The Citrus Hollow Sign

The town of Cinder Creek was a patchwork of old citrus groves and cracked asphalt, where the scent of rotting oranges hung in the air like a forgotten hymn. I was born here, and from the moment I could understand the weight of silence, I knew I was not alone. I saw them—two figures, always at the edge of my vision, their shapes like oil on water. They never spoke, but I felt their moods like weather. They were calm, almost bored, until something terrible was about to unfold. Then they would shift, moving closer, their presence like a cold draft under a door.

In the autumn of 2011, when I was fifteen, I had a dream that left me gasping in a sweat-soaked bed. I saw a woman drowning in the swollen creek that ran through our groves, her hair tangled in the roots of a cypress tree. The water was black, and her eyes were open, staring right at me. I woke with a scream caught in my throat, and there they were—both of them, standing at the foot of my bed, their forms solid for the first time. I knew it was a warning. Something was coming.

All day at school, my stomach churned like the creek after a storm. I couldn’t focus on the equations Mrs. Hall scrawled on the board; I just kept seeing that drowning woman’s face. I told no one, because who would believe me? They’d think I was crazy, like they always did when I mentioned the presences. I sat through lunch with my tray untouched, watching the clock, waiting for the bell that would release me.

When I got home, the house was too quiet. The screen door whined as I pushed it open, and I heard my mother’s voice from my father’s room, strained and thin. ‘Come here, sweetheart,’ she called. My feet felt heavy as I walked down the hallway, passing the old picture of my great-grandfather, his eyes following me.

My mother sat on the edge of the bed, her hands folded in her lap, and my father was on the small blue couch by the window, his face gray as ash. I saw the tube first—a clear line that snaked from a bag on a metal stand into a port on my mother’s stomach. I stopped in the doorway, my breath catching. ‘What is that?’ I asked, though I already knew it was something awful.

She looked at me, and I saw the fear behind her forced smile. ‘I have something to tell you, and I need you to be strong.’ She patted the bed beside her. I sat down, and the mattress dipped. The air in the room felt thick, like the humidity before a storm. She told me about the tumor, the surgery, the treatments. She used words I’d heard on TV but never in our house: stage four, terminal, hospice. I watched her lips move, but all I could hear was the blood rushing in my ears.

And then I felt them. My demons, both of them, had followed me. They stood just behind my father, their forms flickering like heat waves. For the first time, I sensed something other than their usual calm. They were restless, almost urgent. One of them raised a hand, pointing toward the window. I turned, and through the glass, I saw the creek in the distance, glittering in the fading light, and I knew who would drown.

My mother continued speaking, but I was already gone. I was in that water, the cold paralyzing me, my hair snagging on roots, my lungs filling with mud. I snapped back to the room as my mother reached out and touched my knee. ‘It’s okay, baby. I’ve made peace with it.’ But I hadn’t. Not with her, and not with the thing I knew was coming.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. My demons stood at the foot of my bed, like guards. I stared at the ceiling, tracing the cracks, and I remembered a story my grandmother used to tell me about a hollow in the groves where the trees were blighted, and if you heard a child crying there, someone you loved would be taken by the water. I had never told anyone, because I thought it was just a story.

A week later, my mother was gone. The day she died, the creek swelled from an unexpected rain, and I heard the crying. I walked out to the hollow, the mud sucking at my shoes, and I saw a shape under the surface of the water—the same woman from my dream, but this time it was my mother’s face, peaceful, her eyes closed. My demons were beside me, and for the first time, I felt their grief, a cold wash of sorrow that brought me to my knees.

I never spoke of the hollow to anyone. I buried my mother in the family plot beside the groves, and I stayed in Cinder Creek, a man haunted by two silent companions. Sometimes, when the rain comes, I walk to the hollow and listen. The crying has never stopped, but now I know it calls not for the dead, but for the living. It calls for me, and one day, I will answer.