The Adze’s Hollow

My grandmother, Elara, always said that the hollow behind our new house was a door that should never be opened. She was a Cree woman, a healer, and her words carried the weight of generations. But I was sixteen, freshly moved from the city to the remote Ontario bush, and I thought her warnings were just superstition. My mother, a pragmatic nurse, dismissed them too, and my father, a quiet engineer, focused on fixing the crooked porch. We were a family of skeptics, except for me. I felt a pull to that hollow, a curiosity that prickled my skin.

It started with the whispers. Not words, exactly, but a rustling like dry leaves skittering across the forest floor, always just at the edge of hearing. I’d wake at 3 AM, heart pounding, convinced someone was outside my window. But when I looked out, all I saw was the dark line of spruce trees and the moonlit opening of the hollow. My mother said it was the wind. My father said it was mice in the walls. But I knew it was something else, something waiting.

The first time I entered the hollow, a week after we moved in, I was looking for a lost soccer ball. The trees seemed to lean inward, swallowing the light. The air was thick with the smell of damp earth and decay. Halfway in, I saw him: a tall, thin figure, impossibly still, standing among the aspens. He was dressed in old, tattered clothes, and his face was a mask of smooth, bark-like skin, with no eyes, only deep hollows. He didn’t move, but I felt a wave of wrongness wash over me, a nausea that made my knees buckle. I turned and ran, not stopping until I slammed the back door behind me. I told my parents, but they just exchanged worried glances and made an appointment with the public health nurse.

My grandmother came to visit shortly after. She saw the hollow and her face went pale. ‘The Adze,’ she whispered, her voice tight. ‘A firefly that drinks blood. It has been here longer than the trees. It feeds on those who wander too deep into its territory.’ She gave me a pouch of dried sage and a sharpened antler, telling me to carry them always. ‘It will not take you easily,’ she said, ‘but it will try.’ I scoffed, but I kept the pouch in my pocket, the antler on my nightstand.

A few nights later, I woke to a soft glow outside my window. Fireflies. A whole cloud of them, drifting in a spiral, almost hypnotic. I felt an irresistible pull to go outside, to step into that swirl of light. I was halfway to the door when I remembered the pouch. I grabbed it, and the feeling vanished, replaced by a cold horror. Through the glass, I saw the tall figure, standing at the edge of the hollow, its head tilted as if listening. Then it was gone, and the fireflies faded into the dark.

I started to see it everywhere: a lean silhouette at the far end of the driveway, a pale shape in my peripheral vision, a cold breath on my neck when I was alone in the kitchen. The whispers grew louder, taking on a sing-song quality, calling my name. I began to leave out offerings: a bowl of milk, a piece of bread, as my grandmother instructed. She said it was a way to appease it, to show I was not a threat. But I was a threat. I was a curious girl, and I had the gene, as my grandmother called it, the ‘sight’.

One night, I decided to confront it. I filled my pockets with salt, took the antler, and walked into the hollow. The moon was full, casting silver light through the trees. I walked deeper than ever before, until I found a clearing with a single, ancient elm. At its base was a small, stone well, covered in moss. The air was cold, and I could see my breath. The whispers stopped. Silence reigned.

I felt a hand on my shoulder. I whirled around, but there was nothing. Then I saw him, emerging from the shadows on the far side of the clearing. He was close enough that I could see the cracks in his bark-like skin, and the faint, reddish glow deep within the hollows of his eyes. He opened his mouth, and instead of a scream, a swarm of fireflies poured out, filling the clearing with a blinding, pulsing light. I felt a sharp sting on my neck, like a mosquito bite, and then a deep, draining weakness. I dropped to my knees, clutching the antler.

I pressed the point of the antler into my palm, drawing blood. I remembered my grandmother’s words: ‘Blood is a mirror. It shows what you are, and what you are not.’ I held up my bloody hand, and the light around him warped, twisted, and he reeled back as if burned. The fireflies scattered, and I saw him clearly for the first time: a withered, ancient being, more like a gnarled root than a man, and he was afraid. I spoke, my voice shaking: ‘You feed on fear. But I am not afraid anymore.’

He stared at me for a long moment, his eye sockets empty. Then, slowly, he turned and dissolved into the darkness, leaving only a faint smell of burnt leaves. I crawled back to the house, my body heavy, and collapsed on the porch. My grandmother found me there, and she didn’t ask questions. She just put a cool hand on my forehead and whispered, ‘You marked him. He will leave this land for a hundred years.’

I never saw him again, but I still don’t go near the hollow. I keep the antler and the pouch by my bed. Sometimes, at night, I hear a whisper from the forest, barely audible, but it’s no longer my name. It’s a plea: ‘Release me.’ And I wonder if what I did was a mercy or a curse. But I know one thing: the unknown is not a place for the curious. It is a place for the strong, and I have become one of them.