Miss Hackney: Book One

Someone once asked me, “Is Miss Hackney real?” Now there’s a question I never thought to ask myself as a nine-year-old boy with a heartbeat racing near as fast as my feet, running home filled with a mortal fear that came from a simple statement – It’s Miss Hackney! If real is measured by the stock of horror rising in the hearts of young girls and boys at the mere mention of a name or by the countless stories of children lost forever in the distant Smoky Mountain vales and hollows, then yes by any other way of definition, she’s as real as sunset and dark misty nights. I couldn’t begin to describe what powers she possessed beyond the gift she inherited from a long line of women dating back to the howling banshees in the Highland hills, singing their night wails portending death. Her powers were at least enough to perceive what we could not and to last beyond whatever existence we spelled out as normal. She’s powerful enough that no one knows when or where she passed from this world to the next, nor if she has an open door to return whenever she fancies as she promised. The fact or fiction of Miss Hackney was never a question we raised when growing up in those mountains. Let the reader then proceed here with extreme caution – for there lies a truth to each vignette chronicled below.

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