Pack of Shadows

ds now teeming with an unseen presence. Her mother's warning echoed in her mind: "There are things that dwell in the shadows, things that hunger

r, the shadows deeper, and the sensation of being followed only intensified. She didn't dare look back, afraid of what she might

ore her, bathed in the warm afternoon light, but it no longer felt like a safe haven. The secrets she had uncovered in the journal and the strange energy sh

r even Daniel Harper. Someone who could help her make sense of the pieces she had found, and who m

hands. She set it down on the kitchen table and sank into a chair, the events of the morning catching

her contacts, her thumb pausing over Maggie's name. The woman at the cafe had seemed to know something about the town's history, and she had re

Maggie's number and pressed the phone to her ear. The l

ie's voice was warm, but there

It's about my mother and this town..

or a moment, Ava thought Maggie might brush her off.

I'll close up early

ief. "Thank you, Maggi

he cafe was short, but it felt like a lifetime, her mind spinning with possibilities. The streets were quiet, th

wiping down the counter as the last of the afternoon customers fil

." Maggie motioned to a table in the cor

hing her frayed nerves, and then looked up at Maggie. The older woman's eyes were k

poke. "In my mother's things. A journal. She wrote about thi

were close when we were younger, before she left Hollow Creek. She always had a way

t pounding. "What do you mea

et. "This town is old, Ava. Older than most realize. It has a history that goes back to the earliest settlers, and even

thing she called 'the stone.' She said it was a gateway, a thres

en. I always thought it was just a story, something the old folks told to scare childre

er. "There was something there, something powerful. I don

e don't fully understand, Ava. Forces that are older than time, older than this town. Your mother kne

aggie's words settling over her. "Wh

e, about what your mother knew. There are people in this town who might help you, but there are also those who

reek, it was all connected, all part of a larger puzzle she was just beginning to understand. And at the center of it

on the edge of something far bigger than herself. But she also knew that she couldn't