Drowned Bell of Urk

The Drowned Bell of Urk
A Novel of Salt, Silence, and the Memory That Drowns

Urk was once an island. Its people prayed to the sea with salt on their lips and reverence in their bones. At the heart of their devotion stood De Drenkeling-the Drowned Bell-cast from iron-rich sand and believed to speak directly to the Zuiderzee's ancient soul. When reformers arrived in 1673, armed with mainland dogma and a hunger to erase the old ways, they silenced the bell forever... or so they thought.

Centuries later, after a violent North Sea storm exposes the long-buried ruins of Urk's original chapel, strange things begin to happen. A boy drowns in his sleep-with no water in sight. Reflections lag behind their owners. Mirrors sweat salt. Something vast and ancient has awakened beneath the reclaimed land.

As the villagers of Urk face impossible drownings, haunted glass, and phantom tides, a chilling truth resurfaces: memory is not just something the sea holds-it's something it uses. And the Drowned Bell, long thought lost, has not stopped tolling. It has only learned to toll in silence.

A novel of creeping dread, folkloric horror, and atmospheric unease, The Drowned Bell of Urk is a meditation on history, grief, and the terrible cost of silencing the past. Because what drowns does not die. It returns.