The Tolling Hour

Journal Entry – November 25, 1871

The bell began ringing before dawn.

Three chimes. Pause. Then three again — too measured to be wind, too precise to be mistake. The church stands nearly a mile from here, yet the sound carried as though the rope were tied to my own ribs.

By the third toll, every guest was awake. None spoke. They simply stared at the ceiling, lips parted, waiting for the next note. I wrapped my shawl and walked to town through fog so thick it clung to my mouth like breath not my own.

Cherryvale was empty. No horses, no voices, no smoke from the blacksmith’s forge. Only the bell above St. Matthew’s swinging slow and heavy against a sky the color of tarnish.

Inside, the pews were full — but not of people. Clothing lay folded neatly, boots aligned beneath, as if an entire congregation had undressed and vanished mid-prayer. Hymnals lay open to blank pages.

The bell rope moved on its own. Each pull made the air shudder, and with every note, the mark on my arm tightened, threading higher like a living thing climbing toward my heart.

I shouted for it to stop. The sound died instantly.

Then — silence so thick I could hear the ticking of the stranger’s watch inside my head. I don’t own a watch.

When I stepped outside, fog bled from the church doorway like smoke escaping a grave. Somewhere within it, a voice whispered my name — not loud, but fond, the way one speaks to something finally tamed.

The fog followed me home.