Prologue
OCTOBER 15, 1995 — 3:33A.M.
Somewhere in the decaying town of Crowley Grove, a mother labors in agony, straining to bring life into a world that seems unwilling to receive it. Her heart pounds in rhythm with the erratic beep of the monitor, while the baby’s heartbeat slows, faltering, slipping further into silence with every gut-wrenching scream. Through the sterile air, a lullaby slithers, half-formed and haunting, threading between her cries. Outside the window, crows croak in chorus, their black feathers shivering in the night.
Miles away, in Whispering Hill, a different mother’s heart thunders in her chest. Her breath is ragged, the same eerie lullaby trembling on her cracked lips. The crows here sing too, their cries louder, more insistent, as if answering something ancient. The mob encircles her. Her grip on her child tightens, fingers digging into her flesh.
The ground beneath her feels alive, shifting, pulling. The mob surges forward, and her child is ripped from her arms—torn away under the starless sky.
The song swells from her throat, growing more frantic with every sharp stab that buries into her. Her voice cracks but never fully breaks, the melody of Whispering Hill pouring from her lips.
The decay wraps to her hips, the reveal of rot beings and as blood fills her mouth the mother whispers, “ Do not mourn ....Do not hide...The crows will be your twisted guide... ”
A glow of fire lights the darkness ahead of her as screams of her sons echo in the distance of somewhere behind her.
“ My screams are not meant to cause fright ....We’re all a bit manic ... lost in the night.... ”
The child’s wide, terrified eyes meet her fading gaze. The flicker of firelight catches the girl’s final moments—kicking, thrashing—as the mobs judgment tightens the noose. The crows shriek in unison, their wings flapping in a furious blur, fleeing into the moonless void like harbingers of death.
“Mom— !” The child’s last cry is swallowed by the night.
In Crowley Grove, the lullaby falters. The mother lets out one last cry as the baby’s heartbeat flatlines. Silence swallows everything.
The mother in Whispering Hill doesn’t hear the silence in Crowley Grove. She feels the death before it happens, a strange pull in the earth beneath her feet, a cold snap in the air. She looks up to the sky, where the crows now circle, their cries eerily quiet, like they too understand what’s coming.
But the lullaby doesn’t die. It echoes through Whispering Hill, traveling on the wind, reaching across the distance to Crowley Grove—where, for the briefest moment, the dead child in the hospital gasps out a cry.
