The Hollow Hour

The summer of 2009 was the last time I ever set foot in my grandmother’s house. She had passed in the spring, and the place was left to my mother, who swore she’d never sell it, but we all knew she would. The house itself was a Victorian relic, all creaking bones and dusty corners, set on a sprawling property that had been in the family for generations. My cousin, Emily, and I were tasked with cleaning it out, a job we dreaded, but it gave us an excuse to spend a few weeks away from our own lives.

One sweltering July evening, after a day of tossing moth-eaten quilts and chipped china into garbage bags, we found ourselves in the parlor, surrounded by boxes. The air was thick with the smell of old paper and decay. An electric fan whirred uselessly in the corner, barely stirring the heat. Emily, always the adventurous one, pulled out a dusty cardboard box from beneath a stack of yellowed newspapers. Inside, wrapped in a flannel cloth, was a Ouija board, hand-painted with strange symbols and a planchette made of polished bone. ‘Oh, this is perfect,’ she said, a mischievous glint in her eye. ‘Let’s have a séance.’

I hesitated, but the boredom of the day and the allure of the forbidden won me over. We cleared a spot on the oak table, lit a couple of stubby candles we’d found in the kitchen, and placed the board between us. We didn’t have the planchette, so we used a heavy glass ashtray that had belonged to my grandfather. Emily began, her voice low and singsong, ‘Is there anyone here with us? We come in peace.’ The fan clicked, and the house groaned, but nothing else moved. We repeated the invitation, the candle flames flickering as if breathing. Suddenly, the ashtray shuddered, then slid across the board to the word ‘YES.’ A cold draft swept through the room despite the heat, and the hairs on my arms stood up.

We both gasped, but Emily laughed nervously, ‘It’s probably just the wind.’ We continued, asking who was there. The ashtray moved again, spelling out ‘AGNES.’ My blood ran cold. Agnes was my great-grandmother, who had died in this house under mysterious circumstances. I’d never told Emily about her. A chill that had nothing to do with the temperature wrapped around me, and I whispered, ‘Let’s stop.’ Emily scoffed, ‘Don’t be a chicken. Agnes, what do you want?’ The ashtray whirled, circling the board, then slammed to the corner, pointing to ‘DEATH.’ The candles blew out, plunging us into near darkness, the only light a sickly orange from the setting sun filtering through lace curtains.

We sat frozen, the ashtray cold as ice beneath our trembling fingers. Then, from the hallway, we heard a faint scratching, like fingernails on wallpaper. It was rhythmic, almost like a heartbeat. Emily, her bravado crumbling, whispered, ‘What is that?’ I shook my head, unable to speak. The scratching grew louder, more insistent, and then a voice, thin and reedy, echoed from the walls: ‘Seven nights.’ We looked at each other in terror, and the ashtray flew off the board, shattering against the fireplace. We didn’t sleep that night, huddled together in the attic room, every creak and groan of the old house sounding like whispers.

The next day, we tried to rationalize it. The wind, old house settling, our imaginations. But the scratching continued, and each night, a little louder. And the voice grew more distinct, until we could make out words: ‘Seven nights to leave this place.’ On the third night, I woke to find Emily standing at the foot of my bed, her eyes open but unseeing, her mouth moving as if speaking to someone. When I shook her, she snapped awake, confused and terrified. She said she’d been dreaming of Agnes, who was begging us to leave before ‘He’ came.

We tried to call our parents, but the phone lines were dead, and cell service was nonexistent in that rural area. The car wouldn’t start, the battery drained. We were trapped. On the fifth night, as the clock struck midnight, the house went silent, the usual creaks and groans ceasing. Then, from the basement, we heard a heavy dragging sound, as if something was being pulled up the stairs. We barricaded ourselves in the bedroom, pushing the dresser against the door. The dragging stopped just outside, and a putrid smell of damp earth and decay seeped under the door. A voice, deeper and more malevolent than Agnes’s, spoke: ‘You cannot hide.’ The door shook, and the dresser slid across the floor as if pushed by an invisible force.

We scrambled out the window, dropping onto the porch roof below, and ran into the night, stumbling through the overgrown field toward the main road. We ran until our lungs burned, not daring to look back. We flagged down a trucker at dawn, who took us to the nearest town. We never spoke of it again, but I still hear that voice in my dreams, and sometimes, when I’m alone at night, I hear that dragging sound outside my door, and I know that the hollow hour has come for me.