February 28, 1793
Something strange takes up residence in the dilapidated mill near Beaver River.
It begins to dig.
::
April 5th, 1793
Five-year-old Abigail Thatcher picks wild berries with her mother on the border of their farm. Her mother, Joanna, pricks her thumb on a thorn. She is distracted for only a moment, but it is long enough for Abigail to somehow wander off.
They search for days, but they never find her.
::
September 28th, 1793
Samuel Carpenter enters the tavern after sundown in a state of great distress.
He is given a bracing shot of whiskey, and after he calms down, tells his story. He had entered the woods late that afternoon to hunt. He’d been at it for a few hours when he saw a magnificent stag lope off around a bend. He stalked it, and when he turned and leveled his rifle, he saw a woman that stood twelve-feet-tall as clear as day before him.
He said that she was as thin as a birch, and covered with dead, naked branches and what could have been straw. Like a scarecrow. The woman noticed Samuel and loomed down over him, her long, slack face coming as close as spitting distance, before he turned and ran without looking back.
The patrons of the tavern laugh heartily at this story. All except for Jasper Aldridge.
He has seen the woman, too.
::
October 13th, 1793
For approximately one minute, the area around the dilapidated mill near Beaver River falls completely silent and still.
There is nobody around to witness it.
October 14th, 1793
Mary Thomas, twelve-years-old, is awoken in the night to the sound of pecking at her window. When she investigates she finds a crow perched upon the sill. To her amazement, it speaks to her in a comically high-pitched voice, asking to be let in for warmth and soft pillows. Mary cannot say why, but this talking crow fills her with utter revulsion, and she rushes to bed and hides under the covers.
It was well that she did, for in the darkness she could not see what the crow was attached to.
The next morning the crow is gone, and Mary decides that it was just a dream. She then realizes her bed clothes are covered in blood, and that she has become a woman.
November 4th, 1793
A slave belonging to the Thatcher family returns from town with supplies and finds a curious object propped up against a tree on his path home. It is a child sized wooden doll. He recognizes the clothing it is dressed in as belonging to little Abigail Thatcher, who has been missing for over six months. The doll’s painted face is chipped and worn, but its expression of delight is plainly visible.
They find chocolate in its mouth.
::
June 30, 1794
The body of Jasper Aldridge is fished out of a pond six miles from Marlow. He was found by a troop of Shawnee trappers, who report the body but do not help to recover it. His eyes are bulging and point in different directions. His teeth are missing.
::
March 20th, 1795
Wesley Braver is to be executed. At the time of his death, a large hawk perches atop the gallows he is hung from and stares out at all gathered. Mary Thomas, now betrothed, watches from the crowd. She feels an acute discomfort at the bird’s gaze. Others feel the same, as it takes several days for anyone to work up the nerve to cut Braver’s body down. The gallows are dismantled over a week later, for that’s how long it takes for the hawk to starve.
Nobody seems to remember that any of this happened.
::
August 14th, 1796
George Altgeld closes his general store. He reflects that most of the goods he sold were payed for if not outright provided by the traveling Shawnee that came through town. No Shawnee have traveled through Marlow for well over two years.
::
December 25th, 1796
Tens of thousands of voices scream out in unified agony from the dilapidated mill near Beaver River. It cannot be heard in Marlow three miles away over the sounds their Christmas celebrations.
January 7th, 1797
Caleb Marten and his wife Elizabeth watch from across the street as strange lights shine from Samuel Carpenter’s home. After nearly two hours, Samuel calmly walks from his house in naught but his bed clothes and heads towards the woods. By the time Caleb is able to dress for the cold and follow his neighbor, Samuel is gone.
He is never seen again.
::
July 18th, 1801
Mary Thomas has a child of her own, a boy she named David. David races to meet her in the garden and tells her that a large owl has taken roost in the Thatcher’s barn. Mary does not know why, but she forbids her son from ever entering that barn again.
Thankfully, her son will keep this promise.
Years later, her grandson will not.
::
April 5th, 1813
Joanna Thatcher and her husband, John, are visited by their daughter. She raps at their door all night, crying and begging to be let in out of the cold. They do not open the door. Twenty years have passed, and Joanna and John have grown old, but the voice of their Abigail is still that of a five-year-old. The neighbors bar their doors as well.
One that peeks out his window and sees what is really knocking at their door never speaks again.
