The Hollow Bell

Dawn mist rises off the creek and pools in the dips of the old road when Silas Croft begins his daily walk through the hollow, the same route his boots have traced for forty years. But this morning, the briar at the creek's edge holds something it was never meant to give up: a body, and a memory of a bell that hasn't rung in living memory. As suspicion settles over the hollow's quiet residents, Silas is drawn into an investigation the sheriff would rather leave cold, and neighbors begin watching one another through drawn curtains. Old loyalties resurface, old debts come due, and Silas must decide how much of his own buried past he is willing to unearth to find the truth. With Edgar Pruitt's measured silences, Della Meeks's knowing glances, and Wren Calloway's questions that cut too close, the hollow is no longer the quiet place it pretended to be. The bell has rung, and what it has woken will not rest until someone answers for what lies beneath the briar.