The Hag of Black Hollow

They call me the Hag of Black Hollow.

A name whispered like a curse, spat into the dirt by trembling mouths. The villagers make the sign of the cross when my shadow crosses theirs. They say I drink blood from silver cups and weave curses from children’s hair.

Let them believe it.

It keeps them safe from the truth.

I was not always what they think I am. Once, long ago, I lived in the village too. I had a garden full of foxglove and marigold, and a husband who sang to me while he worked the fields. We had a child, a daughter with curls as black as ravens’ feathers. When fever took her, the villagers prayed. I acted.

That was the night I learned the difference between prayer and power.

The moon that night was swollen and red, like tonight. It watched me as I dug the grave open again, as I whispered the words the forest taught me. The earth listened, but it did not forgive. My child opened her eyes, yes, but they were not hers anymore. I buried her a second time. Deeper.

Now the forest owns me.

The Hollow wraps around my cottage like a serpent, old trees twisting into impossible shapes. Their roots clutch bones. The soil is dark with secrets. When the wind moves through the branches, it sounds like whispers, low and mourning. Some nights, I think the forest is trying to comfort me. Other nights, I think it’s laughing.

The moon has risen, a blood coin in the black sky. I can feel its pull in my veins, stirring the old magic. The candles gutter though there’s no draft. My cat, Ash, lifts his head from the hearth and growls, a low human sound. His eyes glint like two coals, and for a moment, I see the man he once was, staring at me through the animal’s skin.

I reach out and stroke his fur anyway. “Hush,” I murmur. “We made our choices.”

Outside, something moves through the fog. A figure.

The forest holds its breath.

There comes a knock, soft and desperate. Three times.

When I open the door, a young woman stands there. Her hair is matted with rain; her dress clings to her knees. She can’t be more than nineteen. Her eyes are wide and hollow, the eyes of someone who’s already lost everything.

“Please,” she whispers. “He’s dying. The fever, no one else can help.”

Always the same story.

A loved one slipping away.

A heart too afraid to let go.

I study her for a long moment. “You know what they call me,” I say.

She nods, trembling. “They said you can bring him back.”

“Back is not the same as alive.”

Her lip quivers, but she doesn’t move. “I don’t care.”

Ah. There it is, the final surrender. The moment when love becomes madness.

I step aside. “Then come in.”

The air inside smells of damp earth and candle wax. My shelves are lined with jars, dried herbs, bones, feathers, stones that hum faintly with power. The girl’s eyes dart to each one, but she says nothing. Her hands twist together like she’s holding her own heartbeat.

“What’s his name?” I ask.

“Eli,” she says. “My brother.”

A flicker of surprise catches me. Few come for a sibling. Most bargain for lovers. But grief doesn’t care about bloodlines.

I turn to the shelves. “There’s a price.”

“I’ll pay it.”

“They all say that.”

I take down the black jar from the highest shelf. The glass is cold as a corpse. Inside, the remains of old spells whisper against the sides, faint as breath. I uncork it, and the scent of iron and damp moss fills the room. Shadows ooze from the mouth of the jar, writhing and searching. The girl gasps.

“Sit,” I tell her.

I pour the shadow into the cauldron. It moves like smoke and water both, forming shapes that almost have faces. I add crushed wolfsbane, dried marigold, and a lock of my own hair. The mixture hisses, then begins to glow, faintly blue, then silver, then black as pitch.

As it boils, the voices start.

Whispers. Pleas. Names I once knew.

“Mother,” one sighs, and my heart twists painfully.

I stir faster.

The girl watches, her eyes wide. “What are they?”

“The ones who came before you,” I say. “Every life I’ve ever returned.”

When the potion thickens to a glistening black syrup, I ladle it into a small glass vial. “Give him one drop,” I say. “Only one. By the next moonrise, he will wake.”

Her eyes fill with tears. “Thank you.”

“But remember,” I say softly, “the dead don’t return unchanged.”

She doesn’t listen. They never do.

When she leaves, the forest swallows her whole. The night grows quiet. The wind stops. Even the crickets fall silent.

I pour myself a cup of elderflower tea and wait. I always wait.

It doesn’t take long.

A scream rips through the distance, sharp and raw, the sound of something breaking that cannot be fixed. Then another sound follows, a low, guttural moan that doesn’t belong to any human throat.

Ash yowls. The fire flares green and dies. I rise slowly and walk to the door.

Fog curls around the trees, thick as wool. Shapes move within it, tall, thin, shuffling things that weren’t there before. The forest hums low, satisfied.

And there, at the edge of the path, I see her. The girl, stumbling backward, her face white as bone. Behind her moves a shadow, lurching and dripping, its eyes empty and wrong.

I could go to her. I could end it. But I don’t.

This is the price.

When it’s done, when the screaming stops, I whisper the closing words that return the Hollow to silence. My hands shake. The air smells of rot and rain.

Ash leaps onto the table, glaring. “Another soul, another debt,” he rasps in his half-human voice. “When will you stop, witch?”

“When the forest forgets my name.”

He laughs, a sound like dry leaves. “Then never.”

I turn to the window. The red moon stares back, unblinking. I feel the pull again, an ache deep in my chest, where my daughter’s lullaby once lived.

“Perhaps never is what I deserve,” I whisper.

Outside, something moves beneath the soil, something with small hands and a voice that calls me Mother.

And still, I wait for the moon to wane.

For the forest to sleep.

For forgiveness that will never come.

Because witches are not born wicked.

We’re made that way, by love that wouldn’t die.