Under the Gallows' Shadow
In Salem Village, mercy can be enough to hang a woman.
Elizabeth Wardwell learned that lesson young. Her mother carried a secret light in her hands, a warmth that could mend what sickness and injury had broken. Before fever took her, she warned Elizabeth to hide the gift if it ever came. Let herbs take the credit. Let prayer take the credit. Let no one see too clearly what the hands can do.
Years later, Elizabeth is living under the care of Ruth Corey, a village healer too sharp, too useful, and too proud to bow easily before frightened men. When a child named Mercy Hale burns with fever, Elizabeth answers the call and does what no herb alone could have done. The girl lives.
The village notices.
Abigail Hale saw the light. Thomas Putnam knows how to turn a rumor into power. Reverend Parris thunders from the pulpit. Magistrate Hathorne gives fear the shape of law. Soon Ruth is accused, Elizabeth is hunted, and Salem's hunger for judgment begins moving toward Gallows Hill.
Driven into the winter woods, Elizabeth meets Nathaniel Crowe, a ruined preacher who knows that the forest holds an older force, one that can help her fight Salem's cruelty, but only by making mercy expensive. To save Ruth, expose Putnam, and survive the court's appetite, Elizabeth must decide how much of herself she is willing to spend, and whether any power that asks surrender can ever truly serve justice.
Under the Gallows' Shadow is a dark historical supernatural horror novel about Salem, hidden healing, public fear, old forest powers, and a young woman forced to stand between the gallows and the thing beneath the roots that knows how grief becomes a door.
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