The Hollow Crown

I had nailed the stag’s skull above my bed as a trophy, a testament to the year I spent tracking it through the marshlands. Its antlers branched like gnarled fingers, and the bone was bleached to a pale ivory by the sun. I was a taxidermist by trade, and the head was my finest work, but my wife, Lena, always said it watched her, that the hollow sockets held a glint of malice. I laughed, attributing it to her fear of the wild.

That spring, the rains came early, turning the ground to a sucking mire. The house, an old timbered cottage at the edge of the fen, began to creak and groan as if the beams were waking from a long sleep. On the third night of the deluge, I dreamt of the skull. In the dream, a creature like a stoat, but with fur as black as pitch and eyes like chips of coal, emerged from the empty eye socket. It chittered and danced on my pillow, and in the dream I felt a bubbling joy, a primal thrill. It coiled around my neck, warm and soft, and I woke with a start, my heart racing.

The next day, the rain ceased, and a strange stillness hung over the marsh. Lena went to the village for supplies, and I was left alone. As I washed my hands in the basin, I saw a shadow fall across the wall—a tall, gaunt figure, its head brushing the ceiling. The light was bright, but the shadow was solid, and it lingered for a heartbeat before dissolving. I spun around, but the room was empty. I told myself it was a trick of the eye, a reflection from the window, but a cold sweat broke on my back.

That evening, I tried to pray, as my grandmother had taught me. I knelt by the hearth, but the words felt hollow, and a voice, thin as a reeds’ whisper, seemed to answer from the skull. ‘You took my body,’ it said, ‘now I shall take yours.’ I dismissed it as the wind, but I lit every lamp in the house and did not sleep.

In the days that followed, the shadow appeared more often. It was always in my periphery, always gone when I turned. The skull began to change. The empty sockets seemed deeper, and a faint, sickly odor of decay emanated from the bone. I took it down, sealed it in a wooden box, and buried it in the marsh. But the next night, I saw the shadow standing at the foot of my bed, and from its chest came a steady, slow dripping, as if something were bleeding. The smell of rot followed me, and my food tasted of ash.

Lena grew frightened. She begged me to leave, but I could not bear the thought of abandoning my workshop. I tried to burn the box where the skull lay, but the fire would not catch. I tried to pray again, but now I could not form the words. I dreamt every night of that black stoat, and each dream, it grew larger, its fur slick with a dark liquid, its eyes brighter, more aware.

One night, I woke to find my hand clamped around my hunting knife, and I was standing over Lena’s sleeping form. I gasped and dropped it, but she had seen the look in my eyes. She fled to the village priest, who returned with her, carrying a silver cross and a bible. He attempted an exorcism, but as he prayed, the shadow appeared behind him, and the priest’s eyes widened in horror. He staggered back, clutching his chest, and collapsed. He died of a heart attack that night.

I was consumed by guilt and terror. I knew the source of the shadow. It was the stoat, the creature from the dream, now free from the skull. It had taken root in me, in my guilt over the stag, in my pride. I understood now. The stag had not been a trophy; it had been a sacrifice. And the creature that had emerged was the spirit of the wild, a part of me I had killed and mounted.

I left the cottage and wandered the marsh, barefoot, until I came to the spot where I had buried the skull. I dug it up with my bare hands, the mud caking under my nails. The box was empty. In that moment, I heard the chittering behind me, and I turned to see the shadow, now solid, its form shifting between that of a man and that of a great, black stoat. It had no face, but I felt its gaze.

I knelt in the mud. ‘Take me,’ I said, ‘if you must. But let her live.’

There was a long silence, and then the shadow reached out and touched my chest. It was cold, and the world went white. When I opened my eyes, I was still in the marsh, but I was not myself. I was vast and hollow. I looked back at the cottage and saw a figure moving in the window—my old body, with my face, but my eyes were gone, replaced by twin voids. Lena screamed, and the sound was distant, as if from underwater.

I am the shadow now. I watch the cottage. I wait. I am the hollow crown over her bed, and I wear it well. The marsh will swallow me, but the memory of my sin will linger like the taste of rot, and the sorry tale of the hunter who became the hunted will be told to those who dare to look into the hollow places of the world.