The Hollow's Own

Iris Rose Reed came into the world with a veil over her face and an old woman's hands the only ones steady enough to lift it. Granny Ana called it a caul. She called it a claiming. The hollow had chosen its own before the child ever drew breath.

The church on the ridge was already standing by then — raised before her parents ever met, promising salvation to a place that never asked for it. The preacher who leads it wears kindness like a coat. Not everyone in the hollow is fooled and the darkness that has watched this ground since before the first settler's axe fell is not fooled at all.

Some sins wear a collar. This hollow has never needed one to know evil when it moves through the trees.