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 laughed, sharp and scared. "I bury the dead. I don't take orders from them." The polite voice sighed. "You misunderstand. I am not dead. I am the thing that makes your bells work. Stop feeding me names, and I will stop. But then so will they."

Maren wasn't ready to lose the gift. "What do you want to keep it going?" she asked. "A name a year," the voice said. "Living, not dead. One person who won't be missed." She thought of the power, and of all the dead she could still help. Then she thought of who she would have to hand over. The price was a living life, and she had to decide.