The rain hadn’t fallen on Whitcombe Hollow in nearly four months.

Every morning the air grew heavier, clinging to the thatch and stone walls like breath held too long. Even the crows, black sentinels perched along the sagging fences, seemed to watch in a silence that felt older than the fields themselves.

At the edge of the hollow, Ned Whitcombe stood alone, cap turning damp in his hands though the sky offered no rain. The road before him looked harmless enough — a narrow, rutted track lined with dying thistle and browned hedgerow — but beyond the final bend waited something the village dared not name.

The letter had come folded tight, the ink smudged as if by an anxious hand. Steady work, good pay, housing provided. Nothing more.

It hadn’t mentioned the blindfold. It hadn’t promised return.

A van sat idling near the end of the lane, its windows blacked and body dulled to the colour of wet slate. Beside it stood a man in a dark wool coat, collar turned high despite the warmth, gloves clasped behind his back. His eyes were pale and oddly still, as if they belonged to something carved from stone.

“Mr Whitcombe,” the man called, voice even, unhurried. “Are we ready, then?”

Ned’s hand tightened around the cap. Behind him, almost hidden by hedgerows and the gentle roll of land, lay the crooked-roofed cottage. Inside, Catherine would be pouring hot water into chipped cups. Mara — seventeen then, sharp-eyed even as a girl — would already be awake, listening for the sound of his boots on the path. Little Lizzie, barely thirteen, still tangled in half-remembered dreams.

Ned swallowed, tasting the dry morning. “Aye,” he said. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

The man stepped forward. “Blindfold, if you please.”

The cloth came from a pocket, grey and coarse, smelling faintly of dust and something sharper — iron, or old blood. Ned hesitated just long enough to feel the thud of his heart before he tied it around his own eyes, plunging himself into blackness.

Hands, polite but firm, guided him into the back of the van. The doors closed with a dull finality that echoed in his chest.

---

The van lurched into motion. Ned counted the turns at first: right, left, another left. The road grew rougher, the air colder despite the blindfold. A branch scratched along the side like fingernails on wood. Somewhere far off, a bell tolled — one note, then silence.

In darkness, the mind fills itself. Ned saw Catherine’s face as he’d left it that morning, pale in the half-light, her lips pressing words she hadn’t spoken aloud. He saw Mara’s sharp grey eyes narrowing in suspicion, and Lizzie’s hopeful green gaze, still too young to understand what men sometimes must do.

Outside, the road changed again. The van climbed, dipped, rattled over stones. The smell in the air shifted — from wet earth and sheep-dung to something stranger: acrid smoke, oil, the sour tang of metal heated and cooled too many times.

He strained to hear voices, engines, anything. But beyond the rumble of wheels, there was only the rhythmic drum of his pulse.

---

At last, the van shuddered to a halt.

The door opened, spilling a wash of cool air that tasted of fog and soot.

Hands guided him down. His boots landed on hard-packed gravel instead of soil. Somewhere ahead, Ned heard low voices — clipped, hushed, foreign to his ear. Metal creaked under strain, a dull clang echoing off unseen walls.

The cloth slipped, just enough for a sliver of grey light to burn across his eye. Shapes loomed: dark roofs, heavy gates, smokestacks half-swallowed by drifting mist. But before he could see more, the cloth was tightened again.

“Mind your step,” the gloved man murmured.

Ned stumbled forward, the air pressing close around him, heavy with secrets.

---

They led him through what felt like a gate. The clang of iron behind him sounded oddly final, like the lid of a coffin settling into place.

Somewhere beyond the blindfold, he sensed the beating heart of the place: the hiss of steam, the quiet shuffle of feet, a sharp cough cut short. Life, but muffled — as though the walls themselves swallowed sound.

They stopped. A door opened. “Inside,” the voice commanded.

Ned stepped through, felt the warmth of an oil lamp on his face. The door shut.

At last, the blindfold came away. The man’s pale eyes met his across the small room.

“Welcome,” he said softly. “You’ll find your work here… necessary.”

Ned opened his mouth, but the words caught on his tongue.

Through a grimy window, he saw only fog curling around black chimneys, and the faint glow of lamps beyond.

Somewhere behind those walls, others had come before him.

None had returned.

In the silence, Ned Whitcombe wondered if he had just stepped out of his life forever — and what price his family might pay for the hope he’d carried into the mist.

The rain never came.

Each dawn arrived dry and dull, hanging over Whitcombe Hollow like a curse no one dared name. The fields lay cracked and pale beneath a sky the colour of cold ash, and the hedgerows shrivelled under wind that carried only dust.

Mara Whitcombe rose before the church bell struck six, as she always did. From the narrow window of the loft she watched morning creep across the hollow: stone cottages huddled together, their walls patched with moss and age; the crooked fence that kept nothing out; the dead orchard beyond. A thin mist clung to the ground, swirling in pale eddies before vanishing into the heat.

Somewhere down the lane, a crow called once — sharp, almost scolding. Mara tucked a loose strand of dark hair behind her ear, pulled her braid tighter, and turned away.

Below, the small kitchen smelled faintly of yesterday’s tea and woodsmoke. Lizzie sat at the table, hair unbrushed, pencil moving quickly over the battered notebook she guarded like a secret.

“You’ll go blind if you keep writing before the sun’s up,” Mara teased softly.

Lizzie looked up, green eyes bright even in the dim light. “Just notes,” she said. “I don’t want to forget my dream.”

“Another one?”

Lizzie hesitated. “The same one,” she admitted. “About the factory.”

The word settled between them like a stone dropped into still water. Mara felt it tighten behind her ribs — a dull pressure she’d carried for years. She moved to the hearth, stirring the ashes back to life, needing the small ritual to steady herself.

“Dreams are only dreams, Lizzie,” she said, though the words felt thin.

Lizzie’s pencil paused. “Do you ever think about it?” she asked, voice low. “About where he went?”

Mara didn’t answer at once. Outside, the village stirred: the rattle of a cart, the low murmur of voices, a dog’s bark chased away by distance. Beyond that lay fields burned by sun and neglect — and, far further still, the factory no one had seen and yet everyone spoke of in half-whispers.

“Every day,” Mara admitted at last.

---

They ate in silence. Thin oat porridge, the last of the dried apples. Catherine had always managed better meals — she’d made so little stretch so far. But Catherine was gone now, too, vanished in the same way their father had, swallowed by the fog that hung beyond the hollow.

Some said she’d gone to find Ned Whitcombe. Others, that the grief had driven her away.

Mara had lain awake many nights replaying every word, every silence, searching for signs she’d missed. Lizzie, younger then, had cried until there were no tears left; now she turned her grief into ink, scratching it into the pages she kept from everyone else.

---

The church bell finally tolled, slow and heavy, calling the village awake. Mara tied back her braid, wiped her hands on her apron, and nodded toward the door.

“Come on,” she said. “Old Mr. Kembry asked for help patching his fence. And the day won’t wait.”

Lizzie slipped the notebook into her satchel, still watching Mara with that quiet, stubborn hope that sometimes felt like a blade pressed too close.

Outside, the air smelled of dust and warm stone. They passed the Hembury cottage, where faded lace hung limp in the window, and crossed paths with Nora Penrose, the oldest living soul in the hollow. She stood leaning on her stick, sharp eyes hidden under the brim of a black bonnet.

“Morning, Miss Penrose,” Mara called politely.

“Morning to you, girls,” Nora rasped. Her gaze lingered, unsettlingly steady. “Strange times,” she murmured, almost to herself. “Strange times indeed.”

Mara offered a careful smile, but Lizzie stopped. “What do you mean?” she asked.

Nora’s mouth twitched, half a smile, half something darker. “Just keep your wits about you,” she said, tapping her stick against the road. “Some doors, once opened, won’t close again.”

She turned and hobbled away, leaving the air colder in her wake.

---

They walked on, past hedgerows where no birds nested, past the old signpost pointing east — the way their father had gone that last morning. The sign’s letters had worn away under sun and rain, leaving only splinters.

Lizzie glanced sideways. “Do you ever wish we’d done something sooner?” she whispered.

Mara kept her eyes forward. “What could we have done? We were children.”

“But now we’re not,” Lizzie said, voice firmer than before. “And they’re both gone.”

The words hung there, fragile and terrible.

A gust lifted the dust around them, carrying a scrap of paper that caught against Lizzie’s skirt. She plucked it free, frowning.

Mara stepped closer, and her heart gave a dull, heavy beat.

It was a poster. Printed words, plain and careful:

Steady Work. Food & Board Provided. Enquire by Letter.

At the bottom, an address neither of them had seen before.

The same promise that had taken their father, and maybe their mother too.

Lizzie looked up, wind catching her hair, eyes bright with something Mara feared and recognised all at once.

“Mara,” she whispered, fingers tightening around the paper, “maybe it’s our turn to go.”

Mara glanced at the road beyond the hollow, at the place where dust turned to mist.

For a moment, she let herself imagine what might lie past it: answers, perhaps. Or ruin.

She took the paper from Lizzie’s hand, folded it carefully, and slipped it into her apron pocket.

“Maybe,” she said softly. “Maybe it is.”

The letter was simple.

Just a few lines in careful, measured handwriting, folded twice and sealed in a plain brown envelope.

To whom it may concern,

We seek work as advertised. Prepared to travel. Enclosed are our names.

No questions. No pleas.

Mara wrote it by lamplight while Lizzie watched, twisting a lock of hair between restless fingers. When Mara signed their names at the bottom, her hand trembled just enough to smudge the ink.

They left the cottage before dawn to post it. Even then, the road felt too quiet, as if the hollow itself held its breath.

---

At the edge of the village, the post office stood hunched and tired: peeling paint, dusty window, the smell of old paper trapped in warm air.

Behind the counter, Mr. Orley looked up, spectacles sliding down his nose. His gaze flicked from the letter to Mara’s face, then back again.

“You’re not the first to send one of these,” he said after a moment.

Mara held his stare. “We know,” she said.

Lizzie shifted beside her, notebook clutched tight against her chest.

Orley’s voice softened. “You’re young yet, Miss Whitcombe. Both of you. Think twice, eh? Folk don’t come back.”

Mara swallowed. “That’s why we’re going,” she said quietly. “To find out why.”

For a moment, the old man seemed about to say more. But the words died behind his eyes. He took the letter and stamped it, the thud loud in the stillness.

When they stepped outside, the morning sun had risen just enough to burn the mist from the lane, leaving nothing but heat and dust.

---

They walked back slowly. Every familiar stone and hedge felt different now — as if leaving had already begun, though their feet still trod the same path.

In the square, two women stood whispering by the pump. Their words fell quiet when the sisters passed. Further on, Mr. Burleigh, the butcher, looked up from his bench, eyes dark with something like pity — or was it guilt? Mara couldn’t tell anymore.

Lizzie kept her gaze forward, chin lifted, though Mara saw her hand tremble against the notebook’s spine.

At the church gate, a voice called softly.

“Girls.”

It was Nora Penrose again, her black bonnet shading eyes that missed little.

“You posted it, didn’t you?” she asked.

Neither sister answered.

Nora tapped her stick against the ground. “Your father walked that same road. So did others.” Her voice grew low, almost a whisper. “What lives beyond that road isn’t meant for the likes of us.”

Lizzie’s voice broke through the hush. “Then why do they take us?”

Nora’s mouth curved in something that might have been a smile, or a grimace. “Because we go,” she said. “And because the village forgets once we’re gone.”

She turned away, leaving only the creak of her stick on the stone path.

---

At home, Mara packed slowly, hands careful and deliberate. One spare dress, the heavier shawl for cold mornings, and the ribbon their mother had left behind. Lizzie packed her notebook, three pencils worn near to nothing, and a handful of dried heather she refused to leave.

In the quiet, Mara felt the weight of every choice settle into the small room: the empty chair where their mother had sat spinning wool; the hearth still cold, though ashes waited to be stirred.

“Mara,” Lizzie asked at last, voice small. “Do you think he’s alive?”

Mara paused. Outside, a breeze stirred dust across the sill. “I don’t know,” she said. “But we’ll find out.”

Lizzie nodded, but her shoulders curled inward, as if bracing against an answer she already feared.

---

Days passed in uneasy waiting. The letter went, and silence came back. Each morning, they rose before dawn, watching the road, hearts tightening at every distant hoofbeat or cart rattle. Nights fell heavy, bringing only the sigh of the wind against stone walls.

Then, one dusk when the air smelled of turning earth and distant smoke, a single envelope arrived.

Plain paper. No return mark.

Mara slit it open, breath caught in her throat.

Inside, a folded sheet and nothing more:

> Report to the corner of Bramble Lane at dawn. A van will collect you. Do not bring more than you can carry. Tell no one.

Lizzie read over her shoulder, lips parting in silent awe.

Mara felt the ground shift beneath her, as if the world had narrowed to a single thread pulling them forward.

---

That night, neither slept. Lizzie lay wakeful, tracing words into the dark air. Mara sat by the window, braid unravelling, watching for a sign of dawn.

When the first grey light broke over Whitcombe Hollow, they rose.

At the gate, Mara paused, looking back at the cottage: walls cracked, roof sagging, windows that had seen too much. She thought she heard their mother’s voice in the wind, just for a moment — but when she turned, the yard lay empty.

“Ready?” Lizzie asked softly.

Mara nodded. “Ready.”

They stepped onto the road, the paper folded in Mara’s pocket, hearts loud in their chests.

Somewhere beyond the bend, a van waited in the mist.

And beyond that — a place no map marked, where truth hid among shadows, and answers carried a cost neither of them yet understood.