3:33

Chapter 6: The Offer

They checked into a Holiday Inn off Route 1—you know the type. Anonymous, smells like industrial carpet cleaner. Two rooms: Mateo and Eloise in one, Ivy and her grandmother in the other. Nobody slept a wink.

Mateo sat on the edge of that rock-hard hotel bed, laptop screen burning his eyes. He'd been Googling "Ashwick Hollow" for two hours straight, and what he found? Sparse. Contradictory. Deeply, deeply unsettling.

The town had a Wikipedia page—barely. Population: 847. Founded: 1873. Primary industries: None listed. Their official website hadn't been touched since 2019. Just a single page with a grainy church photo and the words "Welcome to Ashwick Hollow: A Quiet Place to Rest."

Rest. Something about that word made his skin crawl.

The deeper he dug, the weirder it got. Every few years, someone on a paranormal forum would mention Ashwick Hollow—always vague, always cutting the thread short.

One post from 2016 caught his eye: Tried to visit Ashwick Hollow for a ghost hunt. Got three miles outside town and every GPS just stopped working. Phone died. Compass spun in circles. We turned back. Whatever's in that town doesn't want visitors.

Another from 2021: My sister moved to Ashwick Hollow for a fresh start. We haven't heard from her in five months. Police say she's fine, just wants privacy. But when I call her number, it rings and rings and no one answers.

Mateo clicked through to a digitized newspaper archive. The Ashwick Hollow Gazette, July 1952: CHURCH PERMANENTLY CLOSED FOLLOWING TRAGEDY. Services Suspended Indefinitely.

No details about the tragedy. Just a black and white photo of a Gothic Revival church with boarded windows and chains across the front door.

He clicked another link—a genealogy site listing deaths in Ashwick Hollow. The patterns Detective Reeves mentioned? Right there in black and white:

1875: Emma Hollow, age 8. Drowning.

1882: Thomas Winters, age 9. Drowning.

1889: Sarah Blackwood, age 8. Drowning.

1896: Michael Thorne, age 9. Drowning.

On and on. Every seven years. Always a child. Always drowning.

The last entry: 2018: Lucy Brennan, age 8. Drowning.

2025 minus 2018. Seven years.

This year. Right now.

His phone rang, making him jump. Unknown number. He answered.

"Dr. Cross?" An older man's voice, refined, with an accent he couldn't place. "My name is Father Kieran Thorne. I understand you've been asking questions about Ashwick Hollow."

"Who is this? How'd you get my number?"

"Detective Reeves gave it to me. She thought we should talk. I'm the former priest of St. Augustine's Church in Ashwick Hollow—or what's left of it. I've been... tracking certain events. Patterns. And I believe your family's in danger."

Mateo's grip tightened on the phone. Through the wall, he could hear Ivy crying softly, her grandmother trying to comfort her. "What kind of danger?"

"The kind that doesn't obey natural laws. The kind that's been operating in Ashwick Hollow since 1875, when Constance Hollow made her pact."

"Pact?"

"With something that lives in the spaces between waking and sleeping. Something that feeds on children's souls. Every seven years, it requires a sacrifice. And this year..." He paused. "This year, it chose Aurora. But she resisted. She was stronger than the others. And when she died—or disappeared, I should say—the pact broke. Now the thing is hunting for a replacement. It's hunting for Ivy."

Mateo wanted to hang up. Wanted to dismiss this as crazy talk from someone who'd spent too long in a dying town. But he'd seen the symbol. Heard the scratching. Watched eyes blink in carved wood.

"If what you're saying is true, how do I stop it?"

"You can't. Not from where you are. You have to come to Ashwick Hollow. You have to understand what your daughter faced. And you have to be willing to make a choice that no father should ever have to make."

"What choice?"

"The same choice Constance Hollow made in 1875: sacrifice one to save many. Or destroy everything and save no one."

"That's insane."

"Is it? You've seen the signs, Dr. Cross. You know something's terribly wrong. Your daughter knew it too. That's why she left you that journal. That's why she tried to warn you. And if you ignore it, if you stay away from Ashwick Hollow and pretend this is all just grief and hallucinations..." He paused. "Then Ivy will be gone by Halloween. Just like all the others."

"How do you know all this?"

"Because I've been fighting it for thirty years. Because I've failed to save three children already. And because the thing in the Veil is getting stronger. It's not satisfied with one child every seven years anymore. It's hungry. And it's learning."

The line went dead.

Mateo sat in that dark hotel room, phone still pressed to his ear, listening to the dial tone.

Through the wall, Ivy had stopped crying. Somehow the silence was worse.

He pulled up G****e Maps. Typed in "Ashwick Hollow." The town appeared as a tiny gray dot in the middle of nowhere, three hours north. No street view available. No photos. Just a name on a map, like a scar on skin.

Eloise came in, her face pale. "Ivy's asleep. Finally. My mother's staying with her tonight." She sat on the bed, not looking at him. "What did the police want?"

He told her everything. The backpack, the journal, Aurora's warning, the photograph of the house. The detective's theory about Ashwick Hollow and the pattern of missing children. Father Thorne's call.

When he finished, Eloise was crying silently, tears streaming down her face.

"She knew," Eloise whispered. "Aurora knew something was coming for Ivy, and she tried to stop it. My baby tried to save her sister."

"Eloise—"

"And we didn't listen. We told her it was nightmares. We told her nothing was real." She looked at him, and in her eyes he saw the same thing he felt: crushing, unbearable guilt.

"What kind of parents are we?"

"The kind who are going to fix this." Mateo's voice came out stronger than he felt. "Tomorrow, we're driving to Ashwick Hollow. We're going to find out what Aurora discovered. And we're going to end this."

"What if it's too late? What if—"

"It's not too late. Ivy's still here. We still have time."

"Time for what? To make the choice that priest talked about?" Eloise's voice cracked. "To sacrifice our daughter to save a town we've never heard of? To become monsters like them?"

"I don't know. But I know we can't sit here and do nothing."

They stayed up all night, neither sleeping, just sitting in the dark and waiting for 3:33 AM. When the time came, Mateo held his breath. Counted the seconds.

Nothing happened.

But somewhere, far north, in a town called Ashwick Hollow, a church bell rang seven times. And in her sleep, Ivy began to whisper words in a language that hadn't been spoken in two hundred years.