Unnamed Bones

by Lora Senf

Genres: YA Dark Fantasy; YA Paranormal

Synopsis

Reckless, depressed, impulsive and sixteen, Harrow Lane is going to an island that shouldn’t exist to look for answers about the death of her father—the father who accidentally cursed her shortly after she was born. Things immediately go very wrong—beginning with the sinking of the boat that brought them to the island and an ominous chuckle from something that shouldn’t be there—and keep getting worse in ways they couldn’t possibly imagine. Harrow and friends came without being invited and whatever lives there doesn’t like visitors.
 
With no way to reach the outside world and no understanding of the rules of the island, Harrow and her friends are in mortal danger, and knowing who can and can’t be trusted is a thing they left back on shore. Matters are only complicated by Harrow’s emotions—she’s given her biggest feelings human faces and personalities and does her best to keep them locked away in a seedy motel she built in her mind. But emotions are sneaky, and she’s having to face them at the worst possible time. It’s creating sort of an “Inside Out in hell” situation as they fight for survival against a creature that seems to be made entirely of terror and who very well might spell the end of the world.

Release date: July 21, 2026

Publisher: Union Square & Co.

Print pages: 336

Sample

I​’ve been falling as long as I can remember.

The way Mom tells it, the first time Tim held me, he dropped me. Fortunately for my soft baby head, the night nurse had seen her share of tired new fathers and knew to place pillows around the chair he was slouching in.

“You have heavy blood, little girl,” Tim had said as he lifted me off the floor and pulled me back to his chest.

That was Tim, lightning quick with love and hugs but also forever armed with excuses, never ready with responsibility. He said things like that a million times before he was gone. Only, I think that time was different. Those were the first words my father ever spoke to me, and that gave them power. They left a mark or a curse or something I can’t wipe clean. He could have said I’m sorry or I’ll never let you fall again, but he didn’t. He dropped me and made it my blood’s fault, and I think the universe heard him loud and clear. There are pictures of the two of us from that night. Me, tiny and pink. Him, smiling with so much love on his face and wearing the denim jacket with all the rock band pins and buttons. (He wore that thing until the day he died in it.) He was doing his best—he always did, even when his best wasn’t all that great or what I needed.

And then both my parents sealed my fate by naming me Harrow. They didn’t know what it meant, only that it sounded pretty. Yes, they were young and dumb, but to be fair, most people don’t know that a harrow is a farm tool with badass metal teeth meant to churn up land. Except the John Deere guys, of course. I can deal with the plow jokes they make. They don’t matter—not the guys or the jokes. It’s the other meaning that I can’t shake. If something is harrowing, it’s disturbing and maybe terrifying and, if you care about it, bound to tear you up and break your heart, so I guess mine is about right as names go.

Because, just maybe, I really am cursed.

For sixteen years, I’ve been falling. From slides and out of trees when I was little and not long ago from a second-story roof, and other high and not-so-high things that would make you assume I’m clumsy even though I’m not. Earth’s great magnet core just can’t resist all the iron in my veins. But I refuse to avoid edges and ledges and rims, even if the palms of my hands and soles of my feet grow damp as gravity tugs.

Of course, there are different ways to fall—in and out of love and friendships, off the pedestals—few and far between—I’ve been put on, and out of the grace of the people I needed it from the most. Falling hard off the edge of the hopes people have for me and harder still off those I had for myself. Every now and then I nearly manage to grab hold of a crevice or ledge and save myself, but in the end my fingers always slip. And every time I fall, it’s deeper into the guts of Seeker’s Rest and this pointless, nothing life that’s laid out for me.

Falling forever means that at some point, if you’re smart, you stop trying to fly because the ground is always, always waiting. You start jumping instead. Why not, if the crash is coming either way?

But here’s the thing. Sometimes, as hard as you try not to, you care about people and those same people care about you. A lot. Those are the ones you have to let go of and push as far away as you can. Because they will cling to you, maybe even try to save you. They’ll be so fierce and try so hard, but it’s all for nothing. They just end up falling right along with you because of that heavy blood of yours. There was a time Olive was one of those people for me, and me for her, maybe. At least, I wanted her to be. But we aren’t the same people now that we were then.

Loving and being loved comes with its own kind of weight. So does being afraid. And feeling guilty. And being abandoned, but hoping it isn’t forever. It all adds up and it’s heavy—heavier, maybe, than even your blood. If you’re already falling, you can’t afford to fill your pockets with rocks. The crash will be that much harder. So, in your head, you build rooms with thick walls and steel doors and iron bars in the windows to lock away all your feelings.

Maybe the place you build—the place to keep all those rooms—is a seedy roadside motel surrounded by desert and scrub brush and circling vultures and not a whole lot else. Love goes in one room, Hope in another. Guilt and Fear, too. And on and on until your biggest feelings are safely locked away. You get good at it. You wall them off until all you’re left with is the falling—it’s the one thing you can’t put behind a door. Well, that and your thoughts. Those are too slippery and quick to get your hands around, much less lock away.

For the last few weeks, those liquid thoughts have swirled around one idea until they created a gravity of their own and I couldn’t escape their pull. I didn’t tell my mom or even my cousin who I like most of the time. If there was ever a place to fall, it’s that island.

And that island is the last place I belong. Or, maybe it’s the place where I most belong. I don’t know. But if I go—when I go—Mom can never know.

I take a moment to lock Guilt back in his room. I don’t have time for him.

I​’m wandering the aisles of The Last Shop on Earth (not nearly as cool as it sounds), looking for something to eat that goes with the found-footage horror movies I’m planning to watch tonight. So far, I have spicy chips and dried mango, which isn’t enough to get me through a trilogy.

The store carries a little bit of everything, including an eclectic array of snacks, camping gear, and an entire section of locally made stuff and souvenirs yelling about my hometown being The Last Town on Earth!

Years ago, Seeker’s Rest started calling itself that as a way to attract people visiting the enormous Pacific Northwest wilderness that looms beyond its city line like a million-limbed beast. The general store renamed itself at the same time and became a one-stop shop for all your survival gear and tacky merch needs. Locals do plenty of shopping here, but the logo-covered shit is strictly for tourists. Ethan, the owners’ son, came to school once in a T-shirt with the town motto but that was worse than wearing the T-shirt of the band you’re seeing in concert, and as far as I know, he never made that mistake again.

I’m reaching for a chocolate bar that promises to be 37 percent hazelnuts when a familiar voice makes my hand stop midair and my heart speed up. Olive is talking to someone—Ethan, probably—at the front of the store. She isn’t loud, she just has one of those voices that carries, and I’d know it anywhere even if I’d be better off forgetting it.

I grab the overpriced chocolate, and before I can stop my traitorous feet, I’m walking to the checkout counter to get in line behind my former best friend. Olive has a bag of kettle corn and a six-pack of craft beer on the counter. Ethan is leaning back on his stool, messing with his dark hair and fidgeting with his glasses. It’s an open secret that if Ethan’s working solo, you still have to pay for your beer, but no one from our class or above is getting carded. And he certainly isn’t going to card his girlfriend. She’s so far out of his league that he isn’t likely to do anything to make her realize it.

Olive turns her blond head and looks down at me. “Hey,” she says, like everything is normal and we didn’t basically stop speaking a year ago.

I open my mouth to answer when a voice behind me says, “Hey, guys!” Shane is in line now with his hands full of jerky and various protein bars. He greets us like we’re all his best friends, and while we’ve all known one another since grade school, we aren’t exactly spending our free time together. He’s genuinely nice and greets everyone that way, which is probably why everyone likes him. That and the fact that he looks like he fell out of a Hot Outdoorsy Guy magazine.

“Hiking?” Olive asks, nodding to the provisions in Shane’s hands.

“Probably,” Shane says. “Or biking. The weather’s good, so I’ll do something. You still mountain bike, Ethan?”

Ethan sort of shrugs his narrow shoulders. “Sometimes. Not a lot, I guess.” He’s standing now, as tall and straight as he can, maybe so his girlfriend won’t notice that he’s basically Shane’s opposite.

“You should come!” Shane says to a terrified-looking Ethan. “We could hit some trails, and you can shake the dust off.”

Olive’s half smirk says the whole situation is amusing her. Shane might not be picking up on it, but Olive knows how awkward this whole thing is for Ethan. And for me.

“How about you, Harrow?” Shane asks, and if it were anyone else, I’d think he was making fun of the goth girl, but he’s sincere.

“I don’t even own a bike,” I tell him.

“Olive?” he tries.

“Not a chance,” she says, crossing her arms over her mom’s Edna-swap concert shirt. Olive inherited her mom’s taste in music and much of her old wardrobe.

“Can’t believe you guys. It’s summer and no one wants an adventure?”

“Oh, I’m going to have an adventure. I’m heading to the new island. See if the rumors are true.” The words are out of my mouth before I can stop them. I’ve been thinking about it for the last month but hadn’t actually decided to go to the island until this very second. Maybe I wanted to impress Shane and surprise Olive. Ethan I couldn’t care less about.

“Wait. Are you serious?” Shane asks and leans over me to drop his stuff on the long counter. “You’re going to the new island? When? With who?”

“This weekend and with no one,” I say, which is absurd because I have absolutely no way to get there, but I’m on a roll now.

“I’m in,” says Shane, despite the fact I hadn’t invited him.

Shit. Now I’ve started something.

“I don’t know,” I say, but Shane and his excitement interrupt me.

“You shouldn’t go by yourself. Besides, I can’t pass up a chance to explore it! Saturday? Are you going Saturday?”

“Yeah,” I say. “That’s the plan.”

It is now, anyway.

“How are you getting there?” asks Olive, who doesn’t believe a word I’m saying. She knows better than anyone that I’m an indoor cat.

“Mike is taking me.” And I’m grateful there isn’t a hint of hesitation. If anyone’s taking me, my almost-uncle Mike is the most likely candidate.

“Hmm.” Olive is nodding like she believes me and might even approve of the idea. “I mean, that place is weird even for Seeker’s Rest. And who knows if it’s even safe to be out there? But Mike has never said no to you, has he?”

Olive isn’t wrong—about any of it—and I start to respond when Ethan interrupts me.

“I’m in, too,” he says, and it comes out in a rush, like he had to force the words. Like he doesn’t really want to go out to the mystery island. “I’m in. An adventure sounds good.”

It could not be more painfully obvious that he wants Olive to be impressed.

“Really?” Olive doesn’t bother hiding her surprise. “This is probably a terrible idea. Well, shit, I’m in, too.”

Fuck me, I guess I’m in, too.

“Great,” I say. “Olive, I’ll text you the details.” She can take care of filling Ethan in.

“And me,” Shane says. I hand him my phone so he can put his number in.

Olive steps aside so I can buy my snacks even though I don’t think I’ll be able to eat without puking, much less focus on my movies.

I have a boat ride to secure.

I head out the door with a half wave to my three new travel buddies.

That was less than brilliant.

Shut up. I know.

“What’s up, kid? Sorry I didn’t pick up before. I was shouldering about a thousand pounds of lumber.”

“That’s okay, Uncle Mike,” I tell him.

“Oh, shit. This is an Uncle Mike call. You in trouble?” If there is anyone in my life who will bail me out of just about anything, it’s my pseudo-uncle Mike. I’m counting on him to do exactly that now.

“I need a favor. A ride, actually.”

“Sure, Hare-Bear. Where to?” I cringe at my childhood nickname but don’t correct him.

“To the new island—”

“No.” Mike cuts me off, and Olive wasn’t wrong. It might be the first time he’s ever said that word to me and meant it.

I choose to ignore him. “—on Saturday. Me and three friends, actually, so I won’t even be alone. And just for the day. You can drop us off and pick us up later.”

“Harrow, no. I’m not taking you out there. You have no business on that lake, much less the new island. Hell, no.”

Shit. He’s serious.

Time to pull out the grieving-daughter card.

“Mike.” I make my voice softer, smaller. “I… I just want to go out there. Because my dad… you know. I guess I want to see it. And… I don’t know. But it’s only this once, I promise. I thought you would understand.”

“I can’t believe you’re asking me to do this,” he says. “And your mom would kill me with her bare hands if she found out.”

He’s softening.

“Please?” I ask.

“Kid, if anything happened to you, if I lost you like… you know, I’d never be able to live with it.”

We both know he’s talking about Tim. About my dead dad.

“I’ll be fine. One of the guys going is like an outdoor genius or something. And Ethan’s smart, and Olive—”

“Olive’s going? You two patch things up?” His voice is hopeful. He was nearly Olive’s pseudo uncle, too, since she and I were basically inseparable from the time we were little.

“Yeah. No. I mean yes, she’s going, but no, we haven’t really worked things out. I’m thinking this trip might help.” I hadn’t admitted it until now, but I’m clinging to the possibility that Olive and I could start to mend our broken parts if we have a few hours together.

Mike sighs a deep, long, vanquished sigh. “Shit, Harrow, I don’t like it. This one time. You four meet me at my place Saturday morning. Seven sharp. No bitching about it being too early. And I pick you up at five. No later. That’s the deal.”

“I’ll take it,” I say. “Thank you.”

“Tell your mom and I’m a dead man walking.”

“Never. Thanks, Mike.”

“Yeah, yeah. Love you, kid.”

“Love you, too.”

My town, if you can even call it that, is right on the edge of the biggest wilderness area in the Pacific Northwest. The backyard of Seeker’s Rest, Washington, is about a million acres of trees and rocks and not much else. Maybe it’s because the town is an outpost of civilization—a last opportunity to turn back before you wander too far—or maybe it’s something in the land itself, but Seeker’s Rest is a magnet for the weird.

So, when the valley showed up nearly a century ago, no one noticed at first. At least, no one talked about it. The way I understand it, the whole thing was mostly treated like a novelty. Just another bizarre-but-ordinary occurrence for our town—a valley, small but deep, showing up like that.

It should have been a major scientific discovery, right? A perfect circle of low and pointed mountains where there hadn’t been any the day before. But it wasn’t. No one away from here even seemed to notice, and everyone from here just got used to it.

Maybe it was the strangeness of the valley or maybe people are overwhelmed by the impossibility of such a thing. But I don’t think so. I think the valley wanted to be left alone so that’s what happened.

Seventeen years ago, when my parents were a little older than me, the lake showed up.

Yeah, there’s a lake, too.

Twice as deep as Crater Lake down in Oregon (which makes our little mystery lake the deepest lake in America—it isn’t even close) and half again as wide. It filled the valley with water so clear and still that people claimed you could see all the way to the bottom on a sunny day. No rivers fed it, and there wasn’t enough runoff from the mountains to fill it. Just like the valley, no one could explain how it came to be, and again, everyone just got used to it.

For a while, there were locals curious or brave or whatever enough to go investigate the lake. They took out boats and equipment and measured it and looked for life (there wasn’t any). Only once did divers go out. Three of them. One came back blind, one came back unwilling to talk about it, and the third didn’t come back at all. After that, only a few boats went out and no more divers.

Except Tim, I guess.

Tim could never let go of the fact that he and my mom were the ones who discovered the lake on one of their first dates—he told the story to anyone who would listen, and that story had earned him free drinks from tourists in more than one bar on more than one occasion. Knowing I was born about nine months later tells me more than I want to know about how that particular date went.

Last summer, Tim and his buddies took a boat full of beer and bad decisions out on the lake. His buddies came back with conflicting stories but without Tim. What they did agree on was that Tim went in and didn’t come out. No splashing or swimming or signs of drowning. My dad went into that lake and sank like a stone and that was it.

I don’t know what really happened to Tim. No one does. Not even, if you believe them, the guys on the boat. His friends were sober enough or smart enough or scared enough to stay on the boat, but they claim they have no idea what happened to him once he was in the water. There aren’t many possibilities. They killed him—accidentally or on purpose—or the lake did or he jumped in or even just lost his footing and killed his drunk dumbass self. Just drowned the way most people say. Probably it’s a combination, but mostly I think it was the lake.

Sometime in the last couple of months, the island showed up. No one is sure exactly when. Par for the course in Seeker’s Rest. It was some of the John Deere boys who discovered it—they wanted to fish the lake to see what they might catch and came back with empty creels and full of breathless stories about an island.

Now people are saying it’s a cinder-cone island maybe a mile and a half from one side to the other, complete with a volcanic crater. The way I understand it, the cone and crater mean a volcano made the island and the lake around it thousands of years ago, at least. But also, it has only been around a few weeks. Somehow, both those things are true. People are getting used to it, even if there are very old trees on that island that have no business being there. And even if some nights you can spot fires burning along its shore that no one set. And even if the few people who claim to have set foot on the rocky beach of the island refuse to return to it.

That’s where I’m headed now, on this little boat with these four idiots. Well, three, because the oldest idiot is just dropping us off and heading home.

Mike tried to talk me out of it one last time this morning. “You won’t find him. Or answers. I was there and I don’t know what happened. Just… gone.” His eyes were wet, and his next words were creaky. “You couldn’t fix him before and you can’t bring him back now. Stay home and safe, for your mom, if no one else.”

I felt like an asshole watching Mike cry, making Mike cry. But it wasn’t entirely a lie. I do want to see the place my dad died. I don’t really expect to find answers; it takes smarter people than me to solve these kinds of mysteries, if they can be solved at all. Mostly, I’m going because the island has been pulling me into its orbit since it showed up, a magnet calling to my iron-filled blood. I swear on the quietest nights I can hear it, a cry and a song and a sound that isn’t sound. It’s batshit, but it’s true—maybe all this time it’s the island I’ve been falling toward. I’m tired of falling, and an island that shouldn’t be there with fires that shouldn’t be burning seems like a place to crash. Either I’ll get up and brush myself off or I won’t.

Maybe this will be the last time I fall.

Now we’re here. The only sound is the janky motor on Mike’s janky boat and the sloshing of water as we move through the too-still lake. There are five of us on the boat, and no one is saying a thing. My heart is racing and I’m jittery like I drank too much coffee, but that’s just adrenaline poking at my veins with its needle-fingers. I’m not scared, I don’t think. I haven’t seen Fear for a while.

Ethan is nervous. Or maybe excited? I can’t read him. Wide-eyed and fidgety, there’s sweat on his forehead even though the June morning started cool and is almost cold now that we’re on the water. He’s tugging at the sleeves of his charcoal hoodie and pushing up his glasses and messing with his heavy-looking backpack, which is probably stocked according to the Boy Scouts handbook. He’s so clean, he might have been a Boy Scout—still is, for all I know. Eagle Scout Ethan. The new nickname makes me want to laugh a little even though I’m not mean enough to say it out loud.

Ethan pulls out a bottle of water, holds it out to Olive. “You need anything?” he asks her. There is something desperate in the way he says it.

“I’m fine.” Olive’s eye. . .