The Glass Hollow Man

The old mill house on Pemberton Lane had been my family’s home for as long as I could remember. It wasn’t the kind of place you’d call welcoming; the timbers groaned with a history of their own, and the windows, always slightly fogged, peered out like rheumy eyes. My name is Eli, and I’m eighteen now, but the weight of those walls is still with me, a pressure behind my sternum that never quite lets go.

My earliest memory is of my mother, Lorna, clutching me in the kitchen, her face pale as the painted cupboards, whispering that the house didn’t like us. She told me, much later, that when I was about two, she had felt something yank her long dark hair so hard her neck snapped back, the strands slipping from her fingers. She had fled with me to the garden, shivering until my father, Dermot, came home from the docks. Dermot, a man of quiet faith, had hung a crucifix on every doorpost, but the unease stayed, a low thrumming in the floorboards.

When I was five, Dermot’s silver chain with a small crucifix – the one he never removed – vanished. He searched the entire house, even tearing up floorboards in the pantry, his face tight with frustration. Months passed, and he’d almost given up, when one evening he came home to find it lying on the hearth, inside the glass-fronted fireplace, as pristine as the day he’d bought it, a thin layer of ash dusting it like a benediction. He held it up to the light, his fingers trembling slightly. ‘It was warm,’ he said, not looking at me. ‘Not cold. Warm.’

My own encounters began at six. I’d see a man standing in the hallway, tall, with skin the color of old paper, his features blurred as if seen through water. He’d never speak, just tilt his head, listening. I called him the Glass Man because he seemed to shimmer, like heat rising off a summer road. He’d stand in the corner of my room, and I’d pull the covers over my head, praying to a God I didn’t yet understand. Once, I woke to find the curtains drawn back and the window open, the glass frost-grown on the inside, and the imprint of a hand on the pane, too large and with fingers too long.

The torments escalated. Objects would fling themselves across rooms – a teacup shattering inches from my mother’s face, the kitchen clock spinning off the wall. My parents would find me standing at the top of the stairs at night, pointing at nothing, my mouth open in a silent scream. When I was twelve, I began to talk back. I’d shout at the empty hall, ‘Show yourself, coward!’ and the lights would flicker and die. One night, I heard a low, gravelly voice respond, clear as a bell in the dark: ‘Soon.’

That was the last word for a long time. As I grew older, the activity waned. The Glass Man came less frequently, until by my fifteenth birthday, he was just a memory, a half-forgotten nightmare. The house felt lighter, ordinary, almost welcoming. My parents, too, seemed to relax, though they still refused to use the downstairs bathroom at night, the one with the cracked mirror.

But last week, I came home from my summer job at the quarry to find a package on the doorstep. No return address, just my name in a spidery, meticulous script. Inside, wrapped in brown paper, was Dermot’s crucifix chain – the same one, I swear, because I remember the tiny nick on the pendant where he’d caught it in a door. But now it was tarnished, almost black, and cold to the touch. Beneath it was a note, written on parchment-like paper, that said simply: ‘The Hollow Man returns.’

I tried to laugh it off, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of being watched. That night, I had a dream. I was walking through the house, but it was unfamiliar, cavernous, with high vaulted ceilings and a long corridor lined with doors. At the end, a door stood ajar, and I knew I had to enter. Inside, I saw a figure on a chair, thin and hunched, its back to me. It wore a long coat, stained and frayed. ‘You’ve grown,’ it said, without turning. ‘But you’re still afraid.’

I woke with a gasp, and I felt a draft. My bedroom door was open, and in the hallway light, I saw a shadow that wasn’t mine, elongated and wrong. It slid away as I blinked, but I was certain: the Glass Man was back, but he was different now. He wasn’t a fleeting presence anymore. He was solid, and he wanted something from me.

The next morning, I found my father sitting at the kitchen table, staring at the crucifix. ‘It came back again,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Last night. It was on my pillow. But the real thing – I saw him, Eli. He was standing in the doorway of our bedroom. He had your face.’

My blood ran cold. I realized then that the Glass Man hadn’t left. He’d been waiting, biding his time, and now that I was of age, he meant to take my place. I remember a scrap of a story from the old cellar, a rhyme my grandmother used to say when the house misbehaved: ‘When the child grows tall and the shadows learn to crawl, the hollow man comes to answer the call.’

Tonight, I sit in my room, the door locked, the crucifix in my pocket as a talisman. I hear footsteps in the attic, slow and deliberate. I see the doorknob turn, slowly, a hair’s breadth at a time. And I know that when it opens, I will see myself – the same dark hair, the same birthmark on my cheek – but with eyes like empty glass. This house was never haunted by spirits. It was haunted by a hunger, and I was the meal it had been waiting to devour. The hollow man is coming, and this time, he intends to stay.