Harvey Swick runs a bookstore in Raymond, a rain-soaked town on the Washington coast where the bay meets the sky and secrets keep themselves. He organizes his shelves by feeling-grief on the east wall, wonder on the south, and the books that bite back locked safely behind glass. He's been here three months. He's been alive for centuries.

When a desperate mother walks through his door, Harvey knows the sound the bell makes: it weeps.

Her daughter is missing. Sixteen years old, bright and lonely, she stopped speaking a week ago-opened her mouth and nothing came out. Then she vanished, leaving only bay sand on her pillow and an open window.

The police say she ran away. Harvey knows better. Something took her voice. Something hungry and old, something that feeds on loneliness and wants nothing more than to be heard.

To save her, Harvey will have to face a creature that mirrors his own deepest fears-and offer it the one thing it's been starving for.

The Voice Thief is the first in a series of cozy fantasy shorts featuring Harvey Swick, witch, bookseller, and keeper of secrets.