The Hollow Oak

I was twelve when we moved to the farm, a tired stretch of land in the shadow of the Blue Ridge. My mother had inherited it from her grandfather, and my father, ever the optimist, saw it as a chance to start over. The farmhouse was a sagging Victorian, its porch peeling, its windows like vacant eyes. Behind it, at the edge of the woods, stood a massive oak, its limbs twisted into gnarled fingers. A local legend said it was a hanging tree, but I never paid it much mind. We had more pressing concerns: fixing the roof, finding the leak in the well, and my grandmother’s increasingly strange behavior.

Grandma Elsie had moved in with us after her own house had become too much for her. She was a quiet woman, sharp as a tack, but lately, she’d taken to muttering to herself and staring at the oak for hours. She claimed she saw a ‘girl in a white dress’ standing beneath it, beckoning. My parents chalked it up to her age, but I saw the fear in their eyes. They tried to keep me away from the tree, but curiosity is a stubborn weed.

One humid July afternoon, I found an old Ouija board in the attic, buried beneath a trunk of moth-eaten blankets. It was a battered thing, the planchette missing. I thought it was a joke, a relic of some forgotten game. I kept it, planning to impress my friends at a sleepover. My parents were not superstitious, but they had warned me against such things, saying they were ‘devil’s playthings.’ Naively, I convinced myself they were just being old-fashioned.

My friends, a freckle-faced jock named Danny and a quiet girl named Rosa, came over for the weekend. The power was out, and the house was thick with candlelight. We were bored, and I produced the board, fashioning a replacement planchette from a bottle cap and a pencil. We took turns asking silly questions, and the board sat still, mocking us. Then, on a whim, I asked, ‘What is your name?’ The bottle cap jerked, scraping across the cardboard. It spelled: V.E.R.A.

We laughed, but a thin, cold dread slithered down my spine. I asked, ‘What do you want?’ The cap moved again: ‘T.H.E. O.A.K.’ Danny laughed nervously, but Rosa was pale. She whispered that she wanted to stop. I didn’t. I asked, ‘Why?’ And the cap spelled: ‘C.O.M.E.’

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I stared out my window at the oak, its branches like veins against the moon. I saw something move—a pale shape among the shadows. I told myself it was a deer. But then I heard it: a woman’s voice, soft and mournful, singing a lullaby. It seemed to come from the tree itself. I pulled the covers over my head, but the song burrowed into my mind.

The next morning, Grandma was worse. She refused to eat, only staring out the kitchen window. ‘She’s calling me,’ she said, her voice thin. ‘Vera wants me to join her.’ My parents exchanged worried looks. They called the doctor, but he found nothing wrong physically. As the day wore on, the air grew heavy, and I felt a compulsion to go to the oak. I fought it, but my legs moved on their own, and I found myself standing before the gnarled roots.

I saw a face in the bark—a woman’s face, ancient and sorrowful. Her eyes were hollow, and her mouth moved soundlessly. The ground beneath the tree was bare, not a blade of grass. I knelt, and I heard her voice in my head: ‘You opened the door. Now you must close it.’ A cold hand seemed to grip my ankle, and I fell forward. I saw a flash of white, a story of a girl named Vera who had been accused of witchcraft and hanged from this very oak in 1887. She had been innocent, and her spirit had been bound here, waiting for someone to free her.

I scrambled back, my heart pounding. I ran to the house, but the door wouldn’t budge. I saw my mother through the window, but she didn’t see me. The singing grew louder, and I felt a pull toward the tree. I turned, and there, standing amidst the roots, was a translucent figure in a white dress, her noose still around her neck. Her eyes locked onto mine. ‘Help me,’ she pleaded. ‘Help me cross over.’

I knew then what I had to do. The Ouija board had woken her, but it could also lay her to rest. I ran to the attic, grabbed the board, and returned to the oak. I lit a candle, placed the board on the roots, and with my trembling hand on the cap, I asked, ‘What do you need?’ The cap spelled: ‘C.U.T. T.H.E. R.O.P.E.’ I looked up—there was no rope, only the ghostly apparition. But I saw a rusty scythe leaning against the trunk, as if left for me. I lifted it, and with a prayer on my lips, I swung at the air above the ghost. The scythe passed through her, but I felt it catch on something solid—an invisible strand. I pulled, and it snapped.

A terrible shriek rent the air, and the ghost dissolved into motes of light that spiraled upward and vanished. The oak groaned, and a branch crashed to the ground. The face in the bark faded, and the grounds seemed to exhale. The singing stopped. I stood there, shaking, the scythe heavy in my hands.

From the house, I heard my mother calling my name. She had come outside, looking for me. I dropped the scythe and ran to her. She hugged me, saying she’d had a terrible dream. I didn’t tell her what had happened. I never found the scythe again, and the board I burned in the old kitchen stove. The next day, Grandma Elsie was back to her senses, humming a tune she didn’t know.

But I never forgot Vera. I still feel a chill when I pass the oak. And sometimes, in the deepest part of the night, I hear a faint lullaby, and I know she’s at peace. That was my last summer on the farm, but the tree remains, its hollow heart a testament to a secret I’ll take to my grave.