The Whisper Man

by Alex North

we can’t talk to each other, which means I’ll have to try to write all this down instead. The truth about everything that happened in Featherbank. Mister Night. The boy in the floor. The butterflies. The little girl with the strange dress. And the Whisper Man of course.

The abduction of a child by a stranger is every parent’s worst nightmare. But statistically, it is a highly unusual event. Children are actually most at risk of harm and abuse from a family member behind closed doors, and while the outside world might seem threatening, the truth is that most strangers are decent people, whereas the home is often the most dangerous place of all.

The Devil finds work for idle hands. Bad thoughts find empty heads.

We were going to be safe here. We were going to be happy. And for the first week, we were.

Let the urge flare in the light of recent events, he thought. Let it have its moment. And then let it die.

Courage is not the absence of fear, Pete knew. Courage requires fear. And so, even as the adrenaline hit – even as he felt the case beginning to close ahead of him – he also recognized the bravery of this call.

That’s what living things do. Even in the toughest of circumstances, they keep living.

When there was something awful that had to be faced, it was better to face it immediately; as bad as the event might be, it would occur regardless, and at least that way you wouldn’t have to endure the anticipation as well.

grief is a stew with a thousand ingredients, and not all of them are palatable.

With events moving so swiftly, I still hadn’t processed the fact that I’d found human remains, most likely those of a child, on my property. The reality of that hadn’t hit me yet.

Small triumphs on terrible days. You had to cling to them,

How long does it take, and how much does a person have to change, before the person you hated is gone, replaced by someone new?