hollowed-hours

[hollowed-hours]

In a future where technology can simulate emotion and fabricate the past, one man falls into a memory he didn’t live, but can’t live without. Closed Loop explores synthetic intimacy, identity, and the blurred line between real and remembered.

Closed Loop

1

The rain didn’t stop. It just changed density, like a bad signal trying to come through. Fat drops, mist, needle-fine spray, all the same. It clung to the cracked pavement and the cracked people walking in it, washing nothing clean.

The streets pulsed under a dozen stories of electric billboards, flashing fake smiles and forbidden luxuries. Perfume. Cruises. Fresh fruit. Things nobody in this part of town could afford. Nobody even looked up anymore.

I ran my small store out of an alley that stank of fried grease and regret, tucked between a synthmeat vendor and a pawn shop that would buy your teeth if you ran out of cash. Which you would. Sooner or later.

You didn't smell rain here. You smelled old oil, rust, hot garbage. Even the neon had a scent, if you stayed too long: a sharp metallic tang, like blood left to rot in a forgotten room. Trees were something you saw in old movies. Birds were a myth they still taught in school, maybe to keep kids from climbing out onto the fire escapes. Life wasn't lived here. It was survived.

Business was good, if you didn't think about it too hard. Memories, bottled, stitched, pawned, sold better than food, better than sex, better than air. I sold glimpses of a world that used to exist. Or maybe it never had. Didn't matter. People paid to believe.

Cheap memories went to the factory rats and bus station junkies: the taste of real beef, the scratch of a dog’s fur under your hand, a summer afternoon where the sky stretched blue and wide. You could get a five-minute slice of happiness for less than a rice bowl.

The rich ones wanted more. Romance. Nostalgia. Love, if you could call it that. The kinds of memories you didn't have to squint to pretend were yours. I’d built up a special collection for them. Premium stock. Real heart-stoppers.

Not that I used the product myself. I knew better.

Until the night everything changed.

2

They always came to me wrapped in plastic raincoats, their collars turned up against the stink, trying not to look desperate. They shuffled in from the puddled streets, blinking against the neon glare like rats scurrying out of a sewer. Men in rumpled suits, women in threadbare dresses that still carried a whiff of old perfume, ghosts of a better life none of us believed in anymore.

Business was steady tonight. Steadier than usual. Maybe the rain drove them in. Maybe the city had just broken a few more souls than it fixed this week.

I ran a clean shop. No black-market cortex jacks, no memory dumps ripped from dying minds. All my product was curated: licensed uploads, private captures, some stitched and smoothed at the edges to make the dreams run sweeter. Didn't matter. Nobody asked for credentials. They just wanted to forget.

A kid with scabbed hands paid half a week's wages for fifteen minutes at a dinner table with people who loved him. A factory woman with joints gone stiff from the line bought the memory of a hike through an evergreen forest, the kind that hadn't existed within a thousand klicks in decades.

And the rich? They came later. Drenched in silk and chrome, they wanted curated love affairs and impossible summers. They paid triple for something tender. Something rare.

I dealt to them all, took their credits, watched their eyes go glassy with longing. I told myself it was just a business.

And maybe it was. Until she showed up.

3

He came in just before closing. Suede coat that hadn’t seen rain, shoes that cost more than my rent. The kind of man who worked for someone important, but not important enough to smile.

“She’s looking for something refined,” he said. “Said you deal in authenticity.”

Authenticity. As if pain had to come with a certificate.

“I deal in memories,” I said, dragging my hand across the cluttered console. “Authentic’s extra. You want real emotion? Real love? That’ll cost.”

He didn’t flinch. Just placed a cred-stick on the counter. “She wants it delivered tomorrow night.”

I nodded. “Then she’ll get what she paid for.”

The suite was thirty floors up, above the rot, the gutters, the boiling noise of the street. The kind of place where the windows showed filtered sky and soft rain sound was imported for ambiance.

She opened the door herself. No staff, no security. Just her, in silk the color of warm gold, whispering under the suite lights, leaning against the frame like we’d met before.

“Didn’t think you’d deliver personally,” she said.

“You live high up,” I said. “Figures.”

She smiled. “Up here, we like to forget how the city smells.”

I handed her the chip. “Maybe, but you’re no different than the rats who crawl into my shop. You just have more creds. Buys you the good dreams.”

Her smile widened. Not offended…amused. She stepped closer. Close enough that I could smell her perfume, spiced citrus and money.

“Then maybe you’ll understand why I like the ones that feel real.” She turned the chip in her fingers. “Want to try it?”

“Not my thing.”

“It could be,” she whispered. “This one’s... special. You should feel what she feels like. Just once.”

She slid the chip toward me like a bribe. Or a dare.

4

I stared at the chip for a long time. Long enough for the neon buzz outside to start drilling holes in my skull.

I didn’t use. That was the first rule. Dealers don't sample the product. Not if they want to stay in the game.

But tonight...

The rain had been mean, the customers meaner. Every face that stumbled into my shop had been chasing something they couldn’t name. I’d spent hours selling them ghosts. Smiles. First loves. Family dinners that probably never happened.

Maybe it was curiosity. Maybe it was spite.

Maybe I just wanted to know, for once, what the hell they were all running toward.

"One taste," I muttered. "One time."

I slotted the chip.

For a second, nothing. Just black. Then the world cracked open like an egg.

Sunlight.

Real sunlight, bleeding through a canopy of green leaves so bright it hurt. The air smelled... clean. Not filtered, not burned. Alive.

She was there, barefoot in the grass, laughing at something I hadn’t said yet. The sound hit me like a memory I didn’t know I was missing.

I stumbled forward, blinking against the golden sky, and the ground beneath me was soft. No cracked asphalt, no metal. Just earth. Real earth.

She turned, sunlight catching in her hair. She held out a hand.

And somewhere, tucked behind her voice and the hum of unseen bees, a word slipped loose in my mind.

Jasmine.

I breathed it in. God, I breathed it in like it was the last clean thing in a dirty world.

The scent wrapped around me, sweet and sharp, a kind of gold in the air. I didn’t know how I knew the word. Nobody sold anything that smelled so sweet  in this part of the city. Nobody sold anything that wasn’t fried, frozen, or rotting on the vine.

But the memory whispered it anyway, soft and certain: jasmine.

She smiled like she’d been waiting forever, like there was no one else in the whole damned world but us. And for a second, for a breath it didn’t matter that I wasn’t him. It didn’t matter that I was borrowing this life like a suit two sizes too small.

I could feel the weight of her hand when she caught mine. Warm. Real.

"Stay," she said, voice threading into the wind, into the leaves, into the memory itself.

I didn’t answer. Couldn’t. The memory ended before I could speak, snapping back like a broken rubber band, dumping me onto the floor of my shop with the static buzz of dead neon burning the inside of my skull.

I lay there for a long time, staring up at the cracked ceiling, the scent of jasmine still clinging to the back of my throat.

Reality came back slow and ugly. The hum of the city, the stink of rust and old oil rising through the floorboards.

I wiped at my eyes before I even realized they were wet.

I told myself it was the static burn. I told myself it didn’t mean anything.

I told myself a lot of things that night.

And every one of them was a lie.

5

I told myself I wouldn’t slot it again.

One taste. One time. That’s all it was supposed to be.

But the chip sat there on the counter, humming against my brain like a live wire. Every time I closed my eyes, I could see her laughing in that field that couldn't possibly exist.

It wasn’t just the sight of her. It was the air. The light. The way the world felt in that memory, like it had a heartbeat bigger than mine. Like breathing didn’t have to hurt.

After a while, the customers’ faces started to blur. Their hunger, their whining, their creds, all background noise to the throb in my hands, the itch in my spine.

Three nights after the first time, I closed up early. Pulled the shutters, killed the lights.

Slotted the chip.

And fell back into her arms.

It got easier after that. Easier to slip away from the stink and the noise. Easier to forget the rules.

I'd tweak the feeds, stitch together glimpses of her smile from one memory, her voice from another, the way her hand brushed mine in the fading sun.

Piece by piece, I built her.

Not the memories themselves. Her.

I stopped selling for a while. Let the shop run dry. Didn’t care. The clients would wait. Or they wouldn’t.

What did it matter?

Out there was rust and rain and broken neon.

In here, there was jasmine.

I told myself I was just riding it out. A bad spell. A little escape before I got back to work.

But somewhere inside, a part of me knew better.

I wasn’t visiting anymore.

I was moving in.

6

I found the truth in a pawnshop wired to collapse.

The owner was half-machine, half-rumor, a whisper stitched together by back alley deals. He didn’t deal in memories, he dealt in origins. Where the clips came from. Who built them. Why they were made.

I didn’t want to ask. Didn’t want to know.

But by then, the ache was too deep. I had to find more of her. I had to find all of her.

"Pretty piece of work," the owner said, tapping the chip I'd slid across the counter. His fingers left greasy prints on the casing. "Real high-end emotional mapping. Best I've seen. Synthetic, but... damn good."

My throat dried up.

"Synthetic," I said.

He grinned, showing a mess of teeth that had seen better years. "Memory Farms, Inc. Model 7-A DreamWeave. Romantic bundles. Limited edition."

He tossed the chip back to me.

"That field? That laugh? That scent?" He shook his head, chuckling. "She ain't real, pal. Never was. Custom work for the luxury market. Whole worlds stitched together for folks who like their fantasies rich and easy to swallow."

I didn't remember leaving the shop. Didn't remember walking back through the rain.

Only the way the world looked different. Grayer. Smaller.

Empty in a way that even the city couldn't explain.

She wasn’t someone I’d lost.

She was something they built.

And I still loved her like she was breathing somewhere under that fake blue sky, waiting for me to come home.

7

I stopped chasing scraps after that.

No more street brokers. No more backroom hacks. No more pawing through dead men’s memories hoping to find her smile tucked between someone else’s regrets.

She wasn’t real.

But I could make her real.

I locked myself in the shop, killed the feeds, rerouted the power. Set up a closed loop system, full immersion, one-way ticket. An endless dream that wouldn’t crack or fade or dump me back into the cold stink of the streets.

I wasn’t building a memory anymore.

I was building a world.

It took days, maybe weeks. The clocks stopped meaning anything after a while. I stacked the fragments like bones, wove the scenes together with precision and wire and blind, stubborn need.

In this place, she would be waiting.

In this place, the sunlight would always find us.

I didn’t tell anyone. Didn’t leave a note. Didn’t lock the door behind me.

There was no one left to miss me.

Not really.

The last thing I heard before I slipped under was the rain, hammering the city into mud.

Then even that was gone.

8

I woke to sunlight.

Not the cracked white glare of neon. Not the sickly blue wash of billboard screens.

Real sunlight, slow and golden, pooling across the grass.

The air was thick with it, the scent of jasmine, heavy and sweet, wrapping around me like a blanket pulled from some forgotten childhood dream.

She was there, sitting under a tree with blossoms dusting her hair, smiling like she’d been waiting for me forever.

When she stood and crossed the field, her feet made no sound against the earth. Her hand found mine, warm, familiar, certain.

"I’m happy you’re here," she said.

I tried to answer, but the words caught somewhere between memory and dream.

Maybe I didn't need words anymore.

I followed her toward the water’s edge, where the river caught the sky and the sky caught the river, and the whole world blurred into something soft and endless.

No rain.

No rust.

No city.

Just jasmine on the wind and a hand that would never let go.

It wasn’t real.

But it was ours, forever.

[hollowed-hours]

What We Bury is a story about memory, revenge, and the fragile line between what we remember and what we believe. When Clara reconnects with someone from her past, buried truths begin to surface, along with a quiet, unsettling plan for justice.

What We Bury

1

Clara moved like background noise.

In the hum of the fluorescent lights, the beeping of checkout scanners, the hollow greetings exchanged across plastic counters, she drifted. The retail store where she worked didn’t offer much in the way of ambition or purpose, just folded jeans, chipped linoleum floors, and eight-hour shifts that left her bones aching in quiet protest. Customers didn’t really see her. Coworkers barely remembered her name. That suited her fine.

She wore oversized sweaters and muted colors, her hair always pulled back like an afterthought. No makeup. No scent. No spark. Her reflection in the store’s front windows looked more like a blur than a person.

It hadn’t always been this way.

Sometimes, in those strange, dim moments of twilight, Clara would remember things differently, days full of sunlight and bikes with baskets on the handles, the sound of laughter over creek water, the feeling of someone holding her hand just to keep her from falling. But those moments dissolved the second she tried to reach for them. In their place was a void. Cold, uncertain, and unfinished.

She was smart, or so people used to say. Her teachers, her childhood friends, even her mother back when she still called. "You could be anything, Clara," they'd told her.

But she wasn't anything. She was thirty minutes late on rent. She was working weekends for minimum wage. She was a woman holding something broken in her chest without knowing how or when it cracked.

Clara didn't question it anymore. The why of her smallness was too exhausting. Somewhere along the line, she'd buried the reasons. Now she just tended to the grave.

And then, one afternoon, life shifted.

It was a Tuesday, Clara’s least favorite day. Nothing glamorous like a Friday or melancholy like a Monday, just the beige in between. She was folding a pile of discounted winter coats when a man’s voice floated from behind her.

“Clara? Wow… I haven’t seen you in forever.”

She turned, slowly.

He looked older, of course, broad-shouldered, slightly taller than she remembered. His eyes still carried that open warmth, the kind that once made her feel safe without knowing why.

For a split second, she didn’t recognize him.

Then the flood came.

Her stomach clenched. A chill rose in her spine. Images flashed across her mind like snapshots from a warped photo album. Screaming, darkness, hands too rough, the echo of a boy’s voice.

It was him.

She couldn’t breathe.

“Clara,” he said again, “It’s me. Eli.”

She forced a smile, robotic and thin. “Eli,” she said, and her voice surprised her. It was steady.

He grinned, clearly relieved. “Wow. It’s been... what, over a decade? You look exactly the same.”

She didn’t. But she played along. Something inside her had turned over, like a switch had been flipped. There was a buzzing in her ears now, and something sharper underneath. Her body had remembered something before her mind had.

A pressure in her chest. Cold sweat along her spine. The dizzy, nauseating hum of panic.

Images had flashed behind her eyes, darkness, pain, hands that didn’t stop.

And then another memory surfaced. Faint, fragile. She’d only told one person what happened after that night. She’d cried, whispered, sworn someone to secrecy.

And now, looking at Eli, her body confirmed what her mind would not.

It was the only explanation that fit the weight in her stomach. The only face that matched the dread in her bones.

That boy. It had been Eli.

2

Clara had always thought the past was like a bad dream, fuzzy at the edges, distant, unreal. But seeing Eli again was like waking up mid-scream.

He’d aged well. That made it worse. The years had sanded off the awkwardness of boyhood and replaced it with something confident but still kind. His clothes were clean and casual, his hair a little tousled in a way that felt effortless. He was the kind of man who might hold a door without thinking, or remember how you took your coffee even years later.

And yet.

Her mind had pulled the trigger before she even had a chance to think. Eli. The boy who broke her. The boy who stood in the dark, pressing her down. The boy who didn’t stop.

That night came back in pieces, like glass scattered across a hardwood floor. She didn’t try to collect them all. Just one sharp shard was enough to reopen everything.

He hadn’t recognized what he meant to her now, hadn’t seen the tension in her smile, the way her fingers clenched around the price tag in her hand.

“Do you live around here?” he’d asked casually. “I moved here about two years ago. Work stuff.”

Clara nodded. “Yeah… been here a while.”

They’d exchanged numbers. Just like that. And she’d let him walk away with a warm smile and a hopeful wave. Just like that.

She didn’t sleep that night.

Instead, she lay in the dark with her eyes wide open, letting memory and suspicion swirl together into something uglier. She thought of what he’d taken. Not just her safety, but the whole life she might’ve had. College. Ambition. Intimacy. All of it had withered into something pale and half-formed because of him.

And now, he was thriving. Happy. Whole.

Clara wasn’t even sure when the idea took hold. It didn’t arrive like a lightning strike. It crept in slowly, like fog seeping under a door.

What if she took something from him? What if he had to live with questions, confusion, emptiness? What if she gave him a life as hollow as the one he’d left her with?

She waited three days before texting him.

Hey stranger. Want to grab a coffee and actually catch up? Would be nice to talk without a price gun in my hand.

He responded almost immediately.

I’d love that. Name the time and place.

She chose a quiet shop with low lighting. Wore something new, simple, but more fitted. She even curled her hair, just a little. When she walked in, his eyes lit up.

“Clara,” he said, rising from his seat. “You look… great.”

So do you, she wanted to say. You look like you don’t deserve to.

Instead, she smiled. “You clean up okay too.”

They talked for hours. About nothing. Childhood teachers. Bad jobs. TV shows. He remembered everything about their old neighborhood, the hill behind the elementary school, the way her dog used to chase squirrels but never catch them.

And all the while, Clara watched him.

She studied the way his eyes moved, the twitch of his mouth when he laughed, the way he rubbed the back of his neck when he got flustered. It was all so familiar.

Too familiar.

The confusion grew inside her like a knot of wires. There were no cracks in his mask. No sign of guilt. But wasn’t that what made monsters so dangerous?

Before they parted ways, he offered a soft smile. “I’m really glad we reconnected, Clara.”

She nodded. “Me too.”

That night, she made a list. Names. Places. Weak points.

If Eli had built a life worth living, she would learn every corner of it.

And then, quietly, she would tear it all down.

3

The next time Clara saw Eli, she wore lipstick.

Nothing too bold, just a subtle shade that made her lips look more alive. She’d swapped her oversized sweater for a fitted blouse and black jeans. She even wore a necklace, delicate and silver. It had been buried in a box under her bed for years, a gift from her mother long before the world had gone gray.

“You look incredible,” Eli said the moment she walked in.

She deflected with a shrug, but the compliment lodged in her chest like a stake.

They met for lunch at a café with mismatched chairs and old jazz records framed on the walls. Eli ordered the soup and half sandwich combo. Clara didn’t remember his taste in food. But she remembered the way he used to share his fries with her, one by one, no matter how hungry he was.

He still had that softness to him. The kind that made you feel like maybe the world wasn’t so bad after all.

It made her sick.

Back in her apartment that night, she sat on the edge of her bed and scrolled through Eli’s social media. Pictures of him with friends. A girlfriend, tall, confident, the kind of woman who wore heels and didn’t slouch. A job at a nonprofit, helping kids read. Of course.

Everything about him was so… good.

Too good.

That’s what her brain told her. That’s what she clung to as she opened a blank email and typed out a message from a fake account. A few vague lines, all suggestion and no proof. She signed off with “just thought you, as his girlfriend, should know,” hit send, and immediately closed the laptop.

The air in the room felt heavier.

Her hands were shaking.

She told herself this was justice. Maybe not the kind people liked to admit existed, but the kind the universe used when no one else was looking.

They met again a week later. Eli seemed quieter. Distracted.

“Everything okay?” she asked.

“Yeah,” he lied. “Just… stuff with Anna. Weird stuff. Miscommunication or something. I don’t know.”

Clara smiled faintly and reached across the table, touching his hand for just a second.

He looked at her like she was steady ground.

But the truth was, Clara didn’t feel steady.

Every time he laughed, some part of her cracked. Every time he opened a door for her or remembered something small like the book she’d loved in seventh grade or the time she sprained her ankle climbing a fence, she had to wrestle with the storm inside her.

Because she remembered those things too.

She remembered sitting next to him on the swings, knees scraped, trading sour candy until her tongue turned blue. She remembered crying into his shoulder the night her dog died, and the way he didn’t say anything, how he just let her be sad. He had always been that kind of boy. Thoughtful. Loyal. Kind.

But that night in the woods…

That couldn’t be kindness.

That couldn’t be him.

By the end of the month, Eli was single. He didn’t know why.

Anna had called him emotionally unavailable, erratic. She didn’t believe him when he said he hadn’t done anything. Didn’t believe the vague accusations she couldn’t prove or disprove. It was easier to walk away.

Clara acted surprised when he told her.

“I’m sorry,” she said, voice gentle. “She didn’t deserve you.”

But later that night, she watched him on the sidewalk from her window as he walked home alone, his shoulders low, his steps slow.

And she thought: Maybe she does.

Maybe this was her purpose.

Maybe this was what all the years of quiet and fear had been leading to.

Clara turned away from the window, removed her makeup slowly, and stared at herself in the mirror. She didn’t look meek anymore. She didn’t look afraid.

But she also didn’t look like herself.

Not the version of herself she remembered before everything went wrong.

And maybe that was the point.

4

Clara had always been quiet.

But now, she was calculated.

She kept a notebook in her bag, small, leather-bound, unremarkable. Inside were pages filled with names, passwords, notes on his mannerisms. It was the kind of thing that, if found, would raise more than a few questions. But no one was looking for answers, not yet. Not when she moved through the world with a smile and pristine eyeliner.

Eli lost his job on a Thursday.

They called it “an internal matter.” Something about boundaries. An anonymous colleague had complained he made her uncomfortable, though no one could say what he’d actually done. Just that his presence felt “off” lately. The kind of vague unease that spreads like wildfire once it’s spoken aloud.

He tried to fight it. But his manager had that careful, corporate pity in her eyes. The kind that tells you they’ve already decided.

“I just don’t understand,” he said to Clara that night, his voice hollowed out.

“I’m so sorry,” she said, reaching across the table again. Always the hand. Always the softness.

Her nails were clean. Her skin was warm. He didn’t notice the way her jaw tensed every time he thanked her for being there.

The next hit came days later.

A college friend stopped answering his calls. Another removed him from a group chat without explanation. He logged into an old forum they used to use. There were threads with his name in the title. Nothing explicit. Just suggestions. Hints.

“Funny how people aren’t who you think they are.”“I heard something about Eli. Not sure it’s true, but it tracks.”“Some people just hide it better.”

Clara posted them all from burner accounts she created late at night in the glow of her laptop screen. She used old photos, borrowed language. It was surprisingly easy.

The internet always wanted a villain. All she had to do was feed it crumbs.

Eli didn’t talk much after that.

He looked thinner. His beard was unkempt. His clothes hung a little looser.

They still met for coffee, but the conversation felt threadbare.

“I think something’s wrong with me,” he said once. His eyes didn’t meet hers.

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” Clara said gently. And she meant it. There had been nothing wrong with him. Until now.

One night, Eli collapsed.

It was mild, just a fainting spell on the train. Dehydration, they said. Maybe stress. The EMT said he needed rest. Fewer screens. Better sleep. More calm.

Clara watched him sway as they walked out of the hospital. He didn't ask her to come, but she’d shown up anyway. She always did.

“You okay getting home?” she asked.

“I don’t even know where home is anymore,” he muttered.

Clara said nothing. But inside, something cold flickered with satisfaction.

The transformation was nearly complete.

She no longer dressed in layers of invisibility. Her wardrobe was intentional now, simple, elegant, striking. She wore perfume. She walked taller. People looked at her when she entered a room.

She had become a new version of herself, sharpened, defined.

But in quiet moments, alone in her apartment, she sometimes caught herself staring at old photos. Of her and Eli. Their arms looped around each other’s shoulders. Faces flushed from running or laughing or the sun.

And she would wonder: Could he have been two people? Could a boy who gave her his last stick of gum and told her the world wasn’t scary really have…

No.

She slammed the laptop shut. That night in the woods didn’t lie. It had to have been him.

One final act remained.

It had to be symbolic. Something that mirrored what she’d felt all these years, buried, voiceless, alone in the dark.

She sent him a message:

I need to show you something. Can you meet me tomorrow at Lakewood Park? There’s a trail behind the rose garden. No one really uses it. You’ll understand when you get there.

Eli responded simply: Okay.

5

The morning sky was flat and gray, like wet newspaper pasted across the horizon. Clara stood at the edge of the trail behind Lakewood Park’s rose garden, clutching the straps of her bag with white-knuckled fingers.

This spot was almost always empty. The city moved fast, loud, chaotic. This place was none of those things. Just trees, cracked stone, and dirt softened by spring rain. It felt forgotten. That’s why she chose it.

Eli arrived ten minutes late, hair still uncombed, his expression cautious.

“Hey,” he said, his voice rough. “This is… kind of out of the way, don’t you think?”

Clara smiled faintly. “I wanted to show you something. Come on. Just a little further.”

He hesitated, but followed.

The trail dipped into a hollow where the air grew damp and cool. A rusted bench sat beneath the trunk of a buckled tree. The earth smelled like old leaves and wet stone. She’d scouted the place two days ago. Dug the hole the night before.

It was shallow. Just enough.

“Clara?” His voice trembled slightly now. “What are we doing here?”

She turned to face him. Her eyes were clear, unblinking. “You don’t remember, do you?”

“Remember what?”

“The woods. I was twelve. You were there.” Her voice cracked. “You hurt me.”

Eli blinked. “Clara, what are you talking about?”

“You assaulted me,” she said, louder now. “I buried it for years. I forgot the details. But I remember now. I remember YOU.”

The wind shifted. A bird called somewhere above.

“I didn’t,” he said softly. “I never…Don’t you remember?” He took a step forward, then froze. “That wasn’t me. You told me…you cried in my lap and told me it was that boy Aaron, from your science class. I held your hand while you shook.”

“Clara,” Eli said, his voice low, pained. “You told me who it was. That night. You came to me. You said it was Aaron.”

Aaron.

She remembered being forced to the ground. Cold, damp. She remembered telling someone, telling Eli? But the words didn’t match the memory anymore. They slid loose.

Her stomach turned.

“No,” she said, barely audible. “That’s not right.”

But it was. The memory came back like a slap. Eli's wide eyes. His voice saying: “You have to tell someone. I’ll come with you.”

She stared at him, the words tumbling through her like loose bricks.

“That’s not… I…”

“It was the night after it happened,” he said, voice cracking. “You didn’t want to go home. We sat on the porch swing that night. You made me promise not to tell anyone.”

Clara’s knees buckled. She stumbled backward, breath catching in her throat.

“I was your friend, Clara,” he whispered. “I was the only one you told.”

Her world tilted. Memory came rushing in. Not just the pain, but the comfort that followed. The arms around her. The way he’d given her his hoodie, how he’d stayed awake all night just to sit beside her until the sun came up.

She dropped to her knees.

“No,” she said, but it was paper-thin now. “No… no.”

Eli took a step toward her. “What did you do?”

Behind her, the open earth waited.

She hadn't planned to kill him. Not really. She just wanted him to feel it. The weight. The fear. The darkness.

But now she saw what she had done.

The emails. The rumors. The job. The girl. The slow breaking of someone who had once been her shelter.

And she had taken it all.

He was shaking. A tear traced a line down his cheek.

“I don’t understand,” he whispered. “Why would you?”

She didn’t answer. Couldn’t.

Eli’s breathing quickened. He took a half-step, then collapsed, hitting the ground hard. His head struck a rock with a sickening thud. Clara rushed forward on instinct, catching him just before he slid fully into the hole.

Blood bloomed under his temple. His eyelids fluttered.

“No, no, no…” she cried. “I didn’t mean to Eli, please…” But his eyes didn’t open again.

The hospital said it was a traumatic brain injury.

He survived.

He wouldn’t speak again.

He wouldn't walk without help.

He wouldn't remember what day it was.

But he was alive.

People called it a tragic accident. She said he fell.

No one questioned her.

Clara never returned to Lakewood Park.

But sometimes, when she passed a storefront window or a quiet puddle after the rain, she’d see her own reflection and think: I look like a person again.

And then: But what did it cost?

She didn’t wear perfume anymore. She didn’t wear anything that made people notice her.

She’d buried the truth once.

Then she buried the wrong man in everything but name.

And now, she lived with what remained.

[hollowed-hours]

Honey Locust is a bittersweet love story about memory’s quiet endurance. In a world where even his own mind has begun to betray him, Robert clings to the memory of a forbidden love that once bloomed under a thorned tree. As time runs out, he journeys back to the place where it all began, seeking not forgiveness, but the simple, aching proof that what they shared was real, and that some promises echo long after they are whispered.

Honey Locust

1

Robert thought he was turning forty-three. He’d told the nurse that just that morning, certain of it. “Big year,” he’d said, with a crooked smile and a sip of lukewarm coffee. “Forty-three. That’s the age a man settles into himself.”

He was, in fact, nearly eighty.

Most days, Robert remembered that. Most days, his mind held steady like an old dock bracing against a strong current. But sometimes, the numbers unraveled and time slid sideways. He would find himself staring into mirrors and seeing a face too worn for how young he still felt inside.

He lived alone in a modest apartment near the edge of the town where he’d grown up. The place was clean, uncluttered, lined with small reminders: sticky notes on the kitchen cabinets, a calendar marked with birthdays he barely remembered, and a digital clock that also told him the date. A nurse came by twice a day, once in the morning to check his vitals and meds, and once in the evening to make sure he hadn’t wandered too far into confusion.

It was a temporary arrangement. He knew that. One fall, one bad episode, and the decision would be made for him. A facility. Supervised care. These thoughts floated around him like clouds he couldn’t quite push away.

He still had a little time. A little freedom. And there was something he needed to do before it was gone.

On his refrigerator, tucked beneath a magnet shaped like a fish, was a hand-sketched map.

It showed the edge of town. A winding trail. A tree marked with a single word: "Honey."

He looked at it every morning. Sometimes he stared at it for minutes, other times just long enough to feel the tug in his chest. A quiet ache. A name on the tip of his tongue. And a whisper at the back of his mind: Go before someone tells you that you can’t.

2

It was 1964 when he met her. Lena.

He was seventeen. White. Raised in a church where the pastor spoke more about damnation than mercy. She was Black, with eyes that caught the light like polished onyx; calm, deep, and unblinking. Her laughter came slowly, like she was testing whether the world deserved it.

They met by accident. Or maybe fate. Robert had wandered down past the old tracks behind the mill with his sketchbook, looking for quiet. Lena had been gathering wildflowers in a coffee tin, barefoot in the grass.

He watched her for a few minutes, afraid to disturb the moment. She looked like a painting half-finished, paused in motion.

"You gonna keep staring or say something?" she called without turning.

He flushed. "Sorry…I didn’t mean to…"

She turned, smirking. "It’s okay. Just figured I’d make it easier on both of us."

That was Lena. Forward, but not unkind. Confident, even though the world around them had taught her to walk small.

The second time they met wasn’t by chance. Nor was the third.

The honey locust tree stood like a crooked guardian where the woods met the creek. Its long thorns curled from the bark like warnings. But beneath it, the air felt still, protected.

That tree became their place. They would sit on the mossy roots, knees touching. He’d draw. She’d read poetry aloud from borrowed books. Sometimes she’d write her own. He loved the way she whispered her verses, like she was letting him in on a secret no one else was worthy to hear.

One line she wrote he still remembered by heart:

"Some things grow in places they’re not supposed to. Doesn’t make them weeds. Might just mean they’re brave."

3

They couldn’t be seen together in town. Not at the diner, not at the county fair, not even on the sidewalk. Both families would’ve been furious, for different reasons, maybe, but equal in force.

So they made the honey locust their world. When they couldn’t meet, they wrote.

A dented tin box, tucked under a thick root, hidden beneath loose earth and leaves. They wrote on scraps of paper, folded small and hidden like treasure under the tree. Robert’s were short, nervous. Lena’s were full, flowing, always signed with a doodle, usually a flower or a sun.

They wrote about the things they couldn’t say aloud: how she liked the way he listened. How he felt like he could breathe around her. How everything felt a little less broken when they were together.

And slowly, note by note, he realized he loved her.

He didn’t say it right away. He didn’t know how. But she did. One letter said:

“I think I love you. There, I said it. And I don’t regret it, even if I should. Even if the world tells me I should.”

He read that note a dozen times. Folded it. Unfolded it. Wore the crease into the paper like a scar.

4

They were found out in August. Her brother caught her reading one of the notes and gave it to their father.

Lena was told she would be sent to live with her aunt in Knoxville. Not immediately, two weeks, maybe three. Just long enough for her family to plan a quick and quiet departure.

Her last letter arrived the day after she was caught.

"They know. My brother gave Daddy the letter. They’re sending me to Knoxville to stay with Aunt Maybelle... Will you meet me? One more time. At the tree. Saturday. Just before sunset. If you don’t come… I’ll understand. But I hope you do. I hope you remember me. I love you."

Robert read the letter twice. He wanted to run to her that very moment. But he didn’t.

He waited.

His father’s words rang in his head like a sentence: "That part of your life is over. You’ll be grateful we didn’t tell anyone what you’ve done."

Saturday came. He stood at the window and watched the sun dip below the hill. The world outside was quiet, just the distant hum of a mower, a crow calling overhead. And he stayed inside.

And he did nothing.

He told himself he’d write. That he’d explain. That she would understand.

He waited a week. Then another. Then the guilt pressed in, thick and sharp, and he finally wrote a reply, an apology, an explanation, and a coward’s hope.

He folded it carefully. Walked to the woods. Buried it in the tin beneath the honey locust tree.

But by then, she was already gone.

5

The decades blurred.

Robert married once. Briefly. It didn’t last. No children. No scandals. He worked a quiet job. Kept to himself. He aged without fanfare.

But sometimes, when the sun had set and his eyes felt heavy, he saw her. Heard her voice. Smelled the wildflowers. Felt her fingers brushing his as she passed him a note.

He couldn’t remember where he put his keys, but he remembered her.

And one morning, there it was. The map on the fridge. He didn’t know when he’d drawn it. But it was hers. It was theirs. It was the way back.

And he knew, soon, someone would take the keys. Decide it was time. A facility. Routine. A life with less wandering.

He had one trip left.

6

The woods were thinner, the trail forgotten. Kudzu curled over rusted fences and broken signs.

But the honey locust tree still stood.

Crooked. Thorned. Proud.

He knelt, breath shallow. The dirt was soft from spring rain. He dug with his hands, slow and reverent, until metal touched his fingertips.

The tin.

Inside: his letter.

And beneath it… another.

He unfolded the paper, yellowed and curled at the edges.

Robert,

It’s been two summers since I left. I don’t know why I’m here now. I guess I just needed to see if the world we made still existed.

It does.

I’m seventeen now. Still hoping you might come back one day. I found your letter in the tin. I read it sitting under these branches, right where we used to sit. The bark has grown thick with thorns, like it’s trying to protect something soft inside. I think we were that softness once.

I don’t blame you for what you didn’t do. We were just kids, standing in the middle of something bigger than both of us. But you should know: you were not a dream I made up. You were real to me.

Maybe one day you’ll come back to this place. Maybe you already have. I hope you remember me kindly. I will always remember you.

—Lena

Robert sat with the letter in his lap, the world still around him.

He looked up through the branches, light filtering through lace-like leaves. A breeze stirred the pods, and one fell beside him with a soft thud.

His hands trembled. His breath caught in his throat.

“She came back,” he whispered.

And then, louder, steadier:

“It was real.”

He leaned back against the bark of the tree, and let his eyes close.

Above him, a few pods drifted loose and spun gently in the air like memories shaken free.

And he smiled.

[hollowed-hours]

Trinket tin

[hollowed-hours]

Some memories refuse to be forgotten.

Honey Locust is a quiet, haunting story about memory, regret, and a love buried beneath thorns.

Releasing May 2nd.

[hollowed-hours]

Some memories refuse to be forgotten.

Honey Locust is a quiet, haunting story about memory, regret, and a love buried beneath thorns.

Releasing May 2nd.

[hollowed-hours]

Today's Special:

Bloodroot is a Southern Gothic short story about memory, identity, and the quiet horror of things left buried. When Etta inherits her estranged grandmother’s house in a nearly abandoned town, she expects dust and silence, not cassette tapes whispering confessions, and a garden that seems to grow on memory itself. As the bloodroot spreads and forgotten truths surface, Etta must confront the possibility that the story she’s always believed about herself may not be her own.

Content warning: This short story contains non-graphic references to child death.

Bloodroot

1

Etta turned off the engine and let the silence settle.

The house sat crouched at the end of the gravel drive, not ruined, just… waiting. The white paint had grayed with age, and vines wove up the porch rail like veins returning to the heart. Bloodroot bloomed along the stone path, red-stemmed and pale-petaled, their beauty too stark against the creeping decay. They hadn’t been there when she was a child.

The key stuck in the lock, reluctant. She jiggled it harder than she meant to, and the door creaked open.

Inside, it smelled of old cedar and something sour beneath it. Not rot, exactly. More like a secret kept too long. Light filtered through lace curtains. The furniture remained in its stiff arrangements, untouched since her grandmother’s funeral. A Bible on the end table. A cross above the mantel. Everything just so.

Etta stood in the doorway for longer than she meant to, her own reflection faint in the mirror across the room.

She wasn't grieving. That part of her had dried up long ago. But something in the air made her shrink like she’d walked into a chapel she didn’t believe in. She dropped her bag by the door, her footsteps echoing louder than they should.

She spent the better part of an hour cleaning. Not scrubbing, just enough to reclaim a corner of the house for herself. Wiping the counters, shaking out a stained runner, re-washing dishes her grandmother had shelved decades ago, neat, but coated in years of dust.

It wasn’t until she opened the cabinet beneath the sink looking for gloves that she saw it.

A false back, maybe once flush, had bowed outward slightly. A sagging piece of particle board, barely noticeable unless you were looking for it. 

Etta pulled it free. Behind it, in the hollow between the wall and the plumbing, was a cardboard shoebox sealed with yellowing tape that crumbled in her hands as she peeled it open.

Inside were cassette tapes. Dozens. Labeled in a slanted, careful hand. 1984. 1987. 1991. One near the top read simply: “Confession.”

She stared at it.

Her grandmother had never liked machines. Claimed they "confused the Word." Even answering machines were suspect. Etta remembered her handwriting though, and this was undeniably hers.

A chill crept up her spine. Not fear exactly, but recognition. Something that clicked into place.

She set the box on the table, closed the cabinet door, and stood there for a long moment. The kitchen felt smaller now. Like the air had thickened.

Etta didn’t press play. Not that day.

But that night, long after the crickets had quieted and the wind had stilled, the old stereo in the living room clicked.

She told herself it was settling dust.

But the next morning, the tape labeled "Confession" was sitting on top of the box.

She didn’t remember placing it there.

2

The next evening, the house hummed with cicadas and the low groan of settling wood.

Etta sat at the kitchen table with a chipped mug of tea cooling beside her. The shoebox remained untouched on the counter, though the tape labeled “Confession” still sat on top like an invitation. Or a warning.

She didn’t remember pulling it out. But maybe she had. Maybe.

The stereo was in the front room, beside the settee where her grandmother used to sit during long, silent afternoons. Etta told herself she was only testing it, making sure it worked before tossing it out with the other junk.

She brought the tape in her hand, fingers curling around it as though it might burn her.

The stereo wheezed when she hit eject. A puff of dust scattered like ash. She slid the tape into place and hovered over the play button. Her thumb didn’t press, not right away.

What if it’s nothing? Just old sermons. Grocery lists.

She pressed the button anyway.

There was a soft whir, then a hiss.

“In the year of our Lord, nineteen hundred and eighty-four… I bore witness to a sin.”

The voice hit her like a cold draft.

Her grandmother's voice, measured, composed, lower than she remembered. It didn’t sound like a woman giving a sermon. It sounded like a woman confessing. Not to God. Not to family.

To something else.

“Not my own. But I carried it. I buried it.”

The tape crackled, as if considering what to say next.

“It’s in the roots now. The bloodroot knows. I prayed to forget, but some things cling tighter than sin.”

Click.

The tape stopped, sharp and clean. No side B. No closure.

Etta didn’t move. Her hands were cold.

Outside, the bloodroot along the edge of the porch shifted against the still air, as if something beneath the soil had stirred.

3

The next morning, Etta walked into the kitchen and stopped short.

The shoebox was on the table.

She was certain she’d left it on the counter. Not just certain, positive. She remembered thinking it was in the way, sliding it aside to make room for her tea.

Now, not only was it on the table, it was open. Three new tapes rested on top, slightly askew, their labels facing up like waiting name tags.

“June 12, 1985” “A Dream” “Shame”

She stared at them for a long time, arms crossed tightly over her chest.

"Okay," she muttered to the empty room. “That’s new.”

Etta wasn’t one to scare easy. Years of living alone had hardened her to creaks and groans. But this…this was something else. It wasn’t loud. It was deliberate.

She picked up the tape marked “A Dream.” The handwriting was unmistakable. Her grandmother’s heavy loops and angular edges. The date scrawled in smaller print: May 14, 1992.

She didn’t play it. Not yet.

Instead, she set the tape aside and wandered the house, trying to place the feeling crawling under her skin.

The air felt… wet. Not humid, damp. Like the walls had begun to breathe. In the hallway, a faint smell of iron laced the air. Not blood exactly, but something adjacent. Rust. Earth. The coppery tang of something disturbed.

She swallowed hard, trying to cleanse her palate of the metallic bite, then followed the scent to the back door. It led out to the overgrown garden where wildflowers tangled in the fence and bloodroot clung to the edges of the walkway like red ink spilled across stone.

The door creaked when she opened it. The hinges had always been stiff, but this time the sound made her flinch.

Outside, the yard seemed smaller than she remembered. Or maybe the trees had grown taller. Towering pines loomed in the distance, swaying gently in air she couldn’t feel.

And then she noticed something.

The bloodroot had spread. Overnight. It reached farther along the fence line than it had yesterday. The patches near the steps were denser now. Flowering, even, in places where no sun touched.

A cold bead of sweat slid down her spine.

Back inside, she checked the thermostat. It read 72. Comfortable. But her fingers were chilled.

She stood in the hallway for a moment, listening.

In the front room, the stereo clicked. Not playing, just alive.

She turned toward it slowly, unsettled but not scared. Not yet. 

She hadn’t put anything in it, but a tape waited inside

“Do Not Listen”

4

Etta held the cassette in both hands, thumbs brushing over the words.

Do Not Listen.

The label was the same style. The same pen. Same thick strokes. Her grandmother’s handwriting, but with something new in it. Urgency.

She stared at it for a long time.

“Why hide it if you didn’t want someone to listen?” she said aloud, her voice oddly loud in the stillness of the house.

She slid the tape into the stereo. It clicked into place too easily, like the machine had been waiting.

No hesitation this time. She pressed Play.

At first, silence. Then the unmistakable sound of her grandmother breathing, shallow, ragged.

“If you’re listening… I already know you didn’t obey. You were warned.”

The voice was shaky. Not the composed, measured tone of the first tape. This was something closer to panic.

“There’s a shape in the roots. I saw it in my dreams, but the ground remembers better than I do. It feeds on remembering.”

A strange sound filled the tape like dragging something heavy across the floorboards. Or under them.

Etta leaned closer.

“I buried it in the garden. I buried her.”

The tape hissed.

Her mind juggled reasons, excuses. Had her grandmother gone senile?

Etta’s breath caught. The voice on the tape continued, but it had shifted. Quieter. Not whispering, muttering, like a sermon left too long in the sun.

“She wouldn’t stop screaming. Not with her mouth, but in my head. That’s where the real noise lives. The screaming in the marrow.”

Then, abruptly:

“I told the pastor it was an accident. He believed me. I think. But the bloodroot grew thicker that year. It grew and grew and I knew it drank her. I knew it would remember.”

Click.

The stereo went dead.

Etta stood frozen, a hand pressed to her chest, waiting for her heartbeat to slow. But it didn’t.

It thudded faster when she looked out the window.

The bloodroot had reached the steps.

It hadn’t been there earlier. She was sure of it. Absolutely certain.

And there, just beneath the edge of the wooden slats, she saw something pale.

Not flower. Not root.

Something that looked like bone.

5

The next morning, Etta pulled on gloves and laced her boots.

She hadn’t slept well. The tape had replayed in her mind over and over. The breathless confession, the scraping sound, the word her. But she pushed it down. That’s what she did. Always had.

The yard was a mess, and if she was going to live here for any stretch of time, it needed cleaning up.

The bloodroot was thickest near the side of the porch, a writhing patch of red stems and wide white petals. They were beautiful, sure, but out of place. Too healthy. Too stubborn.

She grabbed the rusted garden shears from the shed and started cutting.

The first snip released a sharp scent, not floral but metallic. It stung her nose, and something in her stomach tightened.

She kept going. The bloodroot pulled free in thick clumps, its rhizomes long and red-streaked like veins. Beneath the surface, the soil was dark and damp, almost wet to the touch.

Etta paused to catch her breath, wiping sweat from her brow before continuing the chore when the shears hit something hard.

Thunk.

She knelt. Pushed aside the last of the tangled stems.

There was a piece of wood just below the dirt. Not plank wood, something older. Worn, thin, soft from age.

She dug with her gloved hands, pulling it up in pieces until she uncovered a box. A simple wooden crate, maybe two feet long, with rusted hinges and a rotted leather strap.

She stared at it, heartbeat suddenly loud in her ears.

It was buried shallow. Intentionally shallow.

The box creaked as she opened it.

Inside, swaddled in layers of disintegrating cloth, was a small dress. Faded pink cotton, stained with age. And beneath it—

A lock of hair, curled and matted.

And something else: a small, cracked porcelain doll with one eye missing and its arms folded over its chest.

She didn’t move. Couldn’t. Her hands began to tremble, not from fear exactly, but from the way the air seemed to collapse around her.

From somewhere deep in the trees, a crow called once. Then silence.

The bloodroot, trimmed only minutes ago, now curled its stems toward the porch again.

6

Etta sat on the porch steps, the crate beside her like a wound she didn’t know how to treat.

The doll. The dress. The hair.

She hadn’t cried. Not yet. But something in her chest felt bruised.

She went inside, peeled off her gloves, and poured herself a glass of water with hands that wouldn’t stop shaking. The house, as always, felt like it was listening.

The stereo was still there, patient and waiting.

She didn’t even remember picking up the new tape until she was halfway across the room.

“Memory.”

That was all it said.

The handwriting was different this time. Less controlled. Uneven. Like her grandmother had written it while frightened. Or confused.

Etta slid it in.

“I remember her laugh most of all. She used to hide behind the hydrangeas and pop out to scare me. Like a ghost. She said that’s what she wanted to be when she grew up. A ghost. So she could float through walls and scare people she didn’t like.”

A pause. Breathing. Then:

“I sometimes forget her name. Isn’t that strange?”

Etta blinked.

She didn’t remember anyone like that either. But something about the voice, the image, it scratched at the edge of her brain. Like a childhood picture turned upside down.

“She called me ‘Gram.’ That’s all I get now. Her laugh. Her little hands. And that day in the garden. After the fall.”

The tape stuttered. For a moment Etta thought it would jam, but then:

“Sometimes I think she wasn’t real. Sometimes I think I made her up. But I still dream of her standing at the window. Pale and smiling. Like she forgives me.”

Click.

Silence.

Etta stood frozen. That feeling was back. That thick, wrong feeling in the air. Like she’d walked into a story someone else had written but somehow she’d lived it.

She turned toward the hallway mirror, the one above the radiator. She’d passed it a dozen times since arriving.

Now, for the first time, she noticed it.

In the corner of the glass, barely visible beneath the grime, was a shape.

A child’s handprint.

Small. Smudged. And definitely on the inside of the mirror.

7

Etta was in the middle of scrubbing the mirror when the knock came.

Three polite taps. Measured. Like everything else in this town.

She opened the door to find Pastor Lyle, a thin, white-haired man in a beige jacket and soft, sorrowful eyes.

“Miss Etta,” he said gently, removing his hat. “I hope I’m not intruding.”

She blinked. “No, of course not. I didn’t know you were still around.”

“Lord hasn’t taken me yet,” he smiled. “I just wanted to offer my condolences. Your grandmother was… well, she was a force.”

Etta stepped aside and let him in. The air shifted slightly when he crossed the threshold, like the house had been holding its breath.

They sat in the front room. She offered him coffee, which he politely declined.

“I always admired her devotion,” he said, eyes skimming the cross above the mantel. “She came to every Sunday service, even when her knees went bad. Said pain was the price of righteousness.”

Etta nodded. “She never missed a chance to tell me that, too.”

He chuckled awkwardly, then grew serious.

“I always hoped you two would make peace.”

“She didn’t want peace. She wanted obedience.”

A beat of silence.

Then he said, too quickly, “I don’t know what she told you, if anything… in her final days. But sometimes the old carry burdens they don’t know how to lay down. And sometimes they pass those burdens on. Not always fair, but…” he trailed off.

Etta narrowed her eyes. “So you knew something was wrong.”

“I…no. Nothing specific. Just… shadows. The kind no light seems to touch. Your grandmother…” he stopped himself. 

She didn’t respond. Didn’t need to.

After a few more pleasantries, he rose. She walked him to the door.

Before he left, he turned back. “If anything weighs on you while you’re here, don’t hold it in. That house, it remembers things.”

Etta froze, the pastor’s words slipping into her bloodstream. 

He paused. “I mean… it’s an old house. It holds memories. That’s all.”

He gave a small nod and walked down the path, his figure slowly swallowed by the trees.

Etta stood in the doorway, bloodroot curling along the steps behind her.

Inside, the stereo clicked again.

8

That night, Etta didn’t sleep.

She lay in bed listening to the creaks of the house, the soft shuffle of leaves outside, the faint clicking sound she’d come to recognize: the stereo powering on, again.

She found the new tape already in the deck.

No label. Just the plastic cassette, blank and waiting.

She hit play.

At first, nothing. Then: the soft hum of the room it had been recorded in. Footsteps. The squeak of a chair.

Then her grandmother’s voice.

“She used to sing to herself. Little songs. I couldn’t ever tell where she learned them. Hymns turned inside out.”

The sound of breath. Then:

“She said her name was Etta.”

Etta froze.

“But that wasn’t right. That was never right. That was the name I gave her.”

A hiss rose on the tape like static, then her grandmother whispered:

“I wasn’t supposed to name her.”

Etta stepped back from the stereo.

“She wasn’t mine, not really. I took her in. Raised her up. Told folks she was my kin. But she came to me from somewhere else. From the ground, I think. Or the sky. Somewhere in between.”

“I don’t remember her being a baby. Just… a little girl in the garden.”

The tape clicked off.

Etta stood in the doorway to the room, every part of her buzzing.

She didn’t remember being adopted. Didn’t remember any foster care. Her mother had died young, yes, but she had always been told her grandmother raised her out of necessity.

That story had never included a garden.

This couldn’t be her story. She would remember. Wouldn’t she?”

She walked to the bathroom, flicked on the light, and stared at herself in the mirror.

Same face. Same eyes. Same everything.

But the doubt took root.

She remembered falling once, when she was small. Scraping her knees. The garden. The flowers. Bloodroot. But no one had been there to catch her. She always thought that was a dream.

Only now… she wasn’t sure.

Behind her, reflected faintly in the mirror, was the hallway.

At the far end stood a child.

She turned.

No one there.

But the scent of iron and dirt filled the room like a tide coming in.

9

Etta didn’t remember putting on her boots.

One moment, she was staring at the mirror. The next, she was back in the garden, shovel in hand, moonlight catching on the rusted edge like the glint of old teeth.

She didn’t know what she was digging for.

She already knew what she’d find.

The soil gave way easily, as if it had loosened itself for her. Bloodroot curled at the edges of the pit, pulsing faintly in the pale light, guiding. The deeper she went, the more the air changed—damp and metallic, thick with memory.

Then the blade struck wood. A soft knock, almost polite.

Etta dropped to her knees and scraped the earth away with bare hands.

It wasn’t a coffin. Not really. Just an old fruit crate, the kind her grandmother used to stack apples in, withered and warped from time.

She opened it.

Inside: bones. Small. Curled like sleep.

A dress she half-remembered. A faded pink cotton with a flower-stitched hem. A porcelain doll, arms folded just so.

And then—

A necklace.

Worn leather cord. Tiny bird charm. Tarnished gold.

Etta staggered backward.

She knew that necklace.

She had a photo of herself wearing it. Age six. Smiling. Missing a front tooth.

But in that photo she was standing in front of this very garden.

Her knees buckled. She dropped to the dirt, breath stuttering, heart knocking against her ribs like it wanted out.

She remembered the fall.

She remembered the pain.

She remembered her grandmother’s voice saying, “Shhh. Shhh. Just rest now.”

She remembered the dark.

And then nothing.

Until now.

Etta looked at her hands. The soil had stained them red.

Behind her, she heard the faint click from the stereo.

10

The stereo was already playing when Etta stepped back inside.

No tape in her hand. No title. No explanation. But it was her grandmother’s voice again, tired now. Older. The voice of a woman near the end of something.

“If you’re hearing this, it means the house let you find the others. It means you’re strong enough now.”

Etta moved toward the sound, her footsteps slow, deliberate.

“I couldn’t carry it forever. I tried. I told myself I was protecting you. But you were never meant to forget. Not completely.”

The voice crackled, warped with emotion.

“You weren’t born like other children. You came to me in blood and root and rain. A child the world didn’t want, but the land did.”

A pause. Breathing. Then:

“I buried your pain to keep you whole. I fed it to the soil so you could grow clean.”

“But nothing buried stays quiet.”

The stereo buzzed with static, then cleared.

“These tapes, they’re not just stories. They’re stitches. Holding the past together. I made them to keep the house from remembering too fast. To slow the rot. But now…”

The voice broke.

“Now it’s your turn. If you want to leave, you can. But if you stay, listen close. There’s one more thing beneath the floorboards. One more truth.”

The tape hissed. The voice softened.

“I’m sorry, Etta. I made you forget what you were. What we both were. But this house…this blood…it remembers.”

Click.

The stereo went still.

The silence that followed was total.

Etta stood there, heart hollowed out, head full of static. She wasn’t sure who she was anymore. But she knew what she had to do.

She turned toward the hallway.

Toward the floorboards.

11

Etta pried the floorboards up one by one.

She had no plan. No big tools. Just a flathead screwdriver and a sick certainty in her gut.

Beneath the boards, she found dirt.

Beneath the dirt, stone.

And beneath that, nothing.

Not emptiness. Just… a void. Darker than it should have been. Too still. The kind of dark that didn’t end.

The air shifted. The walls exhaled.

And then she heard it.

A voice.

Her own.

“I remember the garden. I remember the fall. I remember the dark.”

She didn’t speak those words. Not aloud.

But they echoed anyway.

The earth opened beneath her like a mouth, and she didn’t fight it. She let herself fall.

12

The stereo clicks on.

A new cassette snaps into place, the front bare. No label…yet.

Inside the house, everything is quiet.

Then: a soft breath.

A woman’s voice. Shaky. Calm.

“If you're hearing this… I think you’re part of it now, too.”

A pause.

“It doesn’t let us leave. Not really. It keeps what it grows.”

Another breath.

“I thought I was whole. I thought I was healed. But healing doesn’t mean forgetting.”

“So I’m recording this for whoever comes next. For whoever digs too deep.”

A sound, faint and wet. Roots shifting beneath the floor.

“I am Etta. I think.”

Click.

The tape ends.

The stereo keeps spinning. The house remembers.