Escaping Alderwood: Chapter One: The Cry Heard Around Alderwood

It's 1592, England, Mabel Wakefield lives in domestic bliss with her beloved husband John and newborn son Thomas in the remote village of Alderwood, nestled deep within a foreboding forest. But when a simple whisper brands Mabel as a witch, their joyous world shatters in an instant.

Despite a desperate attempt to silence rumours, more damage is done-Mabel's secret ancestral ties to witchcraft have been exposed to the entire village. Condemned by her community, Mabel finds even her devoted John cannot protect her or their baby from the crazed town.

Soon she is utterly alone, her husband sentenced to public execution and her infant son ripped from her arms. As she races desperately through the village searching for Thomas, she witnesses the merciless Constable Harrow himself orchestrating her beloved John's gruesome sacrificial stoning.

Overwhelmed with anguish, she vows to reclaim Thomas, seeing his tiny form suspended in a cage over John upon the execution stage. For she knows the obsessed Harrow will never cease hunting her, the damned daughter of a witch, whose very existence threatens his iron rule. Her only hope is to somehow flee Alderwood forever. But first she must save Thomas, though the entire village now stands against her.

When Mabel is captured and condemned to rot in the dungeon below Alderwood, Harrow's sadistic torment begins. She can hear Thomas's distant cries echoing day and night somewhere within the underground maze. His wavering wails fracture her sanity.

To reclaim her stolen child, she must achieve the impossible and escape the inescapable dungeon maze, outwit Harrow's mind games, and embrace the shadowed Alderwood Forest where unspeakable horrors lurk amidst the ancient oaks.

Can Mabel save Thomas from the dungeon before his haunting cries shatter her mind? Or will rescuing her son come at the ultimate price in the forest?