Chapter 3 The Bargain

His name was Ash.

That's what he told her, anyway. Just Ash-no last name, no past, no explanation. He appeared out of nowhere and never truly left. Evelyn couldn't say when he started following her, only that one day she looked over her shoulder, and he was there. Leaning against a tree. Watching. Waiting.

He didn't go to school. Didn't live in town. As far as anyone else was concerned, he didn't exist. The townsfolk passed right through him like mist. Her parents never noticed the footprints beside hers in the mud. Even the doctor-when Ash stood silently in the hospital hallway-walked by without a flicker of awareness.

"I'm a tether," he told her one evening, as they sat beneath the old sycamore tree at the edge of the forest. "You came back because something down there made a deal. You're its promise. I'm its shadow."

Evelyn stared at him, trying to piece together words that didn't fit into her world. "A tether to what?"

"To the Hollow," Ash said. "To what lives beneath it."

She didn't understand. Not fully. But Ash stayed close-always near, always watching. He never tried to touch her, but his presence pulled at something inside her like gravity. He spoke in riddles, half-truths, and warnings, guiding her with whispers only she could hear. Back into the woods. Back toward the place where her memory ended.

That's when the dreams began.

Every night, Evelyn returned. To the Hollow.

In sleep, the trees were taller, older, twisted with veins of black bark. The ground pulsed beneath her feet, and the air shimmered with whispers. The Hollow wasn't just a place. It was alive. A wound in the earth. A mouth that had opened long before Graven Hollow existed. Something ancient slept beneath the roots, and Evelyn-once-had belonged to it.

She would wake drenched in sweat, the sound of her name still echoing in her ears.

One night, as the wind howled through the eaves of her house and moonlight painted the walls silver, Ash appeared at her bedside. He didn't speak at first. Just sat there, his expression unreadable, eyes darker than night.

Then, gently, he took her wrist and traced the faint scars with a finger cold as stone.

"You died," he whispered. "But the Hollow refused to let go. It kept your soul. It wove it into the roots. And now... it's waking up."

Evelyn trembled, her voice barely a breath. "Why me?"

Ash met her eyes, something ancient flickering in his gaze-something she almost recognized.

"Because you're not just anyone," he said. "You're the last Blackthorne. And your blood is the key."

Thunder cracked in the distance, and Evelyn felt the ground shift beneath her bed, deep and slow.

The Hollow was stirring.

And it wanted her back.