The Pale Hollow

The summer I turned ten, my family moved to a crumbling farmhouse at the edge of the Dahlia Marsh, a place where the trees grew crooked and the air always smelled of wet rot. Behind the house stretched an orchard of dead apple trees, their branches like gnarled fingers scratching at a bruised sky. I was told to stay out of the woods beyond, but boredom has a way of making warnings feel like dares.

One sticky afternoon, I pushed through the brambles at the orchard’s edge, following a path of crushed ferns that seemed to invite me deeper. The canopy closed overhead, dimming the light to a green twilight. I walked until I found a clearing where the ground was strangely bare, a perfect circle of dirt surrounded by moss-covered stones. In the center, a dark hole gaped like a mouth, the size of a dinner plate, but it seemed to draw the eye downward into an impossible blackness. I knelt, my heart thumping with a nervous thrill, and peered in.

A flicker of pale light moved within, like a lantern submerged in ink. Then, a creature—something like an eel but with too many joints—writhed out of the hole, its skin slick and milky, and slithered across the dirt before vanishing into the undergrowth. I scrambled back, but my foot caught, and I fell hard. When I looked up, a figure stood at the edge of the clearing. It was tall, at least seven feet, and its outline was blurred, as if made of smoke and shadow. It glided, not walked, its feet hovering a foot above the ground. It tilted its head, and I felt a cold pressure on my mind, like a hand pressing on my thoughts.

I ran. I crashed through the brush, ignoring the thorns that tore at my arms. I didn’t look back until I reached the orchard, and when I did, the figure was still there, now closer, but it wasn’t moving. It was just watching. I turned and ran faster, my lungs burning, my legs pumping. I burst into the farmhouse’s yard, gasping, and slammed the door behind me. For a moment, I thought I was safe. Then I saw through the kitchen window that the creature was standing at the edge of the trees, and it raised a long, thin arm, pointing directly at me.

That night, I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about the hole, and the way the light had moved. I knew I had to go back. I crept out after midnight, carrying a flashlight and an old hunting knife I’d found in the attic. The moon was full, but the woods were still deep with darkness. The clearing was easy to find—the air grew colder, and the silence thicker. The hole was still there, but now it glowed faintly from within, a soft, pulsing blue. I knelt and looked in again, and this time I saw not a creature, but a small object resting at the bottom, just a few feet down. It was a locket, tarnished silver, its chain coiled like a snake. I reached in, my fingers brushing the cool metal, and as I pulled it out, the ground beneath me groaned.

I stumbled back as the earth split, and from the gap rose a column of pale, writhing things—not snakes, but roots, or maybe tendrils of some pale flesh. They wrapped around my ankle, cold and tight, and I screamed. I yanked my leg free, tearing my skin, and ran. Behind me, the tendrils grew, reaching for the moon. I didn’t stop until I was back in my room, where I hid under the covers, clutching the locket. It was warm now, and I could hear a faint whispering, like a voice calling my name from far away.

I haven’t spoken of it since. The locket sits in a drawer, locked. But sometimes, at night, I hear the whispering again, and I see the pale roots creeping beneath my door. And I know that the hole is still there, waiting, and that one day, it will call me back.