The Bone Harvest E-Book

Lena Grace Holloway

• Herausgeber: Twist & Tether Press
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

In a remote village where silence masks collective guilt, seventeen-year-old Nyina tends a graveyard that has always felt wrong beneath her boots. The earth hums. The rain exposes bones that grin. And the crops—if they can still be called that—grow in the shape of the dead.
When strange stalks begin sprouting from an unmarked mass grave, Nyina is drawn into a history no one will speak of. Visions, whispers, and unearthed relics reveal a brutal legacy buried deeper than she ever imagined. As the village children fall ill and the ground begins to “remember,” Nyina realizes the graveyard isn’t haunted by ghosts—it’s held together by a pact. One her bloodline helped forge. One that was waiting for her.
Every answer she finds raises a more terrifying question. Every step closer to the truth sinks her deeper into the past’s open grave. And some roots, once disturbed, will not let go.
How do you make peace with the land—when the land knows what you did?

Leseprobe

The Bone Harvest

They Buried the Past. But the Ground Wouldn’t Keep It.

VERIWARP: The Truth Wasn’t Lost. It Was Engineered.

Lena Grace Holloway

Copyright © 2025 by Lena Grace Holloway

All rights reserved. This book, including all individual stories and original content, is protected under international copyright law. No part of this publication may be copied, reproduced, distributed, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without prior written permission from the author, except for brief excerpts used in reviews or academic commentary, which must be properly credited.

Fiction Disclaimer:

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons—living or dead—is entirely coincidental.

Cover Image Notice:

The cover artwork for this book was created using licensed generative AI tools under commercial-use terms. It is an original, symbolic composition created specifically for this title. Any characters depicted are fictional and do not represent real individuals.

AI Tools Acknowledgement:

The cover image and/or illustrations were created using generative AI technology under appropriate commercial-use licensing. All visual elements are original compositions intended solely for this publication.

Thank you for reading this special collection. I hope you enjoy every story inside.

Table of Contents

The Bone Harvest

Description

Chapter 1: When the Soil Began to Scream

Chapter 2: Crops That Never Died

Chapter 3: Whispers in the Field

Chapter 4: The Names That Were Erased

Chapter 5: Skulls Under Rainwater

Chapter 6: The Family That Fed the Earth

Chapter 7: Last Harvest

The Bone Harvest

Description

In a remote village where silence masks collective guilt, seventeen-year-old Nyina tends a graveyard that has always felt wrong beneath her boots. The earth hums. The rain exposes bones that grin. And the crops—if they can still be called that—grow in the shape of the dead.

When strange stalks begin sprouting from an unmarked mass grave, Nyina is drawn into a history no one will speak of. Visions, whispers, and unearthed relics reveal a brutal legacy buried deeper than she ever imagined. As the village children fall ill and the ground begins to “remember,” Nyina realizes the graveyard isn’t haunted by ghosts—it’s held together by a pact. One her bloodline helped forge. One that was waiting for her.

Every answer she finds raises a more terrifying question. Every step closer to the truth sinks her deeper into the past’s open grave. And some roots, once disturbed, will not let go.

How do you make peace with the land—when the land knows what you did?

Chapter 1: When the Soil Began to Scream

The graveyard never smelled right after the rain. It was more than the rot of earthworms or the seep of stagnant water. There was something sharp in the wind that morning—coppery and sour, like meat too long forgotten in the sun.

Nyina stepped between crooked headstones, boots half-sinking in the mud. Her breath fogged in the early light, and the mist clung to her skin like a warning.

She crouched beside the old boundary stone, fingertips grazing the soil. Something pulsed beneath her palm. Not a tremor. Not wind. A rhythm.

As if the ground were... breathing.

She yanked her hand back.

The sensation vanished.

Her father’s voice called from the far end of the field.

“Leave the old ones be. Rain shifted the soil. That’s all.”

Nyina didn’t respond. She stood slowly, brushing damp clay from her knees, and stared at the plot near the far fence—the one with no headstones. Just a long, sunken patch of overgrown grass where nothing ever bloomed.

They called it the communal grave. Whispered it, really.

The place where the unmarked dead went.

She returned to the shed, gathered the rusted trowel and pruning shears, and worked without thinking—trimming back vines, resetting fallen crosses, replacing candle cups. But her mind circled back to that beat.

That thump... thump...

Not natural.

Not rain.

She stayed until sundown, too long for a seventeen-year-old girl in a place where night held memories.

***

The moon broke through thin clouds. White light streaked across the cemetery, casting the twisted tree at the center into silhouette. Nyina stepped outside, drawn by something she couldn’t name.

She paused.

The ground shimmered.

Tiny stalks—pale, thin, bone-white—poked through the mud. Dozens of them. They grew along the sunken plot. Not like flowers. Not like mushrooms. Straight, rigid, spaced evenly.

She knelt and reached for one. It crumbled to the touch, leaving a white smear on her fingers.

She brought them to her nose.

The smell hit her hard.

Ash. Lime. Burnt marrow.

Her stomach flipped.

She wiped her hand against her shirt, backing away. The stalks were growing in rows. Neat, measured—like something planted.

She ran to the cottage. Her father sat at the table, radio crackling softly with a preacher’s voice.

“There’s something in the field,” she said, chest heaving.

He looked up, face still as stone. “Roots. Drainage. Don’t dig.”

“It’s not roots,” she whispered. “They’re growing. In rows.”

His jaw tightened. “We’ve had wet months. The ground remembers water. It lifts things sometimes. Animals.”

“It’s bones.”

His eyes darkened. “Go to bed.”

Nyina didn’t move. Her throat tightened. She wanted to scream. To throw the shears still clutched in her hand. But something in his voice made her freeze.

Not anger.

Fear.

She turned and walked to her room, closing the door softly behind her. She sat on the floor, arms wrapped around her knees, rocking without realizing it.

Something’s under there. Something they don’t want me to see.

The radio in the kitchen buzzed louder. Her father hadn’t lowered the volume. He hadn’t moved. She could hear the preacher’s words still flowing.

She waited an hour.

Then she moved.

***

Back outside, the cemetery pulsed with cold. Her breath rose in puffs, and her shadow danced long and warped across the field. She carried the trowel again. The same one her mother once used to tend roses before the fever took her.

She knelt at the western edge, where the new stalks grew.

Dig.

She hesitated.

What if you find what you’re not ready for?

Her hands moved anyway.

The first few layers were thick mud, tangled with pale roots. She scraped slowly, heart in her throat, breath growing shallow.

Then—clink.

She paused.

Scraped again.

Harder.

And unearthed it.

A jawbone.

Perfectly intact.

Too large for a child. Teeth still rooted. The molars worn down by time.