Raven Steele had a dead bird on her doorstep and no one in Forgotten Hollow she could ask about it. She had moved here three weeks ago to learn why people in this swamp town vanished, and why no one would say their names. But every question she asked came with a risk. Someone had been following her since her first day. She counted the weeks by the small things that changed. Now the bird lay on her porch, both wings spread flat, one bent wrong from being held down. She wanted to knock on a door and ask for help. She knew that whoever she asked might be the one watching her. So she stopped asking with words. She sat at the swampy fire pit near the water, where a bonfire burned and a rickety counter held coffee and marshmallows. She sipped and she listened. She learned nothing but the sound of frogs. A raccoon crept out of the reeds. It had bright eyes and a curious tilt to its head. It sniffed her boot, then trotted toward the trees. Raven followed it, because following felt safer than asking. The raccoon led her to a porch where an old man leaned on a crooked cane. His beard hung long and gray. He smelled of drink. His clothes were worn thin. This was the man the town called its drunk, the one people stepped around. "You're the new one," Silas Mudfoot said. He did not look up. "Feeding my raccoon." "I didn't feed it," Raven said. "Good. It follows curious people." He wheezed a laugh. "Curious people don't last here." Raven crouched to his level. She kept her voice low. "People go missing. No one talks. You talk." Silas gripped his cane. His hand shook. "Talking's how you end up gone." But he leaned closer. "Go see the woman with the journal. Cardigan. Glasses. She writes down everyone. She won't tell you. But her book will." Raven found the porch he meant before dusk. A middle-aged woman sat in a rocker, a brown journal clutched to her chest. Reading glasses caught the light. Her eyes tracked Raven the whole way up the path without moving her head. "Silas sent me," Raven said. "Silas talks too much." Stella Morrow did not open the journal. "You've been followed. Three weeks. A gray truck. It parks near your house and leaves before dark." Raven's breath caught. "You saw that." "I see everything on this street." Stella finally looked at her. "You're not paranoid. That's the trouble." Raven's ex had called her paranoid. This stranger had just erased that word in one sentence. "Show me the book," Raven said. Stella held it tighter. "Not on my porch. Someone's watching us right now." Her chin dipped toward the road. "That truck. It followed you here." Raven turned. A gray truck idled at the edge of the trees. The engine cut. A door opened.