The 9th Skip

Forty years after Misty Falls Lake made its bargain, Crimson Hollow has learned how to survive by renaming what happened.

Federal consultant Alicia Manchado arrives in town looking for Nyreen Blocker, a missing investigator who left behind a file no one wants officially opened: copied Parks records, corrupted audio, altered photographs, old route maps, and repeated phrases that should not appear in unrelated evidence. The clues point back to Misty Falls Lake, where children's voices are heard beneath recordings, old names refuse to stay buried, and the town's public history keeps shrinking around the truth.

But this time, the lake does not need secrecy.

A viral ghost video turns local legend into a live event. Teenagers, grieving families, skeptics, influencers, and survivors begin gathering near the water, each convinced they are only watching, proving, mourning, or asking one harmless question. Alicia must separate hoax from pattern before the crowd repeats what Crimson Hollow has spent decades pretending was only confusion.

Because the lake does not care whether people believe.

It only cares whether they participate.

The 9th Skip: Remembrance is a supernatural mystery-horror novel about memory, grief, viral folklore, buried records, and the danger of a town that survives by refusing to remember the right things.