The moon was sittin’ too low, hangin’ off the sky like it’d been strung up on a frayin’ thread. The air in the holler didn’t move. Not a cricket, not a breeze. Even the usual hush of the woods felt like holdin’ breath.
Ma stood barefoot outside the war barn, one hand holdin’ her spoon, the other clutchin’ her apron tight against her belly. The corn was high, too high for this time of year, and it leaned inward like it was listenin’.
That was when she heard it:
“Little Brown Jug, don’t I love thee…” Whistled off-key, floatin’ low and crooked through the stalks.
She stepped forward.
“Kinxy?” she called out into the dark.
No answer, just the corn rustlin’, the way it does when somethin’s movin’ sideways through it.
Two eyes blinked open from the darkened treeline. Not eyes. Embers. Red. Fixed on her like she was the only truth they’d ever seen. A shape behind ‘em: feathers matted, taller than any bird oughta be. Its breath steamed in the cold like smoke from a cursed chimney.
Her legs trembled.
The emu took one step out of the corn. Behind it, shadows moved.
A figure followed.
Kinxy.
Half-dressed, satchel slung. Barefoot. Quiet.
Ma’s mouth opened, but the words didn’t come.
He just stood there, eyes meetin’ hers. Not defiant. Not ashamed. Just, resigned. Like he’d already left, and his body was just now catchin’ up.
She reached toward him, voice crackin’.
“Don’t do this. Don’t go off with that thing, Kinxy. Come back. We can fix whatever’s wrong.”
He didn’t speak.
Didn’t blink.
Just laid a hand on the emu’s side.
And it lowered for him like it knew him, like it’d been waitin’.
Then another figure stepped out.
Cletus.
Eyes downcast. Grip tight on a shine jug. He didn’t look back at all.
Ma tried to step forward.
The ground turned soft, like walking on sorghum. Her feet sunk and she couldn’t lift them away. The corn leaned harder. The war barn behind her groaned, shutters openin’ like eyes.
“You don’t have to go,” she called out. “Your place is here. With us.”
Kinxy paused, one foot on the emu’s back.
He looked over his shoulder at her.
Didn’t say a word.
Didn’t need to. His eyes looked through her as if he didn’t know her at all.
Her heart cracked clean in half.
Then the bird screeched, an ungodly sound, like metal dragged across a gravestone, and it ran. Kinxy on its back, Cletus behind him. Into the dark. The corn closed in behind ‘em like a swallowed secret.
A single feather fell from the sky. Red-tipped. Still warm.
Ma sat bolt upright in the bed, gaspin’.
She was in her rocker.
No.
No, she was in bed. In the cabin. The lantern flickered low.
Pa was still asleep, breathin’ like a goblin with no ghosts.
She sat there a moment, heart poundin’, eyes wide, hands tremblin’.
Then she leaned over, shook his shoulder. “Pa.”
He grunted. “Mmh?”
“I had a dream. A bad one. Kinxy, he left. He went off with the emu. Rode it straight outta the holler. Cletus went with him.”
Pa opened one eye halfway. “Just a dream, Ma.” he murmured. “Don’t mean nothin’.”
“This one felt different. Like it meant somethin’. Like it wasn’t just a dream. I was there, I saw it.”
He turned, blinked slow, voice thick with sleep. “That boy’s been chaos lately, it’s crawled into your head is all. Go on back to sleep.” Then he rolled over and began to snore, showing just how unbothered he was by the whole thing.
She didn’t answer. Just stared past him.
After a while, Pa’s breath steadied again. Ma sat in the dark, hands folded, unable to shake the feeling that something was really wrong.
When the sun cracked the edge of the hills, she rose, padded quiet to the front porch.
There, sittin’ square on the step, was a feather.
Black. Red-tipped.
She picked it up like it might vanish.
Held it in her palm.
“I don’t know what to make of it,” she whispered to herself. She looked toward the tree line, the feather still warm in her hand. “But the woods know somethin’… and now I’m wonderin’ if maybe I do, too.”
The thought broke her heart and she hoped Pa was right that it was just her mind working overtime.
She tucked the feather into her apron, close to her hearAnd went to light the war fire for the day ahead.
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