The Hollow Rock

It was the summer of 1958 when my father first noticed the chair. We had just moved into the old farmhouse on the outskirts of Harker’s Hollow, a town that seemed to be clinging to the edge of a vast, dark forest. The house was a relic of the previous century, with warped floorboards and a staircase that groaned even under the weight of a mouse. Dad had bought the chair from a decrepit secondhand shop in the nearby town of Bromley, a place that smelled of mothballs and forgotten memories. The chair itself was unremarkable, with a dark oak frame and a worn leather seat that had been patched many times. It sat in the corner of the nursery, waiting.

I was the first to be placed in that chair, cradled in my mother’s arms, but it was my father who saw it move. It was a scorching afternoon in July, and the windows were thrown open, hoping to catch any whisper of a breeze. Outside, the cicadas were in full chorus, and the distant hum of the highway was a constant lullaby. Dad was reading the newspaper, half-asleep in his armchair, when he caught it out of the corner of his eye: the rocker swaying gently, as if someone had just set it in motion. He put down the paper and stared. The chair was still. He shrugged it off, thinking a draft from the window had stirred it, but the window was on the other side of the room, and there was no breeze strong enough to move a solid oak rocker. He didn’t mention it to Mother, not wanting to alarm her, but he found himself watching the chair more often.

The first time I actually saw the chair move was years later, when I was six. My younger sister, Emily, was a baby then, and we had set up the crib in my parents’ room because the nursery was being repainted. One evening, after Emily had been put to sleep, I wandered back to the nursery to retrieve a toy. The chair was there, still, but as I reached for my teddy bear on the windowsill, I saw the rocker glide back and forth, smooth and deliberate, as if someone were sitting in it, invisible, humming an old tune. I froze, my heart pounding. The chair continued to rock, and I could have sworn I heard a low, raspy breathing. I bolted out of the room, and from that night on, I never entered the nursery alone.

As the years passed, the chair’s presence became a fixture of our lives, always at the edge of our vision. At family gatherings, someone would inevitably mention seeing it move out of the corner of their eye. But it was the incident with my aunt Agatha that convinced us it was more than just a draft. Aunt Agatha was my father’s sister, a practical woman who had no patience for flights of fancy. She was visiting from the city and had come to help Mother with the harvest. She stayed in the spare room, which was adjacent to the nursery. In the middle of the night, we heard a crash and a scream. We rushed to find Aunt Agatha standing in the hallway, her face pale as moonlight. She swore she had seen a figure sitting in the chair, a man with hollow eyes, rocking back and forth, watching her. She would not stay another night, and she never spoke of it again, except to say that we should get rid of the chair.

We didn’t get rid of it. It was too solid, too well-made, and somehow, it felt like a part of the house. But Mother began to have dreams of a man rocking her to sleep, a man she knew but couldn’t place. She would wake up crying, whispering, “Papa,” and when my father asked her about it, she would shake her head, confused. We discovered that the chair had once belonged to a traveling salesman named Jonas Whelk, who had vanished in 1939 in the nearby town of Millbrook. He had been a heavy-set man with a kind face, and he had lived alone in a boarding house, his only possession of value being that very chair. No one knew what had happened to him, only that one day he was gone, and his belongings were sold off. I often imagined him sitting in the rocker, telling stories to no one, his voice fading into the twilight.

Years later, after my parents passed, I inherited the chair. I had moved to a small apartment in the city, and the chair became a relic of my childhood, a reminder of those long, strange summer nights. I placed it in my study, where I write. And now, as I type these words, the chair is in the corner, and it has begun to move. I watch it rock, back and forth, and I feel a presence, a weight in the room. I know that one day, maybe tonight, I will put down my pen and walk over to it. I will sit down, and I will rock, and I will feel something warm, something familiar, holding me, as the world fades. And I will wait for the next person to inherit the chair, and the endless rocking.