Liam brought Penelope back to the beach, somewhere where no one could overhear them. Penelope went quietly along, knowing that Liam would explain it all to her soon enough. At least he was finally going to tell her the full extent of what he knew.

Penelope went to sit on one of the logs by the firepit, but Liam went to the lake's edge, staring out across the water with his hands in his pockets.

In the distance, far out on the other side of the small lake, Penelope could see a boat with two tiny figures. Penelope realized it must be her dad and Liam's step-mom, Lyla, in the boat while Liam's mom was the small figure a few metres away, standing in the water.

Liam kept standing there, watching them. Despite being the one to lead out them here, he wasn't talking. It was like he still didn't want to talk about it, after everything.

Penelope pulled herself up from the log and walked across the rocky beach to go stand by Liam.

"So, your uncle, huh?" Penelope prodded.

Liam sighed like he knew he could no longer avoid it. He didn't look at her. "Yeah."

Penelope waited for another moment. When Liam didn't speak, she bent down to select a flat rock from the selection at their feet. Once she found a good one, she stood up again and rolled it along her finger. "He's your 'reputable source' then, I guess?"

"Kinda." Liam kept his stare on the lake.

Penelope didn't mind. She leaned and threw the flat stone at a wide-angle, allowing it to spin out of her hand and skip across the surface of the water. Five good skips before it cut beneath. "Why didn't tell me?"

Liam seemed to think skipping stones was a good idea. He bent down to select a rock of his own. "He doesn't like to talk about it," he said, making a face as he picked one up and tossed it at the lake. It skipped once before dropping with a plunk. "I didn't want to upset him, or for you to..."

"What? Go after him with my camera for clicks and views?" Penelope raised an eyebrow in his direction. "You know I'm not like that."

"I do now," Liam said with a shrug. He picked up another rock and threw it. This one got two skips before disappearing into the deep. "But I... I needed to be sure. He's been burned before, and more than once, so I didn't want to..." His eyes finally met hers, dark and intense. "He doesn't trust strangers. And I didn't want to open him up to more scrutiny, make him more of an outsider."

Penelope frowned. "An outsider?"

Liam gave a sharp, hollow laugh before selecting another stone. "Yeah. Y'know, when he first told his story, after the initial panic subsided... Everyone laughed at him. No one believed him." He sent the stone out and it skipped five times. He had gotten his flow.

Penelope's eyes went wide. "What? But if he's a real witness, then you'd think they'd like, canonise him or something. This stupid town is absolutely Raven-crazy!"

"Not back then they weren't," Liam said, shaking his head. "For a long time most people thought the Raven was just a stupid tall tale the old timers liked to tell. Despite it all, though, Uncle Henry refused to take the story back. He has always been honest to a fault. And a little odd, too, so everyone just thought he was crazy. Of course, once the Raven story got out, it only got worse. And that's all it took for him to get a reputation for being the town crackpot."

"Well, that fact was conveniently left out of the Raven Experience," Penelope said, thinking back to the sketch that had appeared on the TV screen. A large group of young people, standing around a large fire. On one edge of the frame, a single boy was running out of the forest, screaming something as others turned to look... Those same people had laughed at that boy. She dipped down to pick out another stone. There was a nice piece of shale, flat and sharp.

"Of course it was. Gunnar is the mastermind behind the stupid Experience and he was one of Henry's worst bullies. He'd never admit to anything that made him look bad." Liam scowled then, his brows angling sharply over his deep, dark eyes. For the first time since she met him, he looked truly angry. He threw another rock, but this time it went straight in with an abrupt splash.

Penelope got it as she thumbed the sharp edge of her shale stone. "So that's why he hates him—why you hate him."

Liam nodded and looked away with a huff. He had given up on skipping stones. "Gunnar is a real two-faced bastard. Did you know that the bullying got so bad that Henry actually had to drop out of school?"

Damn, Penelope thought. Penelope knew a thing or two about just how bad bullying could get. Her bullies were worldwide, coming from every angle, but there had to be something uniquely terrible about being trapped in a small town with everyone thinking you're nuts. These days, the world sometimes seemed much too big, but back then it may have felt far too small.

"That must've been hard for him," she said and finally tossed her piece of shale. It skipped perfectly, so many times that she lost count.

"Yeah," Liam said.

"But now everyone loves the Raven," Penelope said. "Hasn't he been vindicated?"

"Not quite. It wasn't until the big mill outside of town closed down in '87 and everyone was out of a job that they became interested in growing the town's tourism sector. What better way to do that than cultivate the myth of a local monster? And then, just like that, they all 'believed' in the Raven, especially Gunnar." Liam's look soured again. "Around then, they tried to reach out to my uncle Henry, but... Well they were so shocked that my Uncle Henry didn't want anything to do with them after years of their abuse. So now he keeps to himself and the town pretends he doesn't exist beyond that night."

Penelope felt a hot flare of anger rush through her. The sudden about-face of the town—from acting like he was nuts for seeing the Raven to suddenly pretending as if they had always believed—must have really stung. Poor Henry.

"What a bunch of jerks," she hissed. Especially Gunnar. She wished she had a big rock to throw that would land with a big, violent splash.

"Yup," Liam said with a sigh.

So the town now 'believed' the Raven was real, but... "Does Henry still believe what he saw was real?" Penelope asked.

Liam looked a little sheepish now. "I... I don't know. I think so."

Penelope was taken aback. "But I-I thought he was your 'reputable source' so how—"

"I never said that. My uncle has never told me the story of what he saw that night directly. He's only ever recounted it to my dad, who told me."

Ah. Penelope realized she was mistaken—his reputable source wasn't Henry himself, it was his dad. "And your dad believed him?"

"Of course," Liam said, with a little edge to his tone. "My dad believed him. He was his friend. That's actually how my parents met. Dad defended Henry to the townfolk and my mom liked that he was nice to her little brother." For the first time in a while, Liam smiled.

Penelope smiled. At least someone was there for Henry. "Your dad sounds like a great guy."

Liam nodded, his smile faltering slightly. "He was."

"And Henry told him about that night?" Penelope said. She remembered Liam saying something about how Henry had only ever given one account of that night. "The night he saw the Raven?"

"Yeah. No one cared to know the details of what he saw when he first made his claim," Liam said. "But once my dad and him became friends, he asked. And so my uncle told him. Then eventually Dad told me when I was old enough to notice that people in town treated Henry differently."

Penelope nodded slowly and began to carefully search the rocks at her feet for another good stone. "Do... Do you think he'd ever be interested in telling his story again?"

Liam turned sharply to look at her. His frown was back. "No. Like I said, he doesn't like to talk about it, certainly not on camera—"

"I never said anything about a camera," Penelope shot back. "I'd just like to hear his story, from him. No cameras, just his word."

"Forget it, he'd never—"

"I might."

Liam and Penelope turned from the water to look back towards the forest. Henry was there, at the mouth of the path, watching them.

Sneaking up on people must run in the family, Penelope thought.

"What?" Liam said, his eyes wide like he was surprised to see his uncle there. His cheeks were a little red, too, like a flustered kid caught in the act.

"I was saying I might," Henry said, his low voice rumbling as he looked between them, "be interested in telling my story on camera."

"You are?" Liam stuttered. "But I thought you never—"

"I never wanted to do it for those fakers because I never trusted them," Henry grumbled, his brow folding in—just like Liam's did—as he spoke of his fellow townsfolk. "But I trust you, kid. And you seem to trust this girl," Henry looked to Penelope; his eyes weren't dark like Liam's, but they were the same shape, "so if you trust her, I think I can trust her, too."

Penelope and Liam exchanged open-mouth looks of shock.

"Thank... you?" Penelope said, after a moment.

"But why?" Liam asked. "Why now?"

"I figured it's 'bout time I get my story out," Henry said with a resigned shrug. "But one thing before I agree to anything. Do you think this will piss Gunnar off?"

Penelope paused. She was still a little too stunned to think clearly. "I don't know... Probably? I think so?" Gunnar—and Daevon—would probably pitch a fit if she got the interview they'd been after.

"Great," Henry said. "Then I'll do it."

We love a petty king!
How do you think Daevon and Xander are going to react to getting scooped?