Hill-Billie Greentexts

THE PITCH

Welcome to Cowpie County, where every Tuesday brings a new cryptid sighting and every Friday brings another unexplained disappearance. Billie, our unassuming mud-controlling heroine, thought her biggest problem was keeping her pet possum, Dixi, out of Dixie. But things get a whole lot muddier when Grace, a perpetually bewildered city girl, is unceremoniously dumped at their eccentric aunt's dilapidated cabin, just a stone's throw from Billie's family home.

Grace Danson, whose closest encounter with nature has been a rogue pigeon, finds the holler's charming peculiarities quickly escalating into full-blown supernatural chaos. From sentient scarecrows demanding pie to a Bigfoot that only communicates through interpretive dance, strange events start terrorizing the small town. Billie realizes her unusual "muck-bending" powers might be the only thing standing between her community and total absurdity, and to her surprise, the cynical city Girl's unexpected observations sometimes offer a bizarre kind of clarity.

With the help of Billie's skeptical but ultimately supportive New friend, Grace's attempts to Wi-Fi connect with the local flora, and a local radio show host obsessed with alien abductions, the unlikely duo navigates a world filled with genuine supernatural threats and laugh-out-loud absurdities. They'll try to uncover who (or what) is behind Cowpie County's never-ending parade of peculiar problems, all while trying to keep Billie's mud-bending a secret and maybe, just maybe, showing the city kid that there's more to life than high-speed internet.

Prologue

The ancient, clunky car coughed its last wheeze outside what her aunt optimistically called a "cabin." Grace Danson stared out the window, past the dust-caked glass, at the veritable wall of trees.
Not the manicured, friendly trees of Central Park, but gnarled, shadowy things that whispered of forgotten things. Cowpie County. The name itself was an insult.
Her phone, a lifeline barely clutching onto a single bar, felt like a dead weight.
No Wi-Fi, no cafes, just... dirt. And trees. And the smell of something faintly resembling damp dog and wild mint.
This was going to be the longest summer of her life.
Unpacking was a blur of grumbling and tossing designer luggage onto creaking floorboards.
The cabin was exactly as advertised: rustic. Which, in Grace's dictionary, meant "actively trying to repel human comfort." By noon, the sheer, crushing boredom had set in.
She'd scrolled through her phone until her thumbs ached, tried to read a book, and even considered doing jumping jacks. Anything.
"Fine," she muttered, kicking open the protesting screen door. "I'll explore your stupid forest, Cowpie County. See what thrilling adventures a girl can have in the sticks."
She followed a barely-there path, the air growing thick and humid.
The silence was unnerving, broken only by chirping insects she couldn't identify. Then, from somewhere just beyond a particularly dense cluster of thorny bushes, she heard it.
A rapid, rhythmic thwack-thwack-thwack, followed by a series of high-pitched, almost squealing giggles. It sounded… feral. And close.
Hesitantly, Grace pushed aside a low-hanging branch. Her eyes, accustomed to the artificial glow of screens, struggled to adjust to the dappled light. And then she saw it.
A small, wiry figure, no taller than a ten-year-old, darting between trees.
It had wild, brown hair and was moving with an unnatural speed, kicking at something unseen on the ground.
A flash of muddy overalls.
A gremlin. Her mind screamed the word.
It looked like a child, but it moved like something out of a horror movie. Grace blinked, rubbed her eyes.
"Must be the heat," she whispered, shaking her head. But the thwack-thwack-thwack continued, moving away from her, deeper into the woods.
Curiosity, a dangerous thing in the wilderness, tugged at her.
She followed, carefully, trying not to snap twigs. The sounds led her to an opening in the trees, revealing a sight that made her stomach churn.
A farm. Or what passed for one.
And it was a sea of glistening, sucking, brown mud. Everywhere. Her pristine white sneakers, a beacon of urban defiance, seemed to mock her.
She hesitated, her nose wrinkling in disgust. Mud.
Oh, she hated mud. But the sounds had stopped at the edge of this mucky expanse, and she swore she'd seen that "gremlin" disappear into it.
Taking a deep, fortifying breath that smelled vaguely of manure, Grace gingerly stepped into the mire. Her foot sank. "Ugh!" she groaned, trying to pull it out. It came with a sickening squelch.
"This is disgusting. This is just… so utterly disgusting. I hate mud. I hate dirt. I hate everything about this place," she muttered, each squelch of her shoes into the viscous earth punctuating her misery.
"Well now, what in the ever-lovin' tarnation are ya doin' trampin' 'round my family's front yard, lookin' all flustered like a possum caught in a corn crib? Ain't never seen a body so outta place, bless your little city heart."
Grace froze. The voice was unmistakably female, young, but with a twang so thick it could spread butter. She slowly turned, mud clinging to her shoes, and her eyes widened.
Standing just a few feet away, caked in mud from her bare feet to her elbows, was a girl who looked like she’d just wrestled a pig in a swamp.
She had a wide, disarming smile, a missing upper front tooth that made her grin look almost predatory, and in her arms, a very real, very unimpressed possum.
Billie. Her eyes, startlingly bright, held an unnerving mix of innocence and something far older, something that saw right through Grace's city-girl facade.
Grace stood there, rooted to the spot, a bizarre blend of confusion and genuine fear gripping her.

The Hillbilly and the City Girl

The next few days were a blur of restless boredom, punctuated by the lingering memory of that unsettling first encounter.
Then the dreams started.
Grace stood in a blinding white room.
Her parents, their faces stern and unyielding, loomed over her.
"Grace," her mother began, her voice echoing unnaturally, "we've decided. You're moving with Aunt Ellie. To Cowpie County. Permanently."
"No! No, you can't!" Grace screamed, her voice cracking with terror.
"Please, no! Take me back to the city! My friends! My life!" She shook her head violently, tears blurring her vision.
Then, from the corner of the blinding room, a familiar, gap-toothed grin emerged from the shadows.
Billie. Mud caked her bare feet and hands, just as Grace had last seen her.
"Yup, that's right, city slicker," Billie drawled, stepping closer, her smile widening.
"This here's your new life. You're stuck with me now. You're one of us."
"NO!" Grace shrieked, recoiling.
Billie chuckled, a low, guttural sound, and thrust something into Grace's hands. A small, cloudy mirror.
Grace stared at her reflection, and her blood ran cold.
Staring back was not the Grace she knew.
Her hair was wild and unkempt, a crooked, gap-toothed smile stretched across her face, and her pristine city clothes were replaced by muddy overalls.
She was a hillbilly. A wave of pure horror washed over her.
"No! No, no, no!" she screamed, the mirror falling from her trembling hands as she stumbled backward.
Grace shot upright in bed, drenched in sweat, her heart hammering against her ribs.
The nightmare clung to her like a shroud. She scrambled out of bed, tripping over her tangled sheets, and rushed to the small, chipped mirror in the bathroom.
Her fingers flew to her teeth, then frantically patted her hair and felt her face.
A sigh of immense relief escaped her lips.
Her teeth were straight, her hair (though still a little messy from sleep) was its usual, slightly frizzy self, and her skin was clear.
The city girl Grace was still there.
Just then, a warm, lilting voice drifted up from downstairs.
"Grace, honey-child! Breakfas' is on the table, if you're ever gonna come on down!" It was Aunt Ellie.
Still slightly shaken, Grace made her way downstairs.
The cabin, which looked so dilapidated and forgotten from the outside, was surprisingly cozy and vibrant within.
Cheerful floral patterns adorned the curtains, hand-carved wooden figures sat on shelves, and stacks of old, rolled-up maps—topographical maps, nautical charts, even what looked like antique star charts—were crammed into every nook and cranny.
Aunt Ellie, Grace had learned, had a peculiar obsession with collecting them, a fascination Grace wisely chose not to inquire about.
She found Aunt Ellie, a woman with kind eyes and hair the color of spun moonlight, perched at the worn kitchen table, engrossed in an ancient, leather-bound book.
A plate piled high with fluffy biscuits and what smelled suspiciously like bacon awaited her.
"Mornin', Aunt Ellie," Grace managed, sliding into a chair. "Thanks for breakfast."
"You're mighty welcome, darlin'," Aunt Ellie replied, her voice a comforting Southern cadence, not looking up from her book.
"Sleep well? Make any new friends yet?"
Grace hesitated, thinking of Billie's unsettling smile and mud-caked appearance.
"Uh, no. Not really," she mumbled, picking at a biscuit.
Aunt Ellie finally looked up, her expression softening.
"Aw, well, don't you fret none, sweetie pie. It takes time to get settled in a new place. You'll feel right at home 'fore you know it."
The words sent a fresh shiver down Grace's spine.
'Right at home'? The idea of being "at home" in this forsaken place, surrounded by weird, muddy people like Billie, filled her with a new dread.
She opened her mouth to protest, to beg for a return ticket to civilization.
But before she could utter a word, Aunt Ellie reached under the table and pulled out a large, intricately cut wooden box.
"Well, if you ain't found no playmates yet, we can have our own fun," she said, her voice bright and motherly.
"How 'bout we tackle this here jigsaw puzzle after you finish up? It's a real doozy."
Grace just nodded, forcing down the rest of her breakfast.
Aunt Ellie's expression, however, shifted subtly.
Her eyes, which had been so warm, now held a glint of something unreadable, her tone dropping to a low, ominous murmur.
"You just be careful out there, Grace. Cowpie County… it ain't quite what it looks like." She watched Grace, a faint, knowing chuckle escaping her lips.
"But don't you worry your pretty little head 'bout it. Just try talkin' to that girl who lives yonder, on the other side of the creek. That Billie girl. I got a feelin' y'all are gonna be real good friends."
Grace swallowed, her fork clattering against the plate.
She didn't dare tell Aunt Ellie that she had met Billie, and that she'd essentially bolted in pure terror, convinced the mud-covered girl was about to, well, do something. Kill her? Turn her into a mud-person? Her mind reeled with ridiculous scenarios.
Best to keep that little detail to herself.
Breakfast over, Grace mumbled an excuse about needing some fresh air and retreated to the dubious sanctuary of her room.
She stared out the window, watching a particularly plump cardinal peck at something in the overgrown bushes.
Small, furry creatures darted through the undergrowth, their movements too quick to fully discern.
"Cowpie County... it ain't quite what it looks like," she muttered, mimicking Aunt Ellie's chilling tone. What did that even mean? Was it just country-folk superstition? Or was there something genuinely unsettling lurking beneath the surface of this ridiculously named place? The thought made a cold knot form in her stomach.
Just then, a flicker of movement caught her eye again.
There it was. The same brown-haired figure, darting through the trees at the edge of the forest.
This time, it wasn't just running; it was stretching, its limbs extending in ways that looked… impossible for a human. And it was holding something, a long, thin object, glinting faintly in the morning sun.
"A goblin?" Her mind whispered the word, even as logic screamed animal.
"But what animal? One that could stretch like rubber and wield a... what was that? A stick? A tool?" The debate raged in her head: ignore it, or investigate? The sensible Grace argued for safety. The bored, trapped Grace argued for anything that wasn't boredom.
"Grace, darlin'! Come on down, I found that old map of the Cowpie Caves I wanted to show you!" Aunt Ellie's voice chirped from downstairs, pulling Grace from her internal struggle.
Cowpie Caves. Maps. Lectures. The choice became clear. Chasing a mysterious, potentially mythical creature, even if it turned out to be just a strangely proportioned squirrel, had to be more interesting than a topographical sermon.
With a newfound resolve, Grace rummaged through her backpack, her fingers closing around the reassuring weight of her trusty Swiss Army knife. Its tiny, gleaming blade, compass, and various tools felt like a meager but vital shield against the unknown.
Armed with her miniature arsenal, she slipped out of the cabin, making her way towards the sounds she now faintly discerned – a series of high-pitched screeches, not entirely unlike the ones from her first encounter.
She pushed deeper into the woods, the trees growing denser, the air heavier.The ground was uneven, roots tripping her, low-hanging branches snagging her hair.
She walked for what felt like an eternity, following the fading sounds, her legs burning. Her sneakers, already sullied from the farm mud, were now covered in forest grime.
The screeches seemed to fade, replaced by the relentless buzzing of insects and the rustling of unseen things. After what felt like ages, panting and utterly exhausted, Grace stopped.
"This is ridiculous," she huffed, wiping sweat from her brow. "I'm done. I'm just going back."
She turned, looking for the path she'd taken, but the trees all looked identical. Panic began to claw at her throat.
She pulled out her phone, desperate. No signal. Zero bars. No internet. GPS was useless. Grace Danson, city girl extraordinaire, was utterly, completely, and terrifyingly lost in the Cowpie County woods.
"Oh, for the love of all that is holy and Wi-Fi enabled," Grace groaned, shoving her useless phone back into her pocket.
"You're an idiot, Grace. A colossal, goblin-chasing, wilderness-challenged idiot!" She kicked a loose stone, which barely moved in the thick undergrowth.
Her big city bravado was deflating faster than a punctured inner tube.
She tried to retrace her steps, scanning the leaf-strewn ground for the faint imprints of her expensive sneakers.
A glimmer of hope. There! A barely perceptible depression in the damp earth.
"See?" she announced to the unhearing forest, a burst of false confidence inflating her chest. "This isn't so hard. Just gotta pay attention."
Minutes later, the 'glistening hope' turned into a cold, clammy dread.
She swore she was standing in the exact same spot she'd rested moments ago.
A gnarled oak with a peculiar knot in its trunk. A cluster of unusually tall ferns. It all felt horrifyingly familiar.
She spun around, desperately searching for any landmark, any sign that she was making progress.
Nothing. Just an endless, green-brown maze.
Her legs screamed in protest. Defeated, Grace slumped onto a moss-covered rock, pulling her knees to her chest.
How long would it take for Aunt Ellie to even notice she was gone? And even if she did, with no signal, how would she call for help? The grim reality sank in: rescue wasn't coming anytime soon.
She pictured Aunt Ellie calmly working on her puzzles, oblivious, while Grace slowly withered away, becoming one with the cursed Cowpie soil.
A wave of profound loneliness washed over her.
"This is it," she whimpered, hot tears pricking at her eyes. "Lost. In this godforsaken place. With weird, dirty people and no internet. This is my life now."
Her self-pity was abruptly shattered by the distinct sound of twigs snapping, drawing closer.
Her heart gave a violent lurch, skipping an entire beat. Fear, cold and sharp, pierced through her.
She snatched up her Swiss Army knife, fumbling with the tiny blade, her hands trembling so violently she almost dropped it.
"Listen up, whatever you are!" she squeaked, her voice cracking. "I-I'm not afraid to use this! I... I have a knife! A very sharp knife!"
Through the dense foliage, a small, humanoid shape, caked in mud and festooned with stray leaves and twigs, emerged.
It was the same brown-haired, goblin-like creature. It was coming straight for her. Grace braced herself, a scream forming in her throat.
Just as she was about to let out a full-blown shriek that would surely shatter every pane of glass in Cowpie County, the creature grinned.
It wasn't a malicious grin, but wide and gap in its teeth, disturbingly familiar.
Then, with an almost comical springiness, it dropped to all fours and began to violently shake its entire body. Mud, leaves, and bits of unknown forest debris flew through the air like a grotesque confetti explosion, some of it splattering directly onto Grace's face and pristine clothes.
As the muddy cloud settled, Grace blinked, rubbing her eyes. Standing before her, no longer a 'goblin' but unmistakably a little girl, was a miniature version of Billie.
Her brown hair, now mostly free of debris, covered her eyes, and she wore a tiny, mud-stained overall. She looked almost exactly like Billie, only smaller and with an even wilder, more unhinged energy.
The little girl, now somewhat cleaner, let out a series of high-pitched, gleeful screeches, like a feral animal that had just found a particularly interesting beetle.
She then launched into a rapid-fire torrent of what could only be described as gibberish, spoken in a hyper-fast hillbilly accent that made Billie's drawl sound like a dictionary recording.
Then, without warning, she got close to Grace, nose twitching, sniffing her like a curious hound dog meeting a new scent.
She screeched again, pointed a muddy finger at herself, and enunciated, as clearly as she could manage, "NELLIE!" Then, with frantic hand gestures, she pantomimed a taller girl and then pointed from herself to that mimed figure, clearly indicating she was Billie's younger sister.
"Oh god!" Grace said, a wave of profound, comedic defeat washing over her.

Hill-Billie: The Mystery of the Night Burglar

The morning sun, filtered through the thick leaves outside her window, painted Grace's room in dappled light.
She stretched, still half-asleep, the lingering unease from her nightmares about becoming a mud-covered hillbilly fading with the dawn.
Just as she was contemplating the sheer luxury of a full eight hours of sleep without a single siren, Aunt Ellie's voice, warm and lilting as usual, drifted up from downstairs.
"Grace, honey-child! Breakfas' is on the table, if you're ever gonna come on down!"
Grace shuffled into the kitchen, still in her pajamas, rubbing sleep from her eyes.
Aunt Ellie stood by the open refrigerator, a gentle yet firm expression on her face.
"Mornin', darlin'. Now, if you ever get a hankerin' for a midnight snack, all you gotta do is ask your old auntie. No need to go makin' a mess like a coon dog in a garbage can."
Grace blinked, fully awake now. The kitchen was a mess. A half-eaten biscuit lay on the counter, crumbs scattered like tiny, edible snow, and the butter dish was askew. "What? But that wasn't me!" she exclaimed, genuinely shocked.
Aunt Ellie just chuckled, a soft, knowing sound.
"Oh, you don't gotta be embarrassed, sweet pea. We all get the munchies sometimes. Just remember, next time, you just holler. No need to sneak 'round like a fox in the hen house." She winked, clearly thinking Grace was just too shy to admit to a late-night raid.
Grace stared, utterly bewildered. It definitely wasn't her. She never ate in the middle of the night, and she certainly wouldn't leave such a chaotic trail.
Could Aunt Ellie be a sleepwalker? Did she, in her Southern-accented slumber, raid the fridge and then forget? Or, a more unsettling thought, had a wild animal somehow managed to get inside the cabin?
She shuddered. Shrugging it off as another Cowpie County peculiarity, Grace decided to document this oddity. Her diary, a sleek, leather-bound testament to her urban sensibilities, awaited her.
Meanwhile, across the creek, at the heart of the muddiest farm in Cowpie County, Billie and Nellie were already hard at work.
The sun had barely kissed the highest peaks, but the sounds of clucking chickens and grunting pigs were strangely muted.
Nellie, a whirlwind of brown hair and boundless energy, was feeding the pigs, but even they seemed off. They usually stampeded the trough like a tiny, squealing avalanche, but today they just stared, wide-eyed and twitching.
Billie, her hands already coated in a fine layer of chicken feed, was attempting to collect eggs from the coop. But the chickens… they were in a state of complete, feathery shock. They huddled in corners, clucking nervously, their eyes darting around as if a ghost had just offered them a banjo lesson. And not a single egg had been laid.
"Nellie-bug!" Billie hollered, her voice thick with that deep Appalachian drawl, "Did you go an' scare these here critters yesterday? They're all spooked up like a long-tailed cat in a room full o' rockin' chairs!"
Nellie, who had been meticulously arranging a pile of mud pies for the pigs, shook her head vigorously, a cascade of brown hair flopping over her eyes. She then pointed a tiny, mud-caked finger at Billie, then jabbed it repeatedly towards a suspicious cluster of muddy footprints near the chicken coop entrance. "You. Mud. No eggs." Her voice was quiet, a stark contrast to Billie's booming one, but her meaning was clear.
Billie's brow furrowed. "What in the tarnation are you yammerin' 'bout, Nellie? You sayin' I spooked 'em? Don't you go tryin' to pin this on me, you little mud-sprite!" She felt a flash of irritation. Nellie was always trying to blame her for somethin'.
Nellie, however, stood her ground, her small face earnest, her nose twitching as if she could smell the truth.
She pointed to the mud spots again, then mimed Billie's mud-bending powers with exaggerated hand movements, a silent, expressive demonstration. "Big mud. Chickens run."
Billie stared at the mud spots, then at her own hands, then back at the terrified chickens. A slow realization dawned on her face, like dawn breaking over a particularly stubborn mountain. Her eyes widened.
"Dag-gummit," she muttered, a sheepish grin spreading across her face, revealing her missing tooth. "Well, I'll be. You're right, ain't ya? I reckon I did get a bit carried away with that new mud-sculptin' trick last night. My bad, little sister. My bad." She ruffled Nellie's hair, a rare moment of concession.
"Now, what in the blazes spooked 'em so bad they ain't layin' no eggs?" Billie wondered aloud, looking around the suspiciously quiet farm. Her gaze drifted towards the creek, towards the cabin nestled in the trees.
"Reckon that city gal, Grace, might know somethin' 'bout this. She went to them fancy city schools and got herself a computer. She probably knows everything."