The Damp Child

Laura Pate inherits a crumbling saltbox house in rural Vermont she never asked for—along with a pregnancy she fought years to achieve and a marriage already rotting from the inside. Clearing the flooded cellar, she cracks open a sealed clay jar and releases something that has waited two centuries to feed. The walls weep. A second heartbeat pulses on her fetal monitor. And the small, dying town of Denton Falls watches her every move, because Laura is not a newcomer. She is the latest offering.