Hello, Little Sparrow by Jordan Jones (the reading list .TXT) 📕

Stopping at a wall halfway down the hall, Brooks looked down at a short table with several pictures. Two frames were placed face down and he picked them both up.

Madison was so happy in both of them. Kay couldn’t bear to place them facing up, but also couldn’t bear packing them away.

There weren’t any pictures of Philip around. Brooks remembered the case from several years ago, and it stuck with him throughout many of them.

The local Lincolnshire paper posted a small article about a “Local man” who got caught up in a sting operation with a “predator hunting” group. He wanted to send them a medal.

It was the same group he cross-referenced William Henson with. He was already on the Lincolnshire registry for groping the nurse, but also for meeting with the vigilante group eight years later.

Philip’s face was posted at the header of the small article, so Brooks knew what he looked like. He didn’t have any pictures in this house. Brooks knew what Philip was capable of, and he wanted Philip to understand retribution. If he understood it to the degree Brooks was comfortable with, Philip would atone through taking his own life.

Brooks would accept that.

It would keep him from having to do it.

The second to last door was shut; it was the only door that was. It had to be Madison’s room. It felt wrong to enter her room without some sort of offering. He wasn’t a detective just studying the case. He wasn’t just a mourner wanting to learn more about her life.

He was more than that.

“I am the offering,” he said out loud. He knew he said that out loud.

Brooks made sure, because he repeated it several times.

The door opened with a bit of force and Brooks saw himself in. He felt a rush of wind overtake his body instantly. His fingertips tingled and so did the toes inside his black boots.

Her walls were plastered with pieces of art, depicting a fiery bird flying high through the sky. The people down below looked terrified.

They looked unprepared

But, one thing they did not look like was innocent.

They each had their own stories and Madison made it able for Brooks to see it. They had murdered, assaulted, kicked, battered, and abused others. They were the opposite of innocent.

They were the punished, and the fiery bird was coming for them.

Many pictures were painted in Madison’s earlier years. They progressed to better quality work until right before she left this earth.

They also progressed to much darker depictions. Brooks wasn’t ready to take on the role yet, not fully anyway. He felt like killing William was a great consolation prize to fulfill his purpose for a time, but needed harder evidence to ensure what he thought so concrete in his mind.

Her dresser had a notebook and the front had handwritten “Madison’s thoughts” on the front. The handwriting on the front and throughout was on par with Old English, and looked as if it was done with a quill. Her elegance danced off each page and into his pupils.

I am leaving and I’m not coming back. I feel the pain that you have caused, but don’t worry…I won’t call you out by name; your secrets are safe with me. You are like a terrible Phoenix, destroying everything in your path. You are caged, but you will soon be free to do as you wish.

Have fun with it.

Madison M

Brooks nearly fell down on the ground. His knees grew weak and he began to dry-heave. He couldn’t leave any evidence behind that he was there so he stormed out and ran into the bathroom.

The vomit splashed with great force into the toilet and much of it ricocheted back on his face. He finished washing his hands and dried off his face. He was scared to re-enter the room with the notebook, but as he stepped into the hall, the door slowly crept open on its own.

“I am the offering,” he whispered as he reentered the room. The notebook was still open to the page, and Brooks read it through several times.

She knew about William. I feel the pain that you have caused. She was speaking directly to him, and he was to carry out any order she had.

You are a terrible Phoenix, destroying everything in your path. She recognized that Brooks has had inner struggles with what to do next.

You are caged, but now you will soon be free to do as you wish. She wanted exactly what he wanted.

Have fun with it. This was all the validation Brooks needed. He grabbed the notebook and rushed out of the front of the house. He left all the doors open, because all of the doors in his life have now opened.

The portrait of him up on her walls flying through the sky as a fearsome Phoenix meant so much to him. She was his savior, and he was her protector.

Nothing could happen to her again.

The abuse she suffered leading up to her fall paled in comparison to what lay in store for Lincolnshire. Brooks wanted the entire community to suffer the way she did. Her mind encompassed Lincolnshire and exposed all of the atrocities on a single piece of paper.

The words themselves weren’t there, but Brooks now knew how to decipher what she meant.

Driving back to Fasten Biofuels, Brooks went the speed limit. He was seeing the world for what it was, and was now capable of the unspeakable. He couldn’t act impulsively until the time was right. She would guide him up until that time.

Brooks stormed into the greenhouse, the notebook nuzzled in his coat pocket. The heaters were on full-blast, making it hard to hear the technician. Brooks stopped and looked at him, his eyes were dead and gleaming through