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 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 pried the lid open. The coffin was empty except for a small bell, blacker than the rest, with her own name etched on the rim. The voice rose from the empty box. "Ring it," it said, "and you take my place keeping the dead. Refuse, and you join them. Choose, Bellkeeper."

Maren picked up the black bell and rang it once. The sound went through her like cold water, and she understood everything the dead understood. She would never age, never leave, never sleep. But the bells were hers now, fully hers, and no voice would ever order her around again. She had become the keeper of the line between living and dead.