Prologue: The Pact
**Hollow Hill, Appalachian Mountains — October 31, 1693**
The wind howled through the skeletal trees like a chorus of the damned. Mercy Blackthorn knelt in the mud, her hands trembling as she carved the final sigil into the earth. Blood dripped from her fingertips, mingling with the rainwater pooling in the grooves of the ancient symbols. Behind her, the flames of the pyre roared, casting monstrous shadows across the clearing. Her daughter's screams had stopped hours ago.
*"Abigail,"* Mercy whispered, her voice breaking. The name tasted like ash.
They had come for her child at dawn. The men of Salem—pious, trembling with fear and fury—had dragged Abigail from their cottage, accusing her of witchcraft. Mercy had begged, pleaded, even offered her own life in exchange. But the mob's hunger for blood was insatiable. They called her daughter a devil's bride, a blight on God's earth. They did not know the truth: Abigail's only crime was Mercy's bloodline.
Now, Mercy's grief curdled into rage. She clutched the dagger tighter, its obsidian blade glinting in the firelight. The grimoire lay open before her, its pages filled with words that squirmed like serpents. Her grandmother had warned her never to open it. *"Some doors,"* the old woman had said, *"should remain closed."*
But Mercy was out of choices.
She raised the dagger to her throat, her reflection warped in the blade. *"I call upon the guardians of the Veil,"* she intoned, her voice steadier now. *"Hear me. Take my life, my soul, my eternity… but spare hers."*
The earth shuddered. The flames of the pyre turned an unnatural violet, and the air thickened with the scent of rot and iron. A voice, neither male nor female, slithered into her mind.
***"A mother's love… such a fragile thing to stake a world upon."***
Mercy's breath hitched. *"Name your price."*
***"A bloodline,"*** the voice purred. ***"Yours. Seven generations will serve as anchors for the Veil. Their lives, their deaths… all will bind the worlds. Fail, and the gate opens. The hungry ones will feast."***
Mercy closed her eyes. She saw Abigail's face—not as it was in the pyre, twisted in agony, but as it had been that morning: bright-eyed, laughing, weaving wildflowers into her hair. *Forgive me,* she thought.
*"Swear it,"* she said aloud.
The wind died. The flames snuffed out as though drowned. In the sudden silence, Mercy felt the pact sear into her bones, a cold, crawling sensation that burrowed deep. When she opened her eyes, Abigail stood before her.
But it was not Abigail.
The girl's skin was gray as a corpse, her eyes twin voids. Vines of black thorns coiled around her wrists, her throat, her heart. She smiled, and her teeth were needles.
***"The pact is sealed,"*** the thing wearing Abigail's face hissed. ***"The Veil thanks you, Mercy Blackthorn. It will feed well on your descendants."***
Mercy fell to her knees, the dagger slipping from her grasp. The clearing erupted in a cacophony of whispers, laughter, and screams. Shadows writhed around her, clawing at her skirts, her hair. She clutched her chest as pain lanced through her—a thousand needles piercing her heart.
When the villagers found her at dawn, Mercy's body was curled around the grimoire, her eyes wide and unseeing. The pyre was cold, the chains empty. Of Abigail, there was no trace.
But the earth where Mercy died began to rot.
Blackened, twisted roots spread like veins from the clearing, strangling crops, poisoning wells. The villagers fled, whispering of a curse. They did not see the faint glow in the soil where Mercy's blood had seeped—a pulsing, sickly light that throbbed in time with a heartbeat not entirely human.
And far below, in the dark between worlds, the Veil stirred.
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Epilogue Teaser
**Present Day — Hollow Hill**
The old grimoire still lies buried beneath the roots of the Blackthorn family oak, its pages whispering to the wind. Tonight, the rot has begun to spread again.