The Last Summer in Saltmarsh

My name is Elara, and I’m twelve, almost thirteen, and I live in Saltmarsh, a town small enough that everyone knows your business by the time you’re born. I want to tell you about the summer of 2017, a summer that started with the usual: the drone of cicadas, the sticky heat, and a subscription to a new online game called World of Wonders. It was a place where you could create your own avatar, build a house, and chat in virtual rooms. I spent most of July in that digital realm, my fingers tapping out messages, my mind far away from the peeling paint on our porch and the salt-crusted air.

There was one particular room in World of Wonders that had become a hotspot: the Great Forum. It was a blinking, neon-lit space where players gathered to gossip and argue. And for weeks, there was one topic that wouldn’t die: ‘Have you heard about the Bell Hollow Incident?’ Over and over, that phrase appeared. I scrolled past it dozens of times, thinking it was some silly meme, but the persistence gnawed at me. So, one afternoon, when my mother was at work and the house was silent, I clicked on the thread.

My hands were clammy as I read. The post was from a user named ‘Mothman2001’, who claimed to have lived near Bell Hollow, a swampy stretch of woods just outside our town. The story went that in the 1980s, a hermit named Jedediah Crane had lived out there, a man known for trapping and skinning animals. One night, a group of teenagers went exploring and found his shack. They claimed he had a collection of jars filled with teeth and a hideous grin carved into the door. The story ended with a warning: ‘Some doors are better left unopened.’ I logged off, feeling a chill despite the summer heat. I told myself it was just a scary story.

But the next week, my best friend Maya and I were biking along the edge of the salt marsh when she suddenly stopped. ‘Did you hear that?’ she whispered. I listened, but all I could hear was the wind in the reeds. Maya’s face was pale. ‘It sounded like someone humming,’ she said. ‘Right inside those trees.’ I looked at the dense, dark line of pines that bordered the marsh. I thought of the forum post. I told Maya she was imagining things, but she shook her head, her eyes wide. She turned her bike and rode off fast, leaving me alone.

That night, I couldn’t shake the image of the hum. I grabbed my flashlight and snuck out. The air was thick with the smell of brine and mud. I followed the dirt path that led to Bell Hollow, my heart pounding with every step. The trees closed in, swallowing the moonlight. And then I saw it: a shape standing between the trunks, tall and thin, with a grin that seemed too wide. It hummed, low and off-key, a melody that made my bones vibrate. I ran.

I didn’t sleep that night. I lay in bed, listening to the hum drifting in through my window, as if it were calling. The next day, I went to the library, desperate for any information about Jedediah Crane. The only record I found was a faded newspaper clipping from 1984, about a hunter who went missing in the swamp. The description was oddly familiar: ‘He was a tall man with a strange, fixed smile. He walked with a limp.’ The clipping mentioned he had a daughter who never left the area. I looked up her name: Edith Crane. And I felt a jolt of recognition, because in World of Wonders, there was a user who went by ‘EdithCrane80’ who had private messaged me that very morning: ‘You found my father’s story. You should come to Bell Hollow.’

I should have ignored it. But the hum was in my head, a constant whisper, and I felt pulled. I went after dark, not to the shack, but to the edge of the trees where I had seen the figure. There, under a dying oak, I found a small, rusted key on the ground. The hum grew louder, and I knew it was coming from a massive, twisted wreck of a tree just ahead, its trunk split open like a mouth. Inside was a wooden box, locked. The key fit.

Inside the box was a photograph of a young girl with a shy smile, and a cassette tape. I took both home. I played the tape on my old player. It was a recording of a man speaking in a low, raspy voice: ‘If you’ve found this, you’ve heard me. I’m just a collector. I collect what others throw away. But the swamp collects everything. It keeps what it loves. And sometimes, it wants you to stay.’ The tape clicked off.

I felt the hum inside my chest, a vibration that wouldn’t stop. I knew I had become part of the collection. The next morning, Maya came to my door, asking if I was okay. I couldn’t tell her about the key or the tape. I just smiled, but it felt wrong, like a mask. As she walked away, I saw her look back at me with a strange, distant look, as if she were seeing something else.

Later that day, I heard a knock. It was a woman I had never seen: old, with sunken eyes and a smile that never reached her eyes. She introduced herself as Edith. She spoke softly: ‘You’ve been to the swamp. I can see it on you. My father’s not gone; he’s in the hum. He’s been waiting for someone to share it with. Would you like to meet him?’

I opened my mouth to say no, but what came out was a hum. It matched hers perfectly, a low, mournful sound that echoed through the house. My mother came rushing in, asking what was wrong, but I couldn’t stop humming. Tears streamed down my face, but the sound just kept coming, as if it had a life of its own.

That was two years ago. Now, I’m fourteen, and I still live in Saltmarsh. But I’m not the same. I can hum the melody of the marsh, and sometimes small animals gather at my feet, listening. At night, I hear the hum in the distance, and I know it’s calling to someone new. I tried to warn a boy last week, but he just laughed. The hum is growing louder in him now.

And I wonder, if I had never read that forum, never clicked on the thread, would I still be just Elara? Or was I always meant to be a part of the hum, a note in the endless song that the swamp sings to those who come too close? I don’t know the answer. But the one thing I do know is that the bell tower in Saltmarsh doesn’t ring for me anymore. It hums.

And it’s waiting.