Section One from the story in “Pearl’s Drawer of Unspoken Stories”

You may notice that we have added short animations to each section our story. We hope you will enjoy them! We have stayed away from anything gruesome or gory, but goose- or chicken-bumply is a strong possibility!

In the corner of the churchyard garden grew a pumpkin unlike any other. It was not the roundest, nor the brightest, nor the biggest. It had a slight lean to one side, a patch of pale green that never quite turned orange, and a stem that curled like a question mark. The children who came to pick pumpkins for the All Hallows’ Eve festival passed it by without a second glance.

Pearl, the White Plymouth Rock hen, noticed this. She had a gift for seeing what others missed. She saw the quiet ache in a child’s eyes, the way a leaf trembled before falling, the sigh of the wind when it carried stories too heavy to speak. Pearl had her rituals: morning checks of the garden, Saltine cracker offerings, and the sacred act of naming anything new or significant. She named the pumpkin “Whisper”—not because it spoke, but because it didn’t. In the Language of Chickens, the action is Br’rillbr, and the name is Rr’r’r’rillbr.

John, the Backyard Gardener, had been busy preparing the church for the season. There were banners to hang, candles to bless, and a new refrain to write for the children’s procession. But he kept returning to the garden, drawn by something he couldn’t quite name. Whisper the Pumpkin seemed to hum with a quiet presence, as if it were waiting—not for carving, not for decoration, but for something deeper. What could it be?

One afternoon, as the sun dipped low and the air turned crisp, John sat beside Pearl and Whisper. “You know,” he said softly, “some pumpkins are meant for more than pies and lanterns. Some are vessels.”

Pearl blinked once, then pecked gently at the pumpkin’s stem. Whisper didn’t respond, but the wind did. It carried a faint sound—like a breath, or a memory, or a voice that had waited too long to be heard.

That night, John dreamed of Nate Elliott. In the dream, a young Nate stood beside Whisper, his hand resting on its curved side. “Not all stories are for speaking,” he said into the night. “Some are for listening.”

John woke with tears on his cheeks and a phrase in his heart: The Whispering Pumpkin. He wrote it down and placed it in Pearl’s drawer, beside the Feather of Empathic Love and the Lantern of Staying. It seemed to be where it belonged.

That day, John and Pearl noticed that something had shifted. The children began to speak of strange sounds in the garden. One girl claimed the pumpkin had whispered her name. Another boy said it told him to “stay near the light.” The adults dismissed it as Halloween excitement, but John knew better. Whisper had begun to speak—not with words, but with presence.

And then, on the eve of the festival, Whisper disappeared without explanation.

Thanks for reading, liking, and commenting!

John and Pearl with fond memories of Gracie, Bessie, Blanche, Emily, and Amelia