In the forgotten town of Myreska, where secrets are buried deeper than roots and silence is a way of survival, twelve girls have vanished. No one speaks their names. No one asks the questions that might crack the quiet open.

But the forest remembers.

When quiet, observant Zosia follows the tug of something ancient into the Hushwood, she finds more than frost and shadow beneath the trees. She finds the whisperroot—dark, pulsing, and alive with voices that should not be speaking. Voices of the lost. Voices of the silenced.

Her older sister Ainela, bright and burning with secrets of her own, is determined to protect Zosia from the truth. But the truth has begun to bloom beneath their feet. And the girls of Myreska—those who remain and those who are gone—are bound together in ways the town would rather forget.

Told in part by the town itself, Whisperroot is a haunting tapestry of folklore, memory, and girlhood carved in shadows. It is a story of sisters, of survival, and of what happens when the forest finally speaks.

Some things will not stay buried.
Some roots whisper back.

***

Two years ago, my family and I went to Europe for a 23 day tour. As part of the trip, my daughter and I took an overnight excursion to Poland. We ate at the main square and I fell in love with the quaint, small town. The horse drawn carriages, the open air market with vendors selling homemade jewels and fragrant flowers, the church bells ringing were all cherry picked to fulfill the storybook world I’ve dreamed of. When we came back, I started reading a lot of very, very old Polish folklore.

But, truth be told, this story started in my Senior year of high school when Dr. Estes made us read A Rose for Emily by William Faulkner. I had already read, and loved, As I Lay Dying and, pretty much everything else he wrote. But Emily’s story, for whatever reason, left an inedible mark on me. In the back of my head, then, a seed was planted: I wanted to be like Faulkner.

Alas, I’m not.

But this idea that was brewing as a result of my wild imagination + old Polish folklore seems to lend itself well to utilizing some Faulkner like strategies, including a POV from the Town.

Whisperroot is a root that grows in the Hushwood, a place that used to be on the town’s maps but isn’t anymore. Whisperroot grows wherever a truth is buried. It is living memory; as long as one survives, they also survive because the whisperroot and the whole of hushwood forest remembers.

While I’m still getting to know the girls, the town and all the intricate layers through writing a detailed outline, I’m looking forward to staying awhile in Zagłuszek, Poland, where the land itself refuses to keep secrets.

…