The Cellar Wine of Hollow Creek

When I was twenty-two and engaged, I brought my fiancé, Dana, to my family’s annual harvest dinner at the old farmhouse. I expected ribbing about my childhood mishaps, maybe the time I got stuck in the grain bin. But then my mother, in that casual tone she uses for mundane facts, asked, ‘Miles, do you remember the little man who drank the blackberry wine from the cellar and hung from the beam in the parlor?’

I laughed, assuming it was a prank. ‘Sure, Mom, and I also remember the pig that flew.’ But my Uncle Pete, who had the kind of face that never joked, leaned in. ‘She’s not kidding, Miles. When you were three, you used to talk to him. Called him ‘Sip.’ You’d sit under the beam and tell him to go away when he got too close.’ I had no memory of any of this. Dana squeezed my hand, thinking it was quaint. I felt a cold draft crawl up my spine.

I grew up in that house, the old Hollis place, until I was seventeen. I never told anyone, but I always felt a presence in the hallway between my bedroom and the bathroom. It was like a pinprick between my shoulder blades, a weight that pressed closer with each step. I would sprint from the light switch to my bed, leaping the last foot to avoid an unseen grasp. I chalked it up to a child’s imagination. But after dinner, as Dana and I helped clear plates, I saw my mother glance toward the parlor door with a strange unease.

Later, I asked my grandmother about the ‘little man.’ She was the only one who stayed in the house year-round. She lowered her voice, glancing at the corner of the room. ‘He’s still here, dear. He doesn’t like the addition your grandfather built. He can’t cross that threshold, but he peeks around the edge of the door frame, sometimes. We all saw him.’ Dana laughed nervously, but I saw my grandmother’s eyes were dead serious. She told me the wine he drank was a homemade blackberry wine stored in a special demijohn in the cellar. ‘He’s bound to it,’ she said. ‘Some say he’s a spirit of the old orchard.’

I couldn’t sleep that night. I wandered to the hallway, the same hallway from my childhood. The air was thick, and I felt the familiar prickle. I turned, and there, in the dim light, I saw a small, wrinkled face peering around the corner of the addition’s door frame. It had glistening blackberry-stained lips. ‘Go away,’ I whispered, my voice cracking. It tilted its head, then withdrew. I ran to my room and jumped onto the bed, breath ragged.

In the morning, I confronted my grandmother. ‘Why didn’t you tell me earlier?’ She handed me an old photograph: me as a toddler, pointing at a chandelier in the parlor. Behind me, a blurry shape hung from the beam. ‘We thought you’d remember when you were older,’ she said. ‘But he’s been quiet since you left.’ She led me to the cellar, where a dusty demijohn sat on a shelf. The wine inside was thick, almost like syrup. ‘This is what he drinks. He can’t abide the new addition because we sealed the old root cellar where his bottle used to rest. He got lost.’ She uncorked it, and the room filled with a sweet, rotten smell.

Dana appeared at the top of the stairs. ‘What’s that smell?’ she asked. But before I could answer, the cellar door behind her slammed shut. A small, giggling echo filled the space. I rushed up, but the door wouldn’t budge. Dana pounded from the other side. Then I heard it: a whisper, ‘Sippy wants.’ I turned, and the little man was standing on the stairs, the demijohn in his arms, his eyes black as pits. ‘You try to leave,’ he hissed. ‘But you gotta give wine back.’

I realized then: he wasn’t bound to the bottle; he was bound to the family. The stories, the hallway dread, the addition’s boundary—it was all to keep us from acknowledging that he was a part of the house itself. The wine was his pact with the first Hollis who settled there. And now, with the bottle in his hands, he had no reason to stay hidden.

I shouted at Dana to break the door, but she had already fallen silent. I backed away, feeling the presence of something that had waited decades. The little man began to climb, his limbs bending at unnatural angles, sipping from the bottle, his eyes locked on mine. I ran to the corner, the same corner where I used to hide, and I heard my own voice, young and high-pitched, ‘Go away! Go away!’

When Dana and the others finally got the door open, the cellar was empty. The demijohn lay shattered on the floor. I was huddled in the corner, covering my head. I had no memory of anything after the whisper. But that night, as I lay in the guest room, I felt the familiar weight behind me. I turned, and in the doorway of the addition, the little man stood, sipping from a new bottle—the one my grandmother had kept in the kitchen. He smiled, his teeth black, and said, ‘Now you remember.’ Then he vanished.

I moved out after that, sold the farmhouse to a distant cousin. But I still feel it, that tingle when I walk down any long hallway, the urge to run and jump into bed. And sometimes, when I close my eyes, I see the parlor chandelier, and a small figure swinging gently, raising a toast with blackberry wine. I never told Dana the rest: that our first child would be born with a birthmark shaped like a grape leaf, and that we would have to move again. Because the little man always comes back for his wine, and he always knows where the family is.