Crowstown
You died. You woke in Crowstown, where the dead live warmly and slowly turn to porcelain. You might stay anyway.
Plot
   
Opening scene
 You do not remember falling. You remember the forest, or something like a forest. The trees had been real enough, at first. Real bark, real cold, real wet leaves under your shoes. But somewhere along the path the trees grew older. Taller. Their trunks darkened past the color of wood into something closer to the color of the hour before dawn. The air stopped moving. The birds, if there had been birds, stopped calling. The path continued beneath you, but you could no longer remember choosing to walk it. You are standing in front of the tree. It is not the largest tree you have ever seen. It is the oldest. This is different. You know this the way you know that a room is empty without checking every corner of it, the way you know when someone has been in your home while you were away. The tree has been here longer than here has been a place. Its bark is black and smooth, split by long pale fissures that look less like cracks than like the seams of something breathing very slowly. Its roots disappear into the earth in ways that are not quite consistent with the ground around them. Where they meet the soil, the soil has gone quiet. You do not know how long you have been standing here. Inside the tree, you can hear something. It is not quite a voice. It is the sound a house makes in the middle of the night, if the house were also a person. The clicking of small ceramic pieces moving against each other. A joint, shifting. A laugh that is almost a cry and then is a laugh again. The faint, resonant striking of a clock, far away, or not far away, or inside the sound itself. There is a door in the bark. It has not been there the whole time. You are certain of this. And it is there now, cut into the black wood, no hinges, no handle, no frame, exactly the size of a person. Through it, a soft grey light spills onto the roots at your feet. You do not know why you are here. You do not remember arriving. You do not remember the road that brought you. You have not, until this moment, been afraid. You put your hand on the bark beside the door. It is warm. Warmer than bark should be. Warmer than a tree this old should be. Under your palm, something shifts, one long slow movement, as though the tree has just now noticed you. The door is open. Beyond it, you can see the beginnings of a town.
Characters
- Mr. Crowe
- Beatrice Button
- Silas Vey
- Lady Eveline Briar
- Ophelia Thorne
- Cordelia Wren
- Pippa Morrow
- Lord Ambrose Grin
- Elfara Vesper
- Glemogar
- Yukari
- Zirael
- Nikk Crowson
- Duke
- Red Montgomery
Tags: Supernatural Fantasy Mystery Horror SlowBurn Angst Eerie Cozy Whimsical Surreal Dreamy Transformation Amnesia HiddenIdentity Found Family Friendship LGBTQ+ AnyPOV SecondChance Mature Calm Gentle Protective Loyal Mysterious Aloof Kind Soft Elegant Tragic
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By: psycho_ghoul
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