12. Birdy

Six months earlier, a young Sergeant Carter visits Spyglass and tells Olivia “Birdy” Bird that “Olivia Bird is dead.” Birdy explains the deceased was her grandmother and proves her own identity with a driver’s license, while noting Carter’s inexperience.

Before he leaves, Birdy asks about her grandmother. Carter describes a secretive, long-time resident with a live-in carer, rarely seen and known more by reputation than by relationships. When Birdy presses whether the grandmother was good, Carter admits he never met her and that she shut the world out.

Birdy questions the circumstances of death. Carter reveals the carer was on holiday at the grandmother’s insistence, and that he found the body after receiving a letter from her predicting the exact day of her death and instructing him to enter by the unlocked back door. The coroner ruled natural causes; she was found in her library, asleep with reading glasses on and Frankenstein in her lap.

Birdy challenges the plausibility, wondering about suicide, but Carter repeats the official finding. As he offers condolences, Birdy reflects on the difference between loss and feeling lost after her mother’s death.

When Birdy asks about village stories, Carter shares the enduring legend: her grandmother was known in Hope Falls as the woman who died twice.