Chapter Text
Jonathan Crane did not have very many friends. At school, he was teased and ostracized and bullied relentlessly. Day in and day out, he was picked on and kicked and spat at like he was less than human. At home it was no better. His father was cruel and his mother was uncaring of the torment her son was put through.
But it was not all bad. Jonathan did have friends, they just weren’t of the human variety. Where he truly found solace was with the animals on the Crane farm. He’d fallen asleep cuddled up to his favourite brown cow more times than he could count, and he liked taking his favourite stallion out for rides around the field. Though the animals he truly loved were the birds.
They had a lot of birds on the farm. Mostly chickens, but they had quails and ducks and a few geese on top of that. The Crane homestead always had a surplus of eggs and many people in their small Georgia town were more than willing to pay for them. Crows were commonplace as well, but they weren’t intentionally domesticated like the other birds and simply came and went as they pleased. Jonathan was just happy that his father hadn’t found out that he’d been leaving extra food out for the crows every morning.
On top of all of their birds, they had one turkey. One that Elijah Crane had bought off an old farmer a few years ago. The turkey was already an adult by the time she got to their farm, but she fit right in with the other animals. She had found Jonathan huddled up in the barn one night and had gone to comfort him, pecking at his shoes until he couldn’t help but laugh.
And Jonathan really did love that turkey. He’d named her Sadie, after the clerk at the corner store that was always so nice to him. He had started getting up earlier just to spend more time with Sadie when he went out to feed the animals before school, and she was always the first animal he went to see after school. Sadie seemed to love him too, based on how she’d run to him when he got home and bend her neck down so he could pet her.
The Cranes had had Sadie for two years. It was a chilly November evening when she’d gone missing. Mrs. Crane had spent all day in the kitchen cooking. Heaven knows what Elijah Crane was up to. Jonathan, on the other hand, had spent all day looking for Sadie. She wasn’t in her shed when Jonathan got up to feed her. He checked all of her usual spots. She wasn’t in the chicken coop, she wasn’t in the barn, and she wasn’t by the pond. Hm.
Jonathan did whatever he could to find her. Searched her shed top to bottom no fewer than six times, left a trail of food for her to follow, and he’d even refilled the plastic kiddie pool that she liked splashing around in. He didn’t want to resort to asking about her, but he was left with no other choice.
Jonathan entered the house through the back door, ending up directly in the kitchen. Mashed potatoes and stuffing and bread rolls and deviled eggs had already been set on the table and his mother was waiting by the oven for a timer to go off.
“Mom?”
“Yes, Jonathan?”
“Have you seen Sadie? I can’t-”
Jonathan was cut off by the timer going off, a shrill ringing in his ears. Mrs. Crane popped open the door to the oven and pulled out something hidden under tinfoil. Careful not to burn her hands, she set it in the middle of the table and pulled the foil off.
“-find her.”
A turkey. Jonathan was staring at a cooked turkey. Golden brown and buttered and flaky. The head and feet had been cut off. If Jonathan had never seen a cooked turkey before, he wouldn’t know what he was looking at. But he knew. He knew all too well.
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“Jonathan, you haven’t touched your food,” Mrs. Crane scolded him. “It’s Thanksgiving, dear, you need to eat.”
Jonathan said nothing, so Elijah Crane filled the silence.
“She spends all day cookin’ this for your ungrateful ass, and you won’t even eat it? You wanna disrespect your mother?”
Jonathan said nothing. He only stared at the centerpiece of the feast in front of him.
Elijah Crane huffed, standing from the table and struggling with the buckle of his belt.
“Come to the living room, boy. I oughta teach you a lesson.”