The Hollow Table

I never understood why the dead chose me. They came like moths to a flickering porch light, drawn by something I couldn’t name. Most were gentle, lost souls yearning for a final nudge toward the light. But some were not. Some lingered in the corners of our new farmhouse, their presence a cold draft that no furnace could chase away.

It was late autumn, and the house itself felt like a held breath. The previous owners had left behind a heavy oak dining table in the kitchen, scarred with years of forgotten meals. My mother had tried to mask its age with a cheerful tablecloth, but it never sat right, as if the wood remembered something bitter. My brother, Liam, was still in his high chair, babbling to the empty air. My twin sister, Mira, had a habit of talking to things no one else could see—a trait I now recognized as a family curse.

That afternoon, my mother and I were upstairs in the playroom, sorting through boxes of old photographs, while Liam dozed in his crib. The house was quiet, except for the occasional groan of settling timber. Then, a sound shattered the silence: Mira’s footsteps pounding up the stairs, her cries rising like a siren. I knew before she even burst through the door that she had seen something in the kitchen.

She collapsed onto the carpet, her face streaked with tears, her small body shaking. “The table,” she sobbed, pointing down the stairs. “It has a mouth, and it’s eating my toast.”

My mother’s face went pale, but she tried to laugh it off. “Honey, you’re just hungry. Let’s get you a snack.”

But I already felt it—a cold pulse emanating from the kitchen, like a heartbeat from the floorboards. I had seen spirits before, but this was different. This wasn’t a lost soul asking for help. This was something that had claimed a place for itself. And it had taken a liking to my sister.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. The house hummed with a low, droning vibration that set my teeth on edge. I crept downstairs and stood in the doorway of the kitchen, staring at the table under the dim moonlight. The tablecloth had been pulled off, crumpled on the floor. The wood was darker now, almost black, and the grain seemed to swirl like a slow whirlpool. In the center, there was a deep, circular indentation—like a mouth that had opened and closed, hungry for more than food.

A voice, thin and reedy, echoed in my skull: *Sit with me. I remember the taste of children.*

I backed away, my heart thudding. I knew then that this wasn’t a wandering ghost. It was a thing that fed on the essence of the living, that had perhaps caused the previous owners to flee. The next morning, I found the tablecloth back in place, but the table seemingly had moved a few inches closer to the wall.

Days passed. Mira refused to enter the kitchen alone. My mother, ever practical, assumed it was just a phase. But I saw the table changing. Its legs grew thicker, bark-like, and the surface began to exude a faint, oily sheen. One evening, I heard a scraping sound from the kitchen and rushed down to find Liam’s high chair tipped over, his sippy cup rolling across the floor. The table was not where it had been before; it was now flush against the far wall, as if it had been pushed.

I decided to confront it. Armed with an old family Bible and a pouch of sage, I stood before the table, my hands trembling. “You’re not welcome here,” I said, my voice cracking.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then the wood split with a sound like a thousand cricket wings, and a raw, gaping mouth formed in the center of the table. It spoke without lips, the words echoing in my mind: *I was carved from the heart of a tree that grew in a graveyard. I have fed for centuries. Your little sister’s fear is sweet, but I crave the marrow of the bold.*

I held the Bible high, but the table lunged forward, a branch-like tendril whipping out and snatching the book from my hands, hurling it into the fireplace. The sachet of sage scattered uselessly. Panic surged through me. I grabbed a kitchen knife and stabbed the table’s surface, but the wood swallowed the blade, and the wound healed instantly.

That’s when I realized this was a sealed entity, bound to its form, and the only way to stop it was to break the bond. I remembered the old stories—how some spirits anchored to a physical object could be released if the object was destroyed and the ash scattered in running water. But the table was too strong; it seemed to anticipate my every move.

I retreated, locking the kitchen door. I told my mother we needed to leave, but she refused to hear of it. “We just bought this house,” she said firmly. “We can’t let it win.”

But it was winning. Mira began having nightmares, waking up screaming about the ‘gaping hole’ in the floor. Liam, usually a happy baby, would cry inconsolably whenever we carried him past the kitchen door. My mother grew haggard, dark circles under her eyes, and I sensed her spirit being drained, like a slow leak.

Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore. I decided to try something desperate. I remembered a ritual my grandmother had taught me—a way to commune with the spirit, to see its true name, and maybe, just maybe, to sever its ties. That night, after everyone was asleep, I crept into the kitchen. The table was waiting, its mouth ajar, a low hum vibrating from its core.

I approached and placed my palm on the cold, sticky surface. Instantly, visions flooded my mind: a forest of twisted trees, a woman in a white dress weeping, a child’s shoe half-buried in the earth. The name ‘Elena’ surfaced, and I knew this spirit was once a woman who had lost her child in the woods, and in her grief, she had bound herself to the tree that would become this table. Her rage and sorrow had turned her into something that devoured life to fill the void.

With that knowledge, I whispered to her, not with fear, but with compassion. “Elena,” I said softly, “your child is gone. Weeping won’t bring her back. Let go.”

The table shuddered. The mouth sagged, and for a moment, I saw the faint outline of a young woman, her face contorted with agony. But then the mouth snapped shut, and the table threw me backward, slamming me against the wall. I collapsed, dazed, and the last thing I saw before darkness was the table’s leg creeping toward me like a slow, grasping hand.

I woke to the smell of smoke. My mother was shaking me, tears streaming down her face. The kitchen was ablaze, the table engulfed in flames. “We have to go!” she screamed, pulling me up. We barely made it out of the house before the roof collapsed.

As we stood across the street, watching the fire consume our new home, I felt a strange release. The pressure that had been building in my mind vanished, and I knew Elena was finally free. The fire was her own doing, perhaps—a cleansing, a final act of release.

We never spoke of the table again. We moved to a small apartment in town, and life slowly returned to normal. But sometimes, late at night, I dream of a woman in white standing at the edge of a forest, her hand holding a child’s, and a smile on her face. And I know that some ghosts are not meant to be feared, but to be freed.

But as for me, I’ve learned never to trust the furniture. You never know what lies dormant in the wood, waiting for a hungry moment to strike.