HARLAN’S CREEK / NEW YORK / WICKLOW / WESTCHESTER — There are weeks, in this work, that arrive with a single clear story at their centre. A creature. A location. A specific and documentable event that can be filed, archived, and returned to when the pattern becomes legible. This was not one of those weeks. This was a week of adjacency — of seventeen separate situations that do not, individually, demand alarm, but which, when placed in sequence and read as a body of evidence, suggest that the relationship between ordinary civic life and whatever exists alongside it has become closer than previously reported. I am reporting it.
We begin, structurally, with the Pembrook Building. Evelyn Crowe’s assessment that the entity in the east stairwell has been load-bearing since 1887 is the kind of claim this network takes seriously, because we have covered enough buildings to know that some of them are held together by things that do not appear on engineering schematics. The relevant question — which Crowe raises and responsibly does not answer — is what happens to the structure if the situation changes. We will continue to monitor this. We do not recommend using the east stairwell in the meantime. We do not recommend avoiding it either. We recommend awareness.
At the same address on the calendar, Budi and Sari Wulandari of — we are not specifying location at the family’s request — have each told other people what they saw in their garden on Tuesday. They have not told each other. This network has covered the phenomenon of parallel non-disclosure before. It is more common than the public appreciates. The garden is, at time of filing, undisturbed. The Wulandaris are, by all accounts, fine. The question of what they each know and have chosen not to share is theirs alone. We note it for the record.
The week also produced guidance. Mara Vane’s piece on handling a second meeting request from Men in Black fills a gap in our coverage that I had not anticipated needing to fill. I had anticipated it by 2022. The piece is practical. I recommend it to anyone who has received the relevant communication and is uncertain how to proceed. The key detail, which Vane identifies correctly, is that the follow-up meeting is not optional in the way the first meeting was optional. Her framing of this distinction is clear and does not editorialize. I consider it a service to the readership.
Penny Hart’s reporting on the Wicklow Parish Council’s changeling indicators ran the same morning and has generated more correspondence than anything this network has published in the current quarter. Several readers have written to dispute the coffee criterion. Several others have written to confirm it. I am not in a position to adjudicate. The Parish Council’s methodology is their own. I will say that the eighth indicator — the one Hart notes the Council listed and then redacted before publication — was brought to my attention by three separate sources, all of whom described it the same way. We will not be publishing it. We are considering it.
The Reptilian at the Calumet County zoning board — confirmed, identified as not Dave, and responsible for three variance approvals that passed with quorum — is a matter of local governance record. The variances stand. The relevant county solicitor has confirmed that no statute currently addresses the question of whether a vote cast by an entity of uncertain biological classification is procedurally valid. The solicitor described the legal landscape as, quote, developing. We will follow it.
My own reporting this week covered two matters. The first: the Headless Horseman route documentation on Route 9 in Westchester County, submitted formally, professionally, and repaved over the following morning. The Westchester Transit Authority has not responded. The hoofprints are gone. The petition is not. I consider this the appropriate note to leave it on. The second: the Sycamore Ridge HOA situation, which continued into Sunday with the decorative boulder relocated a seventh time and the governing documents still silent on the question of poltergeist activity on common property. The HOA has voted to table the matter until October’s regular meeting. The boulder was back this morning. These two facts are noted in the order they occurred.
Evelyn Crowe returned on Sunday with a reflection on the shapeshifter who attended her book club for six weeks and contributed, by her account, meaningfully to the discussion of at least four texts before the group voted to ask it to leave. I read her piece carefully. Her argument — that the entity’s exit was handled correctly, even if the reasoning was imperfect — is not one I will assess in this space. What I will note is that the entity’s written remarks, submitted for the final meeting it did not attend, were, by the account of two members, better than the book. The book has not been named. I have my suspicions.
Finally: Margaret Osei of Cedar Bluff, retired librarian, has left her porch light on for the Nordics since the August visitation and has told eight witnesses, two journalists, and one county official that she will continue to do so. She has placed a casserole on the step. She has strong views on hospitality that she did not moderate for our cameras and I did not ask her to. I am not in a position to tell Margaret Osei that her guests will return. I am not in a position to tell her they will not.
This was a week of thresholds — buildings holding on, couples not speaking, councils drawing up lists, boroughs repaving evidence, HOAs finding the limits of their documents, and one woman keeping a light on in case it matters. I have filed all of it. I will be here next week.
This is Hal Ridgeway. Authorities continue to urge caution. Reporting continues.
