The Closet of the Hollow Moon

I was seven when we moved into the farmhouse, a sprawling, sagging thing that had stood for over a century. My parents, hopeful and broke, saw only potential in its peeling wallpaper and dusty floors. I saw only the endless, creaking silence that seemed to follow me from room to room. The first few weeks were uneventful, save for the unsettling feeling that the house was watching me, waiting for something.

It was my mother who found the wardrobe in the root cellar, hidden behind a false wall that had crumbled from age. It was a monstrous piece of furniture, carved from a wood so dark it seemed to drink the light around it. The doors were adorned with intricate, nightmarish figures: twisted trees, leering faces, and a central image of a vast, hollow moon. My father, ever the pragmatist, decided to haul it up to my bedroom, thinking it would solve my chronic lack of storage.

The moment it was placed against my wall, I felt a wrongness, a cold draft that emanated from its depths even though the doors were shut. My parents dismissed it as a draft from the window, but I knew better. I began to hear things at night – a faint scratching, like nails on wood, coming from within the wardrobe. I tried to ignore it, burying my head under my pillow, but the sound grew louder, more insistent, until it was a rhythmic tapping, almost like a heartbeat.

One night, I woke to a pale, silver light spilling from the wardrobe’s slightly ajar door. Moonlight? But the curtains were drawn and the window faced east, away from the moon. My heart hammered in my chest as I crept closer. Inside, I saw not the empty space of the wardrobe, but an endless, swirling darkness, and at its center, the hollow moon from the carving, pulsing with a sickly glow. And in front of that moon, a figure stood – tall, impossibly thin, with the head of a great, black dog, its eyes like burning coals. It did not move from his position, but I felt its gaze upon me, and I knew it was waiting.

I stumbled back, slamming the wardrobe door shut. For a moment, all was silent. Then, from inside, I heard a low, guttural growl. And then, a voice, not quite a whisper, but a dry rustle, like dead leaves, hissed, ‘Let me out, child.’

I wanted to tell my parents, but every time I opened my mouth to speak, the words died in my throat, replaced by the memory of those burning eyes. I started sleeping in my parents’ room, claiming nightmares. They let me, thinking it was a phase. But the wardrobe never left my room, and the tapping continued, growing more frantic each night. My parents, too, began to act strangely. My father, who was a deeply rational man, started waking up at odd hours, staring out the window as if he saw something no one else could. My mother became withdrawn, spending hours in the kitchen, muttering to herself.

One evening, I found my father in my room, standing before the wardrobe, his forehead pressed against the wood. He was whispering something, a stream of words I couldn’t understand. When he turned to me, his eyes were glassy, unfocused. ‘The moon is hollow,’ he said, his voice flat. ‘It’s eating the stars.’ He didn’t recognize me when I called his name, and he walked past me as if I were a ghost.

The next morning, he was gone. My mother, strangely calm, told me he had left for work early, but he never came back. The police searched the farm, but found nothing. I knew, deep in my gut, that the wardrobe had taken him. That night, I heard a new sound from the wardrobe – a low, rhythmic breathing, like an animal sleeping. And I knew with certainty that my father was inside, transformed into one of the creatures that inhabited that other place.

My mother, too, began to wake at night. I would find her standing in front of the wardrobe, her hands pressed flat against the wood, her lips moving in a silent prayer. One night, I saw her open the doors. I screamed, but she didn’t turn. She stepped inside, into that swirling darkness, and was gone. The wardrobe doors swung shut softly behind her, and the house was plunged into an even deeper silence.

I was eleven when I fled, moving from foster home to foster home, always with the fear that the wardrobe would follow. It did follow, in my dreams. I saw the hollow moon, the dog-headed creature, the endless procession of my parents, their eyes now burning coals. I learned to suppress the memories, to bury them so deep that I almost convinced myself it was all a childhood nightmare.

But last month, I received a letter from the current owner of the farmhouse. He wrote to me, saying he had found an old wardrobe in the upstairs bedroom, and he thought I might want it, as it was once mine. He said it was calling to him, that he could hear whispers at night, and that a strange man with the head of a dog had been seen in his fields. He asked if I knew anything about it.

I know now that the wardrobe is not just a piece of furniture; it is a door, and the hollow moon is a gateway to a place that hungers. I have spent years running from it, but I know I cannot run forever. The creature from the dream stands at my bedside every night, breathing heavy, waiting for me to accept my fate. And in the dark, I hear the tapping from my closet, growing louder, more insistent.

The moon is hollow, and it is calling me home.