The Alexandria Strand Disappearances
Maren Calloway hasn't set foot on Ridgewater Lane in eleven years, but when a letter arrives from a place she barely remembers, she knows she has to go back. The Vermont cabin is exactly as her aunt described in decades of postcards, birch trunks crowding the shoulders, fog pressing low against the hills, and a silence that feels curated. But the neighbors she left behind are gone. Not dead. Gone. And in their kitchens, their jobs, their beds, sit replacements no one seems willing to question. Maren's return draws the attention of Declan Hargrove, an old friend whose grief has calcified into something sharper, and Petra Voss, a researcher convinced the vanishings follow a pattern buried in the county's forgotten records. Local journalist Howard Pell wants the story. So does the Replacement woman, whose interest in Maren borders on devotion. As the autumn woods close in, Maren must decide how far she'll follow the strand of evidence her aunt left behind, and whether solving the mystery is worth the risk of becoming the next name on a list that never stops growing.