The Cedar Hollow Incident

On the 3rd of November, 2016, my family and I moved from the flat plains of Kansas to the cedar-choked hills of northern Pennsylvania. The reason was my transfer to a regional logistics hub, an hour’s drive from the small town of Falls Creek. We bought a two-story farmhouse, known locally as the ‘Cedars’, sitting alone on a ridge, surrounded by dense forest. The nearest neighbor was a half-mile down the dirt road, and the town itself was a quiet cluster of houses and a general store.

Our first night, I tried to make the place feel more like home. In the master bedroom, I had unpacked the bed and carefully made it with fresh sheets, fluffing the pillows, even placing a lavender sachet my wife loved. I went to the kitchen where Ellen was sorting through boxes, and said, ‘Hey, the bed’s ready if you want to lie down.’ As we walked back up the stairs, the door was ajar, and the covers were ripped off the mattress, tangled in a heap on the worn floorboards. Ellen gasped, and I felt a cold knot in my stomach. I had just been in there a minute ago. I called out for our son, Leo, but he was in the living room, building a fort from boxes. No one else was upstairs. We blamed a draft, a faulty window, but the window was shut and locked.

Later that night, I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, listening to the groans of the old house. At 2:17 AM, a sound like a window shattering came from downstairs. My heart hammered. I thought Leo had knocked over a lamp or dropped a glass. I threw on my robe and ran down the staircase, my feet cold on the wood. The kitchen light was on, and in the center of the room, the glass from the overhead pendant light lay scattered on the linoleum like sharp snow. But the light bulb was intact, hanging from its cord, swaying slightly. No one was there. I called out, ‘Leo? Ellen?’ Silence. I searched the house, every room, every closet, but nothing. The back door was locked from the inside.

The second night, it escalated. I was in the study, a small room off the living room, going through the previous owner’s books. I had found a journal, bound in cracked leather, with an inscription: ‘Do not let the roots take hold.’ Odd, I thought. The journal was mostly empty, except for a few pages with strange symbols and dates. That night, I heard the sound of a child sobbing, muffled, coming from the walls. The sound followed me as I walked the corridor. It seemed to emanate from the nursery, which we had converted into a guest room. I pushed open the door, and in the moonlight, I saw that the picture frames on the wall had all turned to face the wall. My own reflection in the window seemed to lag half a second behind my movements. I slammed the door shut.

By the third day, the house’s malevolence was undeniable. Ellen found her jewelry rearranged in a pattern that spelled out ‘GET OUT.’ Leo complained of a man with a ‘hat made of leaves’ peering through his bedroom window at night. I tried to rationalize it, but the dread was suffocating. That evening, I decided to dig into the house’s history. At the general store, I asked old Mr. Keller about the Cedars. His face paled. He said, ‘That place… the foundation is cursed. A family lived there in the 1920s. The father, a botanist named Ezra, dabbled in things he shouldn’t. He believed the cedar trees on the property could communicate with the dead. He started hearing roots growing in the walls, or so the story goes. One night, he went mad and buried his own daughter alive in the cellar. They say her spirit still pulls the covers, breaks glass, and beckons.’ I laughed nervously, but Mr. Keller added, ‘You must have a red maple around the house. The daughter, she hated cedar. She’d rip it apart. Plant a red maple to appease her.’

Desperate, I returned home and found an old red maple sapling in the nearby woods. I planted it by the front porch, hoping it would calm whatever had haunted the house for decades. That night, the house was quiet. Too quiet. Not a creak, not a gust. The silence was a pressure on my eardrums. I felt a pang of hope. But at 3:00 AM exactly, I woke to a sound from the cellar: a rhythmic thud, like a heartbeat. I grabbed a flashlight and creeped to the cellar door. The door was ajar, though I had locked it. I descended the wooden steps, the beam of my light cutting through the darkness. The dirt floor was undisturbed, but the walls were lined with old shelves of preserves and rusted tools. In the corner, near the coal chute, I saw a patch of floor that looked freshly dug. I knelt, my heart racing. I brushed away soil to reveal a small, rusted box. My hands trembled as I opened it. Inside was a faded photograph of a little girl in a gingham dress, and a lock of hair tied with a blue ribbon. Underneath was a note: ‘I am still here. Let me out.’

I ran upstairs, clutching the box. I woke Ellen and Leo, and we hurried outside to the car. As I turned the ignition, a sound like a thousand roots snapping came from the house. The trees around seemed to lean in, their branches scraping the roof. Ellen screamed. In the rearview mirror, I saw the figure of a girl, pale, with hollow eyes, standing in the doorway, her head tilted. I floored the accelerator, and we sped down the dirt road to town. We stayed at a motel that night, and never returned. We sold the house at a loss months later, with no explanation.

A year later, I received a package, postmarked from Falls Creek. Inside, there was a single item: the blue ribbon from the box, and a note in the same handwriting: ‘You forgot something. The roots have found your new address.’ That was the last I heard, but sometimes, at night, I hear a faint scratching under the floorboards of our new apartment, and the faint scent of cedar. And I know, she’s still waiting.