The dawn over Blackthorn Hollow was a liar.
Sunlight pooled over the hills like spilled bleach, bleaching the scars but not the rot. Eleanor sat at the edge of the woods, her back against the largest standing stone, the dagger—her dagger now—resting across her lap. The townsfolk had not approached her. They left offerings instead: wilted wildflowers, jars of preserves, a rusted locket with a faded photograph of a child. She touched none of it. The hunger gnawing her insides wasn't for food.
It had been three days.
Three days since the Door consumed Abigail. Three days since the infection in Eleanor's veins hardened into something crystalline and cold. Three days since her reflection stopped obeying the laws of light.
She stood, her bones creaking like ancient timber, and limped toward the ruins of the Harlow Inn. Martha's corpse lay in the parlor, half-buried under collapsed beams, her face frozen in a snarl. The taxidermied animals had thawed into mounds of fur and maggots. Eleanor ignored them, scavenging a moth-eaten satchel and a canteen from the wreckage. As she turned to leave, a handprint glowed faintly on the wall—Abigail's, seared into the wood like a brand.
"Still here, guardian?" the voice slithered from the shadows.
Eleanor spun, dagger raised. The air rippled, and for a heartbeat, she saw him—Caleb Blackthorn, his insectoid legs folded beneath him, his eyes a constellation of malice.
"You think it's over? The Door is patient. It's tasted your soul. It will want the rest."
She slashed the dagger through the vision. It dissolved with a hiss, leaving the smell of burnt sugar.
The general store was the only building still intact, its windows shattered but its frame stubbornly upright. Eleanor found Jeb Lowe's ledger beneath the counter, its pages filled with decades of transactions—and coded entries.
July 12, 1982: Delivered 10 lbs salt, 5 gallons kerosene to B. Hollow Church. Payment: silver coins (pre-1900).
October 31, 1995: Sold Reverend Blackthorn 3 yards black silk, 1 iron collar. Payment: "forgotten."
The last entry stopped her:
September 15, 2023: Visitor. Asked about the Stones. Gave him the Harlow directions. Payment: a name. Eleanor Voss.
The date was two weeks before she'd received the letter.
Footsteps crunched outside.
Sheriff Burke stood in the doorway, his left arm gone below the elbow, the stump wrapped in yellowed gauze. His remaining hand hovered near his holster.
"They say you're one of them now," he said, voice flat.
Eleanor closed the ledger. "What do you say?"
He stared at her—the dagger fused to her hand, the veins like cracks in green glass beneath her skin. "I say you're still standing. That's more than most." He tossed her a key. "Found this in the church cellar. Belonged to the Reverend. Figured you'd know what to do with it."
The key was iron, ornate, its bow shaped like a spiral-triangle.
"Where's it go?" she asked.
Burke's smile was grim. "Only one place left, ain't there?"
The Blackthorn crypt's entrance yawned open, the stairs slick with algae. Eleanor descended, the key burning in her palm. The chamber below was unchanged—coffins chained, altar stained—but the air thrummed with a new urgency.
The key fit a rusted lock on the far wall. Behind it lay a narrow tunnel, its walls studded with bioluminescent fungi that pulsed in time to her heartbeat. The tunnel opened into a circular chamber, its ceiling domed and painted with a star chart Eleanor recognized: the alignment from the night the Door opened.
At the room's center stood a pedestal, and on it, a book bound in what looked like human flesh.
The Blackthorn Grimoire.
She opened it. The pages were vellum, the ink a shimmering black that shifted under her gaze. The text was a mix of Enochian, Latin, and the spiral-glyphs from the stones. But one passage glowed faintly:
To the Guardian Bound:
The Door, once sated, sleeps but never dies. Its dreams seep through the veil, twisting the worthy into keys. To end the cycle, the guardian must offer not a soul, but a memory. The memory that tethers it to this world. Find it. Erase it. And the Door becomes a tomb.
A memory. Eleanor's mind raced. The ritual, the infection, the visions—what thread tied them all?
The sound of dragging flesh echoed from the tunnel.
Sheriff Burke slumped against the wall, his face ashen. Behind him, a creature crawled—a humanoid mass of fused townsfolk, limbs and faces protruding like tumors. Its voice was a chorus of the dead:
"We gave… you… offerings…"
Eleanor stepped back, dagger raised. "Stay back!"
"You… abandoned us… guardian…"
The sheriff cocked his revolver. "Go. I'll hold it off."
"You can't—"
"Go!"
She fled, the grimoire clutched to her chest, as gunshots and wet screams echoed behind her.
The standing stones hummed as she returned, their song mournful. Eleanor laid the grimoire open on the central stone, the pages fluttering to a spell titled The Unbinding.
Ingredients:
—The blood of the guardian (self).
—The name of the first sacrifice.
—The memory that fed the Door.
She sliced her palm, letting her blood—black and iridescent—drip onto the page. The ink absorbed it, rearranging into a new passage:
The Door's first whisper came through Abigail Harlow, née Blackthorn, who in 1693 offered her firstborn to the stars. The child's name was Elias.
Eleanor's breath caught. The sheriff's first name.
The memory is his.
A roar split the sky. The ground trembled as the Door's shadow stretched over the Hollow, no longer sealed but starving.
Eleanor gripped the dagger. To erase the memory, she'd have to enter the Door one last time—and find Elias Burke before the Hollow consumed him.
The stones whispered:
"Guardian. Key. Sacrifice."
She stepped into the shadow.