The Hollow of the Field

The village of Ashby Fold was a smudge on the map, a collection of grey stone houses huddled around a single lane that petered out into the lanes and fields of the surrounding farmland. My father, Arthur, lived there with his partner, Margaret, in a cottage that had stood for three hundred years, its thick walls and small windows a testament to a time when the land was wilder and less forgiving. I was visiting for the summer, and Margaret’s daughter, Clara, was my constant companion, a year younger than me but with a sharp wit and a restlessness that matched my own.

One afternoon, as the sun began its slow descent casting long shadows across the fields, we found ourselves at the farmhouse belonging to the Barlow family. The eldest son, Thomas, was Clara’s age, and he had a football under his arm and a mischievous glint in his eye. His little brother, Ben, barely four years old, trailed behind him, clutching a toy tractor. Thomas’s mother, a weary woman with flour on her apron, asked if we could take Ben with us, as she had to deal with a sick ewe. We agreed, and soon we were all crossing the lane to the field behind the farmhouse.

The field was a broad, flat expanse of grass, bordered by drystone walls and dotted with sheep droppings. It sloped gently towards the bottom, where the wall was older, crumbled in places, and beyond it a dense copse of trees. We kicked the football around, Ben tottering after it with gleeful shouts, his small legs working hard to keep up. Clara and Thomas were competitive, and I was happy to play the role of referee, watching the sun dip lower and the air grow cool.

It was Thomas who first noticed the hollow. ‘Hey, what’s that?’ he called, pointing towards the bottom of the field. We all stopped and looked. There was a depression in the earth, almost perfectly circular, about ten feet across, its edges smooth and unnatural. It looked like a huge bowl had been pressed into the ground, and the grass inside was a darker, richer green, as if it had been watered with something other than rain. Ben, still chasing the ball, was already toddling down the slope towards it.

‘Ben, come back!’ Clara shouted, but he kept going. We ran after him, our boots squelching in the damp grass. As we reached the hollow, we saw that it was deeper than it looked from above, a shallow dish with a ring of stones at the bottom, arranged in a pattern that seemed almost deliberate. Ben was kneeling at the edge, peering in, his small face a mask of curiosity. ‘Pretty rocks,’ he said, reaching out.

Thomas yanked him back. ‘Don’t touch those,’ he said, his voice tight. ‘My dad says we’re not to come here.’ Clara and I exchanged glances. The hollow seemed ordinary enough, but there was a stillness about it that made me uneasy, as if the air itself was holding its breath. We stood there for a moment, the football forgotten at our feet, and listened. The distant hum of a tractor had faded, and the birds had gone silent.

‘Let’s go back,’ I said, and we started to climb the slope. But as we turned, a sound came from the hollow—a low, rhythmic scrape, like something being dragged across stone. We froze. ‘What was that?’ Clara whispered. Ben had gone very still in Thomas’s arms, his eyes wide. The sound came again, closer this time, from behind us. We turned, and the hollow was empty, but there was a fresh indent in the earth at its centre, as if something had just stood up.

We ran back to the farmhouse, breathless, and told Thomas’s mother what we had seen. She went pale and made the sign of the cross, muttering something about the old places. That night, I couldn’t sleep. I lay in my narrow bed at Dad’s cottage, listening to the wind in the eaves, and I thought about the hollow. I wondered what the farmer had seen to make him forbid his sons from going there, and what kind of thing could make a sound like that without being seen.

The next day, I went back alone. The hollow was still there, of course, but it looked different in the daylight. The stones at the bottom seemed arranged in a spiral, and the grass around the rim was flattened, as if something had been sleeping there. I knelt and looked closer, and among the stones I saw a small, dark object. I picked it up—it was a child’s toy, a plastic dinosaur, caked in mud. My blood ran cold. I knew that toy. It belonged to Ben.

I ran back to the farmhouse, but Ben was gone. Thomas was sitting on the porch, his face blank. ‘He went out this morning,’ he said, ‘Said he was going to play in the field. I told him not to, but he went anyway.’ We searched for hours, calling his name, but there was no sign of him. The police came, and the villagers formed search parties, but they found nothing. The hollow was empty, save for the stones, which seemed to have shifted slightly, as if arranged into a new pattern.

A week later, I couldn’t stay any longer. I went to say goodbye to Dad, and he hugged me with a look of profound sadness. ‘The land here is old, son,’ he said. ‘Older than the hills. Sometimes it takes what it’s owed.’ I left Ashby Fold, but I couldn’t shake the memory of that field. I dreamed of the hollow, of the scraping sound, of Ben’s small figure standing at the edge, looking down at something I couldn’t see.

Months later, I received a letter from Dad. It said that Thomas had gone missing too, and that the police had dragged the pond and searched the woods. They found nothing. But Dad wrote that the sheep had started acting strangely, huddling in tight circles at the bottom of the field, and that some of them had been found dead, their eyes missing. He said that he had gone to look at the hollow one last time, and that the stones had been arranged into a crude shape, something that might have been a figure, and that the grass inside was stained dark.

I haven’t been back since. But sometimes, late at night, I hear that sound—a low, rhythmic scrape, like something being dragged across stone. And I know that the hollow is still there, waiting, patient as the land itself. And I wonder if, one day, it will call me back.