What Death Is Owed

Official public synopsis

A complete, unpublished work.

In 1994 Tampa, thirty-six-year-old Nora Vale refuses to accept that her father, Elias, is dying from a degenerative illness. When medicine has nothing left to offer, Nora turns to Mara Vey, an elderly folk healer known as the Remedy Woman. Mara can restore Elias—but life cannot be created, only moved, and every dose must be purchased from someone else.

Nora begins choosing victims she believes the world will not miss. Elias grows healthier and younger, while the voices and memories of the dead begin surfacing inside him. A box of 1958 clippings reveals that Nora’s family has paid this price before, and the final remedy demands the one death Elias could never survive. To end the cycle, Nora must face the difference between saving someone and making another life into currency.