The Cattle’s Hollow

The hollow was a wound in the land, a perfect oval scooped out of the red clay, edged with ferns that drooped even in the midday heat. We called it the Cattle’s Hollow because the cows refused to graze within a hundred yards of it, and their ribs showed like barrel staves if they were forced too close. I was twelve that summer, and my cousin Mara was fourteen, and we thought we knew every inch of those twenty-four acres—the old logging trail, the mossy stones in the creek, the place where the water went dark and deep. But the hollow we avoided, even when the sun was high.

One afternoon, with the cicadas screaming, Mara dared me to walk to the edge and look in. I told her it was stupid, but her eyes had that glint that always got me in trouble. We crept through the grass, which was yellow and brittle, and stopped where the ground began to dip. The air was still, too still. Not a single bird called. I heard my own breathing, too loud, and the thump of my heart. I peered over. The hollow was maybe thirty feet across, the bottom a tangle of roots and dark leaves, like a throat clogged with hair. Something glinted down there—a bit of blue glass, maybe, or a piece of foil. I leaned closer, squinting. The glint moved, vanishing and reappearing, and I felt a pull, as if a hand had wrapped around my ribs and was drawing me in. My feet slid a few inches before I caught myself and stumbled back, gasping.

Mara was white, her hand on my arm. ‘You were just staring,’ she said. ‘I called you three times. You didn’t blink.’ I told her I was fine, but my skin crawled with the feeling of being watched by something that wasn’t angry, just hungry, and patient. We ran back to the house, and I didn’t look behind.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. The moon through my window was pale, and the shadows under the trees seemed thicker than they should be. I put on my boots without waking anyone and slipped out the back door. The hollow was a mile off, through the dark orchard and across the creek, but I knew the way by heart. As I walked, the usual night chorus—frogs, crickets, the rustle of possums—faded. By the time I reached the creek, there was only silence, heavy as a wet blanket. I crossed on the stepping stones, the water cold and strange, trying to pull at my boots. On the far bank, the grass was gray, and the hollow ahead was a black moon against the dark.

I stood at the edge again, and this time I did not resist. The pull was gentle, like a mother drawing a child close. I stepped down the steep slope, roots catching my boots, dirt crumbling. The bottom was soft, and I sank to my ankles. The glint was there, waiting—a small, smooth stone, gray as ash, with a spiral carved into it. I picked it up. It was warm, despite the cold air. I felt a hum through my palm, a vibration that traveled up my arm and into my teeth. From the hollow’s edge, the trees leaned in, and a whisper rose, not words but a susurrus, like a thousand dry leaves rubbing together. It wasn’t threatening. It was welcoming. And in that moment, I understood: the hollow had been waiting for me, for someone to accept the weight.

I clutched the stone and scrambled out, tearing my shirt on a thorn. I ran and did not stop until I was in my room, panting, the stone hidden under my pillow. I didn’t tell Mara. I didn’t tell anyone. But I felt different. The next day, when I walked past the cows, they moved away from me, not in fear but in a kind of deference. And the creeks, for the first time, felt easy to wade into, as if the water had lost its grip. But at night, the hollow calls, and I hold the stone, and I listen to the whispering, and I know that I have become its keeper—and that someday, it will ask me to come back, and this time, I will not be able to leave.

Now, when the sun goes behind the clouds, it is not the bush that falls silent. It is me. I stand still, feeling the hollow’s pull through the soles of my boots, and I wonder how long I have before I am the one waiting at the bottom, a gray stone in my hand, for the next child to lean too close.