen in time. She is overweight, the sort of plumpness that had traveled from a childhood chubbiness to a teenage fullness to settle as matronly. There were tired lines on her face, and pride in her makeup attempting to soften the years. She had seen good times and bad and carried them all with the confidence that comes from being closer to the coffin than the cradle. And now she is sobbing like a little girl. Her voice hitching on the fear, breaking what she has to say, needs to say, to stop these strangers before they stray too far.
When we were children we were taught …the briared tongue. To speak plain in this land is to be lost in the dark paths and …your father’s days will fill with tears. This can be said and …no more. When we were children we ,,,were taught stories about the children of feathers, and the tears of the land… This can be said and no more.
Once an Englishman met a woman of feathers in the great wood… The woman of feathers was as old as mountains and had many children who filled the woods. The English said to the woman of feathers, give me land so I can grow corn. The woman of feathers said take the land you can walk in a day and a night and no more. But the English walked on crooked feet and strode the land of the people of feathers and claimed it all for his own. And the children of feathers left the land. And the land cried. And the land mourned as a mother mourns a lost child, for the people of feathers had lived on the land since the moon first rose in the sky and the stars were in the sky and the land had risen from the water and the woman of feathers had descended from the sky to claim the land. This can be said and no more.
The waitress looks from face to face, her eyes shining, her cheeks wet. She holds a finger to her lips and shakes her head, her other hand pushing away as if we were crowding her.
Are you telling us the old stories are true?
Trooper Jackson’s voice is more surprised that questioning.
You heard about this officer? asks Bill.
Jackson frowns and shakes his head
These parts have a rep, if you know what I mean.
Please! The waitress is begging him. Please say no more! Her voice shrill, shivering. She is breathing hard.
Jackson raises his hand palms forward, says Ok, ma’am, Ok.
He turns to Bill, Maybe we take this outside?
That’s a good idea, Bill. Stella gets to her feet, walks over to the counter. Stella knows an anxiety attack when she see’s one and the waitress is sinking fast.
What’s your name ma’am?
NO no no no!
Ok, it’s OK. I get it. Names have power. I’ll call you… May, like the month, the start of spring, the start of the sun and warmth. Can I call you May? I’m Stella. OK,May?
The waitress lowers her clenched hands. Her breathing slows. She wipes her eyes with the back of her hands.
It’s going to be Ok, May. You see this man? Stella points to Bill. He is a good man. And this man. she points to Barty. He tries to be as good and he is very clever.
…the girl? The waitress asks with sobs.
She can behave when she wants to. But like all young women she likes testing her limits. Right Tink?
Tink is hanging off Barty’s shoulder. Face as kind as a fox. Cunning and cruel.
Tink! Stella’s voice sharp and loud. You hear me?
Tink rolls her wild eyes and pouts.
What’dyah think Barty? Tink drawls in her little girl voice.
Barty looks old. Older than Stella has seen him look in a very long time. As if Tink is a weight he has carried too far and has even further to go. God, what has happened to the man? He gathers himself as much as he can
This is for Sparrow, Tink, remember?
Tink’s pout twists into a sulk. Why didn’t you say that before…
Let’s go sit down in booth, May, so you and I can talk away from folks.
Bill follows Trooper Jackson out of the Diner into the chill morning air. The Semi haunts the mist with it’s bulk and slab sides. Bill looks back at the truck driver still standing in the Diner, facing his rig with a slack face, not seeing beyond his reflection in the Diner glass.
What about this guy? Do you know why he spooked the waitress?
He thinks he is in Cincinnati.
Cincinnati! Thats two states over.
I think I know what’s happened to him. It’s Tink. She’s persuasive in ways you don’t want to know.
She hexed him?
Bill noted the hex. Is Trooper Jackson experienced?
More like mesmerised. Seen it before. It’ll wear off in a while.Mostly.
Jackson removes his Campaign hat. Scratches his head. Puts it back on again.
Ok. The children. Is that real?
That’s why we are here, to find out. We’ve got one missing person for certain. Female. Twenties. Redhead. slight build. Pretty girl. Name of Sparrow. From these parts. So, what’s the rep on this place?
This FBI thing? I gotta know how to report on that.
Bill shrugs, hands outstretched. Runs a hand over his bald head.
The blonde a is pain in the butt. She’s cooked up some dumb scheme to call Barty and I the Fae Bureau of Investigation. Then she finds some attorney to make it legal. We are working on it.
Fae?
Yeah, seriously.
Ok. that fits.
Bill looks at Jackson, surprised.
It does?
Like I said, this place has a reputation. Some of the families around here, they like their privacy, if you know what I mean. There are rumours. This whole area is full of old stories, juju from way back. Spooky stuff. Hexes. Places you don’t go, that sort of crap. Never paid it much mind before, but you say children have gone missing?
That’s what Sparrow claimed. The party we are looking for. Then she went missing. She used this briared tongue riddle talk as well.
That puts a different light on the thing, don’t it.
Sure does. So what are the stories?
You heard of Thomas Penn?
Can’t say I have.
Son of William Penn, the guy who gave his name to the state of Pennsylvania. In the 1700’s Tom Penn struck a deal with the Lenape for land. The tribes agreed Penn could have the land he walked in a day and a half. That’s how the Lenape gave their young bucks land of their own.
The Englishman with crooked feet?
Yup. Penn junior was a man of his time. He hired runners not walkers, and the one that went the furthest in the time won a bounty Penn set. The winner covered twice the distance the Lenape expected. And it gets better. Instead of projecting the boundary due east from where the walk ended, Pennsylvania's surveyors drew the line at a right angle to the Upper Delaware River, near the New York border, giving Penn far more land than the Lenape chiefs originally had in mind. The Lenape had to move from their ancestral land. The stories are all based on what that meant for the land.
The land mourned…?
Exactly. Hocus Pocus stuff, but that can hide a lot of things people like to stay hidden. You get places people don’t go. That suits some people just fine.
Any of this on record?
Disappearances you mean? People around here don't report anything, but there are stories. There are always stories wherever you go, but like I said, this area has a rep. People living in the woods keeping to themselves, whole communities. Stories about people going native, cutting themselves off from the outside world. People around here all go to church, all the time.
We got lost in the backroads last night.
Jackson nods. Nothing on the maps. Old logging tracks and backroads. Easy to get turned around.
It was more than that.
That’s something I’ve heard before too. Not experienced it myself, but inclined to keep an open mind. So, for the record, what are your plans?
Bill takes a deep breath, palms his bald head, lets the breath out slowly, not a sigh, a release of tension.
We’ll give it a few days. See what we can uncover. Not sure about the Special Agent, I’ll see if I can sell her a line to take back. But for your peace of mind the whole FBI stunt is between us and the blonde. From where I was sitting it looked like a couple of disorderly incidents. Cat fights.
You know you got no jurisdiction out here.
Trooper Jackson stresses the no
I’m retired, officer. This is a private investigation. Not even getting paid.
Stella takes the waitress by the hand and leads her to an empty table. She takes the coffee pot from the waitresses’ hand and pour coffee into a cup and slides the cup in front of the waitress who looks at it blankly, her breathing now easing. Then Stella sits down in front of the waitress and takes one of her hands.
Listen, May, no one here wants to cause you any harm. That’s right isn’t it, Barty?
Barty sits down beside Stella.
No one wants that. We are just trying to find a girl who went missing in New York. She is a friend of Tink, and I am …
More than inappropriately involved with a vulnerable young woman, thinks Gabby as she turns to watch and listen.
Moi, vulnerable? Oh sister, we are going to have such fun… Tink keeps her voice low, sits on the table. Swings her long legs out to block the aisle. Gabby feels the hairs on her neck being to rise again. Not static, something deep seated, something old, warning her. She didn’t say that out loud. She is certain she didn’t.
…helping her find the girl. Thats all ma’am. Barty continues.
The waitress looks at Barty with his pony tail and his heavy coat and silk scarf tied in that elaborate way foreigners tie their scarves. She is afraid of Barty. His foreign accent. Afraid of the way he casually tore apart decades of careful protections, the local taboo’s and careful language everyone in Killhook learns as a child. Killhook never got visitors like these people, the sharp face aggressive woman with dark curls and cutting eyes, the weird child-whore in the tight bodice and shocking skirt. Killhook got families passing through. Ordinary folk, farmers, the travelling salesman. They stopped and she could chat with them and bring them their orders and they went on their way, safe and ignorant, forgetting Killhook as soon as it is distant in the rear window, as it should be forgotten. She feels trapped. Looks out the window to see the Delaware trooper and the NYPD cop talking. As she watches, the Trooper shakes the bald mans hand and walks away, as if he has forgotten her.
Just tell us what you can, May. Nothing that puts you in harms way. So we can find Sparrow
Sparrow. The name explains everything and still these people don’t understand. May can’t stop the fluttering in her chest that is trying to break free. How can she get them to leave? And then she remember’s Crow.
Once a mother named her boy Saul, trusting the bible to keep him safe. And he grew like a boy. Climbed trees, threw stones, fished and swam. Just a boy. And Saul would walk the paths and his mother told him no. And Saul would walk the paths and his father whipped him for a fool. And Saul walked the paths. And one day he did not return. And one night he did not return. And the days passed and the mother and the father read their bible and their psalms and still the boy did not return. Saul never returned. Crow returned. But you are Saul, his mother cried, and he said I am Crow. You are my son said the father and the boy said I am Crow. And Saul never returned and his mother called him Crow and his father called him Crow because he was Crow.
Birds names. Said Stella
Transformation, Stella.
May nods. And the fluttering in her chest is not still.
If you want to read about Tink and Barty from the very beginning Series 1 starts here…
Tink
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5 APRIL 2025
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