Welcome to Hazelwood
Hazelwood, Pennsylvania. 1936
For years, the town has been worn down by hardship. The mills still dominate the riverfront, but work is uncertain, money is scarce, and families depend increasingly on one another simply to get through the week.
The streets, homes and shops may look ordinary, but this is where Holly’s story begins — in a town held together by small acts of kindness, quiet endurance and the people who refuse to let one another fall.
Soon, Holly will discover that Hazelwood is connected in ways no one else can see.
About Holly
Holly Mercer notices things other people miss.
She counts without meaning to. Coughs. Steps. Bowls. Coins. People in a queue.
She is sixteen, quiet, practical, and more observant than most people realise. While her family struggles with the same shortages and uncertainty as everyone else in Hazelwood, Holly is always looking for the thing that might fit — the person who needs help, the room someone else has spare, the connection nobody else has noticed.
Her father, Arthur, works at the mill despite the cough that follows him home. Her mother, Eleanor, holds the family together with quiet strength. Her brother Rex is seventeen, restless and angry at what their lives have become.
Holly is different from all of them. She does not yet know how different.
Then Holly turns sixteen....
What Holly Sees
When Holly enters the layer, Hazelwood is still Hazelwood — but changed.
The streets, houses and people remain where they are. Yet, another world exists around them, one only Holly can see. Light gathers where people are connected. Roots stretch beneath homes, families and places, carrying something Holly can sense but does not yet understand. In some places, trees rise from those connections, their branches heavy with strange glowing fruit.
But the layer is not only light.
There are places where the roots weaken, where the glow fades, and where something darker begins to gather. Holly can see more than anyone else.
She just does not yet understand what she is looking at.
Holly's story begins in What the Darkness Takes.