The Honkmare of Willowfen

in #goose4 months ago

In the reedy marshes of Willowfen, where the mist clung like cobwebs and children's breath hung visible in the air long after they'd gone indoors, there lived a goose that shouldn't be.

The villagers called it The Hollowbird , though in daylight it appeared ordinary—white breasted, orange-beaked, with the same arrogant strut as any other goose. But at night...

Old Tam the Ferryman swore he saw it standing perfectly still in the moonlit shallows, neck uncoiling slowly—too slowly—until its head brushed the overhanging willows. Seven feet of stretched, feathered neck , with a beak that opened sideways like a pair of shears.

"It's no goose," whispered the grandmothers, hanging iron horseshoes above their doors. "It's the marsh remembering how to be hungry."

Children were warned: Never answer when a goose calls your name at dusk. Never count them as they fly overhead (because you'll always count one more than exists). And never, ever look back if you hear webbed feet following you through the fog.

Young Bennett learned this too late.

While retrieving his sister's bonnet from the reeds at twilight, he heard it—a wet, clicking honk that shaped itself into his name. When he turned, the Hollowbird stood knee-deep in black water, its body round and normal... but its shadow stretched long and thin up the bank, the silhouette of a swan with too many joints in its neck.

Next morning, they found Bennett's boots standing neatly at the marsh's edge, filled to the brim with peat water and floating feathers. The Hollowbird paddled nearby, preening innocently.

That evening, as the village barricaded their doors, a new sound joined the chorus of frog-song—a child's laughter, coming from the center of the marsh where no child could stand. And floating in the moonlit water were eleven white feathers

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