Day 634

There were so many things we didn't talk about, here in Broad Nettlebrook.
It was one of those mass unspoken "Leave This Topic Alone" deals.
Nobody would tell you to not talk about them, it was implied in the town-wide silence.
It would have stayed that way too if some outsider hadn't come along and ran his mouth about it all.

Nothing was sacred to that pest, no stone was left unturned.
With what happened after, we all agree he brought it upon himself.
Broke every unspoken rule we had to the point where the whole town shut down.
It was partially to avoid the outsider but mostly to avoid getting caught up in his consequences.

He started causing us grief before he set foot properly in town by fixing the scarecrow.
Put the wretch back on its pole and now the damned thing's been hopping around the town again.
Thanks to him we've lost three men and countless cats to the scarecrow's bloodthirst.
Damned thing doesn't even properly eat them - it just loves to chase, bite and leave.

It took us long enough to cripple it in the first place and now we have to start all over again.
Scarecrow aside he also refilled the bird bath round the back of the local Bed & Breakfast.
You don't refill something that's deliberately been left empty!
It's put the hostel gardens out of use until the summer sun dries it out again.

The whole garden is flooded and the water's doing that thing where it defies gravity again.
It likes to climb up the walls and throw the whole rear wall of the hostel into murky, watery night.
Doesn't do much more than that but it's such a pest to get rid of.
English weather is far too rainy for it to evaporate and nobody wants to go out to drain it.

It was honestly like this outsider was doing it all on purpose and trying to ruin us all.
Nobody felt it a shame when his body was found, though the circumstances were strange even for us.
From what we can tell he managed to anger the one creature that we thought couldn't be angered.
It tore his skin clean off,stuffed it full of sage leaves and let it gently burn.

Never knew it could do that, after all it doesn't exactly have hands unless it possesses someone.
Makes you wonder if it possessed the outsider and made him skin himself.
What a way to go, killed by the restless spirit that likes to live in our largest oak tree.
You aren't supposed to get too close to it but the outsider's skin was hanging from its branches.