The Hollow Choir

The invitation arrived on a Tuesday, slipped under my door by E, whose handwriting trembled like a leaf in a storm. It was for a prayer meeting, a supplication for her departed parents, to be held at her house on the fifteenth of July. I knew the custom: a group of devout women, the ‘Daughters of the Vigil’, would lead the chants, and the house would fill with neighbors seeking solace. E had asked me to manage the kitchen, a task I accepted with a heavy heart, for her cousins were known to descend like locusts upon any spread, leaving scraps for the intended mourners.

On the day, the sky was a bruised purple, and the air felt thick, as if the world were holding its breath. I arrived early, carrying a casserole dish of baked ziti, and found E in the hallway, her face pale and slick with sweat despite the coolness. ‘They’re already here,’ she whispered, jerking her head toward the closed bedroom door. Through the wood, I heard a low, droning hum, not the melodic rise and fall of prayer, but something more mechanical, like a swarm of bees trapped in a jar. ‘They’ve been at it for an hour,’ E continued, ‘and they won’t let me in. They said the prayers require total silence from outside.’ I frowned; that wasn’t the custom. But E shrugged, and I headed to the kitchen, unsettled.

The kitchen was a battlefield of steam and clatter. Pots boiled, ovens blazed, and I lost myself in the rhythm of stirring and tasting, the drone from the bedroom a constant undercurrent. At dusk, the dining room tables were laden with food, and the guests—mourners, friends, and the inevitable cousins—began to trickle in. The cousins, a trio of slick-haired men, eyed the buffet like wolves, and I had to physically block them from the roast beef. ‘Patience,’ I snapped, ‘let the family eat first.’ They grumbled but retreated, their fingers twitching.

As the clock struck eight, the bedroom door creaked open, and the Daughters of the Vigil filed out. They were a somber procession of women in gray, their faces hidden by veils, their hands clasped. They moved to the center of the living room, where a circle of chairs had been arranged, and took their seats. The attendees, including E, followed, forming a larger circle. I stood at the threshold of the kitchen, wiping my hands on a towel, watching.

One of the veiled women raised her head, and even through the gauze, I could see her eyes were milky white. ‘We shall now continue the supplication,’ she intoned, her voice hollow. ‘For the dead to hear, there must be an offering.’ She gestured to a small table I hadn’t noticed, upon which sat a silver bowl filled with dark liquid. ‘The essence of grief. A few drops from each of you.’ The guests exchanged uneasy glances, but E, ever dutiful, approached and dipped her finger, letting a droplet fall. The liquid rippled, and I swear I heard a sigh from the walls.

I felt a cold draft at my back, and I turned to find one of the cousins—the youngest, with a feral grin—standing too close. ‘Smells good,’ he said, his breath sour. ‘But I’ve a taste for something else.’ He nodded toward the circle. ‘They’re going to summon them. My aunt and uncle. They always were a chatty pair.’ I stepped back, a shiver clambering down my spine.

The veiled lady began a low chant, and the other women joined in, their voices weaving a tapestry of sound that felt wrong—too harmonic, too precise. The guests began to weep, though their tears seemed forced, as if they cried by proxy. The bowl in the center grew darker, and the air grew heavier. I clutched the counter, feeling a pressure in my ears.

And then I saw them.

Not the dead. Something else. In the shadows of the room, shapes began to coalesce—wispy, translucent forms that hovered just at the edge of vision. They were not the kindly ghosts of E’s parents, but something else, with elongated limbs and hollow faces. They drifted among the guests, and one paused before me. It had no mouth, but I heard its voice in my skull, a whisper that was not a whisper but a resonance. ‘You feed us,’ it said. ‘But your food is lacking.’ It gestured toward the kitchen, where the roast beef sat under a silver dome. ‘We prefer the living.’

I stumbled back, knocking over a tray of pastries, and the sound made the veiled women turn. The one who had spoken rose, her veil slipping to reveal a face that was not a face but a void. ‘Intruder,’ she hissed. ‘You were not invited to the vigil.’ E looked at me, her eyes wide but unseeing, and I realized she was in a trance. The cousins began to laugh, a wet, gurgling sound, and they moved toward me, their forms wavering like heat haze.

I fled. I didn’t grab my coat or my keys. I ran out the back door, through the garden, into the night. Behind me, the house hummed with a choir of voices, no longer praying but singing, a discordant hymn that followed me down the street. I didn’t stop until I reached my own doorstep, my lungs burning, my heart pounding against my ribs.

I never saw E again. The house stood empty for months, the garden overgrown, and the windows like hollow eyes. Sometimes, at night, I hear that drone, that mechanical hum, and I know the Daughters of the Vigil are still there, waiting for a New offering. And sometimes, in my kitchen, I see a wisp of shadow out of the corner of my eye, a form with hungry limbs, and I wonder if it’s waiting for me to bring it a meal.

I’ve taken to burning sage every evening, and I avoid the kitchen after dark. But the sound persists, a low, insistent hum from the house next door, a choir that never ends. And I know that if I ever forget to lock my door, the Daughters will come for me, and they’ll ask me to sing.