The Debt of Hollow Bells
fantasy◐ MatureMaren took her spade to the far corner where no grave had ever been dug. The frozen ground gave way far too easily, like it had been waiting. Two feet down, her spade struck wood. A coffin lid nobody had buried. Carved into it was a single word: HERS.
Maren refused to touch the coffin. She climbed out and started filling the hole back in, spadeful by spadeful. But the dirt would not stay down. Every clod she threw in floated back up and settled on the yard's edge, until the grave sat open and patient, waiting for her to climb back in.
What happens next?
1 ways forwardMaren dropped the spade and stepped away from the patient grave. "I won't climb in, and I won't fill it. So we're stuck." The voice considered this. "Then we wait," it said, "as long as it takes." And so they did, the keeper and the open grave, neither one giving in, while the snow fell and the years turned and the village slowly forgot her name.