The Literary Works of
M.D. White and
Mary Carroll McKenzie
Folklore Horror/
Appalachian Gothic
Leave It Below by M.D. White
Something Was Let Out. When a group of old friends reunites at a remote mountain cabin, they think they’re returning to familiar ground — laughter, old memories, maybe even a little closure.
But Hollow Ridge has a history no one remembers anymore. At least, not out loud. Beneath the soil, something was sealed. Not by chance. Not by nature. And not quite well enough.
As names begin to appear where no hands have carved them, as dust refuses to settle and the forest breathes without wind, the group realizes they’re not alone — and never were. Something is watching. Waiting. Remembering. And the deeper they go, the more they must reckon with the truth: You don’t bring everything back with you. Some things, you leave below.
The Witch Tree of Dry Well, Virginia by M.D. White
Some roots grow deep enough to remember what the town forgot. In Dry Well, Virginia, the Hollow isn’t marked on any map. The ledger doesn’t list the names that vanished. And the townsfolk know better than to say certain things aloud—because names, once spoken, have power.
When Clara Boone returns to her ancestral home, she inherits more than a crumbling farmhouse. She inherits a pact. A silence. And a tree that was never supposed to bloom again. But the Hollow is waking. And the girls who disappeared are no longer content to remain quiet.
Told in lyrical, unsettling prose, The Witch Tree of Dry Well, Virginia is a modern Southern folktale soaked in ancestral dread, haunting memory, and the price of forgetting. Some stories rot. Others root. And some refuse to stay buried.
The Healing by M.D. White
In a remote Appalachian valley, faith is more than tradition—it’s survival. Five families gather each week in a wooden church nestled deep in the pines, clinging to their Pentecostal beliefs through prayer, prophecy, and the laying on of hands. But everything changes one Sunday morning when a barefoot stranger enters the sanctuary.
Pale, soft-spoken, and carrying a weathered Bible, he asks for the laying on of hands. The congregation obeys. Their beloved preacher touches the man’s chest… and drops dead moments later. Was it a heart attack? A spiritual sacrifice? Or something darker?
As the five families wrestle with the aftermath, fractures emerge. Some believe the man was healed by God. Others are certain a demon came in disguise. Whispers spread. Dreams grow twisted. Hymns are heard drifting from the woods at night—sung by no one living. Each family sees something different. Each believes something different. And all are slowly unraveling.
The stranger returns only once more—to heal a dying boy. But when the boy collapses afterward and a sinkhole opens near the church cemetery, the valley must confront its most terrifying question: What did they invite in that day?
In the end, no story matches. No truth is agreed upon. But the fifth pew remains stained… and no one sits there anymore.
The Widow's Map by M. D. White
In the shadow of the Appalachian ridges, memory burns hotter than fire. When widow Clara Ashford uncovers a hidden bundle in the mountains, she seizes it as hope—a map whispered to lead to salvation. But the map does not promise treasure. It condemns.
Every page records betrayal, every name marks blood spilled. It is not a path forward, but a trap woven by a cartographer who believed he could bind the living to the sins of the dead. Now Clara must carry, protect, or destroy it as forces close in. Rourke, a ruthless opportunist, hunts the ledger with thirty rifles at his back. Ada, Clara’s oldest friend turned firebrand, demands it be burned. Dunn, a weary Pinkerton, fights to shield Clara but knows the map will devour them all if she hesitates. Pursued through hollows scarred by flame and across an ash road that eats men alive, Clara must choose: surrender the map and empower the cruel, bear it and drown beneath its weight, or burn it and live with the ghosts that fire always leaves behind.
In a canyon where rifles roar and fire circles close, the Widow’s Map will decide who lives, who dies, and who remembers. Atmospheric, unflinching, and charged with suspense, The Widow’s Map seizes the heart of Appalachia—its burdens, its betrayals, and its unyielding memory.