Grandma and the Box

By the time Maren Vale came home to bury her grandmother, Bellweather had already decided how Hazel Vale died. Heart stopped. Just gave out. Peaceful, thank the Lord. Maren does not believe a word of it. She is twenty-nine years old, eleven years gone from a town that was always good at looking, and the woman who raised her walked two miles a day and did not miss a doctor's appointment in twenty years. At the cemetery, a stranger puts a wrapped package in her hands. Inside it is a small black cube. It is warm. It learns by watching. And when it has watched long enough, it begins to speak in her grandmother's voice. Hazel Vale was not only a church woman with a good yard and a list of rules. She was a scientist, she was hiding something in her own basement wall, and the people she hid it from are already on their way to Bellweather to collect. What the cube learns first is the word gone. What it learns last is the word mine. A Black family, a small town that knows better than to ask, and a grief that gets up and walks around. Book One of The Box.