[Game Thread] She Never Liked Goodbyes

[Strangemund]

Intro Post She Never Liked Goodbyes ~~ Ambient Autumn Sounds ~~ Fall has come to our dear mountains. No longer are the leaves on the towering sentinels we call trees bare that healthy glow of green. Now they are cast in the color of fire. Burning reds and baleful oranges. Yellows as soft as a dandelion kiss on your nose, and browns so warm that they leave you yearning for the days those crinkled leaves would fall and crunch beneath your shoes, singing a sound which always elicited laughter and a kind of joy that you’d forgotten in your days of old. A chill prickles the air. Just enough to warrant a thicker layer of clothes on your outings out into a world that you know and you live but may not always love, may not always appreciate. It is the start of the hurdle that is unpacking all them winter goodies that kept you nice and toasty throughout the colder parts of the year. Heavy wool blankets stitched by hand. Jam jars that were set to marinate throughout summer needed to be hauled out and stocked in your cabinets. Stashes of that liquid gold herald as a sin in the time of Prohibition no longer tucked away for just a rainy day but for those extra chilly nights by a well-stoked fire. It is a changing of seasons. Where the days grow shorter in Appalachia, the nights longer, so frighteningly longer. But we won’t talk about that just yet, Family; no, them shades and shadows can wait. Instead we look upon Passelbranch, Tennessee, during a time of harvest. Aplenty is how one would describe the farm lands that dot the stretch of valley that laid cradled in the mountains like a newborn babe. Lucky is the farmer who settles in these lands. Their homestead is of a rich, fertile soil that knows only to give birth to the sweetest and ripest of fruit. To give and give and give and give and give and… well, you get the point, Family. Only a truly cursed fool couldn’t plant a seed and watch it bloom here. Joseph Cleary, who lived on a plot of land south of the Good Shepherd Church, past the newlyweds, April and Cletus, who were expecting their first come Christmas day– well, Mr. Cleary already had his hands full with plump, round pumpkins this season. They were every which color you could imagine. Purple. Yeller. Green. But orange engulfed his field the most, like a wildfire set loose. Those were especially popular ‘round this time. Kids and their folks eager to pick out a sturdy squash from his patch so they could get set to working the traditional jack-o-lantern. It’d be only a matter of time before a slew of scary faces were propped up on windowsills and front porches, with the smell of roasted pumpkin seeds drifting through every home in town. Mr. Briggs and Mr. Bristol-- who folks say are brothers although they don’t look a spick alike-- got themselves a sea of sweet corn on their land, just north west of the railroad outta town. You could barely catch a glimpse of their scarecrow, the corn stalks so tall that it’s become just a regular hideout for the local teenagers looking for a place to get away and get cozy beneath the stars. And of course, we can’t forget Mr. Lamb. Everyone in Passelbranch knew Mr. Lamb. He owned all the pig farms ‘round these parts. Bought them all up some decades back despite originally being a city boy himself. His pigs were infamous for how tender and delicious they were. Ooh boy, any cut off them was guaranteed to melt in your mouth and fill your heart with a song! All the grocers and families with a lot mouths to feed were ready to get them a hog or two for the holidays to come. Some of them saved up for the occasion just so that dinner table was brimming with pork chops, bacon, glazed ham, and oh Family, I am gonna have to stop before I find myself salivating like a dog at the idea. In all your time here, though, it ain’t the corn, the pumpkins, them fat bellied pigs that remind you of home– that remind you of The Stray House. Its apples. Or more specifically, sweet, buttery apple pie. You always thought how lucky ya’ll were for the holler to have apple trees. Not just one but dozens that grew tucked away in the woods you grew up in. Them shiny green apples hanging from the branches like little treasures. Ready to be plucked from their twigs and carried back to Granny Innes’ kitchen, where she’d start her work on the best apple pies you’ve ever tasted. She always joked the secret ingredient was worms, just to make you young’uns laugh, and you older ones, who showed up late, she did it to make that facade you wore slip, just a little. Give you a chance to really be yourself. You never knew how she did make those apple pies. Never thought to ask for the recipe. Those of you stuck ‘round these parts, well, you just knew she’d have Kermit sent off with a pie or two once the leaves started to fall. Those of you who left, maybe you thought to yourself you’d ask for it down the road. When you were a little wiser, a little smarter, a little more together. It’d be a momentous occasion when you showed back up and told her just how well you’d be doing. It never occurred to a single one of you that you could lose that chance. ~~~ Granny Innes stood on her front porch, chewing thoughtfully on a piece of ginseng root. Eyes older than the years on her wrinkled face stared long and hard into the woods just outside her protection lines, beyond anything us normal folk could glean. Head cocked to the side, she rested her gnarled, calloused hands on a walking stick she’d come to use for more than just sorting out snakes from the bushes, and listened to the sounds of the Green. The laughing wind that spun itself through the branches and leaves that shaded the brush below, its joy contagious in its simplicity. She listened to the babbling creek that spoke in hushed whispers, and yet carried itself to far and out of reach places, its secrets not always plain. She listened for something she knew she should not be there. Something that smelled of rot. The hundreds of wind chimes she set to every door, window, and low hanging purchase jingled all ‘round Granny Innes in a cacophony that blotted out all other noise. And Granny Innes, the Bear of Passelbranch, who stood in the center of such chaos, simply snorted, and said, "Well then. Best I get to work." ~~ Outro Music: Build Momma a Coffin by Blood on the Harp ~~ OOC   Welcome, Family, to Old Gods of Appalachia, and the start of our story! It is the year 1927, at the start of autumn, and smacked dab in the middle of Prohibition. Our story will mainly take place in sweet Passelbranch, Tennessee, but for now, I am going to divert attention elsewhere-- to you fine folks! What I'd love to have for your first posts are introductions to your characters, during a time and place before you even know Granny Innes is gone. Please write a scene of what your life is currently like. Something that gives us a peak into how you've been living since you said farewell to The Stray House. As well, I'd love for you to include how exactly you came across that special little letter that bid you to come on home. 'cuz it will find you exactly at the right time for you to show up alongside each other-- although we won't cover that reunion just yet. With that, I let you go to write to your heart's content! Have fun, folks! And if you need me for anything, well, you know how to find me~!

[zevonian]

Summer's End 1927 It was ten days since the radio antenna was raised up and began transmitting, and that was at least partially due to the care and caution of one J Windell. He'd recently studied the soil using all his senses, did so just as well as he'd somehow known to do years before, and concluded that the soil had too much clay for good roots to take, but was sturdy enough for a metal machine to stay upright. The Mother of Nature wouldn't be too upset if the surroundings were treated properly, and he'd offered suggestions to the locals what would be tending to this latest tower of song on how to treat the land. Oh, the twelve he was working with this month all knew how to handle things, some maybe knew better than J Windell, but since they was all in agreement with him, and the twelve said they were in it for the long haul, it was figured that the Father of Time would be appeased in turn. Tower of song? Oh, yes, you see the twelve had decided to get their own radio station up and running so they could have their own favorite local musicians playing. All because of the popularity of one particular show that came from Nashville. A musical show, one that would get preceded by a very grand opera. And the twelve knew that there was one person from just a few hollers over who had been at that station in Nashville on that fateful day in November. And they had to get him before the start of 'seng season.

Halloween 1925 "You do not talk too much, do you, Mister Windell? Well sir, thank you for working instead of gum slapping, it's looking like we'll be having the first show next month. You'll be home before Christmas Day." The speaker was a man called Hay, and the listener came to a realization that this was the first time he had been called either Mister or Sir. He'd been old enough to be called either for quite a few seasons, but his lack of a beard or a smoker's cough tended to him just being called You-There or Hey-Kid. Hay was older for sure, and they both knew that fiddles and vocals that could reach five hundred miles from where they stood would have quite a power over folk. Best hopes was it was just for everyone's entertainment for a spell. J Windell also realized that he was just one of dozens of people that had worked on things around here that year. He figured that Mister Hay had dozens of short speeches like the one he was now hearing all ahead, or behind, him all week long. He declined to mention that he had no proper training from bona fide repair people. Or that his tool kit was piece mailed from the tool boxes of soldiers that didn't come home. Or that he only knew to come to town because of something he was told in a storm, told by lightning that doubled as he stood silently in the rain. He never mentioned those things. City slickers wouldn't understand. It was the first year he'd not spent all the days of the ginseng getting time as a full time go getter. He was hoping it would be the last.

Autumn 1927 He was a day's walk from the house where his mama raised him, sitting outside a cave on a patch of land under contested ownership. The contesting was between two locals, but the real question was how could either of them own anything around here. The lands own us, so they say. The terrain was not so easy for him to travel, meaning it would be unsafe for most others. A cool breeze brushed through him, and just enough sun had come through where leaves were pushed down minutes earlier to light the dirt at his feet. J Windell adjusted his hat, and took the weather as a sign that it was safe to sit for a rest. He kept his weapons handy. The Father of Time moved a few grains of sand, Mother Nature allowed the cool breeze to continue. The sanger slept a spell. Sun was setting when he woke. Couldn't see it for the trees, knew it by the sky. He stood, noticed a letter tucked into his muddy left boot. He'd lost neither weapons nor life. Pack still full, he double checked. Rain started hitting the treetops. He had seconds to check the paper before it would be too wet to read. Without even unfolding it, he had a hunch where it came from. "Thanks, J.T. Rain God." Opened the letter. Knew the handwriting from something scrawled in his youth. Apples, maybe. A request for apples of certain ages and sizes, perhaps. Not from either of his folks, definitely. He knew immediately where he had to go. Why else would his findings of the day be still in his pack? Why else would he have been allowed to find them, what with him spending so many hours reaching towards the modern, the electric, and not the ancient, the land? J Windell had to go to the Stray House. The only house he could still call a Home. He would not use a lantern. He just knew which way to go.

[Syne]

Seeds fall. That's their nature. Some seeds travel, too; some of them as far as they can. The seeds planted by Granny Innes were a pretty unusual bunch, so it shouldn't be surprising that one of them managed to travel further than most. Some 700 miles away from the Stray House and the holler, Kiera Devlin slept fitfully within a city that was just as restless. Her dreams were always formless things, kept that way through sheer teeth-clenched stubbornness that only a spell spent living in Appalachia could manage to impart. Nightmares were nothing new for Kiera, even before she'd arrived in New York City. They left her with hints of dark branches, hidden paths, and the unyielding sense of being chased. That night's dreams were no different. She awoke, as always, to the predawn light casting her hotel room in shades of gray. Routine was a treasure precious beyond jewels, at least to Kiera. It was something to cherish even when offered only to sharpen the knife that was its disruption, and so Kiera never took it for granted. Two years at the Martha Washington Hotel and twice that at the same job for the New York Telephone Company offered precious stability. Kiera dressed in the dark with a song on her lips and joy in her heart. There was dread too, of course, but joy always won. Even on her worst days joy was something worth clinging to, out of spite if nothing else. Upon leaving her room, Kiera disappeared into the crowd of New York City. First she lost herself among her neighbors, then among the people on the streets and the subway. Kiera wore black, the only hint of color a flash of silver and green on her left ring finger, and she'd found upon her arrival in the city that she was merely one woman among millions. New York City had proven itself an excellent place to start fresh at a moment's notice, something she'd been required to do more than once. She'd been lucky that it had not cost her job the last time. The only disruption recently had been the move into the new building that had started last year, but life had otherwise continued as normal. 'Normal' was another precious resource. Life working with switchboards often felt like carefully controlled chaos. It had been overwhelming, once upon a time, but Kiera was no longer the girl who'd jumped at every shadow she'd been just after leaving Tennessee. She remained aware of them. Wary of them. But she'd lived since then. Found and lost friends and even the occasional lover. The lengthy, demanding work as an operator was small potatoes by comparison. Emerging from the workday into a New York City wrapped in a brisk, windy sunset was invigorating. Kiera had always loved the fall. New York's was different than fall back home, of course. Granny Innes' apple pie was replaced with a slice purchased from a corner bakery, a shallow and bittersweet reminder of what she'd lost by running. The shadows were longer, and the things they hide different than the ones concealed by the dark branches of the holler's woods. There were no fields ready to harvest, the business of the city carrying along regardless of the season. But the crack of it was in the air, and it carried Kiera home with a spring in her step. At least until she saw the letter. It had been shoved under the door of her hotel room, yellow paper crumbled from the force. The name at the top was legible and impossible, burnt into her eyes as she picked it up, the bag with the slice of pie dropped and forgotten at her feet. "You are cordially invited to sitting up with the Innes’ family to celebrate and mourn the passing of one Granny Islay Innes." A part of Kiera wanted to run. The letter was impossible, from its addressee to its contents. Granny Innes always seemed like she would outlast the Appalachian Mountains. She'd taught Kiera the lessons that had kept her alive. The woman could eat fire and breathe lightning. This had to be a trick, the metal on her finger a cold reminder that she was not beyond being tormented by lies. The greater part of her knew that from this, there could be no running. She owed Granny Innes. She was going home. Cussing seemed like the appropriate reaction.

[UngainlyFool]

Special Delivery Brody Whitt's bones hurt. It's a special kind of ache that the young just don't understand, until they do. The man was slumped in the old kitchen chair he grew up with, worn smooth with so many back sides and greasy hands that it had the feel of carved stone. His eyes weren't open yet. It was with a certain familiarity and weariness that he navigated the small kitchen and pantry shelves like a blind man to set the percolator to bubbling. But even the burbling, hissing steam of the brew near completion and the tendrils of aroma seeking out his nose couldn't seem to rouse him this morning. You see, Brody was a man in the throes of reinvention. It was a problem most of the men in Cain county, or Tennessee, or really Appalachia as a whole, leastwise the places that matter, had to deal with. You were born into, cajoled, or otherwise conscripted into a living whether you liked it or not. What the people who bemoaned their fate didn't understand was that there is a real comfort in stability, even if it put you at risk on the rails or of black lung. Strip a man of security and you strip him of his place in the world. So it goes. So it goes. So, at the ripe age of 32, when most were making their way up union ranks, reaping the wisdom of years of weather, pestilence, and everything else Appalachia could throw at a farmer or rancher, or, as Brody had, reaching the pinnacle of law enforcement, he was instead hopping around Passelbranch and surrounds like a hobo, looking for odd jobs his body never knew it was going to be tasked with doing. Husbandry, mainly, 'cause Brody had a way with domesticated animals. He knew his way around horses and hounds from his time policing, and cows and chickens and goats at his own family's place growing up...the place he was now. But there is a difference between the chores of youth or the slantwise care of a few animals at the station and what he did now for the Brewers and Jacksons and Schmidts and Gullys. It was exhausting work that took him before sunup to after sunset just to pay for the essentials and sundries for himself and his mother. The Whitt farm itself had fallen into disuse after Fletcher Whitt died of a heart attack in '09 and Brody joined the force in '11. His mother stayed on using the wages Brody sent her until that too dried up. It was a story Brody couldn't help but keep replaying every morning as he did now. You see, moving back to a place you left for a time to strike out on your own felt like a failure to Brody. It didn't feel like home, really. Even with his mother there and his father long dead. It was never really a place he wanted to be. The Stray House was always more of a home to him than his own flesh and blood. As if spurred on by that thought, Brody shuffled to his feet and went to take his cup of joe out on the porch in the cool darkness of predawn as was his custom. He took a sip from his mug as he shuffled out the door and his foot grazed something right outside the screen door. He let the clattering frame close slowly with a creaking spring before bending down and picking up the object. It was a dimebook, he could tell, by the size and rough paper feel. It wasn't until he lit the oil lamp hanging on the eave and settled in his chair with another sip of coffee to wake up his eyes that he learned more. The cover had a dark silhouette of some booger or 'nother in a graveyard with the blood dripping title of Haints and other Scary Stories. Brody smirked and flipped the cover page but there wasn't an inscription. But on other pages as he flipped through he spotted the previous owners doodling on page after page. Kermit's doodlings. Brody could spot them a mile away in a turd floater. He chuckled remembering the times he and Colin and Kermit and Ezra and the other boys used to spend the darkest nights out in the woods trying to outdo each other with scary stories over a small, sputtering campfire. Kermit and Brody usually came up with the best or at least they thought so. The book fell open to the center page where the staples held it together and there was something there that made him stop smiling. It was an innocent thing, just a wrinkled crumpled and smoothed yellow parchment, but somehow Brody knew the message it held before he even opened it. We all know too, don't we Family? So let's turn a kind eye away from Brody Whitt and the personal sorrow that took him in that moment on the dark cool morning on his mother's porch. Let's move on to another. To the next.

[Pseudonymous]

A Letter, But Not The Important One FROM THE WRITING DESK OF: MILDRED A. BRIGHTLEY BOSTON GRAND HOTEL BOSTON, MAS. Dear Claudia, Oh my dear friend, you'll never guess what I've been up to! It's absolutely scrumptious-- all the girls at school will be so jealous! Guess what? I attended a real seance this evening! Can you imagine?? I've been dragged down to Boston for Auntie Gertrude's birthday, you know-- She's turned sixty-two or something similarly dreadful-- And the batty old girl hired herself a real live spirit medium for the party! It was all so very exciting! Mother disapproved, of course; she's a bit old-fashioned when it comes to those things, but it was Auntie Gertie's house and Auntie Gertie's birthday and Auntie Gertie's money (and gosh does she have a lot of that!) so Mother could hardly stand in the way. And oh, it was so fantastic that I can hardly sit still long enough to put it down on paper! You see, Auntie Gertie had said she wanted to speak with Uncle Lionel -- her first husband, you know. And of course, when I had heard that an honest-to-goodness mystic was coming, I thought to myself, "Well now, Millie, I'll bet she's some toothless old granny who reads tea leaves and such." But no! The medium, Miss Rooke (and golly, isn't that an absolutely wonderful sort of name! The E at the end makes it so mysterious! "Rook" is such a schoolteacher name, but "Rooke" brings to mind shadowy castles and handsome strangers!), she looked like a movie star! She was so glamorous -- dark eyes and a black dress that sparkled when she moved! She had a bit of an accent, I think, but I couldn't quite place it. I'm sure it was from all the traveling she's done to learn her mystic arts! (My brother, Robert, says it sounds like she was from Kentucky or Tennessee or somewhere boring like that. Pah. Robert is such a party-pooper. Mystics don't come from Tennessee.) And oh, what a fantastic show she put on! We all gathered in the parlor, and Miss Rooke closed all the curtains and turned off all the lights. We all sat around a little table, which Miss Rooke covered with a black cloth, and she lit a single candle. It was as though the room was transformed! Even though I'd been in Auntie Gert's parlor heaps of times, it suddenly felt very foreign and spooky! Everything you've read about spirit mediums-- the crystal balls and the fortune telling cards and the ghosts-- they're all true! Miss Rooke can do them all! We all held hands to create a mystic circle, and Miss Rooke looked into a crystal ball and called forth the spirits! Her voice became low and melodic as she went into a trance, and she said-- and I'll never forget it -- she said, "Spirits from the great beyond, hear me! If you are among us now, knock three times!" And what do you know? THE SPIRITS KNOCKED ON THE TABLE! Ooh, I have goosebumps just thinking about it! Three times! Just like she said! And then she said, "If Lionel Brightley is here with us, knock once!" And it knocked AGAIN! Of course, Uncle Lionel couldn't speak in ways that we could hear-- Miss Rooke said that the etherial current wasn't strong enough to grant him that power. But SHE could hear him, and she told us all sorts of things about him so we knew it was really him! She said he smelled of pipe tobacco, and he DID smoke a pipe! His tobacco box is still sitting on the mantle in the parlor! She asked him to make himself known to all those in the room, and just like that, THE CANDLE STARTED TO FLICKER! And dear Aunt Gert was so pleased to talk to Uncle Lionel again. Miss Rooke told her that Uncle Lionel was very happy and very proud of them all, and that he wasn't at all upset when Aunt Gertie got remarried to Uncle Reggie because he wanted her to be happy. Robert, the cad, asked if Uncle Lionel had hid any money in the house before he died, and Uncle Lionel said "bless your heart." That was very nice of him! Oh, but the funniest part happened as the seance was ending! Miss Rooke was dismissing the spirits, and she said, "Now, all you wandering spirits, known and unknown, we must say goodbye. Knock three times to announce your departure, and go in peace!" And there were three knocks--- AND THEN A FOURTH KNOCK!! Everyone looked very confused, even Miss Rooke! But then the parlor door opened, and Auntie Gert's butler, Niles, came in! He had knocked to announce his entry! Oh, we all had a good laugh at that! But the strangest thing happened after that. Niles said that a letter had arrived for Miss Rooke, and he handed it to her. It was sort of a shabby little thing-- the paper looked yellowed and dusty. I can't explain it, but for some reason, it made me crave apple pie. I couldn't see the return address, but Miss Rooke's face became very pale. She quickly excused herself, after doing a quick mystical hand-wave to drive off any lingering spirits, and took to the library to read it in private. Then she just sort of left! Thanked Aunt Gertie in a sort of daze, swept her magical relics into a bag, and took off like she got bad news! Robert, of course, being a horrible little man, said "Well, if she can read the future, shouldn't she have already foreseen whatever was in the letter?'" Robert is such a party pooper!

Later That Evening... Nell Daniels threw a pair of stockings into her bag. She had to go back. Her Granny... Granny Innes, was... No. She wasn't going to go back. She promised she was done with that place. She pulled the stockings back out of the bag. She had a good thing going here in Boston. Steady money. Adventure. And it's not like she had any actual family back in... She stopped. No. Granny Innes was family. The only family she had. The stockings went back into the bag. Well, not the only family. Granny Innes raised her, alongside the rest of the kids cycling through the house. She grew up alongside Maisie and Colin and the others. Granny Innes would have wanted her there with the rest of the kids. But no one else in Passelbranch would want her there. And she didn't want to see anyone, not really. The stockings came back out. Nell Daniels was a nobody. Eleanor Rooke was somebody. Maybe Nell Daniels would just disappear with Granny Innes. One fewer person to know who she was. Why should she go back? She was happy here. She had fun. Granny Innes would want her to be happy. That's that. She wasn't going back. No one would miss her presence. It was fine. She was staying here in Boston, and that was that. Three hours later, she was on a train headed to Tennessee.

[AnotherDragoon]

Excerpts from the Journal of Ezra Micheal Crenshaw IV Hiwassee River, July 19, 1927 Summer has started to show just how spiteful the sun can be, when it has a mind to. The very air itself seems to wilt under the baleful rays, just like all the spring growth. Things move more slowly and deliberately in this oppressive heat what clings to your clothes and skin like the amber blood of old pines. Even the normally turbulent waters of the river seem to flow slower, more languidly along its southern course. Maybe that's why I've lingered among these banks some fifteen days fishin', wadin', and crawdad huntin'. The water's nice. Still ain't seen tail nor scale of that great serpent supposedly claiming this river. More likely, some men have a few too many pulls from the old brown jug, fall in, and get pulled away to drown in the rapids. I did, however, catch the biggest catfish I've ever seen. Hell, it could've swallowed the biggest one I've ever seen, snapped my fishinpole, but I landed him! If this thing bumped your canoe and swam under to the other side well, it wouldn't be a stretch to call it a monster of some kind and unnatural at best. Traded it for some tobacco, a jug of amber elixir, and coffee. In Birchwood, a hunter mentioned seeing a massive black dog with red eyes up in the Cumberland Gap. I'll be heading out that way upon completion of this entry. Red Ash, August 22, 1927 This is a mining town and therefore, like every other similar town, they put nearly as much back into the ground as they cart out. In deposits of flesh and bone. These kinds of towns come with graveyards so full that sometimes the dead can't get a good rest and sometimes, they spill out. The cemetery in Red Ash ain't no different. Most folks just say they don't come calling to the graves at night or don't want to talk about it but one fella, grey in the beard and rheumy of the eyes, spun me a yarn about some kind of goat demon coaxing the spirits out to dance under the moonlight. I'll record that chronicle on its own page as is befitting such a story. Naturally, I set up camp nearby and sat up to watch the stars. It was cloudy and dark as the black leather binding of this here book for a good part of the night and every bit as quiet as one might expect from such a place. Sometime after midnight, when my coffee had gone cold, the clouds finally gave way to the moon high overhead, and through its soft pale beams, I seen movement in the cemetery! So, I grabbed my flashlight and crept in like a stalking catamount for a closer look. Whatever was there slipped away like shadows under a lantern but there was definitely something out there. May be worth saying an extra day or two.

Black wings upon a wind of change It was early September in Appalachia and the tops of the trees down in the hollers had just started to blush in anticipation of strippin' down to welcome in winter. The sun was starting to creep up over the mountains, giving a slow and final warning to the haints, ghosts, and boogers that their time to wander freely was over for now. Ezra had been up long enough to make water and stoke the smoldering campfire before settling in to roll up a smoke and put the percolator on to fill his thermos with a strong brew to hopefully carry him up to the Gap today or, at least, tomorrow. He picked a burning stick out of the fire, lit his cigarette, and tossed it back in, sending orange embers dancing up into the sky that hadn't yet showed any intent of blanketing Eastern Tennessee in the cold and wet grey that always came by November. Now, Ezra was by no means a solitary man in fact he enjoyed good company and shared stories as much as the next fella, but in these golden moments of serene stillness and silence when the world was still waking? Well, one could understand why some folk might seek out that particular type of life up in the mountains. He blew a stream of smoke out and watched it intertwine with that of the fire as the percolator started to bubble. Ezra took his coffee off the fire and set it aside to steep a minute while he fetched his journal, map, and thermos from the haint blue tent a few yards away. Before he ducked in, a CAW from the tree next to his tent caught his attention. A sleek coal-black crow flapped itself into the sky to wheel up high into the clouds, but not before dropping a shiny green apple that rolled its way down to his boot. "Thank you kindly, Traveller!" Ezra called up to the bird. He picked up the apple and was immediately hit with a wave of nostalgia that smelled like cinnamon, cloves, and brown sugar before rummaging through his pack and leaving a couple crusts of bread, a bit of dried venison, and a silver dime where the fruit fell as an offering to his winged visitor. Polishing the fruit on his shirt, Ezra gathered up the things that would help him plan out the day. But, when he reached for his journal there was an envelope resting on top with two letters marked in ink across it. EZ Family, you ever just know when you're about to be hit hard and heavy with a fat dose of unwanted bad news? Well then, you know. Ezra didn't want to touch the thing, let alone open it but, soon enough he'd already done both and was reading the thing with tears wellin' up in his eyes. "Oh, Kermit. Oh, Colin. I gotta get back to Stray House." He folded the letter, slid it back in the envelope, and tucked it into a pocket before he sat down and, well he's gonna need a moment here family. Somewhere overhead, that crow circled and cawed a final time before gliding into a current for someplace else.

[crowmadillo]

Winter 1926

After the Bill fiasco Leslie moved to New York. He’d had a good run of casting by leaning into his family name, promising producers he’d speak with his parents about possible financing for movies he had sizable roles in. The trick only lasted a couple months before word got around that no such money ever materialized, but in that time he landed a number of co-starring roles. Enough to give him exposure and make him feel like he was gaining momentum when the telegram came.

LESLIE: RETURN HOME. MOTHER DEAD. -JOSEPH SPIEGEL

So the old gal had finally given up the ghost. She’d never been much of a mother, really. More like an older sister or naughty aunt, always encouraging him and his friends to get into the kind of trouble she imagined boys his age should be involved in. She’d always delighted in his tales of mischief and excess, and was no stranger to trouble herself. Always the life of the party, her drinking and antics were famous amongst the East Coast elite. Yet they all forgave her for it. She had a way with people that made them fall in love with her, and she forged the social connections his father never could. If she was a butterfly, his father was a stump. It wasn’t a lifestyle that lent itself to good health, however.

At his father’s insistence, Leslie had gone and gotten a new suit made for the funeral. It was a dignified and solemn affair, exactly the sort of thing she would have hated. Afterwards his father gave him a short but obviously well-rehearsed speech, probably written well before his mother’s passing. ”Leslie, I funded your mother’s dissolute lifestyle to her ruin, and I refuse to do the same to my son. You may return home and come work for me, or you may continue to do whatever it is you want to; the latter, however, you will do without my support, financial or otherwise.”

He knew it was pointless to argue with his father - his mother had been the only one ever capable of changing his mind - so Leslie didn’t even try. He spent the night, collected those items he considered his own, several more he felt he deserved, and left the next morning back to New York City and stardom.

Autumn 1927

Leslie stood at his dresser in an A-shirt, boxers, and sweat. The day had been a grind in a long line of daily grinds. He’d been to three casting calls that morning, producing no more result than the usual vague platitudes of possible phone calls. This was followed by six hours standing outside a makeshift sound stage in Queens in brutal heat, hoping to get work as an extra, only to be told shooting had been canceled for the day.

Grunts and curses of passion filtered through the wall of his room as he poured himself two fingers of scotch and began rolling himself a cigarette on the dresser top. He rented his room by the week, but his “neighbors” paid by the hour. Ms. Brown, his landlady, had taken a liking to him and sympathized with his plight. She claimed keeping him around gave her place some class and boosted her girls’ morale. If he’d been honest with himself, it had the opposite effects on him.

He slugged back his drink then licked the paper and sealed his joint. He enjoyed the warmth spreading through his chest a moment before opening the top dresser drawer and rooting through the assorted miscellanies it contained.

Decent cigarettes had been the first thing to go. Well, cocaine had been the first thing to go, but it had never been more than a party thing for Les, so it didn’t bother him much. In point of fact, parties had been the first thing to go. Parties (and with them cocaine,) followed by decent cigarettes, his apartment, all his actor friends (Bill had been right on that point, even here in New York,) his faith in himself, and finally his faith in humanity as a whole. Mixed throughout had gone most of the things nabbed from home, sold off to pawnbrokers and bootleggers, until all he had left was decent liquor, this grubby brothel motel room, a couple suits, a set of luggage, his book and his fishing gear. That last would, undoubtedly, be the next to go. The decent liquor would undoubtedly be the last. A man must have standards, after all. If he couldn’t have a decent drink at the end of his day, then what was the point?

His hand found the book of matches it had been looking for, and Les lit his cigarette, breathing deep of smoke and flame, filling his lungs until it poured over into that other place inside him - the place where all the smoke and booze and sex and praise went, blazing in a moment of righteous joy at its precipice before falling into the bottomless dark forever.

He refused to go back home in defeat. He couldn’t stomach the thought of giving his father that satisfaction. He just needed one more break, one more chance to really make things happen. After that summer in Appalachia he’d returned riding high; he needed to capture that energy, that magic, again.

He smirked at the thought. Reaching again into the top drawer, he pulled out an envelope addressed to him. Opening it, he took out a small sachet of blue paper and a folded letter. He turned the blue packet over in his hands, a genuine smile gracing his face. Granny Innes had given it to him when he’d left ‘Stray House,’ explaining its power and use to him, knowing full well he didn’t believe a word of it. Maybe he should take it down to the Hudson before his next audition and whisper the name of the director. The letter had come later, the following summer. Apparently Duncan had seen one of his films, Blind Behemoth, and sung his praises to his mother. So much so that Granny had written him directly to congratulate him, despite never having actually seen it, stating it “sounded a proper yarn.” Les gave the sachet a last look before placing both back in the envelope and into the drawer. No, the only magic was that of the cinema itself. The letter was proof enough of that. His film, modest as it was, had inspired a man to inspire his gruff old mother to send a letter from the depths of nowhere to a near stranger in praise.

Blowing smoke out his nostrils, content for the moment, Les poured out the last of the bottle into his glass before reaching for the bundle of scripts his agent had left with Ms. Brown the day before. He had enough money to last him the month, a week more if he lived lean. Somewhere in these pages there had to be what he was looking for - the role of a lifetime.

As he shuffled through them an envelope fell to the floor. Picking it up he saw his name scrawled across the front in a semi-familiar hand. Had Duncan caught another one of his more prominent roles, perhaps in The Gardens of Ur this time? He had to admit he thought he was quite good in that one. With a chuckle he slid his knife through the envelope top and pulled out the letter within. His face froze as he read its contents.

Granny Innes was dead.

He was struck by a sudden violent surge of emotion, and that place inside him convulsed and shuddered and sucked all thought and warmth from him, leaving only a cold hard lump that brought stinging tears to his eyes. His hand reached out for his glass and brought it to his lips, the brief surge of heat jumpstarting his brain. Why would he be invited to the old woman’s wake? Why would she care about him and desire his presence? Why would anyone? And the most confusing: Why did he care about her?

His hand grabbed the bottle to pour another drink. Its emptiness sparked a rage inside him, and he threw it across the room to shatter against the far wall.

Leslie stared at the broken shards of glass on the stained carpet for a long time, as if they were sharp, lethal jigsaw pieces to the puzzle of his misery. Eventually he began to move, carefully, mechanically, packing his fine black suit and what little else he hadn’t pawned off into his suitcases. He showered, and at sunup he got a fresh haircut and shave before boarding the first train headed south.

[Strangemund]

The Stray House She Never Liked Goodbyes ~~ Ambient Autumn Sounds ~~ It used to be a one room cabin. That’s what Granny Innes always told you whenever you asked how The Stray House came to be. Supposedly it was built by her own granny who fled her homeland of Scotland, for one reason or another, ‘bout a century back. Granny Innes never delved into the particulars of why that was. But you suspected it had something to do with her own peculiarities– the way things just sorta worked themselves out whenever she decided it was time to dive into her cellar for her herbs and… other non-christian items. Her granny, though, didn’t like people. Didn’t care for the noise or the nonsense that followed folks like a plague. No, she liked the quiet. The serenity of being so deeply lost in the green that she wouldn’t have even known if the world ended yesterday. She woulda just been out and about in her garden, sowing her seeds and pulling weeds, happy as a bee. It was those exact desires to be ALONE that led her here. Right in the middle of nowhere. ‘cuz that was what Passelbranch was a century ago, Family. Nowhere. No townhouses. No saloons. No churches or schools. Nothing but a rag-tag tent camp of railroad workers who were fighting tooth and nail to carve a path from here to North Carolina, and losing. A fool’s errand, thought her granny, but folks said the same thing about her when they found out she was fixin’ to live deep in them appalachian mountains. Lotta them tough men tried their best to convince her granny to stay. Used sweet words at first. Then when that didn’t work, they told her the stories. Of catamounts that moved through the woods like ghosts. Of a bear covered in moss that shrugged off slugs like flies off a horse’s arse. Of a wolf borne of the sun and carried its fire in its blazing maw. It was usually right ‘bout then that Kermit interrupted Granny Innes. Asking about the critters instead of what you wanted to know. Throwing half a dozen questions to the wind, each and every one the same question he asked since he was a fresh-faced babe to the full grown man that Leslie took for a… well, bless his heart sorta fella. Can’t say it wasn’t a trial to get back on track. Granny Innes a patient woman, especially when it came you all. So, you’d have to be good and wait until she satiated Kermit enough for him to shut-up and sit still (or if you were lucky, Maisie was ‘round to threaten him with her infamous viper bite), Granny Innes would go on about what her granny found. The Rook. There is little the mountain does not take for its own. What doesn’t get enveloped by the old oaks usually wound up lost to the brush and the kudzu. Animals bounding endlessly through the thickets and drinking from the creeks that trail down from the mountain peaks like sprawling roots. Nature at its purest. At its most powerful. It was no place for man. How could it when all we ever did was take and take? And yet… There was a place her granny found that seemed almost predestined to be made a home, if you believe in such things as destiny and fate. Oh Family, it was hidden well, that secret place. A day and half’s trek up the mountain, through the meanest parts of the woods. Where thorns dragged through flesh and upturned roots dared to leave you tumbling over a sheer cliff. Only the most stubborn of souls woulda have seen all these signs and kept pushing forward. But Granny Inne’s granny did. She found herself the holler you call home through a tunnel not made of earth or stone but a tangled archway of trees. A strangeness you know well for it is the only way to get to The Stray House. The only path that cuts the cleanest through the woods. Everywhere else just gets you lost, or eaten, if you are really unlucky. But Granny Innes swore that tunnel was a different beast back then. What her granny traveled through wasn’t a pleasant stroll beneath a canopy of green but something older. A tunnel that ran for miles. No end in sight. No beginning, either. Flooded with an unsettlingly darkness that nearly drove her granny right back down that mountain, screaming, from the unspoken things she felt moving in the dark. But her granny found the courage to keep on. Used what wits her own mama taught her to protect herself from whatever haint or booger was messing with her. And eventually, she found her way out. Found her way to the clearing that you now spent your summers eating sweet, buttery apple pie in. It is here, in the heart of the Green, she built her log cabin, and it is here her granny married her granpappy, siring the first of many Innes children. And it is here, each and every one of them, would be laid to rest. ~~~ Your arrival in Passelbranch is cruelly welcomed by picturesque, sunny weather. The skies are a clear, vibrant blue, and the chill not so terrible you find yourself shivering in your boots but feeling refreshed from your long journey on the trains here. It woulda been a beautiful day to sit and soak in the view with the rest of the tourists that pitter-patter about the town. But your heart is heavy with the storm you expected to find here when you found out Granny Innes was dead. It’s not hard to find a wagon willing to pull you up to The Stray House. Kindness is no stranger ‘round these parts, especially when you keep to your manners. It is ‘bout a few hours ride up the mountain to get home but it feels somehow longer than that, as you’re shuffled down a beaten road you used to know like the back of your hand. Maybe because you find yourself lost at the little changes that have come and taken root while you’ve been gone. Like how the Haywoods up and left their holler for Pennsylvania a summer back ‘cuz their youngest was expecting. Their home just stood there now, desolate. With no fuzzy-headed sheep to greet you at their fence as you pass by, no drifting aroma of baked yams and buttered corn leaving you hopeful for a quick taste of their dinner. It was just a lonesome monument to bittersweet memories now. Kermit’s “secret fort” was long gone, too. Sure, it wasn’t much of a secret fort when ya’ll were kids. More of a badger hole that you all worked hard to dig out even further just to find out how far you could go. But it was yours. Yours to sneak off into the dead of night and tell ghost stories in, or hoard the treats Granny Innes would never let you have a taste of. But apparently couple years back the church folks got worried about kids getting swept up in it during mud season. Didn’t take a lot of talk before the new sheriff decided to fill it up with gravel from the steel mill. You can’t even remember what treasures you left behind in it. Was it anything important? Anything worth saving? It hurt your heart to think what else was gonna be different up ahead. But you had to know, didn’t you, Family? If that letter was true. You will find yourselves at the tree-top tunnel. You will walk through it and hear the crunch of leaves beneath your feet. The flutter of birds above you as they get ready to fly off to parts unknown. Their nests empty until next year, until that first glimmer of spring. The wind sweeps through the woods and around you, and with it, you hear something you hadn’t heard in what felt like a lifetime. The ringing of wind chimes. The first sign you were home. I can’t say which of you is the first to come on home, Family, but whoever that unlucky soul is will find exactly what they feared most coming here: An empty house. Oh sweetheart, you may look as much as you want to try and prove me wrong. But you’ll find the skinning hut is not only devoid of Kermit’s familiar face but of any game of any size. There weren’t even animal hides hanging up to dry for the colder months, which wasn’t right. Granny Innes always had at least a couple deer hide set aside in case somebody needed them elsewhere. The outhouse door hung open, swinging limply in the wind. The pig pen aplenty with snorting hogs but no Granny Innes filling their trough with yesterday’s leftovers, just as much as there weren’t no Colin clicking his tongue at the chickens back ‘round the house near the coop. Whatever hope you held in your heart that somebody was here to make sense of what you been done told died the moment you stepped up on that front porch, and found the door locked. Granny Innes didn’t have a lock on her door. Not when you was kids, and there was plenty of you running ‘round here– sweet baby Nell, somber-eyed Kiera, wandering little heart that was J. Windell. Not when Brody grew up to be a Sheriff and feared the trouble that would come to her door, especially when it came to so many before her. Not when Ezra and Kermit pleaded with her both to get at least a latch so they didn’t have to worry about no haints snatching her up. Not even when Leslie showed up on her door, concerned that the threats that haunted his cities would find them both up in the mountains. Granny Innes refused with all the stubbornness her hard years in the mountains granted her. "There’d be no lock on my damn door." And yet a polished, iron keyhole stared back at the first of The Stray kids. It is an appalling sight that woulda left you speechless and frustrated and maybe even a little insulted if it weren’t for the note tied around the doorknob. The Note   "Kermit I headed down to pick up Colin from the train station. I’ll be back before nightfall. I left the key in the usual place, so don’t try and crawl through the bathroom window again. You ain’t as small as you used to be, cuz. Much love from your dearest cousin, Maisie. P.S. If Duncan shows up before I do, just stall him until we get back, please?" And unfortunately for you, you knew exactly where that key was. OOC   It's about time for that family reunion, isn't it, Family? Now, keep in mind, you all are gonna show up to The Stray House shortly after one another. There's no long delays in seeing each other no matter how far you are from home. But the first of you to arrive at The Stray House will find it both empty and locked, which isn't something that's ever happened to The Stray House in all the years it's been in Granny Innes' care The First Stray Kid Home: You are the first home, so you have the opportunity to look 'round a little bit more if you decide that you don't want to go for the key right away.   Peeking through the windows is a Difficulty Level 2 (DC 6), with any objects to use for balance serving as an Asset, which would drop the difficulty down to Level 1 (DC 3). Leslie's Trained Skill in Balance; Kiera's Trained Skill in Perception; J. Windell's Trained Skill in Perception; and Ezra's Trained Skill in Sneaking may be applied here. Any Trained Skills would drop the Difficulty Level down by one step. If you use an Asset and a Skill, that drops the Difficulty Level to 0, which means you don't have to roll! But if you don't have an Asset, then using a Skill by itself will just drop it to Difficulty Level 1 (3). Searching for the area for tracks is a Difficulty Level 3 (DC 9) on the account that fall is here and there's a lot of leaves and twigs to sort through. Brody's Trained Skilled in Assessing Danger; Nell's Trained Skill in Assessing Danger; and J. Windell's Trained Skill in Tracking will drop the Difficulty Level down to Level 2 (DC 6). You may only choose one of these two actions before the others start to show up. ~~~ Where's That Dang Key?: It is unfortunate to say that all of you know exactly what place Maisie is talking about. The key is tucked underneath the meanest chicken in the chicken coop, Henrietta. A grey hen with one good eye that's scared off more foxes and wolves than any hound. The fact that she's been 'round since your childhood only adds to the terror that is Henrietta. But she's a damn good guard chicken, and for you, Brody, Nell, Kiera, Ezra, and J. Windell, you could hide just about anything you wanted in her nest with her eggs, and not have to worry about it going missing. For you, Leslie, you know about Henrietta and the hiding place 'cuz Kermit showed you it. That man all too eager to let you in on the little secrets hidden 'round The Stray House. You don't really know why. He didn't seem to know any of your work or that you came from money, but that didn't stop him from bothering you when you were tasked with chores around the house. Weirdly enough, though, Henrietta was never a problem for you. That chicken just couldn't get enough of your handsome face. Taking the key from Henrietta is a Difficulty Level 4 (DC 12) because she's mean and she will peck you until she's taste blood. You may attempt to bribe her with food to earn yourself an Asset to ease the Difficulty Level to Level 3 (DC 9). There's probably chicken feed somewhere, right? In addition, Brody's Trained Skill in Handling Animals 'cuz of course you know Henrietta; Ezra's Trained Skill in Sneaking if you want to try and sleight-of-hand the key away; and Nell's Trained Skill in Lies and Trickery if you want to fool her with some parlor tricks will all work to ease the difficulty down a step. There is a modification for Leslie in taking the key from Henrietta. Because you are a handsome man, the Difficulty Level for you is a Difficulty Level 2 (DC 6) as she doesn't want to peck you, she just wants to snuggle with you. The real challenge for you is the fact that the hen house is incredibly gross for a man of your caliber. There is chicken poop everywhere. And I mean, everywhere. ~~~ Now, mind you, Family, you don't have to hop to any of these tasks right away if you don't want to-- I just wanted to make sure you knew you had options if you wanted to get your toes wet with the system early. You are more than welcome to take some time and greet each other, roleplay it out a bit. There's no rush. Dinner's not gonna be ready for awhile yet.

[zevonian]

It was the perfect day for sangers to go out sangin' in that the novices would go out unafraid of rain, able to watch for poisonous and treacherous things without lamplight. The numbers of them would lead to unintentional meet ups with the veteran rooters. Would lead to arguments. Could lead to gunshots. J Windell, having been both eager neonate and young elder in terms of ginseng getting, had no desire to deal with audible conflict today. Not that he ever sought out such, but today he was particularly adverse to shovel scuffles. This is why he chose to take a wagon ride to the Stray House rather than walk the base of the mountain and sneak his way up. He'd been gone just long enough to know that there were patches that would get searched.

This is what he told himself anyway. Truth is, J Windell had a footstep on a shadow of a doubt that he no longer had permission to go searching atop the mountain and down the holler. He'd been given the green word by Granny Innes way back when. Did Death rescind it? He had to pay respects and in turn ask if he was still allowed. Best he take ride with an old friend what was now a top teamster and listen to how things changed. Of course he didn't say much. Didn't need to. The friend liked to talk to the horses.

The steeds knew when to stall. With a hat tip and nod, J Windell took his things and took his leave. A minute later, his friend lost sight of him. The teamster was not surprised. The horses might have seen him, but they weren't talking.

It was the filled fort that caught his eyes. Didn't take much of a stray from the path to the house to find it. He just knew to go there first. Maybe his friend told him. Maybe the horses did communicate. If you weren't there, you didn't know who said what. Point is, J Windell crouched down and stared at gravel for quite a spell.

How you supposed to sing if they dam up your mouth?

He considered all the tools he brought with him. Thought up ways to remove the gravel. A couple that came to mind were decidedly wrong. Explosively wrong. Tried to remember the last time he was in the fort. Wasn't there a passage that led to another passage and another and you could bypass the whole of the town? Didn't he help someone get out of town this way? It made sense. If Granny Innes, or her unseen friends, didn't want escape to happen, the path would be blocked. Who was that back then? Was there more than one who escaped?

They're small rocks. Dig 'em out.

He didn't have time to dig them all out now. Might take a lifetime. But it needed done someday. J Windell chose to just take a few rocks for now. Didn't need to ask Death or Granny Innes to take away some gravel. Just had to make sure to pick the right rocks.

Eventually the traveler made it to the House. It was locked. Locked. He thought this must be what preacher types would call blasphemy. Finally understood the word. He read the note.

Maisie came back?

Neither teamster nor horses had told him about the lock or who all in the family was around these days. Maybe he should have asked a question or four. Maybe then he'd know how he knew where the key was hanging.

This has to be a trick.

J Windell did not touch the door. Or the lock. Just let the letter be and stepped away. Stepped to where Kermit or Maisie would see him easy enough. See him and know there would be no need for argument or gunshot. He took out the freshly picked rocks, considered why he picked them. One was the shape of a bullet, weathered with age. Another had a certain polish, a certain shine. One of them just looked real pretty. Amongst the mundane gravel, J Windell had found somehow semi precious stones.

[Syne]

Passelbranch was busier than she remembered. Smaller, too. Stepping from the train into a beautiful fall morning, Kiera felt almost as though she were stepping into an anthill, buzzing with the activity of tourists, townsfolk, and others milling about the station. It should have felt less hectic than the stations back in New York, but if anything the small crowd was wilder and less organized. Kiera allowed herself to be swept along until she stood at the crowd's edge, the vice around her heart slowly easing. Was this what it felt like to stop running? She didn't have the words to describe uncanny ripples made by the differences between well-remembered past and strangely distorted present, mixed with the underlying dread of being seen. A part of her had almost expected to see her da as she stepped off the train, and Kiera had been ready for that fight even though she had no way of knowing if the old hustler was still kicking, and him with no way of recognizing her besides. Breathe. She stopped and took a moment, eyes closed, willing the anxiety to fade. It helped that no one had given her so much as a second glance. Her simple black dress and long, drab overcoat certainly didn't stand out from her fellow travelers. She was just one more tourist to the untrained eye, someone from outside Passelbranch with whatever passing interest would take her to Tennessee during harvest. A stranger. She had thought herself used to being a stranger, but here Kiera found the sensation strangely bittersweet. It didn't take her long to compose herself, and it took less time to find a teamster willing to give her a ride up the mountain towards the Rook. Her driver was a kindly older gentleman who asked a few of the usual questions, but thankfully allowed a gentle silence to fill most of the ride up when Kiera had mentioned she was returning because of a death in the family. The drive up towards mountain and wood was nerve-wracking enough on its own, each mile a promise of some kind of reckoning. Whether it was with the Innes' family, her fellow Strays, or something darker entirely (or some sadistic blend of all three, which by her bet was the most likely), Kiera spent the ride up preparing for it, warding away concern with reinforced confidence. Mostly, anyway; she spent much of the trip fidgeting with the ring on her left hand, a bad habit she hadn't indulged in at least a year, but one she was hard pressed to stop this close to home. Eventually, though, the wagon had taken her as far as it could, and with a word of thanks and a tired smile Kiera had, at least, the rest of the walk up to the House to distract her. And Lord, distract her it did. If her return to Passelbranch had been uncanny, the pilgrimage to the Stray House was downright haunting. The Haywoods were gone, apparently. Whether they'd departed for brighter climes or passed away, Kiera wasn't certain, but it felt something like an omen that the start of her walk was overseen by their old, empty home. They'd been as kind to her as a child as anyone, and more than once she'd come out this way just to say 'hello' to their sheep. It helped prepare her for the sight of Kermit's fort, at least, filled in with gravel. It had been such a clever thing, even if she'd spent less time there than some of the others. It had helped her to pass unseen too, the night she left the Stray House for the last time. The path had been a gift from the Windell kid, odd even by her standards, but kind. And now it was gone, filled with rubble. It took Kiera a minute to enter the tree-top tunnel. Here, more than anywhere, she felt a pang of shame. She was returning to the scene of a crime a decade late, far past any last chance to make amends. Stepping into the tunnel, hearing the world contract to the trees, the leaves, the birds, and the wind, Kiera clung to the shame like driftwood in a flood. She didn't, couldn't, and would never regret her last visit to the Stray House, even if it had cost her dearly. But she did wish that it had not been the last before now. With the sound of windchimes welcoming her home, Kiera brushed a tear away, eyes clear. What had Kiera expected, coming back? She hadn't been able to narrow down an answer at any point on the trip from New York City. She'd been plagued by different scenarios along the way, usually ranging from bad to worse, but she hadn't considered that the House would be dark and empty when she arrived. That the only living soul outside a pig pen would be J. Windell, a wiry reminder of days gone by seemingly summoned by her reminisces. He was older (maybe? probably? he'd always been hard to pin down, but he couldn't have been more than sixteen when Kiera had left, and he must have traveled some miles since then), but otherwise, it was like he'd stepped fully formed from a memory. She stepped into the clearing, hesitation etched on her face. She raised a hand to wave at Windell, not quite trusting herself to speak. The lock on the door had been obvious from the tunnel, another heartbreak added to the pile, but she moved to the door anyway as if by rote. Stopped to read the letter, took in the names. Kermit. Maisie. Duncan. Colin. She didn't know what to do with that particular emotional tempest. Didn't know what to do with herself in the moment. Looking into the house would make this strange, dreamlike moment real, something in Kiera was sure. The key, if times had not changed overly much, would be in the chicken coop. Was that hellraiser Henrietta still around to guard the coop? That thought, finally, was what broke the stopper. Kiera let out a laugh, surprised and delighted, caught off guard by the sudden heady blend of childhood fear, nostalgia, and affection. "Sorry," she said, finally turning back to J. Windell, a small smile still playing across her face. "I wasn't expecting...well, I'm not sure what I was expecting." Granny Innes, hale and hearty, ready to light a fire under Kiera, she knew in her heart of hearts. "I guess I'm just surprised to find the House empty." She wasn't certain if Windell would or could recognize her. He'd always been very keen, and there was still a family resemblance to her features, now compared to then. The same dark hair, though the cut and style was different. The same blue eyes, though the light in them was alive in a way they'd never been before she left. Perhaps people who remembered her would see a sister or close cousin, but it had been a decade and everything else about her was different and more besides. She stepped away from the door and the letter, glancing toward the coop but stepping no closer to it. A part of her felt very keenly that she, of all the people who might arrive at the Stray House for the sitting up, had no right to be going somewhere that had been locked and barred. Kiera looked back to J. Windell with a shrug. "Have you been waiting long?"

[zevonian]

The stones were on the ground now, scattered in a way that was somehow very haphazardly and very deliberately. He waited for something. Someone. But only for a minute.

It was the oncoming overcoat that caught the eyes of J Windell before the whole of the wearer did. Under cover of moonless nights, or within a fair share of fog, the wearer could go unnoticed if slow moving. Besides certain trees, could go unnoticed if not moving at all. Made with proper material and length for preventing scratches from sticker bushes. The person who walked here wearing that knew well before hand it was perfect for travel here. The traveler had clearly been here before.

Sorry? Why?

The questions faded as the eyes across from him caught a certain light. Reflection from one of the rocks that perhaps only J Windell noticed. The horses were well out of line of sight. Familiarity to be found. That happens sometimes with family.

Have you been waiting long?

He figured the speaker was referring to his arrival and the posted letter. He turned his face left and right just enough to indicate a definitive no. He had full intention on saying nothing, but there was that familiarity to consider.

One of Jazzy's friends?

J Windell knew the overcoat's overseer from several seasons ago. Somehow. He looked down at the rock that caused the righteous refraction.

"That rock is yours now."

He didn't say which one exactly. Just turned his face down a bit, knowing the proper choice would be made.

[Pseudonymous]

Fashionably Late This was all wrong. An acidic curl of unease fluttered just behind her sternum. This was all wrong. She stepped out of the wagon, offering a half-hearted thank-you to the driver. She knew where she was, and she knew where she had to go on foot, but it felt wrong. The Haywoods should be there. The other kids should be over there. This familiar place felt more like a ghost town, and Nell didn't like any ghosts that she herself didn't make up. Her feet knew the way; pulled her along the path without conscious thought. Sidestepped the deep groove in the road without having to consciously acknowledge it, guided around the old wagon wheel rut by some ancient memory of spraining an ankle there as a child. They never got around to filling that thing in, apparently. But they did fill in the fort, she noted with a touch of bitterness. Heavens forbid they let any of the nice childhood memories stick around. She sighed. She was fairly certain there was at least eight cents, two hairpins, and a wooden soldier she stole off an old school bully still in there. Oh well, now they were buried. Returned to the earth, just like her poor Gran-- No. Change the subject. Right. Well. Here she was: Back home. "Home." Didn't really feel like home anymore, to be honest. That's... what she wanted, though, right? To not need this place anymore? But for it to suddenly seem so... so familiar yet so alien, that was unexpected. This wasn't the same place she left all those years ago. It changed. Somehow she forgot that the world kept turning even when she wasn't there to witness it. Did she regret it? No, not really. Did she like the idea? No, not really. It felt empty and wrong without Granny Innes. But it wasn't empty. Two figures stood on the porch. Nell sighed. She supposed she couldn't have expected to be the only one to show up. Couldn't be that lucky. One of the figures turned slightly, as though just noticing the other, and Nell caught a glance at his face. She knew him. It was odd-- it gave that same sort of wrongness, seeing a childhood friend's face morphed into a grown man's. Part of her knew, logically, that people grew up, that life went on even in Passelbranch. But seeing the evidence in front of her was unnerving. "Windell?"

[UngainlyFool]

Hat in hand Brody kicked the gravel with his boot as if to verify it wasn't a trick of the eye. Really, though, it was just out of frustration. Maybe some part of him took the sojourn to the old fort to drop the dime book Kermit sent him into the hole for the next kid to find, not really contemplating that without Granny Innes, there were no kids left to make the secret place their own. In a land of bloodlines and traditions and that's the way it's always beens, where did that leave the Stray House? A place is just a place without the right people to fill it. He pulled the kudzu aside from the old hackberry whose shallow roots had given the hole its roof timbers. There was his mark next to the others. He remembered making it with Ezra's hunting knife, the one they all borrowed because it was the keenest. As sure as memories that haunted dreams, he had been there. Evidence of passage. Of a life. He looked at his palm and the place where the old scar should have been if time and calluses and lines of age hadn't obliterated it long ago. And then, just as before, he knelt down and pressed that phantom gash against the preserved scar in the wood. He held it there, feeling the rough bark for a while. No echoes of laughter came through the woods. No memories of those times. Without a hole, there was no place there to fill with them and they washed away. All that resided there now was dead, crushed stone. Brody stood up with a pop in his right knee and chuckled at himself and his sentimentality. He let the kudzu fall back under its own choking weight and got some quick bearings before heading on home. He made good time from his home to the Stray House. His feet knew the way. Kermit's old fort was the only stop he made. The Haywoods moving on was old news to him, and anyway he wasn't sheriff anymore. He had no need to check the abandoned place for transients or blockaders. He passed a wagon headed down the hill from the Innes' not far from the tree tunnel. There was only one reason Cal would be dragging his old mule up and down this road and so he thought it might be a smart thing to reconnoiter. "Cal," he said in greeting, laying a hand kindly on the dusty cheek of the mule. "Who'd you take?" But Cal had just given an inscrutable look over the former sheriff and chuffed his beast to start lumbering forward again. He didn't even turn when he gave a quintessential mountaineer reply, "Didn't ask. Didn't say." The tree tunnel felt different this time through. Though the chess piece stood sentinel at the end like it always had in the void of the leaves somehow unchanged by twenty more seasons of root and branch, there was some palpable movement beyond the ken of Brody Whitt. He knew better than to pick at those threads or speculate. Instead, he tried to enjoy the cool breeze being funnelled his way on that warm fall morning and listen to the sounds it eventually brought of chimes and soft voices. He spotted J. Windel first, that 'singer, from where he was positioned on the porch in full view making himself look innocent and not at all nosy. Near him was a young woman, dolled up in some modern city fashion. He didn't recognize her at all until he heard her voice. She took most of Appalachia from it, but she couldn't erase the soft mischief there. Brody smiled as he stepped up to where Nell was gabbing with JW. "Look what the cat drug," he said playfully in greeting and nodded to the fellow. "What are we standing around here for?" That's when he noticed the distinct lack of food smells coming from the house to feed the wake and then the note and then the lock and then, once the perplexing shock of those two things had subsided, her. Guilt is a rat in your cellar, Family. A rotten rafter. A preacher who knows what you've done. It's always there and never lets you forget. And here it was grabbing Brody by the scruff of his neck and rubbing his nose right in it, as if that ever solved anything. Why one of Patrick's kin would show up now after so many years was a question that was drowned out by the roaring incontrovertible fact that she was. Brody's Adam's apple rose and fell in a dry swallow and he collected himself. "Ma'am," he said, though she was about his age he'd guess, "What brings you to Granny's wake? Never saw you here before.". Brody's sheriff questioning took over, always better to let people offer their own story than giving them a narrative. Most of the time you were right, but sometimes stories were surprising. He inexplicably removed his hat and then tried to cover his obvious discomfort with a dumbly mumbled and obvious, "A lock?"

[AnotherDragoon]

It's the little things He expected things to be different. At least that's what Ezra told himself in the back of that freight train he'd hopped on heading south a good day's walk outside the Cumberland Gap. It was a slow-moving thing but still faster than his feet could maintain as it chugged on through hills and valleys on a steel and timber scar across Appalachia. So, he had time to sit and think about what that letter really said. What would become of Stray House now that Granny Innes was gone? Who would take in new strays? Could Colin? Could Kermit? They were good people who'd always help out as best they could but, Granny did more for Passelbranch than that. His Momma helped mix the poultices and tinctures for the town folk and knew a thing or two about bringing a baby into the world, but that wasn't her Gift, just knowledge passed down from Mammaws. Ezra still had no answers for any of these questions when the train came around the last bend before home and started to slow. He hopped off before anyone could ask any questions about tickets at the station and made a direct line for the Rook. A few easy smiles and tips of his trilby found Ezra in a wagon going up the mountain. The driver looked like one of the Jennings boys, only growed up now, which was a testament to how long he'd been away traveling and searching. It didn't feel like all that long yet here they was, coming up on the Haywood's homestead to an absence of bleating from the sheep. No dog came loping up to sniff his pockets for food either. It just stood there empty, as if time itself had stopped for him alone on his journey and he was just coming back to the world like some kind of sleepwalking Rip Van Winkle. Hells, he just visited his Momma and them last winter for the holidays! Did she know what was coming? Did Granny? It would've been just like them to keep it from everyone. Ezra thanked his driver and jumped out when they got close to the old fort. He always got a wistful sort of feeling when he traced the marks they carved into that old hackberry all them years ago and he wasn't about to abstain from that heady drink of nostalgia. He wasn't ready for what he found there family. It'd have been one thing if the land took it back, that was her right. The kudzu was slowly claiming the tree, and he could accept that. Eventually, it'll claim us all, don't you know. But this was different. This was premeditated and deliberate! Some lousy busy body had taken the time to haul loads of gravel up here and fill in the last bastion of childhood the old strays had left! It was hard to believe Kermit would abide such a defilement of what was undoubtedly a sacred place. They'd cut the meaty part of their palms and swore a blood oath here in their special sanctuary. He knew for a fact he'd left a bag of his best marbles with three big shooters that looked like they held entire galaxies within polished glass. His first tackle box would be underneath all that rock too, stashed away for easy egress on late-night fishing expeditions. Ezra scowled in disbelief at the offending rubble and made a solemn promise, once he'd paid his respects and helped lay Granny Innes to rest, to remedy this transgression on behalf of all the former and future kids to walk these hills and hollers. All children needed a secret spot of their own to go and just be kids. You can't expect to leave a place and find everything just as you'd left it family, Ezra knew this from visiting Hidden Hills after a journey or two, but it's still strange to see things slightly askew. Like the sticker bushes encroaching on parts of the road that were always clear, trees he used to count on as landmarks gone, or that rut in the road he'd forgotten and nearly turned his ankle on. He used to be able to run through these woods blindfolded, now it was almost like they didn't remember him. By the time he got to the tunnel, the quiet had started to weigh on him. Now, Ezra was a man who'd come to enjoy tranquility, but this, this was as if the normal noises of bugs, birds, and other small things had been removed from the trees. It felt wrong. The tunnel to the Rook felt different too, somehow darker. The trees loomed overhead and Ezra felt like the passage itself was holding its breath like he and Kermit used to do as they walked through the shade and shadow. It was dead quiet and the slight movements of the canopy gave him the sensation of being watched. Soon enough he emerged to a blessed familiar shape of a chess piece and Stray House herself. The quiet gave way to the soothing sounds of chimes and Ezra looked up to the clear sky, took a deep breath, then smiled before he noticed a lack of the aroma of home cooking. Strange, maybe he was just early. There were a few folks standing around outside so he waved and called out, "Hey Kermit! I brought some of that Kentucky tobacco you liked, and something else from up that way to wet your whistle!" Only, Kermit wasn't out there. Ezra squinted as he approached and recognized Brody, at least he had a better hat nowadays. He never did get used to the badge and uniform on Brody. J Windell was there too, along with a woman he didn't recognize, and was that a film actress? Ezra ambled up to the group and removed his hat, "Brody," he said with a hand extended. "What're y'all doing out here? We can catch up inside with the Innes." He walked up the porch like he'd done countless times before and ran into the door when it failed to open. Locked! That felt like the biggest slap in the face of all. Ez turned around dumbfounded to see if the others had bore witness. Tears welled up and threatened to dampen the porch when he spoke again, "She's really gone, ain't she?"

[zevonian]

Another person drew near to the House. J Windell took in the look of that traveler, and the vice versa happened all the same. Familiar in a taller now way. That's how the world tends to work as seasons switch forward. He couldn't remember the name. Something in the wardrobe beguiled him. But his name was then called.

Too fancy for Nashville. Still some sort of singer.

He nodded his head in the affirmative upon realizing his name was, in utterance, the whole of a question. When finished, his gaze cast downward and to the left. A certain stone sighted.

"Yours, that one."

---

Officer Brody showed up next. At least, that's what J Windell thought Brody's title was.

No, he was the Sheriff.

Somehow looked exactly the same in the eyes of the ginseng getter. Seasons don't change everything. Brody spoke of a cat. Spoke of standing as if he didn't notice the lock on the door immediately. Was that how he was back then? Not detail oriented? Or just acting that whilst being friendly?

Was?

Brody just happened to now be standing next to a well placed stone. One that somehow was complimentary in color to his footwear. J Windell just sort of waved the back of his hand downward.

"Yours."

---

J Windell heard Ezra before turning to give him a stare. Had to be Ezra, recognized the voice. The name of the state of Kentucky immediately had him thinking of a song he'd heard a few weeks ago. Fiddle player from that way recorded it years ago. Only a matter of time before someone else would record it again. It would be on the radio in a year, thought the radio repairman. He hoped of an uncommon wealth for the writer of that Farewell Song.

Ezra noticed the lock. Said what everyone was thinking.

She's gone.

Gone meant different things to different people. To J Windell, it meant Granny Innes had just figured out a new way to listen to everyone at the House now, and the ones heading up the path this minute. He looked right at Ezra.

"Yeah, about that."

He thumbed over his shoulder. Several paces behind him, Henrietta loomed. Halfway between him and her was an absolutely perfect for creek skipping rock. No, it couldn't possibly be for harming the bird. It truly was a skipper's stone. The kind that every single person on the mountain would have wanted, at least for a moment, when they were young and amongst friends.

---

One rock remained placed but now unbothered. Clearly meant for the next person to find the path once more, but unspoken of by the gatherer.

 

Won't be able to post IC again till next week. Wanted to make sure every PC got A Rock. Enjoy your weekend, you all everybody.