Rose Blackwood had lived in Blackwood Hollow six days, and already the town wanted her gone. She stood at the market stall, coins in hand, and the old woman selling apples wouldn't meet her eyes. "You're the one in the lakeside cabin," the woman said. "You shouldn't stay. Not with your name." Rose almost laughed. She had come here to escape a dead family and a house full of debt. Now a stranger acted like her last name was a curse. "My name's just a name," Rose said. But her voice caught. She had come to this town for answers, not apples. Ever since she arrived, she kept seeing a thing at the tree line. A creature made of shadow, thin and wrong, with eyes like cold lamps. Last night it had spoken. It had said her name. The old woman leaned close. "Children went into those woods. Whole families' children. They walked in and the forest kept them." She pressed an apple into Rose's hand and would not take payment. "Don't go near the trees after dark. And don't answer if something calls you." Rose's stomach turned cold. She hated the forest. She had hated it since the first night, when the dark between the trunks seemed to breathe. But fear had never once stopped her. "How many children?" she asked. The woman only shook her head and shut the stall. Rose walked home along the water. The lake sat still and bright, cut into hard blue edges by the afternoon sun. Her cabin waited at the shore, weathered timber and a crooked porch, the only thing her family had left her. She had spent every day cleaning it. She had not yet touched the crawlspace under the floor. Now she did. She pried up a loose board and reached into the dark. Her fingers found wood, cold and carved. She dragged out a heavy box. Strange symbols cut its surface, deep and old. A brass lock held the lid, but the lid gaped open a finger's width, cracked long ago. Inside, folded and yellow, lay a newspaper page. The headline read: MISSING CHILDREN OF BLACKWOOD HOLLOW. Rose read the dates. The oldest was fifty years back. The most recent was three months ago. Beside the clipping sat something wrapped in cloth. She unwound it and found a bundle of black roses, dry but whole, their thorns still faintly glowing. Then she saw the last name on the reporter's byline. Blackwood. Her family had written about the missing children. Her family had lived here before her, and left, and hidden this box under the floor of the cabin they gave her. Something moved at the edge of the window. Rose looked up. The shadow creature stood on the porch, close now, its pale eyes fixed on her. Its jaw opened. "Rose," it whispered. "You found it." Rose did not run. She gripped the clipping tighter. The gossip was true. And whatever took those children knew exactly who she was.