The Hollow of the Ash

In the autumn of 2011, I was a graduate student in forestry, studying the old-growth stands that crown the ridgelines of the Allegheny Plateau. I had a partner, Caleb, a quiet man with steady hands, and we had plans—a cabin, a garden, a child—all things that felt as solid as the oaks we measured. But there was a nagging in my chest, a restlessness that grew with each passing season. I had always dreamed of becoming a mother, and I had set my heart on doing so by the time I was thirty. As that birthday loomed, the desire became an ache, a constant hum beneath my skin. So when I learned of a remote research station deep in the hollows, I jumped at the chance to spend a few months there, studying the ash trees that were dying from a blight. It was the perfect excuse to be alone, to think, to make peace with the ticking clock.

The station was a crumbling stone cottage, built by the WPA in the ’30s. It sat at the edge of a clearing, surrounded by towering ashes, their leaves already yellowed and falling. The air was cool and smelled of decay, and the only sound was the wind rasping through the branches. The previous researcher had left abruptly, and his notes were scattered on the desk: pages of measurements, sketches, and a recurring phrase—’the hollow ash.’ I dismissed it as a poetic term for the dead trees. But at night, when the wind died, I could hear a low moaning from the woods, like a far-off animal in pain. I told myself it was just the rubbing of branches, the settling of the old foundation.

A week into my stay, I found it: a massive ash tree, older than the others, with a trunk so wide I couldn’t wrap my arms around it. Its bark was split, revealing a dark hollow that went deep into the heartwood. Inside, the interior was smooth, almost polished, as if something had worn it down over centuries. The air around it was colder, and I felt a pull, an urge to crawl inside. I resisted, but that night I dreamed of roots growing through my feet, of leaves sprouting from my fingers, of a tiny hand reaching from the dark.

Over the following days, the moaning grew louder, and I began to hear whispers in the rustling leaves. They spoke in a language I didn’t know, yet I understood: ‘You are late. You have been chosen.’ At first, I thought I was losing my mind, but then I realized the sounds were coming from the hollow tree. I started leaving offerings—bits of bread, an old ribbon—anything to appease it. But it wasn’t enough. It wanted more. It wanted what I had been dreaming of.

One night, I woke to find Caleb standing at the foot of my bed, soaking wet, his eyes dark holes. He was miles away, but there he was, and he tried to speak, but only a dry rattle came out. When I reached for him, he dissolved into ash, leaving a pile on the floor. I screamed, and when the sun rose, the pile was gone, but the hollow tree seemed larger, its bark glistening with a faint sheen.

I called Caleb, and his voice was thin, distant, as if he were at the bottom of a well. He said he was sick, that something was draining him, and he was seeing things—roots in the walls, insects in his food. I knew then that I had brought something back with me, something that had latched onto my longing and was feeding it. The tree wanted a child, and it was using me as a bridge.

I tried to burn the tree, but the sun had set, and the wood refused to catch. The hollow was wet with a thick sap that smelled like honey and rot, and when I touched it, I felt a pulse. That night, I dreamed of the hollow as a womb, and I was being pulled inside. I woke with cold sweat, my stomach swollen and hard. I was pregnant—impossible, for I had been alone for months.

Caleb came to me then, or what was left of him. His face was gray, his eyes milky, and he spoke in the tree’s language, his voice layered with the moan of the wind: ‘It is done. You will bear the seed, and the hollow will be filled.’ I screamed at him to leave, but he just crumbled to dust, leaving a single ash leaf on the pillow.

The pregnancy progressed in days, not months. My belly grew huge, and I felt something moving inside me, not with the flutter of a fetus but with the deep, slow churn of roots. I couldn’t leave; every time I tried, the forest would close in, and the path would vanish. The hollow tree was my anchor, and I was its vessel.

On the last night, the moon was full, and the hollow tree glowed with a sickly green light. I found myself standing before it, my hands pressed to the bark, and I felt the pull, the urge to crawl inside, to give birth to what it wanted. But as I hesitated, I remembered something my grandmother had told me: ‘When the hollow calls, do not answer with your own name.’ I had told the tree my name early on, in a moment of weakness.

I whispered to the tree, not my name, but the name of the first girl who died in these woods—a girl from my research who had fallen from a cliff, her body never found. As I spoke, the light flickered, and the moan turned to a shriek. The trunk split, and from the fissure, a skein of roots and leaves poured out, wrapping around me, not in a caress but in a violent spasm. I felt a tearing, and then everything went black.

I woke at the edge of the clearing, my clothes torn, my belly flat. The hollow tree was gone, replaced by a young ash sapling, its leaves impossibly green. I stumbled back to the station, and there was a phone call waiting: Caleb had died that same night, from a sudden, inexplicable illness. I left the next day, and I never returned.

But I didn’t go home. I moved to a city far from any forest, took a desk job, and tried to forget. But every autumn, when the leaves fall, I feel a dull ache in my womb, and I hear a faint rustling sound, as if from a great distance. And in my dreams, I see a child with bark for skin and leaves for hair, standing at the edge of a hollow, reaching out to me, waiting for me to come back.