Tue, Sep 8th — Meanwhile
Bernard Moran arrives in Kildown with his mother. They drive up in their car with U-Haul trailer in tow to a large Dutch colonial. The facade is worse for wear; worn out paint, rotting boards, piles of leaves from last autumn. Mrs Moran assures that it just needs a little TLC. Inside is in better condition, but it's evident no one has lived here for some time.
Bernard goes looking for his room. All of the rooms look similar. Then he comes to one room, the wall spray painted with the simple V-shapes of birds in flight. His mother comes in and instantly assumes Bernard had started his tagging.
Bernard then explores the rest of the house. He goes down to the kitchen to the door to the cellar. He opens it and turns on the only light at the top of the stairs. At the bottom, fading into darkness is a dirt floor and stone foundation walls. He proceeds down into the darkness, following the wall. He finds a pile of crates and burlap sacks. They're old and musty, but Bernard dares not open them.
He then goes up to the attic. The stairs continue right up to the trap door in the ceiling. With a heave, he creaks it open only to be met with the sound of flapping wings and black feathers. When he gets a view, a murder of crows have already flown out of the loft.
He finds a big wardrobe with mirrors on the doors. He opens it, but as he does, he catches a glimpse of something in the mirror, something like hair floating in water. But when he turns around nothing's there. Looking in the wardrobe he finds some old moth-eaten clothes. He goes to find his mom and tries to convince, against her updated taste, that she should wear the clothes.
Bernard goes down the street to Ennismore marina. He sees the boat going to Dog Island. Then he hears chatter under the boardwalk. He creepily peeks, and tries to listen in but didn't know what they're talking about.
He continues up to Skae's Corners and finds the arcade, but it's mostly empty. The arcade is mostly filled with old game cabinets, but the attendant assures new cabinets will be coming tomorrow. Bernard exchanges his loose nickles and dimes for some quarters and plays for a couple hours. And doesn't notice another patron enter.
Wed, Sep 9th — First Day
All the kids wake up and go to school for the first day of the year.
Billie arrives and sees Alana. He apologises right away, but she promptly slaps him in front of her friend and they both scold him.
Brent and Josh also arrive. But they see the Sheriff in front of the sheriff's office down the street with the feather-haired man and his Corvette. They shake hands and the man drives off.
The Sheriff sees them and waves them over. He tells them he knew that they were really the ones who stole the car. But he's not going to charge them if they keep quiet to protect the mayor's daughter. He's got his eyes on them now.
The bell rings and students go to their classes. A large, broad man enters the classroom. In a soft voice he introduces himself as Mr. Tuk. They take first attendance and start lessons.
Lunchtime everyone goes to the cafeteria. Brent, Billie, and Josh find their seats fine. But Bernard, having missed the orientation sits in the last unoccupied table away from his classmates.
A group of older males stand over him, telling the junior he's sitting at their table. Bernard refuses to budge. One of the guys picks him up by the shirt, but Bernard right away punches him. He proceeds to make kicks and flips on to the table, only to be knocked off when the guys tip it over.
The other three kids join in the fight. And they land some lucky hits before running out of the cafeteria.
They run through the halls and Billie leads them to hide in the music room. However, the school custodian is mopping the floor and they all slip and slide into him.
The custodian scolds them for running in the halls, but lets them into the room if they would play him some nice music.
Bernard tries rapping to the disdain of a country music lover, but Billie sooths with his trumpet skills. They tell about each other, the custodian introduces himself as Unknown.
The gang of seniors arrive outside. Deuce tells them to meet after school. They reluctantly agree and leave.
Billie goes to his older sister, Sam, and asks her to get those guys off of their backs. After being charmed and cheating Billie with her chores, she agrees to help.
Back in class for afternoon lessons, Mr. Tuk sends the class to the gym, but keeps Brent, Billie, Josh, and punk boy Reiji behind.
He confronts them about a statue that was stolen from his desk just the day before. And they were the only ones in the room that day. All four deny stealing, and the three strongly defend themselves.
Mr. Tuk gives them the ultimatum to return the statue to the desk before the end of the day.
They all then rejoin their classmates in the gym, which is the cafeteria that they have to clear the chairs and tables in order to play. The girls set up for badminton and the boys split up into teams for basketball.
The end of the day comes and the four suspects look at each other and the desk with still no statue on it, but then all leave.
They go get their bikes and are met by their classmate, Unknown. He warns them that the seniors are waiting for them the way they are planning on going. They largely rebuff him, accusing of being in league with the seniors, and continuing to the trailer park.
Not far from the school, they hear a rev of a car engine from behind them. They look back to see a beaten up 70's Oldsmobile is charging straight at them.
They pull off the road into the ditch, narrowly missing Billie while the car screams past followed by jeering laughter.
The group decides to follow behind the treeline to get to the trailer park. They drop off Josh's dad's bike and head to go up the Down.
At the foot of the mountain, their meet by a similar cliff face. But after some searching, they find a path up to the top.
By dusk, after some intense hiking they reach the top. They find the Kilhorn, the alleged magical rock. They look at the carvings over the surface and can tell it depicts some sort of scene, but the figures seem abstract to them.
Then they hear a cacophony of cawing coming from the trees. They notice every pine tree encircling the rock is filled with murders of crows — murders and murders of crows...