Marna was just your average american woman, or at least, as normal a famous writer can get. She loved the seaside, rivers, lakes, anyplace near water. She was purely happy, until the day her father, a man who left her and her mother, gives her a call. Telling her to move to Sweden, she packs her bags and stays with a young Swedish cafe owner in one of Sweden's little towns, called Mangata.
After taking a swim in the town's lake and nearly drowning because of a myth the town believes in, strange things happen to her. A man standing over her at midnight, getting slightly-webbed hands, and the locals whispering about something. Something old and ancient. And angry.
On the day she affords a beach house near the woods, the young cafe owner, Elsa, gets her cafe burned down. Marna lets Elsa stay. And when she goes on a walk in the woods, a young man bumps into her, afraid, alone and broken. She brings him home, only to discover he has no clue about the modern world, and likes to stay in the bathroom longer than a person should. Who and what is he and can she help him, or will this all fall apart?
Angie, a grieving expectant mother, must help the spirit of a little girl find the remains of twelve other children who mysteriously disappeared three years ago.
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After the death of her twin brother, Angie Abernathy immersed herself in her painting to help her deal with her overwhelming grief. When her husband, John, finally convinces her to sort through some of Cory's belongings, she unexpectedly finds the closure she needs in the form of a map and a journal full of cryptic notes. When the notes lead her to the bodily remains of six-year-old Mary Drake, the first of thirteen children who went missing three years ago, Angie finds herself caught up in her own investigation and quickly starts to believe that Mary's bones aren't as dead as they seem to be...
Content warning: This story contains mature themes, including references to the murder of children