Under the great sycamore
The Heartwood
Where she wakes, weak, with pieces of her missing.
A cave of roots and hanging lanterns under the oldest tree in the valley. The sycamore talks. It remembers everything, and it does not want her to leave.
The valley
One valley, held in its worst years
The Hollow sets every town in the year it hurt the most and walks the dark between them. Every room is painted by hand, and every road leads somewhere worth the walk.
Places
Down the river road
No spoilers. Just where you’ll be standing, and what’s standing there with you.
The frontier
The Bottom
Roots, rope bridges and lanterns in gold light.
River bottomland gone wild under the sycamore's roots. Hoop snakes roll the slopes, haints drift the wheat, and an iron giant waits at the ford.
The frontier
The Trace and the river
The road east, and the water under it.
Creek bends, a logjam that calls out at night, a sunken ferry, and a pool deep enough to hide something the size of a boat.
A town stuck in one August night
New River Fort
TownA stockade of ghosts around a fire.
The people here are stuck in their worst night. Some know they're dead and some don't. The old beech at the gate is the first tree to tell her something true.
The frontier
Black Oak Mountain
Something on the ledge path screams like a woman.
Rock faces, a spring in the moss, a lightning-split oak that talks, and a summit where the trees say something with antlers of sycamore waits.
A town stuck in the coal winter
No. 3 Camp and the Mines
TownScrip, a company store, and knocking in the dark.
A coal camp frozen in the winter of the explosions. Down the drift, knockers count before the roof falls, and something old lives in the seam.
The war winter
Flat Top
The divide, and the edge of her ground.
A winter camp in deep snow, frozen pickets at their posts, and an eyrie where something with two heads waits for the drum.
The high road
Bald Knob Ridge
The last chestnut standing, and a sky with something huge in it.
Count the calls. If they stop, run.
The park's last summer
The Midway and the black lake
A lakeside amusement park that runs its lights over the water and never closes.
Dance-hall stairs, lamp-spiders, carousel horses off their poles, and green water past the rope where something waits in the deep.
The end of the road
The Wheel of Lamps
Every lamp lit, turning over the black lake.
Ride the lift up the spokes. From the top car you can see the whole valley. Nobody looks down.
Further in
Places you’ll have to see for yourself
- The frontier
The Burying Ground
A knoll that is pitch dark at every hour.
Fieldstones with nothing cut on them. The gate is chained, and the key went up to the fort with a man who won't come back down. Something with three heads keeps the graves.
- The turnpike years
Brush Creek
A covered bridge and a toll nobody can pay.
The pike has not been raised in a hundred years. The keeper is still counting.
- A town stuck in the burning year
Princeton
TownA county seat that burns forever.
Ghosts on Court Lane, a turnpike with a rider on fire, and an old woman upstairs who won't leave her room and says the thing nobody else will.
- The river
The Narrows
Where the river squeezes between the cliffs.
A fare board with the last line painted over, and a ferryman who has carried everyone out of the valley but her.
- The war years
Pigeon Roost
A road bent in a double half-circle, and fog that wears every coat.
Empty uniforms of both sides march the road. Neither side is the enemy. Both come.
- The frontier
The Laurel Hells
Laurel so thick a man can't walk through it.
Brier men, hornet nests the size of barrels, creepers that lash from the walls, and a thicket with a heart.
- The park's town
Lantern Landing
TownCabins, a prize booth, and summer people who never left.
Coin and tickets, a bed at the inn, and a night that brings out different people.
- Every era's cellars
The Underroot
Root cellars, a well and a seed vault, braided together.
Moths as big as your hand, a bell ringing under the ground, and a catacomb where a story told too many times came true.
Towns
Towns that lie to you
Four towns, each stuck in its worst year. The people talk a line or two each. Some tell the truth. Some lie. Some grieve. Some are ghosts who don't know it yet.
Shops, inns, barter and tasks. Sleep at the inn and the night brings out different people.
The treesThe trees are watching
The oldest tree in every area talks. Most of them are kind. All of them know what the monster up ahead used to be.
Ask once for its story. Ask twice for the way on.
The black lake
In the water, the whole valley hangs upside down
At the end of the road the Wheel of Lamps turns over the black lake. Nobody looks down.
