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.

Maren refused to dig a grave that shouldn't exist. She set the casebook down and walked toward the gate to fetch the village priest. But every grave she passed had its hollow bell ringing softly now, all six hundred at once, and the gate ahead would not open no matter how hard she pulled.

Maren turned from the locked gate and faced the ringing yard. "Fine. No priest. Just you and me." The bells quieted to a single toll near the far corner, pointing the way like a finger. She walked to it, spade in hand, and dug the grave the page had promised. By dawn she laid the debt to rest, and for the first time the gate swung open under her hand.