The Keepsake of June Hollow

My first of three children was born in the biting cold of January 2012, in a house that backed onto the overgrown expanse of June Hollow. I named her Petra, after my grandmother, who had died when I was a girl, leaving me a tarnished silver locket that I never opened. Petra was a robust, smiling baby, but she developed a piercing, unrelenting colic when she was about six weeks old. Those who have never soothed a colicky infant cannot grasp the helplessness—the hours of pacing the creaking floorboards, the futile patting and shushing, the way your own heart races in time with their screams. It passed, as it always does, but it left me hollowed out, my nerves frayed like old rope.

A week after the colic began, I noticed a strange rhythm to our nights. I would feed Petra in the dim blue glow of the nursery, and then, as expected, the crying would start. But on those particular nights, the crying would not last. Instead, after a short while, she would fall quiet—utterly silent—and I would find her staring, not at the ceiling, but at the far corner of the room, where the shadows pooled thickest. Her tiny hands would open and close, as if grasping for something just out of reach. At first, I thought it was a trick of the light or a sign that she was finally settling, but the silence was too sudden, too complete, like a door slamming shut.

I tried to tell myself it was a good thing. I would tiptoe out, relief flooding my chest, and collapse onto my own bed, grateful for the reprieve. But the relief never lasted. The next morning, Petra would be groggy, listless, and her eyes would have a glassy, far-off look that I didn’t like. I mentioned it to my husband, but he dismissed it—’She’s just a baby, they sleep in cycles.’ I wanted to believe him, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong.

The house itself was old, built in the 1920s, with a cellar that always smelled of damp earth and something else, something sweet and sickly, like rotten apples. I had never liked going down there, but one afternoon, while Petra napped, I found myself standing at the top of the cellar stairs, staring into the darkness. I had no reason to go down, yet my feet carried me as if pulled by a string. The stairs creaked under my weight, each groan amplifying my unease. At the bottom, the air was colder, thicker. On a dusty shelf, I found a box of old photographs and letters, yellowed with age. Among them was a picture of a woman in a high-collared dress, her face half in shadow, holding a swaddled infant. On the back, in faded ink, were the words: ‘Agnes, with her keepsake.’

I brought the picture upstairs and placed it on the mantel, not knowing why. That night, as I fed Petra, she seemed calmer than usual, her gaze fixed on the photograph. When the colic started, I braced for the screaming, but instead, she grew quiet, her eyes locked on the woman’s image. A low hum filled the room, barely audible, like the resonance of a distant machine. Petra’s lips moved as if trying to speak, and then, with a small, contented sigh, she fell asleep. I was exhausted, so I did not question the humming; I just staggered to bed.

But the next morning, I found the photograph on the floor, facedown, as if someone had knocked it over. Petra was still asleep, which was unlike her. And on her wrist, I saw a thin, red line—a tiny scratch, like from a fingernail. I told myself she must have caught it on the crib, but the crib was smooth, polished oak. I bandaged it, kissed her forehead, and tried to forget.

Over the following weeks, the pattern grew more pronounced. Each night, when Petra’s colic began, the humming would start, and she would fall silent, her eyes rolling back in her head. I began to dread the silence more than the crying, for the crying was a sign of life, while the silence felt like a withdrawal. I tried to break it—I would lift her, hold her close, whisper her name—but it was as if she did not hear me, her body limp in my arms, her breath slow and deep. And each morning, a new mark would appear: a bruise on her arm, a red mark on her cheek, a small cut on her lip.

I became frantic. I called the doctor, but he said it was just colic, perhaps an allergy. I called a friend who practiced folk medicine, and she told me to hang a branch of rowan over the crib. I did, but the humming only grew louder, and Petra’s eyes began to follow something I could not see, moving across the ceiling, down the wall, toward the cellar door. One night, I woke to find her standing at the top of the cellar stairs—she was only seven months old, she could not walk—and she was pointing down into the darkness, a smile on her face that was not a baby’s smile. It was the smile of someone who had seen something they should not have seen.

I knew then that the photograph was the key. I took it down and stared at the woman’s face for a long time. In the dim light, I noticed something I had missed before: around the woman’s neck, on a thin chain, was a small silver locket—exactly like the one my grandmother had left me. I ran to my dresser, opened the drawer, and took out the locket. I had never opened it, afraid of what might be inside. Now, with trembling fingers, I pried it open. Inside was not a picture, but a lock of hair—fine, white, and brittle. And a slip of paper, folded into a tiny square. I unfolded it. The handwriting was my grandmother’s: ‘She comes for the firstborn. Keep it close, and she may take the others instead.’

I looked at Petra, still standing at the top of the cellar stairs, her small hand resting on the doorframe. The humming was in the house now, a low vibration that rattled the windows. I understood, in that terrible clarity that horror brings, that the woman in the photograph was not my grandmother, but something that had worn her face, something that had made a deal with her long ago, and that Petra was the price. The locket was the keepsake—not of love, but of obligation.

I did not know how to stop it. I tried to throw the locket away, but it always reappeared on the mantel. I tried to burn the photograph, but the flames would not catch, and the woman’s eyes would only seem to smile. Each night, the marks on Petra multiplied, and her crib began to smell of earth and rotten apples. I knew I was losing her. And then, one night, as I sat watching her, too exhausted to cry, the humming stopped. Petra turned her head and looked at me with eyes that were not her own—dark, ancient, and knowing. She opened her mouth, and a voice that was not a baby’s voice said, ‘You have another in your womb. It will do nicely.’

I was pregnant with my second child, a fact I had not yet shared with anyone. I felt a cold hand close around my heart. I understood then that the deal was not with me, but with the bloodline. And the only way to protect my children was to give up the one she had already claimed. But I could not. So I made a choice. I packed a bag for Petra, and for myself, and I drove away from that house, leaving the locket and the photograph behind. I planned to go to my sister’s, to lose ourselves in a city where the old walls could not follow.

But as I drove, I saw in the rearview mirror that Petra was standing in her car seat, facing the window, her hand pressed against the glass. The world outside grew dark, even though it was midday. The humming returned, louder than ever, and I felt the car swerve as if guided by an unseen hand. I pulled over, heart pounding. When I looked back, Petra was asleep, her face peaceful, her breath soft. I thought, for a moment, that I had escaped. Then I saw the locket on the dashboard, still warm, still tarnished, its catch open. On my wrist, I felt a thin, red line—a tiny scratch, like from a fingernail.

I live in a new city now, with a new name, but the locket follows me. It appears in my handbag, on my nightstand, in the crib of my second child, who was born with a whisper of my grandmother’s smile. The humming never fully leaves. And when Petra says her first lucid sentence, I know the words she will speak, for she has already said them in my dreams: ‘She is waiting in the cellar.’ I keep the doors locked, but I know that what waits does not need a door. It only needs the invitation we give it by carrying its keepsake with us, always.