The Hollow Hour

I first noticed her at the old fish cannery on the edge of town, where I worked the graveyard shift. She stood at the end of the conveyor belt, a pale figure in a tattered white gown, her hair a curtain of black that hid her face. At first, I thought she was a trick of the light, but she remained, motionless, as the machinery groaned and clanked around us. Her presence was a weight in the air, a stillness that made the dust motes hang suspended. I tried to ignore her, telling myself it was exhaustion, but every night she was there, watching, never speaking.

I had moved to this coastal town to escape my past, away from my mother’s house, away from the relentless noise of my father’s addictions. I thought the quiet would heal me, but the silence here was different, it was the empty space that waited for something to fill it. She filled it. She was there when I walked home along the wet asphalt, her bare feet leaving no prints. She was there in the reflection of my window at night, a pale blur just over my shoulder. I began to lose sleep, my nerves raw, the edges of my vision constantly catching that white shape.

My coworker, Miguel, noticed my jumpiness. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost,’ he joked. I told him about her, about the woman who watched me. He grew serious. ‘There’s an old story,’ he said, ‘about a girl who drowned in the bay, back when the cannery was thriving. She was a worker, an outsider, and when she wouldn’t go out with the foreman, he pushed her into the freezing water. They say she still walks, looking for the one who wronged her, but she can’t find him, so she watches anyone who comes near.’ I laughed, but inside, a cold dread coiled in my stomach.

One night, I decided to confront her. I walked up to the end of the line where she stood, her face hidden by that black hair. ‘What do you want?’ I asked, my voice trembling. She didn’t move. I reached out to touch her shoulder, and my hand went through her, but not entirely, there was a resistance, like pushing through cold oil. A chill shot up my arm, and I heard a sound, not a voice, but a crackling, like ice breaking. I recoiled, and she was gone.

That night, I dreamt of her. I was underwater, the grey light of the bay above me, and she was sinking, her white gown billowing like a jellyfish. She turned to me, and for the first time, I saw her face. It was mine, but older, hollow, with black spots where eyes should be. She opened her mouth, and a stream of bubbles rose, forming words that I couldn’t read. I woke up gasping, my sheets soaked with sweat.

I went to the local library, desperate for anything about her. I found an old newspaper from 1929, a brief article: ‘Mysterious Drowning at Cannery.’ It didn’t give her name, just ‘a transient known as the Hollow Girl, for her unnerving silence.’ It said she had been seen lingering near the docks for weeks before, always watching, never speaking, and that the foreman had been questioned but released. The next day, I saw the foreman’s name: Jacob Mori. And then, I remembered my father’s mother, my grandmother, was a Mori from this coast. She had moved away, but she had a brother, who worked at the cannery. My great-uncle.

I drove to the old cemetery on the hill, where the historical society kept records. I found the plot, an unmarked grave. As I stood there, the sky darkened, and the wind picked up. I felt her presence behind me, colder than ever. I turned, and she was there, closer than before, her face now visible, and it was the face of my grandmother, the one who had been kind to me but had hidden a secret in her eyes. And I understood. My great-uncle had killed her, and my grandmother had known, had carried the guilt, and it had passed down through my blood. The vision had been meant for him, but I was the one who finally came back.

She raised a hand, and pointed at the grave, then to me. I felt a pressure build in my skull, a sound like a thousand whispers, and then the sound of a train, and I was on the railroad tracks, but it was a phantom train, all windows glowing with faces of the drowned. I tried to run, but my legs were frozen. The train bore down on me, and just before it hit, I woke up in my bed, but I wasn’t alone. She was there, standing in the corner, and now she had a smile, if you could call it that, her lips held shut, but her head tilted as if she were laughing.

From that night on, she follows me in the daylight too. She stands in the supermarket, by the freezers, watching. She sits in the back of my car, reflected in the rearview mirror. She is always there, a silent reminder. I have become an insomniac, a ghost myself, living hollow hours, waiting for the moment she will finally speak. But I know that when she does, it will be the last thing I hear. The hollow hour is upon me, and she is its keeper.