#exilebuzz

garrison “grady” oliver knox.

thirty. moss. woodcrest. casey deidrick.

his name is grady. no one calls him garrison, not anymore. not since his mother was around. i say around and not alive, because she isn't dead, not to him. mariella knox, bless her soul, is one of the lost. there one day and gone the next, called to the trees. she told him that, you know? that she'd heard them calling her name for months before. months before he woke up and found an empty bed, lily powder sheets piled up unsightly to one corner, cold to the touch. people in town say she's run away. a girl like mariella never lives down their teenage reputation. they think she found some beautiful man and ran off with him, abandoning her family for adventure. but that's bullshit. his mother would never leave him. not in exile, not alone. and he's gonna find her.

about the man.

this is grady! his life pretty much always baseline sucks and his attitude and demeanor mirrors that. southside born and raised by a wild-child mother and a trash father, who is wondering around this town somewhere, he supposes. they haven't spoken since his mom disappeared when he was fourteen. not because their relationship suffered─that ship sailed a long time ago─but because when it was time to claim him, dear ol' dad just didn't want the job. so his aunt, his mother's sister, finished raising him. he now lives above the book cafe she owns in woodcrest and devotes his life to the unexplained and gruesome things that seem to happen in exile. working whenever his aunt needs him at the shop while taking on jobs as an amateur sleuth to pay the bills and fund his precious podcast, the night shift. and it’s easier to make money off cheating spouses than you might realize. especially in a small town with such an ugly history.

connections.

forty-five - satin - rachel weisz

have you ever met a more neurotic, snarky mess than miriam deirdre chomsky? an exile native, miri was raised by a highly overprotective mother, but never quite had the charm and wit and fuck you attitude of her older sister. she got stuck in her mother’s net (some call it munchausen by proxy) and still hasn’t escaped; in fact, some might say she ended up becoming her; but, don’t tell miriam that, for the love of god.

she and her friends had a fucking serial killer chasing them in the woods and it still took her a long time to leave this stupid town. now she’s back, against her will, being forced into playing scooby doo and she’s hating every minute of it. can she make you think you’re dying and sell you a pill to cure you? sure. can she venture into the woods and start digging up dead bodies? you bet to fuck she’s hightailing it back to her air bnb to scrub herself with lysol.

plotting opportunities

→ the old group, the “losers club”, her ex-best friends that she’d rather not be seeing now, or ever again. they bring up some sour, disgusting memories of crawling through mud and having her mother disinfect her every morning before she came down to breakfast for weeks after.

→ healthcare professionals. she’s going to be seeing a lot. if they’re old enough they may remember her, or may know stories about her. miri’s not grown up, she most definitely still thinks she’s got a plethora of illnesses at any given moment. she’ll be driving the fine doctors and nurses of exile out of their minds soon.

→ anyone that wants to hear about the executioner of exile first hand, though miri isn’t exactly forthcoming with details. she’s had this shit follow her from place to place, stupid “true crime enthusiasts” wanting to hear about the real life horror movie she went through. no thanks. y’all can fuck off (unless you’re offering her a lot of money, in which case maybe she’ll give you a few morsels).

→ there’ll certainly be some people in the sheriff’s department and other law enforcement that are around town currently that will be sick to death of her, too. she’s begrudgingly attempting to “do her part” with her friends’ plans and instead of going into the woods to search, she’s using her sales rep training and attempting to woo the police. needless to say, it’s probably not going that well. she’s likely earned herself a bit of a nickname already.