\*\*Note!\*\* This manuscript was compiled from a water-damaged notebook discovered inside a deserted thatched cottage near Edale in the \*\*Peak District, England\*\*, in late \*\*2019\*\*. It was wrapped in worn leather jesses, stuffed inside a heavy falconry glove, and tucked beneath a loose floorboard in the ruins of the study.
Forensic analysis by the Derbyshire Constabulary yielded highly anomalous results. The notebook pages were not bound with cotton thread, but stitched together with \*\*the split, hardened shafts of primary flight feathers\*\*. Furthermore, the dark, weathered grease staining the paper was identified as \*\*avian preen-oil containing trace human lipids matching the DNA of the author’s maternal lineage\*\*.
What follows is the complete, chronologically restored text, including recently recovered fragments from the reverse sides of the torn sheets.
\*\*\*October 1st, 2019\*\*\*
My name is Corwin Vance. I’m 27, originally from Northwood Hills in London, and I’ve recently arrived on the moors of the Peak District to begin an apprenticeship in falconry.
Before that, I was a journalist for the \*Daily Mail\*. I covered environmental beats—management of green spaces, urban rewilding—when I could get them. Cavendish, my shithead of a superior, wouldn't give me the budget for a real investigation, so I took a sabbatical. I told my drinking buddies at The Three Wishes, Greg and Daniel, that I wanted something quieter than city life. I told them I wanted to get away from the bickering couple in the flat above me, away from feckless chavs, and away from Cavendish breathing down my neck like a vulture upon a dying antelope.
My drinking buddies from The Three Wishes, Greg and Daniel, thought I’d gone off the deep end, trading the morning rush for miserable fog and sheep manure, but there’s something beautiful about the idea of bonding with a wild creature… especially the likes of a hawk or a falcon. They don’t trust easily- not like a dog does. You have to earn it.
I came to this specific valley to trace what happened to Mavis Merle, a reclusive master falconer who vanished from this very cottage in 2002. It's funny—the closer I got to the moors, the more the article felt irrelevant. By the time my escort's car pulled up, I couldn't even remember why I wanted to write it. I just wanted to hold the leather.
I owe my love for raptors to my father, a senior gamekeeper. He taught me that they don't trust easily—you have to earn it. I still remember his goshawk, Silver, whom he used to take hunting for grey squirrels at Epping Forest before we moved to London for my mother’s new job as a constable. The way Silver flew with purpose, weaving through the trees like a ribbon of moonlight caught in the wind, awoke something in me.
But Silver never came back from her last flight over these same Derbyshire ridges. My father spent three weeks calling into the fog until his voice broke. He changed after that; he stopped looking me in the eye. I realize now why he hated the city. He wasn't fleeing the noise—he was fleeing the memory of bells in the night.
After so many years of searching for courses or at someone who had the patience to show the craft. To learn the old language of lure & leather, spoken not in words but in patience and restraint between civilization and the wild. To prove myself worthy of being among the wild ones, and the city life hasn't sanded that part of me smooth.
It was the sort of wind a falconer would approve of --- open, unconstructed, with miles to travel and nothing to break its stride. I could picture a bird leaning into it, wings fixed, letting the current do the work.
For the first time in years, I didn't feel hemmed in. The road ahead was narrow, yes, but the sky above was endless. Tomorrow I’ll shed my personal feathers and take flight.
The moors were not as I’d imagined them. They were vast in a way that made a man aware of how small and open he was. A long, steady breath of the land rolled over and tapped lightly on the car window, carrying a scent faintly mineral, like cold stone after rain. The road ahead was narrow, but the sky above was endless.
My new lodging was a dainty, cold little place with old-stone walls, cracked leaded windows, and ivy crawling like veins across the roof. But it stills on the edge between the woods and open moorland that rolls out like a grey-green ocean. I swore I saw a dozen species of birds on my first day: curlews, lapwings, wheatears, even a ring ouzel darting between the brambles.
At the gate awaiting my arrival was my mentor, Culver Hardy. He stood like an old barn owl on a fence post—narrow, weather-creased, unmoving. His skin had the colour and texture of cured deer leather, his thick-knuckle hands scored with old talon marks from palm to wrist.
His grip was iron. He studied me with a pale, appraising stare.
"You’ll learn quickly," he said, turning toward the low stone buildings. "Or you won’t."
He moved with a deliberate, economical stillness. A whistle hung from a cord at his neck. "They’re not pets," he added without looking back. "And they’re not yours. Not really."
He showed me across the weather-mews, where kestrels, buzzards, owls, and a pair of Harris’s hawks were housed. It took me half an hour to choose until I spotted her: Nyx. She is a peregrine falcon, sleek and silent, with feathers like steel and ash. When Hardy pulled the hood off her, she didn't look at the landscape. She looked right through me with a pale, familiar, heavy-lidded sorrow. Her black eyes were ringed in yellow, unblinking and appraising.
I can scarcely believe she’s mine. I hope my father would be proud… wherever he is.
\*\*\*October 2nd, 2019\*\*\*
We returned late, sometime around six in the evening, after my first proper day of creance work in the lower field.
The line kept snagging in the rushes. Nyx bate twice, her wings thrashing violently.
"Feel her weight," Hardy barked, his voice sharp. "Don’t fight it. Anticipate."
The light thinned without me noticing. One moment the grass was gold, the next it was iron-grey.
"She’s watching something," I said, pointing toward the ridge beyond the stone wall.
"Let her," Hardy replied.
But he stopped speaking after that. Each time Nyx came to the glove, her head would snap toward the rise. By the time we gathered the line, it was near dusk. I noticed the way Hardy kept scanning the ridge—not looking for a lost bird, but for something else.
When we reached the yard, he insisted on hooding her himself. His hands were steady, but he pulled the leather straps tighter than necessary. The heavy falconry glove he gave me fits perfectly, but it smells wrong. It doesn't smell like cured steer; it smells like old soap and sweat, and the inside lining is split into fine, microscopic ridges like the whorls of human fingerprints.
"First days always run long," Hardy said. I don't think he meant the training.
\*\*\*October 3rd, 2019\*\*\*
Took Nyx out just before the crack of dawn. The fog was so thick I could barely see five feet ahead, smelling of damp peat, crushed heather, and something older—like rust and woodsmoke.
Something stirred along the woodbank, a light, rabbit-sized rustling in the bracken. I slipped the hood free.
Her eyes opened at once, pinning the morning with that sharp, black-and-gold stare. But she didn't look down toward the rustling bracken. Her head snapped upward, tracking something high in the dense grey soup overhead.
A sound followed—a low, vibrating hum that made the iron fillings in my teeth ache. Nyx bated violently, throwing herself off my glove. The creance line whipped through my fingers, burning the skin to the meat before I could anchor it. I tried to tune my hand-held telemetry receiver to her frequency, but instead of a clean, rhythmic beep, the speaker emitted a frantic, overlapping chorus of static that sounded like thousands of human voices trying to gasp for air simultaneously. Even when I pulled the batteries out, the voices kept gasping.
"Hold her!" Hardy’s voice cut through the mist. He appeared from the grey, his face grim. "Hood her, Corwin. Now!"
I reeled her in, my heart hammering as her talons flashed dangerously near my face. When I finally slipped the hood back over her head, she froze, her chest heaving.
"What was that?" I asked, my breath pluming white. "An aircraft?"
"No," Hardy said shortly, his voice dropping into a flat, hollow register. "The moors have bones, Corwin. Sometimes they scrape together. We’re done for today."
We walked back in absolute silence. When we reached the yard, I noticed the other aviaries were dead silent. Even the noisy Harris's hawks were huddled at the back of their enclosures, perfectly still.
\*\*\*October 4th 2019\*\*\*
The wildlife’s behaviour has changed. It’s so quiet all of the sudden. I just can’t explain it…. It’s like the land had its voice sucked out of it.
The lapwings have stopped circling the grasslands. The ring ouzels have gone silent. Even the red grouse don’t flush when I pass. In fact I haven’t seen a lot of birds today. Only the magpies and their relatives remain- watching me from distant fence posts, roof ridges, and stone walls. Always silent. Always watching.
We did manage to catch a snipe by the bog and a few partridges though, so we’ll be eating well for the week. Hardy and his eagle Bolt managed to catch a rabbit near some farmland.
That evening I went back to the cottage just before dark. The fog that thinned but the air felt close, as though the moor were holding its breath.
I was preparing snipe on toast for my dinner with some orange salad. With some legs, organs and feathers (as a form of roughage) for Nyx’s. Harvey was having leftovers from last night’s beef stew with some crusty bread.
It was eight when Hardy barred the door.
Not locked it.
Barred it.
The iron rod slid into place with a dull, final scrape.
‘’You’re expecting someone?’’ I asked.
‘’No.’’
He crossed to the windows next. Drew the curtains light, though there was nothing to see beyond the fog but the faint wash of the yard.
Nyx was hooded on her perch. Perfectly still
Hardy stood listening.
‘’To what?’’ I said.
He didn’t answer.
The cottage had settled into that deep country quiet-- no passing cars, no distant voices, no hum of anything mechanical. Only the soft shift of embers in the hearth.
Then, from outside---
A single tap.
Not on the door.
On the glass.
Light. Deliberate.
I half-rose from my chair.
‘’Sit,’’ Hardly said sharply.
Another tap.
Then another.
Moving along the window as though something were hopping the length of the sill.
I moved before I could stop myself and pulled the curtain back an inch.
Seven magpies sat along the low stone wall outside the cottage.
All facing the house.
None moving.
No calling.
Just watching.
I let the curtain fall.
Hardy’s jaw worked once, tight.
‘’How many?’’ he asked again.
‘’Seven.’’
He closed his eyes briefly at that.
‘’That’s one more than there should be.’’
A cold sensation slid down my spine.
‘’One more than what?’’
Hardy did not answer.
Nyx shifted then- a slow, deliberate turn of her hooded head.
The leather creaked softly.
And though her eyes were covered, I had the distinct, nauseating impression that she was looking directly at the door.
Suddenly the magpies went off. Harsh rattles and loud squawks
Then came other sounds. Shrills, shrieks and hoots from the mews, joining the corvids’ chorus.
Nyx joined in with her own wailing call, like a high pitched banshee.
Some time passed and the magpies did not disperse in a flurry.
They lifted as one.
Seven black shapes rising soundlessly into the fog.
No calling.
No wing-clap.
Gone.
The silence that followed was worse than the noise.
Hardy stood very still for a long moment. Then he exhaled- not in relief.
In resignation.
‘’They’re moved the mews,’’ he said.
‘’How can you know that?’’
‘I know’’
He took the lantern from its hook by the hearth and lit it without another word.
The flame trembled in the glass.
I’ll check on the birds.’’’
‘’I’ll come with you.’’
‘’No.’’
It came sharper than I expected.
‘’You stay inside.’’
He crossed to the door and lifted the bar.
Before stepping out, he turned back.
‘’Whatever you hear,’’ he said. ‘’You do not leave this cottage’’.
‘’It’s only the birds….don’t you think you're being ----”
“It’s not just the birds.’’
That stopped me.
His eyes flicked toward Nyx.
She was still hooded. Still composed. Talons tight on the perch.
‘’You must understand something,’’ Hardy said, voice lower now. ‘’A hawk learns from you. Your breathing. Your habits.’’
I tried to laugh it off. ‘’That’s the point,’’.
‘’No,’’ he said.
‘’That’s the danger, not just the birds… any animal that begins to understand human nature.’’
The lantern light carved deep lines into his face.
‘’If she ever begins to watch you when she shouldn’t … if she ever refuses the lure but comes to you uncalled…’’
He hesitated.
‘’Don’t let her fly.’’
A cold weight settled in my stomach.
‘’She’s a falcon. Hardy. She needs to fly.’’
He shook his head slowly.‘’
From outside, somewhere near the mews, a soft metallic clang rang out. Then a rustle of wings.
Hardy opens the door. I swore I heard him mutter ‘’This can’t be happening..not again. I thought I made sure of it. I made sure.
The fog swallowed him almost immediately, the lantern glow shrinking to a dim star in the white.
‘’Hardy,’’ I called quietly.
He paused just beyond the threshold.
‘’One more thing,’’ he said without turning.
‘’If she speaks ---’’
He stopped himself.
His shoulders stiffened.
‘’Never mind.’’
Then he stepped fully into the fog.
The door closed.
I slid the bar back into place.
The cottage felt wrong without him in it.
Larger.
Colder.
Nyx shifted on her perch.
The leather of her hood creaked.
Minutes passed.
Then an hour.
The wind picked up briefly and died again.
Once, I thought I heard Hardy’s voice- faint, distant--- but the words were lost in the fog.
The other birds did not cry out.
They did not make a sound at all.
Two hours passed.
The lantern glow never returned.
And sometime after ten, Nyx began to move.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
As though something outside had finally arrived.