The Hollow Below
By E.L. Ravenheart
Something beneath Ashby Hollow has been waiting to be remembered. And it has been waiting a very long time.
Mara Bell arrives at Vale & Daughters funeral home still carrying her own grief — the recent death of her younger brother Jonah sits heavy in her chest as she settles into the quiet Somerset village of Ashby Hollow. She expects routine. Paperwork. The particular silence of the newly dead.
Instead, she finds an impossible three-branched mark carved into the body of Evelyn Reed.
The same mark appears on others. Through old ledgers, culvert maps, family letters, and forgotten county records, Mara uncovers a dark truth: in 1889, three labourers died during drainage works beneath the village. Their families — the Reeds, the Coles, the Frys — became bound to an ancient presence that has lived in the dark ever since, tended by the Vale family from the funeral home built directly above it.
Their purpose was simple. To watch. To remember. To make sure the thing below was never entirely forgotten.
As deaths accumulate, the presence grows bolder — and begins to speak in Jonah's voice, exploiting Mara's grief and her desperate, secret hope that death might not be the end. When she finally recognises the deception, she must descend into the underground chamber with Luther Vale and Camille Baptiste and face what waits below.
The entity never truly wanted death. It wanted to be acknowledged.
About this book
- A standalone gothic horror novel set in the Somerset countryside
- Themes of grief, memory, and the cost of forgetting
- Rich in British folklore and atmospheric dread
- For readers who want hauntings that come from history, not monsters
Perfect for readers who love:
- Gothic horror & slow-burn supernatural fiction
- Grief-driven ghost stories with emotional depth
- Somerset folklore & atmospheric British horror
- Stories where the past refuses to stay buried
Years later, Mara notices what may be the mark on her own body. She cannot tell whether it is real or merely shadow. But she has made her choice: she will keep showing up, remembering, and refusing to look away.
