The Hollow Beneath the Bell

When folklorist Elena Vass travels to the remote Finnish village of Salka Mound to record the legend of a bell lost beneath a drowned church, she expects folklore, not faith. The villagers have other plans. They speak of a bell that, once rung, calls the drowned congregation back to the shore to claim the living, and they have kept the lake undisturbed for generations. When the church's old record-keeper, Old Maarit, leaves Elena a ledger of vanished names, and a young girl, Anni, slips beneath the water without a sound, the legend stops being a story. Guided by the reluctant Marek Toivonen and shadowed by the apparitions of Father Lauri, a priest whose rise was never completed, Elena realizes the drowned are already gathering, and the bell has begun to toll in dreams. To save Anni, and perhaps the village, she must decide whether to answer the lake or let its silence hold. Some doors, once opened, do not close, and the water in Salka Mound has learned to be patient.