the alone village

The Alone Village

Far beyond the reach of highways and humming cities, hidden between the folds of old mountains, there lay a village called Ellowen. Few maps showed it, and fewer people remembered its name. It was known only by whispers — the Alone Village.

The village was small, barely more than a dozen stone cottages wrapped around a crooked path that led nowhere. Time didn’t move there the way it did elsewhere. Seasons changed slowly, and the air always smelled like damp earth and distant pine.

Only one person lived in Ellowen now — an old woman named Marla.

No one remembered when the others had left. Some said they were pulled away by the war, others claimed the forest had simply taken them. Marla didn’t talk about it. She tended her garden, fed the stray cats, and lit a lantern at the edge of the road each night — just in case someone found their way home.

She kept the old bell tower working too. Every morning, at exactly seven, the bell rang out across the empty fields. For whom, no one knew. But Marla said the silence would be unbearable without it.

Strange things still happened in Ellowen.

Sometimes, on foggy mornings, footprints would appear on the muddy road — fresh ones, even though Marla had not left the house. Once, a book that had long vanished from the village library appeared on her doorstep, wrapped in a cloth that smelled of lavender and rain.

But she was never afraid. Ellowen wasn’t haunted — it was simply waiting.

Then, one dusky evening, as golden light spilled through the clouds, a boy appeared at the village edge. Thin, quiet, carrying a worn satchel and eyes full of wonder. He said he’d been walking for days, guided by the sound of a bell.

Marla smiled and opened the door.

That night, two lanterns lit the road.

And for the first time in years, the Alone Village didn’t feel so alone.