The fire had long since turned to embers. Eden sat in Kade's cabin, arms wrapped tightly around her knees, the scent of smoke and pine thick in the air. Neither of them spoke. Outside, the wind clawed at the walls like it was trying to get in. "You shouldn't have seen her," Kade said finally, breaking the silence. He stood near the window, eyes fixed on the woods like he expected them to bleed. "Wren," Eden whispered. "You said she's dead. Then what was I talking to?" He didn't answer immediately. His fingers flexed at his sides, as if trying to grab a thought and crush it. "Silverthorn doesn't let go of its dead," he said at last especially not, if they died wrong." Eden turned toward him. "She helped me. She warned me and she knew about my aunt." She's a memory made flesh, a whisper bound to the forest's will and if she touched you, if the Hollow let her speak through its roots, then it means you're part of this now." I was already part of it, Eden said, standing. "The moment I crashed my car on that mountain road." Kade's jaw clenched. "You think this is fate? You think you were meant to stumble into a cursed town full of secrets and blood-debts?" Maybe I was, Eden replied. He turned sharply toward her. "Don't romanticize it. The curse doesn't care about fate. It chews through bloodlines and spits out ghosts." Eden met his gaze. "Then why are you still here?" Kade stilled. "I saw what you are, Kade. That night in the forest, you were more than just a man but you saved me. Why?" Silence again. Longer this time. Then Kade spoke "Because I remembered." Eden frowned. "Remembered what?" He exhaled. "Who I was. Who I used to be before the curse took everything but my rage." He moved to the fireplace and stirred the ashes with a poker. "I was human once and then the Blood Moon rose." Kade told her the story like he was pulling it out from under his own skin. There had once been balance in Silverthorn. Long before the town wore the name. Before the church tower and the masquerade and the cold council that ruled from behind glass windows. Before the Thorne bloodline was cursed. They had made a pact. The old forest gods twisted remnants of things born from moonlight and memory offered protection in exchange for blood. A wolf for a man. A howl for a name but someone broke the pact. Someone spilled innocent blood on the Hollow altar. The gods twisted their gift into punishment. "Now every firstborn of the Thorne line is born with it," Kade said. "The hunger, the fury and the curse." Eden stepped closer. "Is there a cure?" He shook his head. "Only death ends it." Eden's throat tightened. "Then how did my aunt survive here?" Kade's gaze flicked up. "She was clever. She didn't fight the curse. She tried to rewrite it." He looked at Eden and I think she left something for you.
At dawn, they left the cabin and crossed the woods to an old well, half-swallowed by ivy and stone. The trees here whispered differently but almost reverently. Kade knelt, brushing aside debris from the stones. "She used to come here," he said. "I never knew why but when she disappeared, I found something tucked in the hollow." He reached into the crevice between two stones and pulled out a leather bound book, wrapped in oilcloth. Eden's hands trembled as she took it. The cover was stamped with her aunt's initials M.V. and inside, the pages were dense with notes, symbols, translations and rituals. "She was documenting the curse," Eden whispered. "Everything." Kade nodded. "And she found a pattern. Every 33 years, the curse deepens. Something stirs. The Hollow wakes." Eden flipped to the last page, where her aunt's handwriting grew hurried "The Blood Moon returns on the Equinox. The cycle completes. If Eden finds this run, child or be ready to become what they fear." Eden's heart thudded. "I'm not running." Kade's mouth tightened. "Then you'll need allies. They returned to town under the veil of cloud and fog. Silverthorn was awake, but subdued like it, too, had heard the howls last night.
Eden walked beside Kade down Main Street. People stared, but no one spoke. The butcher wiped his hands on a bloodstained apron. The librarian closed the shutters with more force than necessary. They were afraid but not of Eden. Of what she might uncover. At the town archives, Kade kept watch while Eden searched the basement rows of dusty records and yellowed papers. She found a folder marked "Moon Trials 1892". Inside: sketches of symbols, witness testimonies, a crude drawing of the Hollow altar and a name, Aurelia Vale. "My ancestor?" Eden whispered. "She was tried for witchcraft." Kade looked over her shoulder. "Not tried but sacrificed." There was a ceremony, the Moon Trial where they offered one of their own to appease the forest, to stop the blood from spreading, Aurelia was the first. "But it didn't work," Eden said. "It only made it worse." Kade nodded. "The forest doesn't want sacrifices. It wants secrets."
As dusk fell again, they returned to Vanessa's house. Eden set the book on the table with her heart thudding. She had answers now but more questions. She ran her fingers along the leather spine. "If the Blood Moon is the key, how long do we have?" Kade didn't answer right away. Then, he responded "Two weeks." Eden froze. "That's not enough time." Kade's eyes met hers. "Then we move fast. We find the others who remember the ones who want the curse broken." Eden took a breath and opened the book. Later that night, while the house slept and the wind howled over the hills, Eden dreamed again. Not of wolves, of fire. The altar burned. The trees bled and a voice, her aunt's voice whispered from the darkness: "You are not cursed, Eden. You are chosen. The Hollow only devours those who forget who they are." She reached out and woke to find her hands glowing faintly in the dark.