CRYPTID

Chapter 15

Penelope frowned. "An outsider?"

Liam gave a sharp, hollow laugh before selecting another stone. "Yeah. Y'know, when he first told his story, after the initial panic subsided... Everyone laughed at him. No one believed him." He sent the stone out and it skipped five times. He had gotten his flow.

Penelope's eyes went wide. "What? But if he's a real witness, then you'd think they'd like, canonise him or something. This stupid town is absolutely Raven-crazy!"

"Not back then they weren't," Liam said, shaking his head. "For a long time most people thought the Raven was just a stupid tall tale the old timers liked to tell. Despite it all, though, Uncle Henry refused to take the story back. He has always been honest to a fault. And a little odd, too, so everyone just thought he was crazy. Of course, once the Raven story got out, it only got worse. And that's all it took for him to get a reputation for being the town crackpot."

"Well, that fact was conveniently left out of the Raven Experience," Penelope said, thinking back to the sketch that had appeared on the TV screen. A large group of young people, standing around a large fire. On one edge of the frame, a single boy was running out of the forest, screaming something as others turned to look... Those same people had laughed at that boy. She dipped down to pick out another stone. There was a nice piece of shale, flat and sharp.

"Of course it was. Gunnar is the mastermind behind the stupid Experience and he was one of Henry's worst bullies. He'd never admit to anything that made him look bad." Liam scowled then, his brows angling sharply over his deep, dark eyes. For the first time since she met him, he looked truly angry. He threw another rock, but this time it went straight in with an abrupt splash.

Penelope got it as she thumbed the sharp edge of her shale stone. "So that's why he hates him—why you hate him."

Liam nodded and looked away with a huff. He had given up on skipping stones. "Gunnar is a real two-faced bastard. Did you know that the bullying got so bad that Henry actually had to drop out of school?"

Damn, Penelope thought. Penelope knew a thing or two about just how bad bullying could get. Her bullies were worldwide, coming from every angle, but there had to be something uniquely terrible about being trapped in a small town with everyone thinking you're nuts. These days, the world sometimes seemed much too big, but back then it may have felt far too small.

"That must've been hard for him," she said and finally tossed her piece of shale. It skipped perfectly, so many times that she lost count.

"Yeah," Liam said.

"But now everyone loves the Raven," Penelope said. "Hasn't he been vindicated?"

"Not quite. It wasn't until the big mill outside of town closed down in '87 and everyone was out of a job that they became interested in growing the town's tourism sector. What better way to do that than cultivate the myth of a local monster? And then, just like that, they all 'believed' in the Raven, especially Gunnar." Liam's look soured again. "Around then, they tried to reach out to my uncle Henry, but... Well they were so shocked that my Uncle Henry didn't want anything to do with them after years of their abuse. So now he keeps to himself and the town pretends he doesn't exist beyond that night."

Penelope felt a hot flare of anger rush through her. The sudden about-face of the town—from acting like he was nuts for seeing the Raven to suddenly pretending as if they had always believed—must have really stung. Poor Henry.

"What a bunch of jerks," she hissed. Especially Gunnar. She wished she had a big rock to throw that would land with a big, violent splash.

"Yup," Liam said with a sigh.