Page 3 of Welcome to Blackbird Hollow
We were stupid to think the otherworldly entities arrived from the vast void of space. No—non-human creatures werealreadyhere. In fact, they were here long before us, and something tells me they’ll be here long after we’re gone.
They’re called the Fair Folk, and I’m going to be the one who tells everyone the truth about them.
Chapter 2
Wyatt
My watch isn’t wrong—it’s never wrong. Fallon’s just late again. The smell of bacon sizzling and maple syrup fills my nose as I take a deep breath. I close my eyes and stifle the bone-deep sigh tangling with my lungs. It never helps to let myself get shitty about Fallon being Fallon.
There’s only one way to solve this. I drain the last of my coffee and lay down a tenner for Janey, who just materialized out of the back. She makes eye contact with me, then shakes her head. Everybody knows how Fallon is. Hard to say if that makes it better or worse.
“You wanna take something to go?” She must have been washing her hands, because she’s drying them on her crisp white apron.
I slide out of the ruby-red booth, my jeans snagging on a crack in the vinyl, shaking my head as I stand. “I’ll come back after I find her and grab lunch.”
Janey smiles, her freckles crinkling around her dark brown eyes. “The usual?”
I nod, then leave a twenty on top of the tenner. For lunch. “And a turkey leg for Fern, if you wouldn’t mind.” Janey smiles.She likes my dog. I lean against the counter and lower my voice. “Fries extra crispy, if Mac can manage it.”
Not low enough, apparently. Janey’s husband grumbles from behind the window. She snickers, loving every minute of the gentle ribbing. As I head toward the door, she leans over the counter to tug on the sleeve of my old wool jacket. “Heard Barnes is headed back from the Groves. You know what that means.” There’s a twinkle in her eye. A few people look up, nudging each other.
I give Janey a grin I can’t quite feel, nodding as I push out the diner door. Something about Fallon ghosting me this morning doesn’t feel right. We’re only a year apart, and Mama always said we acted like twins when we were little.
A cold, wet wind hits me in the face, bellowing down from the hills like old man winter. The weather turned a week ago, and the leaves in town are going all out, a riot of golds and reds. Heavy mist still hangs high in the pines, a promise that more rain’s on the way.
There’s cars I don’t recognize everywhere on Main Street, the leafers blowing in for their annual peeping. I do my best not to mutter to myself. Caden says it makes me look unstable, and Fallon’s enough instability for one family. I let out a low whistle as I approach the truck. Fern stretches, yawning sleepily as she pops up out of the bed.
A white woman in her mid-forties, dressed like she bought everything out of one of those town and country catalogs, gasps, literally clutching her chest. “Is that awolf?”
Her pasty-looking husband, who’s got beady little eyes and is wearing a matching quilted jacket, glares at Fern, then at me. I force a grin, ruffling Fern’s ears as I approach. “Nah, husky-golden mix.”
The man keeps glaring, but the woman nods, giving me a tight little smile. They move on, and I can’t help but roll myeyes. Fern gives me a stern look, as though she knows I just lied straight through my teeth to the leafers.
“C’mon,” I urge her. “Let’s go find Fallon.”
Fern jumps down, bounding into the cab of my old pickup as I open my door. I only half-lied. She probably is golden, or maybe yellow lab, but definitely not a drop of husky in her. Whatever her other half is, there’s no doubt she’s mostly wolf.
I pull away from the curb, cutting off Jones McConnell’s smooth-talking as I go. The local disc jockey will be pandering to the leafers for the next three weeks, playing practically ancient, pre-Reformation jazz and all that shit they like. I like it too, but the fact that it’sforthem irks me.
It was never like this when we were kids. Blackbird Hollow was barely a place back then. Just an old, abandoned town in the hills, the population wiped out by the pandemics. We were some of the first to move in, along with Janey and Mac, Jones McConnell, and the Foxglove Coven, who got the all-clear from the local tribe to move in. Everyone else came after, and we’ve been growing little by little for the past twenty years. Finally made the local atlas and everything.
Five years back, one of the big city publications ran a series on the “small town revival,” as they termed it, and Blackbird Hollow made all sorts of lists. The leafers started showing up like clockwork in the fall after that, and then again in the spring for the damn lilacs. It’s been a problem ever since. Outsiders don’t know the way things work in these hills, and do stupid shit like go into the woods after dark, or play music by the lake.
There’s more traffic than usual on Main Street, so I cut through the numbered streets to get out of town. Nearly everyone’s steps boast jack-o’-lanterns and mums on the front porch, and big old rosemary bushes by every garden gate. The residents of Blackbird Hollow know better than to talk openlyabout what goes on around here, but no one takes unnecessary risks.
It’s a good life, but it isn’t for everyone. The leafers come and yap endlessly about how nice it must be to live here, but they never stay. Something in them senses that our quaint little traditions have darker origins, and when their week’s up, they check out of the Archer Inn and go home. Most never come back.
I wave at a few of our neighbors on the way up the hill, and mouth “fuck you, forever,” at Widow Harkness, who’s shucking corn on her front porch, surrounded by a bevy of cats, singing a sardonic old song about a woman who ruined everything. I come to a stop at the corner to greet the old witch.
“You going up to the house?” she shouts from her rocking chair.
I nod, and Fern barks, affirming my plans.
“Fallon got any honeycrisps?” the old woman asks.
“Sure she does,” I reply. “Want a bushel?”
Widow Harkness’s wrinkled skin is a deep shade of umber, and rumor has it she was a high fashion model back in her day. I can still see it. “Bring me half a bushel of the honeycrisps and another half of whatever Fallon likes for pies, and I’ll make you one.”
