The sign for Blackwood Hollow didn’t appear until Elias was nearly upon it, its weathered wood almost entirely consumed by the encroaching ivy. It read: Welcome to the Hollow—Where the Past Stays Green.
Elias Thorne gripped the steering wheel of his rusted sedan, his knuckles white. He was three hundred miles from the nearest city and a lifetime away from the Pulitzer-winning office he’d occupied only six months ago. His career was a corpse, and Blackwood Hollow was the graveyard where he hoped to resurrect it.
The air changed as he crossed the town line. It wasn’t just the temperature—a sudden, sharp drop that turned his breath into a pale ghost—but the density of it. The atmosphere felt heavy, like the weight of water in a deep lake. To his left and right, the Great Woods loomed, an impenetrable wall of ancient timber that seemed to lean inward, as if the trees were curious about the new arrival.
The town itself was an anomaly. As he drove down Main Street, Elias saw a scene that belonged in a mid-century catalog. The storefronts were freshly painted in pastels; the sidewalks were swept clean of autumn’s debris. People waved. Not the polite, distant nod of a city dweller, but a frantic, wide-eyed enthusiasm. A woman in a floral dress stopped watering her marigolds to watch him pass, her smile so wide it looked painful.
He pulled up to “The Sylvan Inn,” the only lodging in town. The building was a Victorian monstrosity, all gables and dark wood, sitting on a hill that overlooked the town square.
“Check-in?” the clerk asked before Elias even reached the desk. The man was thin, with skin the color of old parchment and eyes that didn’t seem to blink. His name tag read Arthur.
“Elias Thorne. I called ahead.”
“The writer,” Arthur said, his voice a dry rasp. He slid a heavy iron key across the counter. It felt cold—impossibly cold—in Elias’s palm. “Room 404. It has a view of the woods.[1] Guests usually find it… stimulating.”
“I’m here for the Harvest Festival,” Elias said, testing the waters. “I heard it’s quite the event. Ten-year anniversary?”
The scratching of Arthur’s pen stopped instantly. The silence in the lobby became absolute, save for the rhythmic ticking of a grandfather clock in the corner. Arthur looked up, his expression unreadable.
“The Harvest is a private matter, Mr. Thorne. It’s for the roots of this town. Strangers usually find they have no appetite for our traditions.”
“I have a very large appetite,” Elias replied, forcing a smile.
That night, Elias couldn’t sleep. The silence of the town was a physical pressure against his eardrums. He sat at the small wooden desk in his room, sorting through the police records he’d managed to bribe out of a contact in the state capital.
1984: Thomas Miller, age 22. Disappeared three days before the Harvest. Never found.
1994: Sarah Jenkins, age 19. Disappeared the night of the Harvest. Case closed due to “lack of evidence.”
2004: David and Martha Vance. Disappeared. No struggle. Their dinner was still warm on the table.
Every ten years, like clockwork. The town’s prosperity—its lack of poverty, its thriving crops, its uncanny health—all seemed to spike after these disappearances.
A sound interrupted his thoughts. A soft, rhythmic scratching.
He froze. It was coming from the window. He stood slowly, his heart hammering against his ribs. The window looked out over the edge of the forest. The moon was a sliver of bone in the sky, casting just enough light to see the tree line.
The branches of the nearest oak were scraping against the glass. But as Elias watched, he realized the movement was intentional. The branch wasn’t being blown by the wind; it was tapping. Tap-tap… tap-tap-tap.
He leaned closer, his forehead touching the cold pane. Down on the lawn, at the very edge of the shadows, stood a figure. It was tall, impossibly thin, and dressed in a tattered suit that seemed to be made of dried leaves. It didn’t have a face—only a hollow where the features should be, filled with a soft, pulsing amber light.
The figure raised a hand—a hand that ended in long, tapering wooden points—and pointed directly at Elias.
Then, it whispered.
The sound didn’t come through the window; it vibrated through the wood of the floor, up through Elias’s boots, and into his bones.
“The soil is thirsty, Elias.”
Elias backed away, tripping over his chair. By the time he scrambled back to the window, the lawn was empty. Only the branches remained, swaying gently in a wind he couldn’t feel.
He looked down at his desk. A single, fresh green leaf lay on top of his files.
It hadn’t been there a minute ago.
And as he picked it up, he saw that the veins in the leaf were bright, wet red.
