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 read the page by lantern light. It described tonight in perfect detail: the early bell, her shaking hands, even the lantern she held. The last line said, "She will dig up grave 601 before dawn, or the bells stop ringing for good." She had only six hundred graves. There was no 601. Not yet.

Instead of digging, Maren flipped to the very front of the casebook and read her first entry, written when she was young. The name of her first-ever ringing had been scratched out. Under the scratch, faint, was tonight's handwriting. She had met this writer before, long ago, and made a promise she could no longer remember.