The Hollow of Red Hill

The day we drove up the gravel path to Red Hill, the sky was the colour of a bruise. My sister, Mira, and I sat in the back of the van, surrounded by cardboard boxes and the smell of dust. Mum had found the house after weeks of searching, calling it ‘a fresh start’ with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. Dad was gone, and so was the life we knew. The house was a looming Victorian relic, with a crooked porch and windows like blank stares. I was eight, Mira was ten, and we both knew better than to argue with Mum’s fragile cheerfulness.

The interior was a labyrinth of narrow hallways and oddly placed doors. The front door opened into a dark foyer, with a parlour to the right, its furniture draped in sheets like ghosts. To the left, a door led to a musty cellar, its handle cold to the touch. Further in, a cavernous kitchen with a blackened hearth, and French doors that opened onto an overgrown garden. Upstairs, three bedrooms: mine faced the front, Mira’s faced the dead trees in the back, and Mum’s had a private bath. The doors to each room were opposite each other, creating a claustrophobic corridor. Outside, a cracked stone path wound past a dried-up fountain to a fence, beyond which lay a hill covered in red soil, bare except for a lone, twisted oak.

The first night, I couldn’t sleep. Every creak of the old house made me jump. At around 3 AM, I heard a rhythmic scraping from my wall, like nails dragging across wood. I pressed my ear to the wall and heard a faint, echoing hum, as if something was trapped within. I called out to Mira, but she was fast asleep. The scraping stopped just before dawn.

The next day, I explored the garden. Near the fence, I found a small, moss-covered stone that looked like a grave marker. I brushed away the dirt and saw a name barely etched: ‘Edith Hollow’. I felt a chill, and the air grew still. I ran back inside and told Mum, who dismissed it as ‘old garden decoration’. But Mira looked pale and whispered, ‘I heard that name last night, in a dream.’

The dreams came regularly after that. I’d find myself in a room with red walls, a rocking chair that moved on its own, and a voice that called my name in a raspy whisper. One night, the dream changed. I was in the kitchen, and I saw a figure standing by the window, a woman in a long, tattered dress. She turned, and her face was a hollow, black void, and she pointed to the ceiling. I woke up screaming, and Mum rushed in, but she only seemed annoyed that I’d woken her. Mira, however, was shaking. She said she’d seen the same woman, and that she was ‘crying for her child’.

We discovered a hidden door in the wall of Mum’s closet, behind a loose panel. It led to a narrow staircase that spiraled down to a basement we’d never known about. The air was thick with the smell of soil and iron. The basement was filled with old furniture and a child’s crib, rusted and stained. In the centre, there was a well, boarded over, but from the cracks, a faint whispering rose. Mum was furious, but also strangely drawn to it. She said it was ‘history’ and began cleaning the room, spending hours down there.

Things escalated quickly. The scraping in the walls became louder each night, and objects would move on their own. Mira and I found a pile of rusty children’s toys in the corner of the basement, and I kicked one, and it rolled to the well, where it stopped as if caught by an unseen hand. That night, we heard a child’s crying from below. Mum took to sleeping in the basement, claiming it was cooler. When we tried to stop her, she screamed at us, her face twisted with anger, and for a second, I saw a flicker of something black in her eyes.

We discovered an old diary behind the crib, wrapped in a rotting cloth. It was written by a woman named Edith Hollow, who had lived in the house in the 1880s. The diary spoke of a child, ‘my precious Lily’, who died in the well, and of the mother’s grief that ‘grew a second heart, a black one, that longs to be filled’. The last entry was a curse: ‘Whoever calls this house home shall hear my Lily’s cry, and the black heart shall take root in their own.’ The diary crumbled in our hands as we read the final words.

The next morning, Mum was missing. We searched the house, and found her in the basement, sitting by the well, humming a lullaby. Her voice was not her own, but a high, thin, childish tone. She was cradling a bundle of rags, rocking it. When she saw us, she smiled a wide, unhinged smile and said, ‘She’s finally come back.’ We fled upstairs, but the door to the basement slammed shut, and we heard Mum’s voice, now a growl, ‘Lily wants to play.’

Mira and I tried to break the door down, but it held fast. The house began to groan, and the walls seemed to close in. We ran to the front door, but it was locked, and the windows were bricked up from the inside. We were trapped. From the basement, the sound of a child’s laughter, mixed with our mother’s scream, echoed through the floors. Then there was a loud crack, and the house fell silent.

We never saw Mum again. The police searched, but found no trace. Mira and I were sent to live with an aunt in another state. The house was sold, but it remained abandoned, for new owners reported strange occurrences, and the town soon deemed it cursed. To this day, I still hear the scraping at night, and a faint humming that reminds me of a lullaby my mother used to sing. And sometimes, when I look in the mirror, I see a black shape flicker in my reflection, and I know the black heart in me has started to grow.

Years later, Mira and I returned, driven by a morbid curiosity. The house was in ruins, the fence collapsed, and the hill was bare. In the basement, we found the well uncovered, and inside, a single, small bone. We buried it in the garden, under the lone oak. As we left, we heard a child’s cry, but it was not from the house. It was from the hill, and when we turned, we saw a small figure standing by the tree, waving at us. It wore our mother’s dress. We ran to the car and never looked back.

But I know that wherever I go, the hill’s red soil will follow, and one day, I will hear the call of the well again. And I will answer.