Minseok had sat at the same booth in the diner nearly every day after school. He was old enough now to be home by himself but there wasn’t much point. At least if he stayed here and waited for his mom to get off work he could eat without having to wait or make it himself, and he could at least see his mom this way. The diner was never very busy, almost always someone inside but the booths were never full, so the manager didn’t mind. She was nice, an older lady with gray hair always looking like it was about to escape the bun she had it in, with the permanent smell of cigarettes on her clothes and a deep voice that always seemed to be peppy, no matter what mood she was in. Whenever he came in with a good report card, she’d give him free ice cream. She gave him ice cream no matter what the report card looked like, so he wasn’t sure if he always had good grades or if sometimes it was pity ice cream.

He had sat in the same booth for so long that he had the diner’s routine memorized. There was a sort of routine to the place, most of the people who came in were regulars, although there was the occasional person, or couple, or family who had wandered in off the highway, lured in by the promise of cleaner bathrooms than the gas station and food that wasn’t M&M’s and bagged popcorn. But mostly it was the same people: a high school girl with long brown hair and white flats long stained by the dirt outside, accompanied by her grandfather, shuffling in beside her in his button up shirts and truck driver cap; the man who lived under the bridge by the car lot always came in around 4:00, sat at the counter, and the manager would always give him a cup of coffee and a plate of eggs; an elderly couple who’d been coming in right at 5:00 to the second for as long as Minseok could remember. They looked and acted like they’d been coming in right at 5:00 ever since he’d been born, maybe as long as the diner had been open. There was a group of truck drivers that always came in on Wednesday nights, swapping stories about where they’d been that week in that way that said they were trying to top each other on the craziest road story.

No one ever really talked to Minseok, at least, not any more than asking him what his homework was. He liked the grandfather who came in with the high school girl the best. He’d never sit down, but if Minseok was working on a book report or a science project he’d explain it to the grandfather, who’d simply say things like “oh!” and “I see” while Minseok talked, and once he was finished, would simply say:

“Well that’s alright!” in a way that sounded like he was proud of him and thought he was doing a good job.

Minseok had been sitting at the same booth, the one next to the side exit and up against the wall, every school night since he’d started kindergarten, so of course he noticed when the woman came in. She stood out like a red flag: too clean, too official. Her polished heels looked alien next to the high school girl’s dirty white flats, her pressed blouse out of place with the peeling plastic material of the booths, her clean, orderly bun looked like it belonged in a different universe than the truck driver’s hats and the manager’s gray frizzy hair.

The woman never talked to him, never even approached him, but she stared. Not enough to draw attention to herself, and sometimes when he looked at her he’d see her looking at something else, so it wasn’t constant, but just enough to make him uneasy. But nothing ever came of it; she left long before he and his mom did, he never saw her shiny gray car anywhere near his house or school, never saw her while he read under the old tree in the school’s playground at recess or even in the trailer park his house was in. Just at the diner.

She’d been coming in, like she was a new regular, for several days. Pleasant to his mom while she took the woman’s order, but when the food came the woman ate it almost mechanically. Not quite like a machine, but like she got no enjoyment from it. Like she ate solely because the act of eating and consuming the food on her plate was necessary for human survival. She didn’t grimace, or react badly in any way. She just ate.

He wasn’t sure if he’d been expecting it or not when he heard her say she needed to talk with his mother. She’d been coming for almost a week, and so his mom nodded and stepped outside with her. The manager didn’t mind. The diner wasn’t busy, and it would only take a minute. Minseok watched them while they talked outside. It would be so easy for the lady to do something; no one else was watching, no one was pulling into the parking lot or leaving the diner. He watched his mother’s expression change from polite to confused to concerned. Her eyes kept cutting up to him, but they were just far away enough from the window that even though he could hear voices, he couldn’t make out what they were saying. After a few minutes, the lady stayed where she was as his mother walked over to the side door, poking her head inside.

“Seok, come here a moment.”

“Yes, mamma,” he said, dropping his pencil and sliding out of the booth.

He jumped off the top step when he stepped out of the side door, and walked around to where the lady stood just under the window by his booth.

“Hello, Minseok,” the lady smiled. It was a wide, friendly, smile, and it struck Minseok as a sharp contrast to the mechanical way she ate. Her voice was smooth and a little deep; not as deep as the manager’s but a good bit deeper than his mother’s. “My name is Claire.”

“Hello,” Minseok was wary as he shook her hand. Up close he could see that her movements were as smooth as her voice, almost too perfect, but not smooth enough to be inhuman. Just toeing the line of unsettling.

“Minseok, I work for an agency called Clover. We’re… well, to put it simply, we’re looking for people like you.”

“People like me in what way?”

“You notice things. You pay attention to your surroundings and you see things that aren’t right. Unnatural. Just plain weird.”

Like you. Minseok didn’t say it out loud. Instead he nodded, and then asked:

“Why are you looking for me?”

“Clover observes and documents all these weird things. But not everyone who works with us knows how to notice them. In fact, there’s only a handful of people who can, and most of them are getting older and can’t travel.”

“So you’re looking for kids.”

“Yes. You could finish your schooling with us, we have people who are qualified to teach. And you could visit your mother, occasionally. There are other kids in the program, too. A built-in group of friends. You won’t have to do much for a while, just occasionally go on trips with us and, when you’re older, you and the other kids can go out on your own. We’ll teach you how to do everything.”

Minseok could tell right away there was something she wasn’t saying. The premise was too vague, she was smiling too much. Obviously trying to win him over with a friendly face and as little information as she could give him to make it sound as attractive as possible. There was something about her in general that he didn’t like, and that did the idea no favors in his mind. Plus he had no plans to leave his mother unless he could get a scholarship for college. He wasn’t going to go anywhere with this lady if he could help it, much less to some vague agency.

“Sorry,” he said. He wasn’t sorry. “But I can’t.”

“Okay,” she said. She didn’t stop smiling. There wasn’t a single change to her expression or her tone of voice. “Thank you for talking to me.”

Minseok nodded, and quickly turned away, grabbing his mother’s hand and pulling her back inside.

Minseok barely slept a wink the whole night. He didn’t trust the lady- Claire. He didn’t trust her, and there was no way an agency like that was just going to accept his no. His house was on the edge of the only trailer park in town, just a bit isolated from the other houses because of the way the plots were organized. Usually he found it comforting, the neighbors dogs and the sounds of people were farther away, making it easier to fall asleep. But now it made him nervous. It would be so easy to find, so easy to sneak into. Their closest neighbors still wouldn’t even hear them if something happened.

Every sound became a footstep on gravel. He could have sworn he saw shadows outside his window. A creak in the hall. And all Minseok could do was lie in bed, awake and absolutely petrified.

A loud sound outside made Minseok sit bolt upright with a small scream, but it was only Mr. Mackenzie’s car backfiring. He sighed, and swung his legs out of his bed, grabbing his stuffed dog, Buttons. He stepped out into the hall, skittered past the back door and the washing machine, and quietly opened the door to his mother’s bedroom.

She rolled over to face him when the door creaked as it closed.

“Seok? What’s wrong, did you have a nightmare?”

Minseok shook his head, hurrying over to the bed, and she pulled back the covers so he could climb in.

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“I heard you a minute ago,” she sounded tired. “What happened?”

“Mr. Mackenzie’s car backfired,” he said, hoping to avoid talking about it. He didn’t want her to worry.

“Seok.”

“Mamma.” It came out as a whine.

She was more awake now, and gave him the look.

“The lady from the diner, Claire… she scares me.”

“Have you seen her anywhere else?”

Minseok shook his head.

“If you do, tell an adult if I’m not there,” his mom said, unable to hold back a yawn. “I won’t let her hurt you, Seok.”

She kissed his forehead.

“I know, Mamma.”

She was already asleep.

It took a few more minutes, but his mother’s soft snoring helped more than he thought, and it wasn’t long before Minseok fell asleep too, hugging his mother with Buttons squished between them.

Nothing happened the next day, at least, not as far as the lady was concerned. In gym class, they started a new unit, soccer, and the two captains for the day had a thumb wrestling contest for who got to pick him. He managed to skin his knee during the last game before class ended, although no one, including him, was sure how, and the teacher sent him to the nurse’s office. He didn’t like the nurse’s office; the air conditioning unit made a weird crunching sound that no one else would ever acknowledge, and he got out of there as fast as he could. His urgency was mistaken for “enthusiasm for learning” and the nurse praised him for it with a fond smile before sending him back to class.

At the diner, the lady, Claire, was still there. She didn’t talk to him, though. Didn’t approach him, and barely even looked at him. After about an hour, Minseok’s apprehension had faded, and he was able to get his homework done, slipping into the comfortable routine of the diner.

Thursday passed in a similar way, and by Friday Minseok was calm. Maybe the agency really had accepted his no, and the lady, Claire, was still in town for other reasons. He hadn’t completely convinced himself of this, but by that point her presence in the diner had become a new part of the routine, and he was able to do his homework and ignore her.

There was a new kid in school, in his class, on Monday. Minseok had no idea why there would be a new kid at this point: there were only three weeks of the school year left. Judging by the looks on the other kids faces, they were thinking the same thing. Their teacher was good at masking her emotions.

The new kid looked out of place. Not wrong, not like the lady, Claire, did, but he didn’t look like someone who should be going to their school. He didn’t look like someone who should be living in their town of tired farmers and even tired-er service workers. His pants, khaki’s, looked new, no holes in the knees or frayed hems. His shirt was clean, looked like it had been pressed, even, and looked like it was a lot nicer than any of the brands the kids wore, even the “old family” kids. Even his shoes… they were white, clean. Not clean like he’d never worn them before, but clean like he had almost never had the occasion to wear them outside, or at least not on any roads that weren’t paved and dirt-free. His shoes looked as foreign next to Minseok’s stained, falling apart, shoes as the lady’s, Claire’s, shoes looked next to the high school girl’s dirty white flats in the diner.

The kid had a round, sweet looking, face. His smile was nervous, like he wasn’t entirely sure what he’d gotten himself into. His hair was perfectly combed, like someone who was worried about first impressions. His hands were pressed to his sides, like someone who was desperately trying not to fidget.

“Everyone,” the teacher addressed the class. Her voice was just a bit too cheery. “I’d like to introduce our newest class member, Junmyeon.”

She butchered it horribly. Junmyeon tried not to wince and just barely made it. Minseok made a very obvious wince in sympathy. The teacher looked a bit stressed.

The other kids in the class said “hi Junmyeon” like they’d all been dragged to an alcoholics anonymous meeting. Minseok knew they’d be more visibly friendly later, that’s what always happened. They didn’t get many new students, but enough that there was an obvious pattern.

Junmyeon tried to keep the discomfort out of his smile and just barely failed.

“Alright!” their teacher was back to her overly cheerful tone. She pretended to scan the room, but Minseok knew what she was doing. “It looks like there’s an empty seat next to Minseok!”

She started the class on their math worksheets, and led Junmyeon over to Minseok’s table.

“Alright, Junmyeon, this will be your seat for the rest of the school year. We’re working on math worksheets quietly right now, but Minseok can tell you what we’re doing. He’s very smart.”

She looked at Minseok as she said this. He knew what she was saying was more or less “hey, you’re one of three Asian children in the middle of Podunk Nowhere, how about you be friends?” He wasn’t entirely sure if he should be offended or not, but decided against it. Junmyeon looked very stressed, and he didn’t need to be.

He nodded at the teacher. She looked like she’d given an internal sigh of relief.

Once Junmyeon was set up with a worksheet and had gotten his school supplies out of his bag, all of them clearly new, the teacher left to go walk around and answer questions.

Minseok quietly introduced Junmyeon to their table mates, their “table” made up of four desks pushed together cause actual tables were for kindergartners. The other two kids, Tracy and Isaac, repeated his name softly to themselves as Minseok filled Junmyeon in on what they were doing.

He really didn’t need to: Junmyeon was as good as, or better, at Minseok at math. In fact, Minseok discovered as the day went on, the only things Minseok was outright better at him at were English and soccer. Junmyeon was a math wizard, great at science, had a solid grasp on social studies, a musical ear (the music teacher was already lamenting that she didn’t have him sooner for their tiny fifth grade choir; Ruth, who always got the solos, looked like she wasn’t sure if she should be offended or impressed) and even though Minseok was better at soccer, Junmyeon had definitely become another person to fight over by the end of their gym time; and while he was still learning English, he had a better grasp of grammar and vocabulary, and better handwriting, than at least seventy-five percent of the class.

Minseok knew something was up. Junmyeon’s story was that he was homeschooled, but his parents split and he ended up moving here. If Junmyeon stayed here he would probably end up skipping several grades, there was no need for him to be in school for the last three weeks. He was also just vague enough about his home life and where he’d lived before that Minseok could tell it was at least partially made up. After several days, he hadn’t seen Junmyeon with the lady, Claire, but the sudden enrollment and vague story made him suspect.

It was the end of the first week when Minseok figured it out. It had been several days of just barely making it to his bus on time after watching Junmyeon wait to be picked up and seeing nothing, when Junmyeon’s car was just a bit earlier than usual, when he had his suspicions confirmed.

The lady’s, Claire’s, car. Junmyeon walked toward it immediately, and Minseok was about to hurry and leave to catch his bus when Junmyeon stopped, and whirled around with a surprised look on his face.

“Minseok!” The call was just as much a surprised shout as it was an invitation for him to come over.

Both boys looked a little sheepish as they met in the middle, walking towards each other.

“I’m gonna miss my bus,” Minseok said.

“We can give you a ride to the diner.”

“I don’t want to go anywhere with her.” Minseok narrowed his eyes.

“She’s not going to kidnap you, I promise.” Junmyeon’s voice was almost pleading.

“I thought you were with her, I couldn’t tell for sure but I thought so. Your story didn’t make sense.” He couldn’t keep the slightly accusatory note out of his voice.

“To you, it didn’t,” Junmyeon said. “But you and I see and hear more things than other kids.”

“So, what, you were sent here to win me over?”

“That’s why Claire asked for me, yes, but that’s not the whole reason why I came. I didn’t want to be your friend just for some agency recruiting thing, I promise.”

“I don’t know if I believe you yet,” Minseok told him.

Junmyeon sighed, “that’s okay. I didn’t expect you to right away. But please, come with me to the diner. You missed your bus, anyway.”

The lady, Claire, greeted him when he climbed into the back seat behind Junmyeon. Minseok didn’t want to talk to her, but he felt compelled to at least not be rude. Southern social graces are a very hard thing to overcome. The ride to the diner was silent, but when they got there, Junmyeon looked a little excited.

Minseok let him sit at his booth.

Despite Minseok’s reservations, he ended up bringing Junmyeon along with him for everything he did. At school they were table mates, had a playful competition going during gym (they moved on from soccer to a new unit: kickball) and sat together at lunch. After school, they went to the diner together and finished their homework. Minseok still didn’t want to have anything to do with the lady, Claire, so Junmyeon ended up with a bus pass.

There was a low murmur among the school kids that the flowers were blooming. The festival was coming. Minseok tried not to think about it.

Minseok didn’t know what it was about Junmyeon, but after only a week or so he felt closer to him than all of his classmates, the classmates he’d grown up with. Minseok invited Junmyeon to stay with him and his mother, the first time he’d ever invited anyone, when he found out that Junmyeon was staying in a motel room with the lady, Claire.

“I mean, she’s not awful, but…”

“Something feels wrong about her,” Minseok said.

“Yeah.”

Most of the wildflowers were in bloom before the school year ended. The days turned hot and lazy, a gentle breeze swept across the fields, the sides of the road, the area in the back of the elementary school playground where the wildflowers had encroached past the rusting fence, weaving through it like choking vines and into the relative safety of the playground. The breeze rustled the flowers, making them brush together in a noise that sounded like whispers. Just incoherent enough that no one could understand what they were saying. During recess, kids stopped while they were still in the middle of the monkey bars, their hands slowly losing their grip on the hot metal, sniffing the scent being carried by the breeze. Kids on swings just sat there, closing their eyes and inhaling. The basketballs bounced weakly as they rolled off the slab of concrete that made up the court. The teachers just talked about their upcoming vacation time, discussing a possible trip down to Corpus Christi, or maybe Port Aransas.

Junmyeon didn’t understand. Minseok felt dread grow in his stomach as they laid in the shade of an old tree, taking turns reading out loud from one of Minseok’s library books.

The school year ended, and Minseok and Junmyeon found themselves in the library almost daily. The library was small in comparison to most libraries, but for such a small town was a fairly large size. Minseok had read somewhere that a lady from one of the old families, one of the richer families, had a passionate love for books and a fondness for the neighborhood kids. Minseok had long memorized the layout of the shelves and the placement of the books, even though he hadn’t read all of them. Maybe by the time he graduated high school. They had only just finished fifth grade. Plenty of time. Junmyeon could find things with almost as neat an ability after only a few trips, and the two boys passed their days away among the long, high, shelves, light streaming in through the big windows, made dusty by the dirt beginning to cake on the outside. Minseok felt safe in the library, the only place he avoided was the second floor men’s bathroom, which smelled bad no matter how many air fresheners were spread around and where the air conditioner creaked strangely in the wall. At least the section closest to it was the romance section, so he really felt no need to go in that area anyway. They’d spend their days browsing, sometimes reading nearly half the book before deciding if it was something Minseok needed to check out for both of them or if they should leave it. The library was busier in the summer, but Minseok found he could never hear any noise from the children’s section, even if he was in the young adult section right next to it. At least it was pleasant. He wasn’t sure if that was a Weird Thing or if the parents who brought their children there had taught them their inside voices. One could only hope.

And they ended their days at the diner. The manager gave them ice cream “just because you’ve been good boys” now that school was out. The grandfather who came in with the high school girl asked them what they were reading rather than asking about their homework. They always ended up getting there after the homeless man who lived under the bridge by the car lot left, but Minseok knew he still came. Everyone in the diner still came. They came at the same time as they always did and they sat in the same booths they always did. Minseok’s mother, as well as the other waitresses, sat passing travelers in booths that wouldn’t interfere with the unspoken seating arrangement. The routine didn’t change. The only new thing was that now Junmyeon simply went home with Minseok and his mother, but even that was becoming routine.

And then came the day of the festival. Every year, Minseok said to himself that he wasn’t going to go. He’d been telling himself this since he was eight, and yet even when he was on his own he always found himself walking to the festival grounds, which were nothing but a vacant lot behind City Hall every other time of the year.

But this year he had Junmyeon. His mother had the evening shift, she always seemed to have the evening shift on the day of the festival, and Minseok was secretly glad.

“I’ll stay with you for as long as I can,” Minseok’s mother said as they pulled into the City Hall parking lot. Even though the festival had been going for a few hours by now, the parking lot wasn’t full. Minseok was pretty sure there were more parking spots for City Hall than there were cars in the town. “I know you two can get home, or to the diner, on your own.”

Minseok and Junmyeon nodded, unbuckling and sliding out of the car when Minseok’s mother had parked.

Minseok had to admit, he liked the sights, the sounds, and the smells of the festival itself. The weather was getting warmer, but fortunately the temperature was staying in the upper eighties, no clouds, a gentle breeze. Perfect festival weather. It always seemed to be perfect festival weather when the festival came around, he could never remember it being rained out. He and his mother took Junmyeon around the food stalls, the smell of the fryers and the cooking foods wafting out into the walkways. Mr. Jenkins ran one of them and liked to describe his fried foods as “weirder than the Great State Fair of Texas!” or at least, that was what the banner proclaimed. Half the stuff he served Minseok wasn’t sure was edible. Everyone in the town came to the festival, or at least it seemed that way from all the people they weaved past. Cooks calling out orders, a wave of noise from everyone talking, apologies from people bumping into each other, although there was less of that this year, they’d made the aisles wider. Minseok’s mother bought them both corn dogs and even a funnel cake for the three of them to share, and Minseok found an empty picnic table for the three of them to sit at: eating their food and watching the bees buzz lazily around the trash cans as they talked.

There was an undercurrent of excitement during the festival that the town just didn’t have usually. It was something new, even though Minseok had seen mostly the same rides and games and food stalls year after year, it was something out of the normal routine. Bands and singers took the stage that had been set up against the back wall of City Hall, and the music could be heard throughout the whole festival. It was mostly country music, the preferred genre of at least half the town, although a couple of classic rock cover bands took the stage and were received with delighted cheers. An undercurrent, a beat, to everyone’s actions.

Everyone was happy, everyone was excited; the wildflowers had bloomed.

Junmyeon bought himself and Minseok tickets for the rides. Minseok’s mother had started to but Junmeyon had asked to, insisting that the lady, Claire, gave him way too much pocket money. They’d only gone on a couple before Minseok’s mother had to leave, and the two were left to their own devices.

They took a break to go look at all of the livestock. There were multiple contests, mostly for kids to show off their animals. Here the smell of fried food faded away into the smell of fresh dirt, manure, and clean horses. The sound of the live bands were overpowered with the clucking of chickens, the call of someone’s peacock, the clapping and cheering for the kids showing off their roping skills. None of the contests were serious here, there were shows a few towns over for that. Junmyeon hadn’t yet had a chance to see a lot of the livestock up close, so Minseok led him around, making a point to show him the animals belonging to their classmates.

Eventually, though, they made their way back to the rides and food stalls. The music from the machines and the excited shrieks of everyone on them filling the air, the fried food smell retaking the air from the smell of animals. They rode the pirate ship too many times, raced each other through the fun house, and ended up on the Ferris wheel. The sun was getting low in the sky when they approached the top, and even though Minseok tried to keep his eyes on Junmyeon, or the festival, or anything else, he found himself looking towards the flower fields. So many of them, rustling in whispers from the breeze, surrounding the festival, surrounding the town, like a standing army, waiting to be given the order to move in. Minseok felt the feeling of dread in his stomach, which he’d been able to more or less ignore during the day, return in full force. They started down not long after, and when the ride ended, Minseok felt slightly more relieved.

They still had tickets, but not enough for rides, so they ended up getting a bag of candied pecans to share, which used the rest of them up. They walked around at an easy pace; the lower light meant all the lights from the rides were much more visible, and Minseok and Junmyeon both kept getting distracted by them.

Now that it was closer to 7:30, they ran into more people they knew, too. Their teacher, whose pronunciation of Junmyeon’s name wasn’t quite as bad as it had been, but was still missing the mark. Several classmates, and some of the school staff: the librarian and several of the lunch ladies who were all fond of Minseok and liked Junmyeon.

They were talking to Isaac, their old table-mate, when it happened.

“So, have y’all been down to see my rooster yet?”

“Of course!” Minseok nodded. “I spotted him from the end of the row.”

Isaac grinned. “He’s a beautiful boy, isn’t he?” He turned to Junmyeon, “I raised him from when he was a chick. He hatched right in front of me! Think’s I’m his mo-“

Minseok watched, his heart sinking, as Isaac’s eyes unfocused, and his voice trailed off. When he spoke again, his voice was light, what the floating dream feeling would sound like if it had a sound:

“It’s time for the singing.”

“What?” Junmyeon sounded confused.

Minseok squeezed Junmyeon’s wrist in what he hoped was a comforting way as they watched all the children at the festival, children anywhere from four years old to the high school kids, turn, as if in a trance, and begin to walk towards the flower field. None of their parents looked alarmed, or even called after their children to ask where they were going.

“This happens every year,” Minseok said, following the kids with Junmyeon keeping a tight grip on him, the two of them at a much slower pace. “None of the adults ever find it strange. No one ever mentions it after it happens.”

He could feel Junmyeon’s pulse through their linked hands. He wondered if Junmyeon could feel his, too.

“This is why I never want to go to the festival, but every year I always end up back here.”

They reached the flower field in far too short a time. The sunlight was low, it was almost dark, although Minseok could still see just fine. The rustling whispers of the flowers grew even louder, although the breeze didn’t seem to pick up at all, and the scent of them overtook even the stench of the livestock just behind them. Minseok wasn’t sure if the animals had stopped making noise, if the ride operators had turned off the music in their machines, or if he just suddenly couldn’t hear them. There was no sounds other than the flowers rustling, the footstep of the adults coming to watch the children.

The children stood out in the flower field, it didn’t seem like they had trampled any flowers at all, even though the field was far too thick for them to have been able to avoid every one. The high school and junior high kids made up an outer circle, the older elementary students a circle inside that, and the youngest a circle inside that, all facing the center. Minseok watched as they all joined hands, the youngest circle able to link themselves by putting their arms on each other’s shoulders. They began a sort of dance, crossing one foot over the other so that their circles rotated.

And then the children all began to sing. The song only had one verse, one melody, but it was repeated several times in shape note singing after the first verse. Minseok knew for a fact that many of the children were not as good of singers as they sounded at that moment, and he doubted that any of them knew the abbreviated solfege that they were singing.

Our hearts our minds our limbs our souls root to this sacred ground

Tis on this eve we meet, o’re the top our flower mound

O come ye children, lift your voices, as the darkn’ss falls

O wind yon blossoms round thy head and sing thee to thy rest

Junmyeon was trembling next to him, the shape note singing sounded like chanting in some different language. Like a ritual. Minseok knew it somewhere in him that this was indeed a ritual, but he didn’t know what for or why. He didn’t want to know why. He prayed desperately that the ritual wouldn’t come to fruition while he was still alive.

After a few verses of the shape note singing, the song stopped. The children dropped each other’s hands or unlinked their arms and began to walk back through the flower field. Minseok couldn’t see paths from any trampled flowers, even though that should be impossible with the thickness of the field and the height of the flowers themselves. Some of the flowers were almost engulfing the youngest children.

The children all made it back to the dirt lot, and suddenly all the sounds and smells of the festival came flooding back. The rush was so strong Minseok almost fell over, hit with the smell of animals, the sounds of the music from the rides, the animals making noise, and everyone talking. No one was talking about what just happened. No one gave any indication that they knew what had just happened. Under all the festival sounds was the rustling of the field, the smell of the animals just slightly undercut with the scent of the flowers.

Minseok turned to Junmyeon. All the color had drained from his face, and he looked at Minseok with wide eyes, silently asking him if that had just happened.

“Let’s go to the diner,” Minseok said quietly.

Junmyeon nodded.

There was never any acknowledgement of what had happened. The festival ended the next day, and the town eased right on into summer. People with money and time left town and went on vacation, but a good portion of the town lacked one or both.

As was becoming the usual, Minseok and Junmyeon ended up spending their days at the library, from the time it opened, and at least until late afternoon. They’d moved from spending their time primarily in the shelves of books to the shelves of the newspaper archives. Junmyeon knew more about researching things, and he liked looking at the old newspapers, piecing together the chain of events that had happened for a particular event, or just seeing how the town had changed weekly. The reference librarian, Mrs. Henderson, loved it. Minseok knew a little bit of the town history but for as far back as they started, they came to her a lot. They followed official things like the building of City Hall, or the transfer of the town library into the new building, and the conversion of the old one into an extension of the police station, but also unofficial things like how many times the land that belonged to Mr. Jenkins had been sold, or even people’s general life history, which was possible since most of the early newspapers seemed to act more like church bulletins, with prayer requests made public.

They had been doing this for a while, half the town’s history written down in Junmyeon’s barely used school notebooks, when they found it.

It couldn’t be a real newspaper. Especially given the content of the rest of the newspapers in 1927, when the article was dated, which were all family friendly, any mention of crime sort of passive and never making the front page. There was no title on the article, no newspaper title and no article title.

It would have never been published. The photo was large, of a middle-aged man, laying in the dirt just off the highway. He had to be dead. His back was bent at an angle that was impossible for anyone but a contortionist, circling around so that the top of his head rested on the ground between his thighs. His limbs were all at unnatural angles, some twisted almost completely around. There were words, symbols that had been scratched into his skin, that they could see only too clearly but didn’t understand what they were. The man’s eyes were rolled back in his head, his mouth open in a contorted, silent, scream of pain. The article described, in far too much detail, what had “probably” happened to the man, in a way that told them that that was exactly what had happened.

They had never left the library faster. Junmyeon ended up throwing up in the bushes outside. Minseok couldn’t get his hands to stop shaking. They both looked at each other. Had they seen that? Had they both just seen that?

Junmyeon was able to talk first.

“We need to talk to Claire.”

Mercifully, the lady, Claire, was in her motel room, rather than a public place. Junmyeon knew she’d be, but it still surprised Minseok somehow.

“What did you see?” the lady, Claire, asked as soon as she saw their faces.

Junmyeon explained; he had to take a moment here and there but Minseok didn’t think words would come out of his own mouth if he tried to help.

“I’m sorry you had to see that,” the lady, Claire, said when he finished. Her voice was soft but not quite comforting. It had a tone like she was meaning for it to be comforting, but just missing the mark.

“Is it…?” Junmyeon trailed off.

She nodded, then turned to Minseok.

“Minseok. This is one of the things that Clover does. The photograph you saw was of one victim in a string of murders, made by something that’s not exactly supernatural, but not completely natural either. We’re small enough, and we don’t publish anything externally, so we don’t worry about terminology too much.”

That was an attempt at a joke but Minseok didn’t laugh.

“Clover documents things like these. We figure out what is behind these things, and we put a stop to them.”

“How?”

“The methods vary. Some of these… how about I call them creatures? Some of these creatures have sided with us. They know a lot more than we do, and they help. That’s what we’d be teaching you to do: to document, piece together, and eventually stop these things from happening. You will still see weird things, it’ll be your job, after all, but you won’t be helpless like you are now.”

“The culprit of… what we saw… have you found it?”

The lady, Claire, shook her head. “We’re working on it.”

Minseok was suddenly terrified for his mother, his friends, the town in general.

“If I go with you, if I join Clover, we can stop it?”

The lady, Claire, smiled. She was showing too many teeth.

“Yes, of course.”

Junmyeon squeezed his hand, he still looked a bit pale, but now he looked hopeful.

“Okay,” Minseok breathed. Then, stronger, “okay, I’ll do it.”  

A/N: First chapter is finally up! 

The song the children sing, including the shape note singing, in the wildflower field is to the tune of the Pottsfield Song: