Chapter One | The Bell That Shouldn’t Ring

The clocktower in Mothwick hadn’t chimed in thirty-one years.

Not since the accident. Not since the gears snapped mid-hour, freezing the hands forever at 7:42, and sealing the town’s evening routine into a permanent hush. Some said it was just disrepair. Others said it was the ghost.

Emery didn’t believe either—not yet.

She was nineteen, newly hired at the Mothwick Archive, and had been warned only once: Don’t stay too late in October. Especially near the tower.

But on the third Thursday of the month, with dusk curling around the steeples and the wind rustling the curled pages of an old newspaper, she heard it.

Dong.
Dong.
Dong.

Three deliberate chimes, each one louder than the last. She dropped the box she was sorting and stood frozen in the glow of her desk lamp, heart knocking at her ribs like it wanted out.

No one else seemed to notice.

Outside, the townsfolk were wandering through the square’s harvest market, lanterns flickering against the fog. Children in scarves chased each other between stalls. A man juggled apples. The world remained untouched by the sound.

Except her.

The bell had called her.

She didn’t mention it to her coworker on the way out. Mrs. Thistle was already halfway through her cinnamon bun and mid-rant about the festival committee’s new rules on hay bale stacking.

So Emery walked home alone, down Lantern Street, past the ivy-draped post office and the skeletal tree that creaked like it had secrets.

Her flat was above a seamstress’s shop. Nothing fancy—just a place with floorboards that remembered every step and a window that caught the fog in the morning. She boiled water for tea and left the lamp off.

Three chimes.

Not two. Not four.

Her hands shook as she pulled the newspaper out of her satchel—the one she'd found earlier, dated October 23, 1992. Right beneath the fold, a headline:

“Local Boy Vanishes After Clocktower Bell Rings Unexpectedly.”

She stared at the grainy photo of the boy. Red scarf. Dimples. Eight years old.

His name was written beneath it:
Leo Merrin.

Something old and electric stirred in the air. Like the edge of a dream. Like the tip of a match just before it sparks.

She turned the page. Her own handwriting stared back at her—her name, signed beneath a library check-out note that wasn’t hers.

Dated the same day as the bell.