The Woman in the Hollow

The house sat at the far end of a gravel road, a two-story farmhouse swallowed by cottonwoods and weeds. I was three, maybe four, when we lived there, and the memories are like fragments of a broken mirror—sharp edges, distorted reflections. My mother, barely nineteen then, would later piece together the shards for me, her voice low and careful, as if the words themselves were fragile.

Our nearest neighbor was a mile away, an old man named Mr. Abernathy who claimed the land had been a buffalo wallow before the settlers came. He said the hollows in the earth still held the memory of hooves, and that sometimes, on windless nights, you could hear them. I never did, but I heard other things.

The first thing I remember is the closet in my parents’ bedroom. It was a walk-in, deep and dark, with a single hanging light bulb that you had to pull a cord to turn on. One night, I woke up gasping, my throat raw from a scream I couldn’t remember. I padded to their room, the floorboards groaning under my tiny feet. The door was ajar, and through the sliver, I saw a woman in black standing inside the closet, her back to me, her hair spilling down her shoulders like ink. I blinked, and she was gone. I told my mother, but she said it was just a coat, a dress, a trick of the light. I knew better, even then.

Another time, I was in the backyard, staring up at the sky. The clouds were doing that thing where they twist into shapes, and I pointed. ‘Look, Mom, an angel!’ She came out, shielding her eyes, but by then it was just a wisp. I remember the feeling more than the sight—a warmth, a humming, like a tuning fork pressed against my sternum. It happened again on the windshield of our rusted Ford, a shimmer of light like a heat mirage in winter. My mother brushed it off, said it was a reflection, but she’d later admit that the hairs on her arms stood up every time I said it.

The worst was the crib. My sister, Lena, was only a few months old. I used to stand by her crib at night, not because I was worried, but because something pulled me there. I’d see the woman in black hovering above her, arms extended, fingers brushing the air just above Lena’s chest. Not touching, but close, as if she were drawing something out of her. I told my mother. She said I had a vivid imagination. But my father, he knew. He’d have these nightmares, thrashing and muttering, and once I heard him shout, ‘Get away from her!’

My father was a big man, a construction worker with calloused hands, but he grew thin that summer. He started waking up at odd hours, pacing the house, checking locks. He swore he heard breathing in the walls, a low, rhythmic hiss, like the house itself was alive and hungry. Mr. Abernathy told him the place was built over an old burial ground, but that was just a story to scare us. Maybe.

One night, I was in the hallway, the only light coming from the moon through the bathroom window. I saw the woman in black floating down the stairs, her face obscured, her body a silhouette against the pale light. She stopped at the bottom, turned her head as if looking at me, and then drifted toward the living room. I followed, my feet bare on the cold floor. She stopped in front of the fireplace, and for the first time, I saw her face. It was blank, smooth, like a doll’s, with no eyes, no mouth. She lifted her hand and pointed at the wall above the mantel. There was a photograph there—of me, taken when I was a baby. She then dissolved into the shadows.

The next morning, I told my mother what I saw. She went pale and grabbed my shoulders. ‘Did you see her eyes? Did she have eyes?’ I said no. She then pulled out a box from under her bed, dusty and tied with twine. Inside were old photos, letters, a locket. She told me the house had a history, that a woman named Esther had lived here decades ago, and that she had lost a child. The child’s name was Lena too, my sister’s name. My mother had chosen it without knowing. She then told me that my father had seen the woman too, but he’d kept it from her, fearing she’d think him mad.

That night, my father didn’t come home. He’d left for work, but his truck was found abandoned on the highway, the door ajar, a single boot on the ground. The authorities searched, but nothing. My mother and sister and I moved out within the month. I never saw the woman again, but I still dream of her, standing in that hollow of the land, waiting. And sometimes, when I look at my reflection in a dark window, I wonder if she’s inside me now, wearing my face, counting the days until I step back into that house and finish what she started.