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In the tumultuous summer of 1969, Aubrey Blackwood's carefully constructed future crumbles with a single phone call from the past. Fresh from nursing school with New York City beckoning, Aubrey's plans dissolve when her grandmother's desperate plea summons her back to Hollow Wind—the remote farmhouse where childhood innocence withered after her parents' tragic deaths. Banished to boarding school at twelve, Aubrey had locked away memories of the ancient estate with its whispering corridors and shifting shadows. Now, returning to care for her ailing grandfather, Aubrey finds more than familial obligation awaiting her. Her cousin Vanessa has vanished without trace, and questions about her disappearance are met with chilling silence. As twilight descends, the old house awakens—floorboards creak with phantom footsteps, voices echo through empty rooms, and something unseen watches from darkened corners. Night after night, macabre visions torment Aubrey's sanity while family portraits stare with knowing eyes. Beneath Hollow Wind's decaying grandeur lurks a malevolent secret, festering for generations. As Aubrey unravels the twisted threads of her family's past, she realizes the most terrifying truth of all—the darkness consuming Hollow Wind now hungers for her. Some family legacies are better left buried. |
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Beneath gathering storm clouds in the forgotten backwoods of Southern Ohio stands Stone Shadow—a decaying antebellum mansion where time itself seems to have withered and died. For Daphany Miller, life has always been about forging ahead. Orphaned young and haunted by half-remembered fragments of familial warmth, she's fought for every scrap of her future—college courses by day, planning a life with her mechanic fiancé James by night. Their shared dream of a modern apartment and the family she's never known hovers just beyond reach. When her roommate Carolyn offers her a lucrative position selling cosmetics door-to-door, Daphany seizes the opportunity. Flexible hours. Generous commission. The key to everything she's wanted. As Friday approaches, only one delivery remains on her roster—a solitary address that makes locals cross themselves and whisper warnings. "No one goes near Stone Shadow," they caution. But Daphany has no time for superstition. Just one quick sale—then home to James and their future. The mansion's weathered façade looms as thunder rumbles overhead. A simple errand, nothing more. She'll be gone before the storm breaks. Or so she believes. Beyond Stone Shadow's threshold waits a labyrinth of madness where shadows move of their own accord and whispers echo through empty corridors. As night descends, Daphany discovers the mansion's grotesque secret—one sealed in blood generations ago and hungry still. Trapped within crumbling walls that pulse with malevolent memory, she must unravel a supernatural conspiracy before she becomes another tragic footnote in Stone Shadow's hideous legacy. Some doors, once opened, can never be closed again.  At forty-two, Ava Sullivan's life has become a study in quiet desperation. Trapped in a loveless marriage, her dreams of academia long abandoned, she moves through her days in a well-kept suburban home that feels more like a beautiful prison. Her husband works away during the week, her teenage daughter grows more independent by the day, and Ava is left wondering how she lost herself along the way.
Then one ordinary Wednesday, she meets Ellie Morales—twenty-six, unapologetically herself, with a gap-toothed smile that awakens something in Ava she thought had died years ago. What begins as innocent conversations over a convenience store counter evolves into coffee dates, late-night text messages, and a connection that makes Ava feel truly alive for the first time in decades. As their relationship intensifies into a passionate affair, Ava finds herself intoxicated by possibility. When Ellie speaks of a future together, Ava makes the ultimate sacrifice—abandoning her marriage and buying Ellie a new car with money she can't afford to spend. But when her husband discovers the affair and leaves with their daughter, Ava's world implodes. She turns to Ellie for comfort, only to discover the ultimate betrayal: Ellie has vanished with the car, leaving nothing behind but an abandoned camper and a disconnected phone number. Left with nothing, Ava must face the hardest question of all: who is she when everything she thought she wanted is gone? In the wreckage of her former life, she may finally find the courage to become the woman she was always meant to be. A haunting exploration of mid-life awakening, desire, and reinvention, Ava & Ellie reminds us that sometimes we must lose everything to find ourselves again. |