Maren had rung the hollow bells over six hundred graves. Each toll dragged a dead soul up just long enough for one last word. She'd done it so long it bored her. But tonight the bell rang before she touched the rope. One cold iron note rolled across the frozen yard. She opened her casebook to write it down, and the page was already full, in handwriting that was not hers.

Maren slammed the casebook shut and marched to the bell tower to find the prankster. But the rope hung still, gathering frost, and no footprints marked the snow but her own. The iron note still hummed in the air. Then a voice came up from under the ground, polite and patient. "Thank you for finally listening, Bellkeeper."

Maren knelt by the spot the voice came from. "Who are you?" she asked. "I am the one who taught you to ring the bells," it said. "Long ago you promised me a single grave in return. You owe me a burial, Maren. Mine. And the bell will not rest until you give it."

Maren agreed to dig. "One grave," she said. "That's the debt, and then we're done." The voice was quiet a moment. "Done," it agreed. So she dug all night, and at dawn she laid the strange black coffin to rest and rang its bell once. The debt closed. The bells, at last, fell silent for good, and her gift went silent with them.