The Mourner of Hindarrow

There are whispers on the wind that know your name, if you’ve ever walked the moors near Hindarrow Hall. Some claim they’ve heard an old woman humming lullabies, or seen the silhouette of a ghost with a shawl pulled tightly around her shoulders. Others speak of a raven’s feather caught forever in a gnarled tree, unmoved by the wind. All stories lead to one name: Nanny Wren.

In life, she was Winifred Wren—a nursemaid to the noble Grey family. A small woman with wiry strength and a voice like creaking floorboards softened by honey, she was chosen to tend to young Raven Grey, daughter of Lord Archibald Grey. While the lord was cold and traditional, Nanny Wren offered something different: warmth. She was no stranger to hardship and loss. She'd buried two children of her own before ever entering Hindarrow’s gates, and in Raven, she found something she'd long thought lost—a daughter of the soul.

Wren didn't just raise the child; she nurtured her mind. She taught Raven the names of the birds, how to mimic the cry of a kestrel, how to speak kindly to crows. When the girl grew fascinated by Tarot, Wren gifted her a faded deck wrapped in velvet. The nobility whispered that the nursemaid encouraged the girl’s eccentricities, but Lord Archibald didn’t care so long as his daughter was quiet and contained.

Yet even Wren knew there were limits. When Raven spoke of hearing voices in the trees, or claimed the birds brought her warnings, Wren would hush her gently and press a sprig of rosemary into her pocket “for warding.” Still, she never scolded. She listened. She watched. And as Raven grew older, the world around her grew colder.

The day Raven Grey was promised to Benedict Fellmoor, Nanny Wren’s hands trembled as she folded the girl’s dresses. She knew Benedict by reputation—a man of calculation, with no time for dreams or poetry. Wren begged the lord to reconsider, but her voice held no sway in matters of men and land.

When Raven was married off and taken to Fellmoor Keep, the halls of Hindarrow fell silent. Wren wandered them like a wraith before death, always looking to the door, waiting for her fledgling to return. She took to spending hours beneath the blackthorn tree where she and Raven had once played. There, she planted a single feather she'd found in Raven’s bedroom—a jet-black gift from one of the girl’s beloved crows. She buried it deep with a handful of earth and whispered, "Find your way home, my girl."

But Raven never returned. Not alive.

Word eventually arrived that Benedict Fellmoor was dead—neck broken, eyes wide in terror. Whispers of Raven’s involvement spread like wildfire. Some claimed it was a fall, others insisted it was witchcraft. Raven herself vanished during a great storm, last seen walking the moors in a shroud of thunder and feathers.

Nanny Wren didn’t believe the darker tales. She refused to accept that her Raven had done something terrible. The girl she raised loved fiercely but never cruelly. So Wren waited. Year after year. Until the day her own heart gave out beneath that same blackthorn tree.

The ground was too hard to bury her deep. The caretaker covered her with soil and stones, just enough to keep the wild things away. No headstone. No mourning bell. Just the tree… and the grave… and the ghost.

Now they say her spirit lingers where she fell. On moonless nights, the wind carries soft lullabies across the moors. Animals leave trinkets—buttons, feathers, smooth stones—beside the grave. Some say it’s the birds bringing offerings. Others say it’s children, led unknowingly through the mist by an invisible hand.

The tree above her grave has grown strange. Its bark twists like braids of knotted hair, and a single feather hangs from its lowest branch. It never falls. It never decays.

And the ghost—Nanny Wren—has been seen. She is pale, white as linen, with dark eyes hollowed by waiting. Her shawl flows behind her like fog. She carries a rattle made of thorn-wood and bone, carved with the same Tarot symbols Raven once loved.

Those who encounter her speak of comfort tinged with grief. She hums lullabies only the very old or very young recognise. She doesn’t speak, but if you follow her gaze, it always leads you back—to the tree, to the grave, to the single raven feather. She does not wander far.

But she is not powerless. One man, a treasure hunter seeking to loot the ruins of Fellmoor Keep, was found dazed near Hindarrow, muttering about a woman with "empty eyes and roots in her hands." He swore he heard a voice whisper, “You won't take her from me again.”

They say Nanny Wren waits not just for Raven’s return, but for someone—anyone—who will remember her little girl not as a monster, but as a daughter. She guards that memory like a cradle she will not let go.

And so, on stormy nights or in the hush before dawn, if you see a pale figure walking where the moor meets the forest, don’t be afraid. Just listen.

You may hear a lullaby meant for a lost child… or a mother’s warning that the dead do not forget love.