The Hollowing Season

When Maren Calloway arrives at the decaying farmhouse on Hollow Creek Road, the hearse is already gone and no one has thought to wait for her. The town has closed ranks around her grandmother Eleanor's death the way it always closed ranks around its secrets, silently, completely, with eyes that slide away when she asks questions. But Eleanor Vance left more than a will. Tucked inside a locked cabinet, Maren finds decades of cassette tapes and a journal in handwriting that isn't her grandmother's, detailing conversations with a presence that calls itself Caspian, a boy who lived beneath the house, who remembers being real, and who is very much no longer a boy. Each tape Maren plays draws him closer. Each entry she reads lets him further into her mind. Reverend Dodd urges her to leave town. Theo Marsh warns her not to trust the recordings. The dog, Sable, refuses to enter the house. And somewhere in the walls, something is listening, waiting, and beginning to dissolve the barrier between the dead and the living. As the hollowing season deepens and Eleanor's spirit flickers at the edge of hearing, Maren must decide whether to burn the tapes and run, or finish what her grandmother started and risk becoming the next voice trapped in the dark.