Noir's Friend, Thorn

By Aria Zimin

Where Reality and Nightmares Collide

 

Introducing Noir's Friend, Thorn – a gripping psychological thriller that delves into the depths of a child's mind and blurs the lines between reality and fiction. 

 

In the quiet town of Wrathridge, four-year-old Noir forms an unexpected bond with Thorn, a new friend whose origins remain shrouded in mystery. Is Thorn merely an ordinary classmate, an imaginary companion, or something far more sinister? As Noir's world becomes increasingly entwined with Thorn's presence, strange occurrences in Wrathridge escalate. 

 

Author Aria Zimin weaves a narrative that follows five women, each connected to Noir and Thorn. Their accounts piece together a puzzling and disturbing chronicle that stretches far beyond the walls of Noir's nursery classroom. As the threads of their stories intertwine, the women work together to figure out the mystery that is Thorn — and ultimately end his influence once and for all.

 

If you crave psychological thrillers that ignite the imagination and haunt the soul, Noir's Friend, Thorn is a must-read. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Aria Zimin
• Release date: Aug 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215258507

Book preview

FORWARD

Dear Reader,

I would tell you that Noir’s Friend, Thorn is based on a true story. However, that’s not exactly true. It’s also not exactly not true. When someone says, based on a true story, it usually implies that a news story broke out a while back that bears a close resemblance to the story you’re about to read. Events happen in lockstep with how they unfolded in real life, albeit with some artistic liberties taken to help with pacing and general storytelling.

Noir’s Friend, Thorn is not like that. It is true in the sense that some events you’re about to read about do happen every day around the world. You, dear reader, might relate to many details in the story, especially if you are a parent, teacher, or even a detective. Heck, if you were a child at any point in your life, you will most certainly sympathize at one point or another.

A story is comprised of many events, characters, and details. Therefore, many of this story's individual components are based on true events that you, dear reader, will have noticed happening around you or to you.

The true story shines in those individual components, surrounded by complete fiction.

Fictitious elements of this story are too fantastical to happen in real life. You’ll know when you get there which events I’m talking about. How could something like that happen? Simple: it couldn’t.

At least, that’s what I hope.

Noir’s Friend, Thorn is the story of a mysterious man named (you guessed it) Thorn, told from the perspective of five different women who interacted with him and the world he created. Most of the story takes place in 1997, but shifts in time do occur. Don’t worry; I’ll let you know when we travel twenty or even forty years into the past. I’ll let you know again when we come back to the present, which, in this story, is the fall of 1997.

There is also no consistent style throughout this story. See, piecing together what happened with Thorn involves police reports, personal statements, psychiatric notes, and, of course, my artistic liberties as a writer.

Which, as I say it now, sounds ridiculous. As a writer, wouldn’t it be my job to write this story as clearly and concisely as possible? It’s a work of fiction, after all, and can be anything I want. Treating it as if I’ve done significant research seems to be a stylistic choice that adds nothing to the general story except to confuse the facts.

Except, and I cannot stress this enough, this story walks on a precipice between reality and fiction. Even if only individual elements are drawn from the real work, there must be some real-world confines on the elements of this work of fiction. For example, there has to be a consideration of where facts may have been found. Differences in perspective must be accounted for. And, probably most frustrating, is understanding that if you put five different people in a room and ask them to tell the same story, you’ll end up with eight different versions of events.

And that’s ultimately what this adds up to: eight different versions of events, told from the general perspective of five different people.

Kind of like reality, when you think about it — and, to stay true to reality, I also feel a need to include the modicum of confusion that goes along with it, of wondering who is truthful, who is biased, who has a full-enough story, and who is just piecing things together with little regard for what you, the reader, will take away.

Personally, I find Thorn intriguing because . . .

Well, you can read and find out.

Aria Zimin,

Indie Writer

January 27, 2023

FIRST PERSPECTIVE: Morrigan Whitrock

. . . and her perfectly normal shortcomings

Morrigan Whitrock can be described as a confident, middle-aged single mother. Physically, she has several unique features, from long black hair and nearly-black loving eyes a person could get lost in regardless of age. Pale skin makes her look sick and/or dead, and most people who cannot keep their opinions to themselves suggest she should get outside more.

If you could describe Morrigan’s parenting style, she’s rather progressive in her parenting values, much to the chagrin of some of her contemporaries. The notion of spanking or timeouts has never appealed to her. Rather, sitting her daughter, Noir, down and explaining better ways to conduct herself has always been her parenting style. Luckily for her, the woman has the patience of a saint and seemingly never loses her temper due to an exemplary ability to bite her own tongue.

Unluckily for Morrigan, she suffers from a shortcoming all parents suffer from: she has no idea what she’s doing, but, as a parent, she is tasked with doing it anyway. 

This is a shortcoming every parent encounters at one point or another in their parenting journey, whether their parenting style can be described as military-esque or hippie-like.

Morrigan’s shortcoming is undoubtedly what enabled events to start unfolding on October 25th, 1997.

Leading up to this auspicious date, Morrigan decided to move her and her daughter from Frostmoore to Wrathridge. These are no doubt locations you are unfamiliar with, so allow me to explain them.

Frostmoore is a large city and, like most large cities, is a hotbed for various crimes and illegal activities. The air smells. The homes are small and difficult to afford. The only true benefit of Morrigan living in Frostmoore is the fact that her mother, Annabelle Whitrock, lives there — and she was not pleased to hear her daughter was moving to Wrathridge.

Wrathridge is a smaller city which, for all intents and purposes, serves as a suburb of Frostmoore. Anyone who lives there talks about the affordable housing options but knows that the low prices are because no one chooses to live in Wrathridge. Seemingly in a perpetual state of about-to-rain, the black clouds in the sky never abate, leaving this small town feeling exceptionally dreary. While less overall crime, Wrathridge has one area where they beat out Frostmoore: missing children.

Well, what’s a single mother supposed to do? Morrigan’s first mistake was moving to Wrathridge because the affordability gave her the opportunity to live in a large house in a beautiful (albeit dreary) suburb.

Morrigan’s second mistake was how she handled her daughter’s bullying. Don’t get me wrong — she did what any calm and reasonable parent might do in this situation.

When her daughter, Noir, came home from nursery and complained that all the kids were teasing her and that she had no friends, Morrigan got to work finding ways to help fix the problem for her daughter.

Morrigan phoned Ms. DeVille, her daughter’s teacher, to work out an action plan to educate the other students on the harms of bullying and teasing. There were also plans created so that Noir could catch up to her peers socially and with reading. Yes, Noir doesn’t know her alphabet, and she certainly can’t read. Not even a little.

Take note of that — it’s important.

After speaking with Noir’s teacher, Morrigan phoned some of the other parents to let them know what was happening. The parents apologized profusely and then went back to their days.

Lastly, Morrigan worked with Noir to help her develop strategies for handling the other kids in her class. How could she interact in this situation, standing up to herself without violence? Morrigan worked with Noir to help her create a plan of action.

And, when it was all finished, Noir looked happy and satisfied. This approach empowered her to be the best version of herself regardless of what her classmates did.

Truly, and I want to express this, I sincerely believe Morrigan did everything she possibly could given the situation.

That does not mean it was enough.

To be fair, it might have been enough if Noir had never met Thorn.

But, because Noir did, Morrigan’s efforts to help Noir only created the groundwork for Thorn’s teachings to grab hold of Noir’s little mind.

Working to Live

Iknow, I know, when describing Morrigan I should have mentioned what she did for work. Defining a woman as a single mother can be reductive in this era of feminist revolutions.

However, and I cannot express this enough, Morrigan did not care about her work. She did not care about her job. And, what’s more, she did not have a career and had limited skills she could profit off of.

For Morrigan, we will mention her career choice very little. Other women will get it mentioned more, don’t worry.

For now, the only thing you have to know is that Morrigan worked on October 25th, 1997 — and she was incredibly bored. It was the kind of boredom that lulls you to sleep emotionally, which is very jarring to come out of.

Morrigan worked from home selling encyclopedias. She had a list of people she should phone. As she worked her way down the list, she would highlight the names of people she had phoned while taking little notes on whether they had purchased one, hung up, or requested that she phone back.

It was an honest day’s work, and it paid enough to support the house she had purchased for her and Noir. Morrigan’s office was on the second floor, next to her bedroom.

Her morning shift was repetitive. Every phone call, she gave the exact same spiel:

Have you ever wanted to share a big idea? One that could change the world — maybe even save lives. But you don’t quite have the words. They’re on the tip of your tongue, but you can’t articulate them. Without the right words, anything you say falls flat. If this is you, you could really use a brand new world encyclopedia and, lucky for you, we’ve got the entire set on sale for the low price of —

At that point, many people hung up.

The encyclopedias were expensive, and few people were truly interested.

Morrigan worked selling them and was given a complimentary set of the first few volumes.

She opened them a total of two times over the five-month period she worked for the company.

As she usually did, Morrigan talked to her mother, Annabelle, during their lunch breaks. Eating a sandwich, Morrigan would listen to her mother talking about her latest case. Occasionally, her partner, Detective Leon, would cut in to say hello.

On the other end, her mother would be in a crowded break room, sometimes out in public, and often needed to speak loudly so Morrigan could understand what she was saying.

This fact didn’t make her conversation with her mother more pleasant.

"Again, I’m here in Frostmoore, her mother practically shouted. I can help support you and Noir. Just please consider moving back. It would be better for both of you."

Morrigan bit her tongue and used a technique she had learned back when she was a child and having conversations with her mother: she forced a smile so she would sound happy when she spoke, took a deep breath, and answered cordially: Noir and I are happy here in Wrathridge. If you wanted, you could come to visit, or Noir could stay over during winter break.

Don’t do that thing you do with the smile and heavy sigh, her mother said, I can hear it over the phone.

Her mother always knew when Morrigan was doing that little trick, and it always annoyed her. Still, Morrigan grew up learning she had to be the rational one: the trick was annoying, but at least it didn’t escalate the situation. Mom, Morrigan said, Noir and I are staying in Wrathridge. I don’t like these conversations.

Okay, Annabelle said.

I love you, Morrigan said. Noir is excited to see you. I’ve already told her about going over for winter vacation.

I’m excited to see her as well, Annabelle said. But I might see her sooner than that.

She would love that, Morrigan said. You’re always welcome to visit.

Love you.

Love you, too. Say hello to Leon for me.

You can say it to her yourself, Annabelle said.

On her end, Morrigan heard Annabelle passing the phone over to talk to her partner, Detective Leon.

Hey, Morrigan, Leon said over the phone. Your mom’s really worried about you.

Morrigan knew Leon would say something like that. Though she had never said it out loud, there was always a part of her that felt Leon was the daughter Annabelle had always wanted. Morrigan and Leon were about the same age, though Leon had been so inspired by Annabelle that she decided to become a detective herself. Conversely, Morrigan wanted a simple life with her daughter, which always made her mother treat her as if she