The Hollow Tune

The first time I heard it, I thought it was a pipe. A low, mournful hum that pulsed through the walls of our new flat, right after the clock struck midnight. I pressed my ear to the plaster, and the sound seemed to come from inside, not outside. It was like a hollow flute, playing a single note, over and over. My name is Leo, I’m sixteen, and this happened three weeks after we moved in—two weeks before Mum’s teacup shattered on its own.

It started with small things. My younger sister, Poppy, who is seven, began talking to ‘Nell’—a girl who lived, she said, ‘in the walls.’ Poppy would press her palm against the hallway wallpaper, whispering about Nell’s blue dress and wet hair. We laughed, blamed the draft from the old Victorian conversion. But then Poppy started saying things no child should invent: ‘Nell wants her locket back,’ or ‘Nell tried to swim but the water went down her throat.’ The air in the flat grew thick, even with the windows open. I caught Mum staring at the corner of the living room, her lips moving, but no sound coming out.

The first visitation was mine. I woke at 3:30 AM, the exact moment the hum always started. My bedroom door was ajar, though I always shut it tight. In the gap, a shape—tall and thin, too thin—stood angled, as if its head was tilted to fit. It had no face, just a pale oval, but I sensed a cold, ancient hunger. I blinked, and it was gone. I tried to convince myself it was a coat, but the door was swinging gently, as if someone had pushed it. And the hum had stopped.

The old landlady, Mrs. Kowalski, who lived on the ground floor, came up the next day to check the radiator. She was a quiet, watery-eyed woman in her eighties. She paused in the hallway, her face drained of color. ‘You’ve got the Hollow Tune,’ she said, her voice a dry crackle. ‘This building was a laundry back in the 1920s. A girl, Nellie Vance, she was twelve, drowned in the vat. They say she plays the pipes to lure the lonely ones.’ She pointed at a faint water stain on the ceiling, shaped like a face. ‘She’s been waiting. You have to give her something she lost.’

That night, Poppy had a fever. She woke up screaming that Nell was pulling her ankles, trying to drag her through the floorboards. We found her under the bed, shivering, clutching an old silver locket that wasn’t ours. The locket was cold as ice and had a faded photograph inside—a young girl with wet, dark hair and hollow eyes. The hum in the walls returned, louder, like a dirge. I knew then that the locket was the key, but also the trap.

I decided to find the old laundry vat. It was sealed behind a bricked-up arch in the basement, accessible only through a coal chute. Mrs. Kowalski had given me a key, warning me not to go after dark. But the hum was unbearable, and Poppy’s cries grew weaker. I waited until dawn, took a flashlight, and climbed down. The basement smelled of rust and decay. The vat was there—a monstrous iron basin, ankle-deep in murky water. In the beam of light, I saw a dented pipe, not attached to anything, yet it hummed. I placed the locket on the edge. The water rippled, though no wind stirred. A whisper, clearer than air, said, ‘You’re too late.’

The pipe collapsed. The water turned black and oily. I scrambled up, but a freezing hand closed around my ankle. I looked down—a pale, small hand, nails black with rust, emerging from the water. It pulled, and I fell, hitting my head on the stone floor. When I woke, I was in my bed, the locket around my neck. Poppy was asleep beside me, breathing evenly. The hum was gone. But in the mirror, just behind my shoulder, I saw the faint outline of a girl in a blue dress, her wet hair dripping onto the floor, and she smiled with too many teeth.

We moved the next week. The new house is quiet, clean. But last night, at 3:30 AM, I heard it again—a hollow, humming tune, coming from under the floorboards. And when I checked on Poppy, she was sitting up in bed, staring at the wall, whispering, ‘Nell says we’re home.’