The Hollow Contract

I remember the smell of rain on hot asphalt, and the way the floorboards of my aunt’s old farmhouse in Ohio creaked like they were breathing. I was four, maybe five. My great-aunt Marguerite, a woman with hair like spiderwebs and a habit of talking to her plants, had a board she kept in a velvet pouch. She said it was for ‘speaking to those who crossed the river.’ I didn’t understand, but I watched the pointer slide under her bony fingers. That night, a knock came at the door—three sharp raps that made the kerosene lamp flicker. Marguerite peered through the lace curtain and saw nothing but the cornfield swaying. I tugged her skirt and said, ‘There’s a man. He’s tall and he’s smiling with too many teeth. He wants you to open the door.’ She yanked the bolt shut and muttered something under her breath. The house shuddered, dishes rattling in the cupboards, as if the earth itself had clenched. She burned the board in the iron stove, and the smoke smelled like rotten honey. From that night on, I could feel things—other people’s anger like a hot coal in my chest, and the sorrow of places, like the old well behind the barn that seemed to weep even in summer.

By the time I was nine, I was living with my other grandparents, the Kellers, in a cramped house near the salt flats of Utah. My parents had drifted apart like two rafts on a river, and my sister and I were passed between relatives like a hot potato. I spent most of my time in the attic room, with its slanted ceiling and a window that looked out onto a thousand dead white miles. I was crying one evening—I had been punished for something I didn’t do, accused of stealing a bracelet I hadn’t touched—when a shadow under my bed began to move. It pooled and rose, coalescing into the shape of a dog, but wrong. Its fur was like black smoke, and its eyes were two holes of nothing. It spoke without moving its mouth, the voice like gravel sliding down a metal chute. ‘I can be your friend,’ it said. ‘I can give you strength. All I ask is a small piece of you. A promise. A secret. Nothing you’ll miss.’

I was lonely, and hungry for any warmth, so I agreed. I let it sit beside me at night, feeling its cold bulk press against my back like a draft. It told me secrets about the other kids at school—things they’d hidden in their lockers, lies they’d told their parents. And I began to use them. I’d leave a note on a teacher’s desk, exposing a bully’s stolen test. I’d whisper to a girl that her best friend was spreading rumors, and watch the friendship shatter. At first, it felt like justice. But soon, the dog demanded more. ‘You promised,’ it would growl when I hesitated. ‘Give me your sadness. It’s so sweet.’ And I would let it drink my grief, and I’d feel nothing but a cold vacancy in my chest. I stopped crying. I stopped caring. My grandparents worried, but I just stared through them. The dog grew more solid, its form now almost like a real animal, but with that wrongness—like a shadow that moved on its own.

One night, the dog led me to the basement, which I had always avoided because of the moldy smell and the old coal chute. But that night, it felt… inviting. At the bottom of the stairs, I saw a crack of light from behind a heavy wooden door that I’d never noticed before. The dog nudged it open with its snout, and inside was a room filled with jars. Hundreds of jars, each containing something faintly glowing—wisps of grey, strands of silver, little motes of light. ‘These are memories,’ the dog said. ‘Taste one. The sweetest are the most painful.’ Trembling, I reached for a jar that held a shimmering blue wisp. As I uncorked it, a scent of sea salt and lavender filled the room, and I saw a flash of a woman’s face—my mother, when she was young, laughing at a picnic. The memory poured into me, and for a moment, I felt whole. But then the dog nudged me again. ‘Give me one of yours. The one where you found your sister’s dead cat. That was particularly rich.’ I felt a tug in my mind, and a grey strand unspooled from my forehead. The dog inhaled it, and my stomach lurched.

I don’t know how long I stayed there, trading memories like coins. But one day, I tried to remember my mother’s face, and it was blank. I tried to recall the name of my first friend, and it was just a hollow space. I panicked, ran up the stairs, and burst into the kitchen where my grandmother was kneading dough. ‘What’s happening to me?’ I cried. She looked at me with a strange calm, as if she’d known all along. ‘I see it,’ she whispered. ‘That thing that’s latched onto you. It’s not a dog. It’s an eater of souls. It was in this house before I was born. It took my brother when he was your age.’ And she told me the cost: if you feed it enough of yourself, it can take your place, wear your flesh like a coat. The dog appeared at the kitchen door, its eyes now glowing like coals. ‘It’s time,’ it said. ‘You promised me a piece. I’ll take the whole now.’

I screamed and grabbed a fireplace poker, but it felt like swinging through water. The dog lunged, and I felt a cold pressure against my chest, like being crushed by a glacier. My grandmother shouted something in a language I didn’t understand, and she threw a jar of salt at it, which exploded in a cloud of white. The dog recoiled, giving me enough time to flee out the back door and into the blinding salt flats. I ran until my lungs burned, but the dog’s laughter was in my ears. ‘You can’t outrun your own shadow,’ it said. I tripped and fell face-first into the salt, and I realized I couldn’t remember my own last name. The dog appeared beside me, its form flickering, and it was wearing my face. ‘It’s okay,’ it said in my voice. ‘You didn’t need that memory anyway.’ I looked at my hands—they were starting to fade, becoming translucent. I knew then that I was becoming the shadow, and the dog was becoming me.

I have been trapped in that limbo ever since—not alive, not dead, but somewhere in between. I watch the dog, wearing my body, grow older, graduate, have a family. I can only observe, helpless, as it does horrible things, blaming me. But sometimes, I can reach out—just a little—and influence a dream or a thought. That’s why I’m writing this, in my head, hoping someone will read it and know the truth. If you ever see a child with a black dog, and that child seems empty inside, don’t let the dog in. Burn the house if you have to. Because once you give it a piece of you, it will never be satisfied until it takes everything. And in the end, you’ll be nothing but a ghost at your own funeral, watching a monster wear your skin and smile. My name was Alice Temple, and I was nine years old when I made a deal with a shadow. Now I’m a shadow, and the rest is just feedback. If you hear a knock at your door, and there’s no one there, don’t open. It might be me, trying to warn you. Let me in.