The Hollow Shawl

My descent into this nightmare began not with a camera, but with a loom. I had started a podcast, ‘Threadbare Tales,’ hoping to spin narratives from the whispers of strangers. A retired weaver from a remote village in the Scottish Highlands, a woman I’ll call Morag, reached out. Her emails were rambling, full of drafts and incomplete sentences, but one story clung to me like a burr.

Morag had inherited her great-grandmother’s cottage, and with it, a loom that creaked with a life of its own. In the attic, wrapped in moth-eaten linen, she found a shawl, half-woven, its pattern unlike any she’d ever seen. The threads seemed to shift colors in the dim light, and when she touched it, a chill ran up her arm. That night, she dreamed of a voice, singing a lullaby she didn’t recognize, in a language that felt older than speech.

Over the following weeks, Morag became obsessed with the shawl. She would sit before the loom for hours, not weaving, just watching the threads tremble as if caught in an unseen breeze. The air in the room grew thick, heavy with the scent of damp earth and burning heather. She noticed small things changing around her—her cat refused to enter the attic, and her plants wilted on the window sill. Her sleep was plagued by dreams of a woman, gaunt and hollow-eyed, standing at the edge of a misty loch, weaving the shawl with feverish desperation.

The shawl, she realized, was not merely an object; it was a vessel. She discovered a hidden diary in the cottage wall, written by her great-grandmother, recounting a bargain struck with something beneath the hills. The shawl was the price—a garment meant to shroud a spirit, trapping it in threads. But the spirit was not passive; it clawed at the fabric, seeking freedom. Morag, in her naive curiosity, had begun to unravel the binding.

One morning, she found the loom running on its own, the shuttle flying so fast it was a blur. The shawl was nearly complete, and in its pattern, she saw faces—faces of people she loved, contorted in agony. She tried to cut the threads, but the scissors shattered in her hand. The voice, no longer a whisper, filled the cottage, a wail that rattled the windows. A figure materialized beside her, the woman from her dreams, but now translucent, her fingers brushing the shawl as if caressing a child.

Morag fled. She left the cottage that night, driving through the mist that clung to the moors, and didn’t stop until she reached the coast. She called me, her voice a husk, telling me of the thing that now lived in her house, wearing the shawl as skin. She begged me to destroy it. I laughed, thinking it was a story, and asked to hear it once more for my podcast.

Three days later, I received a parcel. Inside was the shawl, folded neatly, and a note in Morag’s handwriting: ‘You wanted a story. Now you have the loom.’ That night, I felt a chill seep into my bones. From my bedroom, I heard the creak of a loom, and a lullaby sung in a language I’ve never learned but somehow understand. My reflection in the mirror is slow to follow my movements, and sometimes, I see a woman standing behind me, weaving a pattern that looks like my own face. I haven’t slept in days. I’m writing this because I need you to understand—the shawl is here now, and it’s hungry. If you find this, do not come looking for me. Just burn the house down.