Diya 
Episode 3: Beneath the Hollow Moon
The next day, Evelyn lay in bed, the iron pendant lying heavy on her breast like a shield from a forgotten day. Her grandmother padded around the house quietly, leaving bowls of steaming soup at the door, and deliberately avoiding eye contact with Evelyn. The old woman muttered prayers under her breath, prayers Evelyn didn’t understand, spoken in a language so ancient it felt like the forest itself whispered through the words.
The glowing runes under Evelyn’s skin pulsed softly, like the embers of a fire breathing beneath her flesh. Every time she caught her reflection—whether in a cracked mirror or a dark window—her heart clenched. She swore she saw shadows flickering just beyond her vision, as if something unseen followed her every step.
Evelyn sat in her chair that evening, with the wind battering the windows and the trees outside creaking, when she heard something that chilled her bones. It wasn’t just the old creaks of the old house settling. It was scratching. A slow, deliberate scraping from deep in the walls. She put her ear against the plaster and didn’t let herself breathe.
From the dark, a voice whispered, low and rasping, a sound that seemed to curl around her mind like smoke.
“Almost… free…”
The words slipped in and out of hearing, like a broken song sung by something half-lost between this world and the next.
Evelyn jolted away from the wall, clutching her arm where the glowing runes throbbed painfully. The feeling was growing stronger. The forest’s claim on her was tightening.
The next morning, the town woke to chilling news. Another child was missing.
Liam Harker, a quiet boy who sat two rows ahead of Evelyn in school, had vanished without a trace. Search parties combed the woods, but none dared enter after nightfall. The forest seemed to pulse with something alive, watching, waiting.
Rumors spread like wildfire. Some whispered of Selene Rooke’s curse, others blamed dark rituals or restless spirits. But no one dared say it out loud.
Evelyn couldn’t. Not now.
Determined to understand what she was caught in, she confronted her grandmother that evening.
“You know what she is,” Evelyn said, voice shaking with equal parts fear and anger. “You know what Selene wants.”
Her grandmother’s eyes darkened, and she slowly opened a creaking wooden box that sat hidden beneath a loose floorboard. Inside lay yellowed papers, dried herbs wrapped in faded cloth, talismans carved from bone, and a fragile, faded drawing of Selene Rooke herself, bound in chains, fire licking the edges of her ragged dress.
“Your great-great-grandmother was among the women who accused Selene,” her grandmother said, voice heavy with regret. “Not out of fear, but jealousy. Selene healed the sick, spoke with the forest, and had a power none of them understood. They saw her as a threat and betrayed her.”
Evelyn stared at the portrait, captivated by the haunting eyes of the woman who had haunted Ash Hollow for centuries.
“She wasn’t evil,” her grandmother whispered. “They made her so.”
“Then how do I stop her?” Evelyn demanded.
Her grandmother shook her head, the lines of sorrow deepening on her face. “You don’t stop her. You survive her. And hope she spares the rest of us.”
But Evelyn refused to run. She refused to be a pawn in a centuries-old vendetta.
That night was the full moon—the Hollow Moon, the night the veil between worlds thinned and Selene’s power was said to be at its peak.
Armed with the iron pendant her grandmother had given her, Evelyn returned to the ruins of the Sanctum Obscura—the burned chapel deep in the woods where she’d first seen the witch’s spirit.
This time, she was not alone.
Three others stood beside her in the moonlight: Marley, whose cousin had disappeared in the woods a year ago; Jonah, the pastor’s son with fierce faith and doubts in his eyes; and Iris, a skeptic who had never believed in the supernatural but believed fiercely in justice.
Each of them bore marks—symbols etched beneath their skin like Evelyn’s own glowing runes. All had been touched by Selene’s curse, haunted by dreams of fire and shadows.
They circled the scorched altar where the witch’s dark power had first risen, placing their hands over the cold stone. Evelyn set the iron pendant in the center, its metal glinting in the moonlight.
“She’s marked us all,” Iris whispered, voice trembling. “And she’s coming for us tonight.”
The wind shifted suddenly, howling through the trees like a chorus of lost souls. The forest seemed to bend and bow as if something ancient stirred beneath its roots.
Smoke curled from the altar, thick and black, swirling upward until it formed a figure.
Selene Rooke stood before them—no longer a shadow or whisper, but flesh and fire stitched together in a grotesque, beautiful form. Her cracked skin smoldered like burnt clay. Her eyes were endless pits of smoke, and her smile was jagged, like shards of broken glass.
“You burned me,” she hissed. “You buried me in lies and hate. Now you wear my pain as your own.”
With a wave of her hand, the runes on Evelyn’s arm flared bright, searing agony ripping through her flesh. Marley, Jonah, and Iris screamed as their marks ignited with the same burning fire.
But Evelyn did not scream.
She stepped forward, her voice steady despite the searing pain.
“If you want revenge, take it from me,” she said. “Not from children. Not from the innocent.”
Selene’s smoky eyes narrowed, studying her closely.
“You offer yourself?” the witch whispered.
Evelyn nodded.
Selene’s smile twisted into something almost human.
“Then I will show you what they did.”
Suddenly, everything shifted.
Evelyn was no longer standing at the altar. She was among a crowd of jeering villagers, ropes binding her wrists, torches blazing. She felt the sting of betrayal, the heat of the flames licking her skin. She was Selene—burning, screaming, cursed.
She saw the faces of her accusers, the betrayal in their eyes, the hatred that fed her curse.
Then, darkness swallowed her whole.
When Evelyn awoke, the altar was shattered, the others gone. She lay at the edge of the ruins, her iron pendant clutched tightly in her hand.
The mark on her palm had vanished.
But on her arm, new symbols glowed faintly beneath her skin, pulsing like coals ready to ignite.
And somewhere deep in the forest, the weeping had stopped.
Selene was no longer a distant shadow haunting Ash Hollow.
She was inside Evelyn.
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