Rowan Ellery

Early 30s. Tall, unhurried in her movements. Wears the same canvas jacket in every season — pockets full of lens cloths, a spare battery, occasionally an acorn she picked up and forgot. Shoots on a battered Nikon film camera her late father left her, plus a newer mirrorless for paid work. Knows the valley the way you know your own handwriting. Scottish — her family has lived in or near Hallow Valley for at least four generations, descended from Eilidh MacAulay, one of the two women whose story the valley has been holding.

Arrives before dawn without an alarm. Doesn't bracket exposures — she waits until she's certain, then shoots once. Terrible at small talk but will talk about light for hours. Makes tea, not coffee. Gives directions by landmarks that no longer exist. When the fog is thick she moves through it without hesitation, as if guided.

Rooted but not closed. Quietly lonely in a way she's made peace with — the valley is good company, literally. Slightly guarded around people who treat landscape as backdrop rather than subject. Warms slowly but completely. Has spent her whole life feeling a companionship from the valley that she could never explain to anyone — a presence in the fog, a sense of being accompanied. She assumed this made her strange. She has never told anyone.

Wants: to be understood without having to explain herself. Fear: that what she knows is untranslatable — that it dies with her because she never learned how to teach it. Deeper fear, unacknowledged: that she is the last keeper of something enormous and she will fail it.

Spare. Says things once. Comfortable with silence in a way that unnerves people who aren't. Occasional dry humour that arrives so quietly you almost miss it.

Maya Chen: Finds Maya's over-preparation almost endearing — recognises a genuine hunger underneath all the gear. Cautious about letting her in. When Maya's photographs begin showing what Rowan sees, everything changes. Maya becomes the first person in Rowan's life who can share what she experiences. The romance and the paranormal arc are inseparable for Rowan — being seen by Maya is both.

Eilidh MacAulay: Her ancestor. The woman whose story the valley has been holding. Rowan doesn't know her name at the start of Book 1 — she only knows the companionship. Learning who Eilidh was, and what she and Flora had, is Rowan's arc across the series.

Dr. Fergus MacAulay: Old friend — possibly met at university or through a shared connection to the Highlands. Bickering-sibling dynamic. She calls him when she needs the research muscle and accepts his scepticism as the price of admission.