The Listening Dark

The passages below are in early stages of development. I have no idea where the story is going or what it's about, to be honest. It's been rolling around in my head for a number of weeks. While I was finalizing the covers and submitting the final edited versions of Goose and Scepter I was brooding over this material. The passage I've included below is simply one event of a collection of events that will be in the opening chapter. I'm really unsure of the connection between all the characters I've already created in this first chapter. I won't include all of them here yet.

Excerpt from the middle of Chapter 2 of The Listening Dark.

Written: 2/25/26

Warning: There is some slightly unclean humor in this passage.

 

“So, you live around here?” Riley asked, picking up his bat as if ready to walk.
“Yeah—Hiller’s Crest. Been there since they built it,” Noah said, lowering his foot off the bike pedal and to the ground.
“Oh? I just moved to Hiller’s Crest a couple days ago. I’m from Knoxville—figured I’d get away from the hustle.” Riley smiled.
“No kidding. Knoxville’s not that busy,” Noah teased.
“Busy enough. I wanted something slower,” Riley replied with a grin.
They both glanced over their shoulders as a chorus of sirens cut through the morning air—more than one, then several, the sound rushing toward them like a flock of startled birds. Riley raised his eyebrows. Noah let out a low, surprised grunt as police cars streaked past, lights flashing and sirens wailing. They watched in silence for a moment, then exchanged a look that was half amusement, half curiosity, and the easy rhythm of their conversation picked up again.
“Much slower,” Riley laughed.
“There goes Malhotra.” Noah nodded toward the disappearing convoy of cars.
“Who?” Riley asked, brow lifting.
“Malhotra—our town sheriff.” He pointed to where the squad cars had already crested the hill and vanished.
“Ah.” Riley nodded.
“He’s a good guy. Nothing to worry about,” Noah added with a smile.
“Who’s worried?” Riley teased, planting his bat on the sidewalk with two playful stomps.
Noah laughed. Riley took a step ahead, and Noah fell into stride, walking his bike beside him. “So—do you live alone?” Riley asked, casual but curious.
They left Grace’s Convenient Store behind; the street gave way to tidy houses, then to open fields as they moved away from downtown.

“Yeah. Just me and my dog, Charlie,” Noah said. “You?”
“Me? A strapping, young lad like myself, single and alone?” Riley feigned indignation, then softened. “Yeah…I’m alone. I left someone in Knoxville. Needed to get away—clear my head, start over.” He shrugged, half embarrassed, half relieved.
Noah’s voice was gentle. “Sorry to hear that. Hope she wasn’t too rough on you.” He was fishing, though he already suspected the answer.
Riley shook his head and grinned, swinging the bat in a loose, theatrical arc. “I swing my bat a different way.” He smirked, and the motion felt like a private joke between them.
“I kinda got that vibe when you were walking up to me. Guess you picked up on that with me too—why you stopped to talk.” Noah smirked.
“Maybe…just a little,” Riley admitted, and the admission landed between them like a small, warm spark. They both laughed, the sound easy and bright, and for a moment the morning felt nice and fresh as both were intrigued by the other.
“So, you just walk everywhere?” Noah asked as they began to crest the last hill and Hiller’s Crest was about to come into view.
Riley’s shoulders dropped. “Well… I lost my car when I moved out of my boyfriend’s. It was in his name.” He hung his head, shame flickering across his face. “I know. How could I have been so stupid? He made most of the money. I didn’t think it would ever end, so I didn’t think much of it when he offered to get me the car. Now I see it was another way to control me—keep me under his thumb. I’m such a fucking idiot.”
“No, you’re not.” Noah shook his head, steady and sure. “This is how we grow. Live and learn. It just means the next relationship you get into, you’ll know better.”
Riley gave a half smile, half sigh. “I’m not getting into another relationship. I’m going celibate for the rest of my life.” He said with mock solemnity.
“Oh my. The rest of your life—no dick. That sounds horrible and boring.” Noah grinned.
“He did have a beautiful dick,” Riley admitted, and the laugh that followed loosened something between them.
Noah’s reply, “Don’t worry. You’ll find another dick. I’m sure of it”—landed like a warm nudge, and for a moment their banter hung in the air, easy and electric. Their eyes kept finding each other, smiles lingering longer than they should; the small, charged silence between them felt like the start of something.
Then the hill opened and the morning shifted. Blue lights flashed and squad cars lined their street; officers moved with urgent purpose. Noah’s smile dropped.
“Oh my,” Riley breathed.
Noah’s brow furrowed; he picked up his pace. “I hope nobody’s seriously hurt,” he said, but the sight of three ambulances idling with open doors stole the hope from his voice.
Riley’s face went hard with concern. He looked at Noah, and the spark that had been building between them tightened into a shared alarm. “I think you can give up on that hope,” he said, and they moved forward together, the easy chemistry between them now braided with a sudden, sober urgency.

 

Excerpt from Chapter 1 of The Listening Dark.

Written 2/21/26

5:51AM

Stacy Lou Ridenberg

 

Stacy awakened with a jolt as her phone alarm blared beside her. She snatched it up, squinting at the hateful glow of 4:00 AM, and slapped the “shut up” button before dropping it back onto the table beside her recliner. She’d fallen asleep watching TV again. The screen was muted, but its flickering light crawled across the walls, making the shadows twitch and stretch like they were trying to pull themselves free.

Her fifty‑year‑old bones protested as she stood. Her knees cracked, her shoulders ached, and her hands trembled just a little before she steadied herself. She shuffled into the kitchen for her morning ritual — coffee, buttered toast, yogurt. Blueberry today, because she needed something sweet to cut through the heaviness in her chest.

Once she’d eaten, she cleaned up her mess, tossed it in the trashcan, and headed for the bathroom. A hot shower helped wake her up, but it didn’t shake the strange feeling that had settled over her — like she’d been dreaming something she couldn’t quite remember, something that clung to her skin.

She dressed quickly in jeans and a T‑shirt, tugged her ballcap over her unruly hair, and stepped outside.

The darkness felt thicker than usual.

Her yard was quiet — too quiet. No early birds, no distant hum of traffic, not even the rustle of wind through the trees. Just a stillness that pressed against her ears. Stacy paused on the porch, coffee steaming in her hand, and scanned the shadows. Nothing moved. Nothing breathed. Something felt different this morning. As if something was listening, something was watching.

The feeling lingered — the sense of being surveyed from afar. Stalked. Like something had slipped behind a tree just before she looked.

“Get a grip, girl,” she muttered, forcing herself down the steps.

Her school bus sat at the edge of the gravel lot, hulking and yellow, its black windows mirroring the predawn gloom. The security light above it flickered once, twice, then steadied. Stacy frowned; she didn’t like that. A small, insistent foreboding pressed at her, a weight that would not be shrugged off.

She approached the bus slowly, boots crunching on the gravel. The air felt colder near it, like the warmth of her house didn’t reach this far. She hesitated at the doors, the unease crawling up her spine.

“Come on ole’ Mabel.” She patted the bus with genuine affection. An ill attempt at calming the unease in her bones.

She grabbed the double doors threw them open and climbed inside. The interior smelled faintly of vinyl and diesel, familiar and comforting. She reached for her maintenance clipboard tucked in the pouch beside the driver’s seat, set her steaming coffee in the cupholder, and stepped back down the stairs.

But as she turned to begin her inspection, the darkness behind her seemed to shift — as if something had leaned closer to listen. It was so strong she jolted a bit as she stepped outside. She glanced to the back then the front. She looked through the windows of the doors out the other side. She couldn’t shake the feeling she was not alone. She’s never felt it this strong before.

“Mabel, you’re gonna have to watch my back this morning.” Stacy shook her head.

After a moment, she shook her head again and picked up her clipboard to start her check list. She knew most of the drivers didn’t do this every morning, but she cared about her kids and safety was one thing she would never cut corners on.

She circled the bus ritualistically as she marked her clipboard with checkmarks and head nods. She kicked the tires. She pulled on the doors. She checked the blinkers, the headlights, the brake lights, and the backup lights. Everything was in working order.

She finished the checklist and stepped in front of Ole’ Mabel to eyeball the beams one last time. The headlights cut through the dark in two clean knives of light. Stacy nodded. Her palm found the chipped paint at the headlight bezel and smoothed it, the motion as familiar and private as a prayer to an old friend. It was an imperfection that had, over the years, become an intimate marker between Stacy and Ole’ Mabel.

“Don’t you go on me now,” she told the bus, half laughing at herself. “You keep ’em safe, Mabel. You hear?”

She took one step back to get back on the bus; her checklist was complete.

But her boot didn’t move.

At first, she thought she’d caught the lip of the gravel with her sole. She shifted her weight, tried again. The sole stayed planted, stubborn as a lodged stone.

She looked down.

Nothing. No wire, no strap, no root. Just the same gray gravel she’d walked on a thousand mornings. But the stones around her boot had settled in a ring, snug and close, as if someone had tamped them down with a hand. When she tugged, the gravel held like a vise.

“Aw, hell,” she muttered, bending to yank her foot free. Her fingers found nothing to grab. The laces slid through her hands as if through water. She pulled harder. Her calf burned. The gravel didn’t give.

A small, mechanical sound came from Ole’ Mabel—the soft click of a parking brake releasing, the faint sigh of a machine waking. Stacy straightened, heart picking up a staccato beat.

She’d set the brake herself. She’d checked it twice.

The bus rolled forward an inch.

“No,” she said, the word small and stunned. She slammed a palm against the hood, felt the cold metal under her hand. “Stop. Mabel, stop!” All while she was frantic to move her foot.

The bus rolled another inch. Then another. Not a skid, not a lurch—an almost polite, inexorable movement, like a thing that had decided and was now keeping its word.

Stacy grabbed the bumper with both hands, trying to pull herself free. The gravel around her ankle tightened again, a pressure that made her teeth ache. She twisted, dug her heel into the stones, tried to lever herself out, but the ground held like a hand closing around bone. She was practically on her backside now.

“Please,” she whispered. The word came out thin. She wasn't even sure who or what she was talking to. Her breath fogged in the cold air. She thought of the kids—of little faces pressed to windows, of backpacks slung over small shoulders. She thought of the note on her fridge reminding her to pick up milk after the route. She thought of the dent in Ole’ Mabel’s side she’d hammered out last summer and the way she’d smoothed the paint chip with her palm after every checklist, proud and ridiculous.

The headlights washed over her, bright and merciless. The grille nudged her as it was against her like a beast. She pushed with everything she had, palms raw against metal, boots scraping gravel. The bus moved with the patience of something that had all the time in the world.

“What is going on?” she said, voice breaking. “Not you. Not you, Mabel.” Her frantic voice was beginning to quake in terror as she realized what was happening. The bus was towering over her now in an unforgiving rush.

The gravel tightened one last time. The bus surged.

She felt the impact steal the air from her lungs. Pain lanced through her legs as her body was bent backward; she hit the ground hard, and the foot trapped in whatever unseen hold had her began to be crushed beneath the front wheel. A high, raw squeal tore out of her; she clawed at the grille one last time before the undercarriage swallowed her. Pain flared—white, immediate—then gave way to a spreading, hollow silence. The engine bay slid through her fading sight as the front wheel climbed her body, compressing her chest, collapsing her lungs, and stopping her heart in a single, merciless motion.

Ole’ Mabel’s yellow flank gleaming under the security light; absurdly, the bus looked almost gentle in that light, like a friend leaning in to listen.

Then the world folded.

When the bus finally came to rest, the yard was as it had been before—still, cold, and waiting. The security light hummed. The gravel around her boot loosened and settled back into place as if nothing had happened.

Ole’ Mabel rested there, windows dark. The cup of coffee in the holder had cooled to a film. No one moved. No one called. The only sound was the distant, indifferent rustle of trees.

Stacy Lou Ridenberg lay beneath the machine she’d named and tended and trusted for twenty years. The betrayal was quiet and absolute.

Suddenly headlights ripped across Ole’ Mabel’s yellow from a distant driveway, two white blades cutting the dark. A car eased forward into the beam, slow as if it were being revealed on purpose. The driver’s window lowered with a deliberate, patient motion; a hand appeared, flicked a cigarette. The ember arced and landed near the rear tire. The car sped away, its taillights bleeding red into the night. A listening dark that left behind an autonomous hush, a small smoldering ember and a pressure in the air that refused to lift.

 

 

To Be Continued...

Faery Folk

a short passage from Chapter 3 of The Listening Dark

Written on: 3/6/26

 

The sun slipped behind the hills. The sky deepened to blue, clouds fading into shadow. Moonlight spilled over the trees that ringed Hiller’s Crest, soft and silvery. An owl hooted behind a neighbor’s house. A dog barked. Cicadas buzzed in the grass.
And through all of it, the music from 101 kept playing—gentle, steady, inviting—pulling Riley just a little farther down the street than he meant to go. Who was he kidding? He most definitely meant to go.
As Riley approached 101, the shifting yellow haze of Noah’s porch light spilled across the steps and bled into the grass, a warm little beacon in the deepening dusk. He slowed without meaning to. He could see Noah’s shadow moving across the blades of grass—bent, focused, doing something he couldn’t quite make out. The sight tugged at him, a soft, eager flutter in his chest.
He tried to think of what he’d say when Noah noticed him coming—something casual, something that didn’t sound like he’d been listening to his music from two houses away. But the thought evaporated when he realized Noah wasn’t just pacing or tidying. He was kneeling.
Riley took a few careful steps closer, curiosity pulling him forward like a hand at his back. When he reached the edge of the yard, the object Noah was bent over finally came into view.
Noah knelt in front of a wooden half barrel filled with soil—maybe potting soil, Riley couldn’t tell from here. Nestled on top of that first layer was a smaller barrel set neatly in the center, its own soil smoothed flat. And arranged across the surface were tiny figures and props: fairies with delicate wings, pixies mid dance, a miniature park bench, clusters of mushrooms, plastic snails no bigger than a fingertip, and a bright red mushroom house anchoring the scene.
A fairy garden. Noah was building a fairy garden.
Riley felt something warm bloom in his chest—fondness, surprise, and that same quiet pull that had dragged him off his porch in the first place. He took another step, unable to stop himself, wanting to see more, wanting to see him.
Noah stood as if he’d heard something and noticed Riley. He stepped away from his fairy garden and smiled when he realized who it was. A warmth filled his chest, and he felt soft butterflies gently flutter across his gut.
“Riley!” he said as he tried to conceal his excitement, “Sorry… did my music bother you?” He glanced inside his house, “Is it too loud?”
Riley shook his head, “No… not at all. It was actually… very nice.” Riley gave a bright smile that filled his whole face with a glow.
“Oh…” Noah’s smile lingered, “how’s your evening after all that madness this morning?”
Riley’s smile dropped and he glanced over at 102, “Uh…yeah. It’s ok.”
“Poor Stacy and Travis,” Noah murmured. “I feel really bad for them. I watched Travis’s wife leave with her family earlier. She must be hurting.” He glanced up the road toward the stables at 110, then back to Riley, his expression softening for just a second.
Riley didn’t trust his voice. He only nodded, the weight of the day settling between them. But even in that heaviness, he found himself watching Noah—how his brow pinched with empathy, how gentle he looked in the porch light.
“Would you like something to drink?” Noah asked. He turned slightly toward the door, but didn’t step inside yet—waiting, almost hopeful.
“Oh god… yes,” Riley said, stepping onto the porch with a quiet eagerness he hoped didn’t show too much.
“Good.” Noah’s smile flickered—small, warm, the kind that made Riley’s chest feel too full. “I’ve got beer, sweet tea, water.”
“I’ll take a beer. That sounds good.” Riley followed him inside, drawn in by more than just the offer.
The warmth of the house wrapped around them immediately, the soft yellow LED glow smoothing the edges of the room. Riley took it in slowly, almost reverently. “I love your house,” he said, and he meant it more than he expected.
Nothing was expensive—faux oak laminate floors, silk drapes, furniture that looked like it came from IKEA or Wal Mart—but everything was cared for. Lived in. Loved. And where most people hung family portraits or generic landscapes, Noah had Wiccan art and symbols displayed with quiet pride. The largest was a depiction of Mother Earth, Gaia, hanging above the sofa like a guardian.
Riley felt something warm bloom in his chest. This was Noah’s world. And Noah was letting him see it.
They moved through the living room and into the kitchen passing the dining table. Riley leaned against the island sink, watching Noah with open curiosity as he opened the refrigerator. Noah grabbed two beers, turned, and handed one over with a soft smile that lingered.
Riley felt that look all the way down to his ribs. He couldn’t control the smile on his face.
“Thank you!” Riley said as he popped it open and took a swig.
Noah did the same and the two went back out onto the porch where they dropped into matching rocking chairs and instinctively started rocking.
“You’re a bit of an old soul, aren’t you?” Riley chuckled.
Noah rocked and laughed, “A little bit.”
“So…” Riley set his beer on the table beside him. “You do… figurines?”
Noah tilted his head, almost puzzled, until Riley pointed toward the fairy garden he’d watched him working on earlier. “Oh—that.” Noah placed his beer next to Riley’s, stood, and crossed to the garden. He knelt beside it with a kind of reverence. “I enjoy the warmth it brings me.”
“What is it?” Riley asked, kneeling beside him. He couldn’t help admiring how carefully each tiny piece had been arranged.
“It’s my fairy garden,” Noah said, gently straightening one of the pixies in the soil. “I had one years ago and decided to make a new one. A fresh start. Rejuvenate the spirit of it. I had never used mom’s pieces. I always felt it was too personal for her, so I bought my own, but this time I decided to pull hers out of storage and dust them off. Most of this is hers.”
Riley nodded, watching him more than the garden.
“My mom introduced me to…” Noah swept his hand over the miniature scene, “…all of this when I was a little boy. I didn’t pay much attention to it back then, not until she passed that is.”
“Oh… I’m sorry.” Riley rested a hand on his back, a soft, instinctive gesture. He pulled it back almost instantly feeling it was too close, too familiar.
Noah lowered his head slightly. “I took it for granted for a long time. I thought her superstitions were silly. But when she pulled me in for a hug on her deathbed… I don’t know. Watching her go, I suddenly wanted anything that could keep a piece of her here.” He drew a slow breath. “So, I took her paintings, her pictures, her symbols, her books—everything. Moved it all into my apartment. And when I bought this place a few years later, I brought it with me.”
He paused, searching for the right word.
“Those things made my home feel… warmer. More like…” He hesitated, letting the moment settle before finishing softly, “…Mom.” Noah turned his head as he pulled back a tear when emotion washed over him for a moment.
Riley smiled and nodded recognizing the sweet, gentleness of the moment.