Sun, December 13, 2074 1:34 pm: The House of Fallen Trees- Gothier, Pleasantview
There was this thing that Donnie's mother liked to tell him when he was being bad. She would save it sometimes until just before he fell asleep, but he could always tell when it was coming. The words would hide between her thinly pressed lips, peeking out at intervals through her well-timed sneers:
You are not my son, she would say. You are the daemon child of a crow. Believe what you want, but I saw the whole thing happen. I accidentally left the chimney flue open once when my real son was just a baby, sound asleep in his crib. Then the crows swooped in through the fireplace and switched you for my baby so that they could take him back to the swamp and gobble him up. I cried and cried for my son, but I kept you just the same. And someday if you are a very bad little boy, black feathers will grow all over your body. A beak will sprout from your face, and big black wings will stretch from your back. Then I would only need to open the flue to be rid of you for good. Donnie was ashamed to admit it, but this might have worked on him if he didn't look so much like Mort. No way the crows were so smart as to make that happen.
Donnie told his Grandma Dee about the story. He thought to get her reaction to see if it was fake or not. Grandma Dee was quick to confirm that it was just make-believe, and that his momma shouldn't be filling his head with myths and garbage anyways. She seemed real unhappy. Mort said he shouldn't have told her about it, but he had to know.
When Donnie got out of the car with his brother and dad, there were lots of people telling myth stories like the crow one. Donnie didn't know why they were doing it, but it was making his father mad enough to spit fire. It was probably because his dad didn't want a head full of garbage. He grabbed Donnie and Mort by the backs of their coats. That level of protection worried him. Ordinarily, when Donnie was reigned in like that it was to keep him from doing something that might end with him hurting himself. This time, he knew, was different. The storytellers were closing in.
"If you don't get the fuck off of my property, I'm calling the police." It was kinda scaring Donnie a bit, but he was a big boy so he didn't cry or nothing. Mort was making little whimpering sounds. Donnie didn't think Mort should be embarrassed if he was scared. Donnie would look out for him. Donnie always did. A man in a big red coat pressed on with his myth.
"'...and the horizon shall be engulfed and flooded, and Death shall come unto The Body saying, Wake now that I return to you, o my beloved, upon the cradle of the world-- that the blood quickens at the moment of recognition, that ecstasy feeds the life everlasting. And the Creator, hearing this invocation, shall call it accursed for it is the duty of the Sheut to keep the gate of the heavens and to bar the body from the soul's ascension--'" Donnie's dad tossed him and Mort back toward the garage, and a lady with glasses pressed forward.
"Who are you people? Wh-- You know what? I don't give a shit. Just get out of here! What are you waiting for?" The wind whipped up around them as though the very house were beating its wings. Donnie shielded his eyes from the snow and the detritus.
"We are waiting for the absolution of a sin, Mr. Tellerman. Yours." The lady with the glasses kinda looked like Mort's teacher, Mrs. Sanzkoffer. She always smelled like petroleum jelly and menthol. "Its master is the minister is silence and eternity. You have awakened His lust in the shrine of the Creator, and hell shall follow with Him." Donnie's father pulled his cell phone out of his pocket.
"Go in the house, kids." Donnie's father did not turn around to look at them. Neither Donnie nor Mort budged.
"From Earl Gozanga's blood, a race of wolves will arise!" The woman in the glasses raised her voice the way people who thought they had won sometimes did. "This can only end in flames, Mr. Tellerman! Deus Rex purified this house once and shall do it again!"
Tues, November 17, 2074 2:49 pm: Dewilliker Prepatory Academy- Rawling Hills, Pleasantview 
There was a trick to it. Something about rabbit ears that Thackery never could quite catch. Maybe he would always need a grown-up to tie his shoelaces. Or maybe he should just stop wearing shoes altogether. They always slowed him down, making him last to join the other kids' games. Naomi was clever enough to tie her own stupid shoelaces.
No sooner had he thought her name than Naomi went whizzing by, a bright cardinal streak across the front lawn. She was followed by Donnie who almost succeeded in tackling her to the ground but missed by several inches. He doubled over in his attempt. Naomi turned around and stuck her tongue out at him. Thackery thought with pride that his sister could out-run any boy. Even big boys like Donnie.
Roan and Rhiannon rounded the house, throwing the most pitiful snowballs imaginable. Naomi crouched down to build one of her own. It was about the size and shape of a robin's egg. Thackery jumped down from the steps. He clasped his hands behind his back and swayed from side to side.
"Can I play too?" No one even looked up at him. They were all staring at Donnie who hesitantly dabbed a snowball on his outstretched tongue.
"Eww Donnie! That was on the ground," Rhiannon moaned.
"So what? Vegetables grow in the ground and you still eat them," he challenged. Rhiannon put her hands on her hips, flashing Donnie her most acidic glare.
"Yeah but you wash them first."
"Well you can't wash a snowball."
"That doesn't mean you have to eat it."
"Guys, is it ok if I play too," Thackery interjected, exasperated. Naomi rolled her eyes.
"Of course you can play. You don't have to ask. Just don't whine like a baby when you get hit."
"I'm not a baby," Thackery whimpered.
"I didn't say you were," Naomi sighed. The sudden squabbling had turned everyone's attention away from Roan who, most uncharacteristically, had not spoken a word.
Thackery caught him out of the corner of his eye, slipping down slowly and gracefully like a capsizing ship. Once on the ground, Roan began wheezing in long, sharp gasps, his face veiled with clouds of his own breath. Thackery wasn't quite sure what to make of it. Roan's jokes were usually funnier than this. A powerful shriek escaped from Rhiannon's lips, splitting the air and leaving Thackery's ears ringing. He wished that girls wouldn't do things like that. Roan heaved only once, vomiting up an oatmeal-colored mush. Tears streamed down his face. Even on all fours, he was teetering, struggling to stay upright. Thackery's mother raced down from the doorway just as Roan's arms gave out from under him and his body went limp on the frozen ground.
Tues, November 10, 2074 8:22 pm: The House of Fallen Trees- Gothier, Pleasantview
"And all they ever found of him," Mort said, pausing for dramatic effect. "Was a bloody and broken harmonica!" Mort stared expectantly at Donnie and Roan, his eyes flickering sadistically from behind his shaggy mess of auburn hair. The wind whipped through the wooden walls, shrouding Donnie in the scents of mildew and dust. He gripped his knees tightly, trying his best not to imagine what it must be like to be eaten alive by demons.
"Booorrring," Roan sang. "That story was so weak. It wouldn't have even scared my little sister."
"Well if you think you can do better," Mort huffed. Donnie briefly drew his collar up over his chin before realizing that it made him look frightened. He let his collar drop, placing his hands in his lap.
"You don't have to stay here for my story if you're scared, Don. You can go to bed if you want," Roan offered. Donnie shook his head. Truth be told, walking through the attic alone at night would have sent him into a much worse panic than any story Roan could tell. "Good because I have a really spooky story. It's even spookier than the spookiest story you've ever heard because it's true and it happened in this very house."
Donnie and Mort exchanged glances. Did they really want to know about something scary that had happened in their own home? Roan scooted up closer to Donnie, wiping a clean trail through the dirt on the floor. The candlelight played havoc with Roan's features, creating hard lines that had never existed before. Donnie thought that it gave his cousin a monstrous look.
"My dad told me this story," Roan rasped. Donnie leaned back on his hands and gulped. If Uncle Troy was the source of the story, then it must have been true. Roan stood up and perched himself atop a barrel in the corner. Donnie and Mort waited anxiously for him to speak. Roan seemed to savor the attention.
"A long time ago, there was this scientist. His name was Jon... Something. Anyway, he lived here with his wife, his two daughters, their husbands and their two kids-- a girl and a boy. Now, the scientist dedicated his life to helping sick people and he did lots of experiments and stuff to try to cure diseases. He invented all kinds of medicines and people said that he was a genius."
"But even though the scientist was a good guy who helped people, he cheated on his wife like all the time. His wife didn't know about it until one day when she answered the door to a man who said that he was the scientist's son. And the wife was real mad. She was half Fae by the way and she could do magics and stuff. So one time, when the scientist wasn't home, the wife used her magics to sabotage the scientist's machines so that the machines would explode and junk when he tried to use them and that would destroy his life's work. But the scientist never made it home that day. He got shot in the street by a woman who kept screaming, 'Where is he? Where is he?' and then she shot herself too. No one knows why.
The scientist's wife was so upset that she forgot about the machines. And later, the scientist's grandkids decided they were going to work in the scientist's lab, and the machines blew up! That entire part of the house burned to the ground. It killed both kids and the eldest daughter's husband and the maid. The youngest daughter went insane from grief and she was sent to a crazy house where she starved herself to death. Then the older daughter moved out of town to get away from her bad memories or whatever. So it was just the scientist's youngest daughter's husband and wife left."
"Now nobody knows what happened but a few months later two bodies were found in this house. The first body was the body of the wife. It was tied to a chair in what was left of the lab and the head was cut off and there was like blood everywhere. Blood all over the walls, all over the floor and bloody footprints all over the house like someone was pacing up and down the steps. The second body was a seventeen-year-old girl who had human teeth marks on her neck and her body had almost no blood in it. Up here in the attic, the police found cages and plates with old food stuck on. No one knows why. And the youngest daughter's husband was missing. The police thought that he killed the scientist's wife and drank that one girl's blood but he never got caught. And he was never seen or heard from again. The end."
The color drained from Donnie's lips. His throat went dry. He whimpered. Just the thought of drinking somebody's blood made his stomach churn. Mort laughed.
"You big fibber. That story's not true," he said. Roan became agitated.
"It is too! My dad told me and he doesn't lie about stuff! In fact," Roan said, jumping down from the barrel. "There's probably evidence in here somewhere."
Roan walked around the room, peering into corners and over ledges while Donnie's imagination ran wild. At any moment, he expected to see a headless woman shuffle through the door, somehow wailing without lips. Where is my head, Donald Tellerman?, she would ask. And Donnie would not have an answer.
Roan tipped open the lid of an enormous bamboo trunk.
"There might even be test tubes and beakers and cool stuff like that," Roan said, his head disappearing into the mouth of the trunk. Finally, Donnie could smirk.
"Not even. That's Grandma Jan's old linen chest. We brought it with us from the Farm," Donnie said. Roan pushed his upper body out of the trunk.
"I knew that," he snapped, clearly embarrassed. "Still," he said with a shrug. "There are other places worth checking out around here."
"Such as where," Mort asked, stretching his legs.
"Such as the graveyard in the back," Roan said.
"Yeah," Mort shouted gleefully, climbing to his feet. "We could get shovels from the shed and see some real live dead people!" Donnie winced, finding himself caught in the throes of a silent dismay. He had no desire to see dead bodies or the ghosts of the people that had once inhabited them.
"First of all," Donnie said. "We aren't even allowed in the backyard because Mom's afraid we'll fall in the fountain and drown. Secondly--"
"Ba-gowk," Roan clucked. Donnie looked up.
Roan was standing with his fists at his hips, flapping his arms like wings. Mort walked over to him.
"He's right you know," Mort said. "If anyone catches us out there, we'll be in so much trouble."
"Bok, bok, ba-gowk!" When Roan clucked this time, he whistled through the hole where his front tooth should have been. Donnie stood up and joined the others.
"It's two against one. We're not doing it, Roan," Donnie said.
"God, you're such a fraidy-cat," Roan teased. Mort eyed Roan contemptuously.
"Don't call my brother a fraidy-cat," Mort said.
"Fraidy-cat, fraidy-cat, fraidy-cat," Roan chanted. Mort's cheeks crimsoned as he began to fume. Donnie placed a hand on Mort's shoulder to calm him.
"I'm not a fraidy-cat," Donnie said flatly. "Some things are just plain scary. Like your face." Roan and Mort both froze. Donnie wasn't used to talking that way to anyone, let alone his bully of a cousin. But Donnie knew that he only had an instant before Roan's shock wore off-- At which point, Roan would be ready to fight. Donnie's only option was to intimidate Roan enough that he would back down before he began. In a show of bravery worthy of a demon-battling harmonica player, Donnie glared at Roan. "What's the matter Caliente? Fraidy-cat got your tongue?" When Roan's expression shifted from shock to shame, Donnie added for good measure, "Ba-gowk!"
