What Lies Beneath The Clearing

At just 7 years old, Lennox Rosewood suffers the most tragic experience possible - losing her mother. A day of exploring the mysterious Evergreen Forest turned out to be the last time Evelyn Rosewood would ever be seen again. After 9 years of following in her mother's footsteps, Lennox, now 16, has become notorious for her adventures into the unknown around her town, until she stumbles across a manor house hidden deep within Evergreen's bounds that traps her into a trance that ends her adventurous curiosity for good. Enchanted by its alluring energy, she and her friends make the mistake of returning time and time again, only to find themselves locked into a game they are forced to play to protect themselves from unseen dark forces living within the manor's walls.

When the lives of her friends are threatened by the manor, Lennox has no choice but to try and discover the truth about the stories and legends surrounding the forest, but the supernatural energy pulling her deeper into its clutches make it impossible for her to differentiate between reality and fantasy. Amongst the riddles, visions, and voices echoing in her mind, a memory from Lennox's childhood surfaces as a dream that hints at the involvement of the manor in her mother's sudden disappearance - if a disappearance is all it was. After years of believing her mother was gone for good, Lennox is thrown into a world of puzzling mysteries that, if she can maintain her sanity, will help her discover the truth about what happened to her mother, the strange connection between the manor house and her family, and if there is a way she can protect her friends from forces she never knew could exist.

Word count*** 40,470