The Crying Hollow

I’ve called the old mill house home for nearly a decade now, ever since my wife and I bought it for a steal after the last tenants fled. It sits on the edge of the village, just beyond the old apple orchards that have gone wild over the years. Between our garden and the abandoned watermill lies a narrow footpath, overgrown with brambles and dotted with the skeletal remains of forgotten fences. The locals call it the Hollow Path, and they avoid it after dark. I should have listened.

It began two summers ago, in the sticky July heat. I was reading in the study, the window cracked open to catch any breeze, when I heard a woman’s voice, raw and desperate, crying out for help from the direction of the Hollow Path. My first instinct was that someone had taken a fall or was in trouble. I grabbed my torch and hurried down the garden, pushing through the gate onto the path.

The moon hung low, casting long shadows, but the path was empty. The crying had stopped. I called out, but only the rustle of leaves answered. I walked to the mill’s stone walls, but found nothing. Exhausted and slightly shaken, I returned home. My wife, Ellen, said she hadn’t heard a thing, but she’d been in the bath.

Over the following months, the voice returned. Always at night, always from the same stretch of path, just beyond the old stone wall that borders the mill. Sometimes it was a woman’s frantic pleas for help. Other times, a man’s low, guttural murmur, as if trying to calm her, but his words were indecipherable, and always quieter, almost like a background hum.

I tried to rationalize it. Perhaps someone had a weekend retreat in the woods, or a camper was having a bad dream. I contacted the local council about the noise, but they said there were no reports. When I mentioned it to our neighbor, Old Man Thackery, he went pale. He whispered something about the ‘Crying Hollow’ and refused to say more. He crossed himself—something I’d never seen him do—and hurried away.

The encounters grew more frequent. I began to see things too: a glimpse of a white dress disappearing behind a tree, a shadow that moved against the wind. My sleep became fractured. Ellen started to worry, urging me to ignore it. But I couldn’t.

Then came the night that shattered my disbelief. It was January 11th, at 3:25 AM. A frost had settled, and the world was silent. I was wide awake, the voice clearer than ever. It was not just a cry; it was a series of sobs, punctuated by the desperate repetition of my name. “Peter, please, help me!”

I felt a dread so thick it was like breathing soup, but I couldn’t ignore the call. I pulled on my boots and coat, my breath fogging. I marched down the garden, heart thudding. The path was bathed in a sickly yellow light that had no source. The woman stood at the old well, just beyond the wall. She was dressed in tattered white, her hair a wild tangle. Her face was pale and streaked with tears.

Behind her, a man’s silhouette stood motionless, arms crossed. He was darker, as if he absorbed the light. The woman raised a hand to me, a silent plea. But as I stepped closer, the man stepped forward, and I saw his face—it was John, my brother, who had died in a car crash five years ago.

My brother opened his mouth, but no sound came. The woman began to wail, a high-pitched keen that pierced my ears. Then, in a blink, they were gone, leaving only the frost and the silence. I stood there trembling, the cold seeping into my bones.

I stumbled back home and told Ellen everything. She looked at me with pity, but also a hint of fear—fear of me losing my mind. But I knew what I saw. And I knew John had never been found; his body was never recovered from the river. The old well on the farm—it had been sealed up years ago, but I’d always wondered why. The path had been a shortcut for decades.

Now, I can’t sleep without lights on. Every night, I hear the woman’s cries, and with them, John’s murmur, like a warning. Last week, I dug through the parish records and found an entry from 1892: a woman named Martha had drowned her son in the well, then taken her own life. The entry noted the well was later filled in, but the story didn’t end there.

Last night, I saw her face pressed against our bedroom window, her mouth moving silently. John was beside her, nodding at me as if to say, “It’s your turn now.” I haven’t slept since. I’m writing this by candlelight because the electricity keeps flickering. I fear that soon, the cries will come from inside the house. And I don’t know if I’ll have the strength to ignore them. The Hollow Path has claimed its keepers, and I’m beginning to think I’m next.