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 stalled. "If I bury you, who teaches the next keeper?" The voice paused, surprised. "No one has ever asked me that." She pressed on. "Stay unburied, and I'll train someone to take the bells the proper way." After a long silence the voice said, slowly, "You would keep me from rest to save the work? Cruel girl. I accept."

Maren chose a steady young gravedigger named Tomas and taught him the bells over one long winter. On the last night she handed him the casebook. "Never answer a bell you didn't ring," she warned. He nodded, not understanding yet. She left at dawn, free, and behind her a single iron note rolled across the frost. It had already begun for him.