When the Orchard Calls

In Raven's Hollow, every door wears a browned apple slice and the only law is simple–never speak your name after dark. An itinerant tax collector arrives with ledgers and skepticism, but the village orchard listens, and night begins to knock in rythms only loved ones would know. Faced with a debt older than coin, he's drawn into a choice that binds names, memory and hunger. A folk-horror fable about the price of being known. This story was selected to feature in the May 2026 When the Floorboard Creaks: Horror Stories anthology from Beyond Words literary magazine.