Jul 2, 2026 · 27 min · 9 segments
*The Study of Quiet Things is a serialised gothic folk-horror mystery, written & narrated by Harriet Loveluck.* **In Today's Episode:** **Chapter 8**- Small Village Horrors - Blog Post 3 **Chapter…
It used to belong to the retired postman.
There's a rumour that his body was found decomposing in the house two months after he died.
I don't know if it's true, but the place still stinks of death over a decade on.
Like all desolate places no grown-ups want to acknowledge.
The ruined house has become a hangout for teens.
The evidence is everywhere.
Empty cans of cider stamped upon like crushed dreams.
Ripped up condom wrappers.
Knickers flung into faraway corners in passion or boredom or drunken fuel haste.
fag butts.
But most of all, it's a smell of teenage piss and desperation.
It seemed like a good place to meet, to talk about the things nobody wants to talk about.
Earlier in the day, I handed Kate a note in class behind the teacher's back while he wrote some bollocks on the whiteboard.
I wrote, do you feel it too? Can you feel it watching, listening, calling? I didn't expect Kate to react the way she did.
She read the note as if it was the most awful news she'd ever read.
She went pale, like deathly pale and trembled.
I thought she was going to have one of her seizures.
I remember when we were six and she had her first turn.
She dropped from the swing next to me, her head smashing against the hard ground.
I thought she'd cracked her skull open and at my feet she convulsed, foaming at the mouth and pissing herself.
I was terrified then and I was terrified in the classroom too.
But she didn't have a full-on seizure, not this time.
Instead, she rolled the note into a tight ball and stared ahead at nothing and no one.
She just rocked back and forth, back and forth on her chair.
I tried to hiss her name, Kate, Kate, but she didn't notice me.
It used to belong to the retired postman.
There's a rumour that his body was found decomposing in the house two months after he died.
I don't know if it's true, but the place still stinks of death over a decade on.
Like all desolate places no grown-ups want to acknowledge.
The ruined house has become a hangout for teens.
The evidence is everywhere.
Empty cans of cider stamped upon like crushed dreams.
Ripped up condom wrappers.
Knickers flung into faraway corners in passion or boredom or drunken fuel haste.
fag butts.
But most of all, it's a smell of teenage piss and desperation.
It seemed like a good place to meet, to talk about the things nobody wants to talk about.
Earlier in the day, I handed Kate a note in class behind the teacher's back while he wrote some bollocks on the whiteboard.
I wrote, do you feel it too? Can you feel it watching, listening, calling? I didn't expect Kate to react the way she did.
She read the note as if it was the most awful news she'd ever read.
She went pale, like deathly pale and trembled.
I thought she was going to have one of her seizures.
I remember when we were six and she had her first turn.
She dropped from the swing next to me, her head smashing against the hard ground.
I thought she'd cracked her skull open and at my feet she convulsed, foaming at the mouth and pissing herself.
I was terrified then and I was terrified in the classroom too.
But she didn't have a full-on seizure, not this time.
Instead, she rolled the note into a tight ball and stared ahead at nothing and no one.
She just rocked back and forth, back and forth on her chair.
I tried to hiss her name, Kate, Kate, but she didn't notice me.
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