The Wind at Halewick Hollow

A tale of returning, and of what the wind remembers

A gentle breeze softly brushed against Alira’s skin. It was soft and whispery, yet sharp enough to raise the tiny hairs along her arms. Beneath the soothing touch of the wind, a flicker of unease stirred within her—an inexplicable worry that she might never belong, as if the very air carried a secret she longed to uncover. With the breeze came a faint scent, not easily defined, a blend of flowers, sea-salt, and rain—a scent that seemed to belong more to a memory than to the moment. This invited her into a world where memories and reality blur.

She opened her eyes.

The trees around her swayed in quiet conversation, their leaves murmuring secrets to the wind. She didn’t remember falling asleep beneath them or arriving here at all. Confusion bubbled up within her, mingling with a faint note of fear. The air shimmered faintly, pale light slanting through the canopy, and for a dizzy instant she thought she saw faces among the branches, watching her with patient curiosity. A faint memory flickered, a snippet of a whisper she couldn’t fully grasp — a name, maybe? A place distant yet achingly familiar. A longing stirred inside her, a deep desire to remember, to understand why she was drawn to this place. Despite the unease, a flicker of curiosity sparked in her chest, urging her to uncover the mystery of her surroundings. It was as if the wind whispered an invitation only she could hear, a promise of answers hidden within the shadows.

Then they were gone, and the silence folded in again.

She sat up slowly. Her head felt light, her thoughts like threads slipping through her fingers. There was a path in front of her — narrow, half overgrown, leading down into a hollow where the light seemed thicker, more gold than white. Somewhere far below, she could hear water.

“Where am I?” she whispered.

The breeze answered by stirring her hair across her cheek, as if nudging her forward.

The path wound down into the hollow like a spiral. Ferns brushed her legs; moss clung to her boots. With every step, the air grew warmer, the scent stronger — that blend of rain and something sweet. The sound of water grew clearer too: a rhythmic trickle, gentle and insistent.

When the trees finally parted, she found herself standing before a pool. It wasn’t large, but the water was so clear it looked like a hole cut straight into another world. At its centre rose a stone pillar, half-submerged, carved with looping symbols that she couldn’t read. The locals spoke of this pillar as the ‘Sentinel of the Mists,’ believed to guide the spirits of the lost back to their homes. Each symbol carved into the stone represented one of these old spirits, whispering secrets through the ages. The surface of the pool shimmered faintly, as though a hidden wind moved beneath it instead of above, singing a melody that echoed the ancient legends of the forest.

Alira knelt at the edge and touched the water. It was neither cold nor warm, but perfectly balanced — a mirror of her skin’s own temperature. The contact made a ripple that carried out to the pillar and back again. When it reached her, the reflection in the water changed.

She was still there — but behind her stood someone else.

She turned sharply. No one.

When she looked back at the pool, her reflection was alone again.

By dusk, she’d convinced herself it was nothing more than imagination, the kind of trick the woods could play with their too-deep hush and too-full shadows. She decided she would find a way out come morning. Kneeling by the fallen branches, she gathered a handful and snapped one, savouring the sharp crack that punched through the silence. It felt irreversible, like a chosen path. For now, she needed rest.

She built a small fire near the pool’s edge and leaned against a fallen log. The crackle of flames filled the hollow, softening the silence. She could almost believe she was safe.

Until the wind rose again.

It came from nowhere — sudden and strong, snuffing out the fire in a heartbeat. The air turned cold. And then, through the dark, a voice: low, distant, and carried on the breeze.

“You shouldn’t have come back.”

Alira froze. Her pulse thundered. “Who’s there?”

No reply. Only the whispering trees, the faint stir of air against her face.

She lit the fire again with shaking hands, but it refused to hold. Every spark was smothered by the same invisible wind. The shadows pressed closer.

And somewhere behind her, a footstep.

She spun around. “I heard you!”

Still nothing. Only the pool, perfectly still, perfectly reflecting — except for one difference. Her reflection wasn’t facing her anymore.

It was turned toward the trees.

She didn’t sleep that night. When dawn came, pale and hesitant, the world seemed gentler, yet wrong in ways she couldn’t name. The pool still shimmered, but the stone pillar had changed. Its carvings had deepened overnight, lines cut sharper, clearer. She traced one with her fingertip, and a faint hum answered beneath her skin. Her mind flicked to an old tale she had once heard—about a pillar that stood at the boundary between worlds, guiding lost souls with its silent song. The stories spoke of it as a keeper of ancient secrets, a sentinel guarding the thin veil that separated reality from dreams. She recalled a childhood tale her grandmother sang, a lullaby about the ‘Sentinel of the Shadows.’ It spoke of names etched in stone, carrying the whispers of the past. Alira’s heart quickened. Was her own forgotten name part of this song’s thread, connecting her to the echoes of forgotten lore?

She drew her hand back sharply.

Then she saw it — carved near the base, almost hidden: her own name.

She stared until the letters blurred. She was certain she’d never been here before. And yet…

The breeze returned, softer this time, curling around her shoulders like an embrace. It seemed to whisper her name, too, or the shape of it. Alira. Over and over, until she couldn’t tell whether the sound was external or simply rising from her mind.

“What do you want from me?” she whispered.

The answer came not in words but in feeling — a pull, gentle but insistent, drawing her gaze back to the pool. The surface was glowing faintly now, threads of silver light moving beneath it like veins.

She stepped closer.

The wind circled once, almost protective, then stilled completely. The world went silent — no birds, no leaves, no breath but her own.

And in the pool, her reflection smiled.

It wasn’t her smile.

It was too slow, too knowing. The reflection raised its hand in greeting. She didn’t move, but her mirrored self did — palm out, pressing against the inside of the water as though against glass. A shimmer rippled outward from the touch.

Something inside her chest fluttered, a sensation between heartbeat and memory.

“Who are you?” she asked.

The reflection tilted its head. “Who are you?” it echoed — but the voice came from outside the water, behind her, soft and very close.

She turned. No one.

When she looked back, the reflection was gone.

Only the pillar remained, humming quietly like a living thing.

As days passed, though she couldn’t quite tell how many, time began to blur. The sun always seemed low, the air always half-lit. Each attempt to retrace her steps back up the hill ended in the same clearing, the same pool, the same murmuring wind. It was as if the forest itself conspired to hold her here. Her initial resolve to escape gradually tangled with an unexpected, disquieting comfort that grew with each failed attempt. But with this comfort came a nagging sense of loss; by staying, she risked forgetting her past entirely, her identity slipping away like sand through her fingers. Hope for freedom wavered against an equally compelling fear of finding the way out, of discovering what awaited her beyond these boundaries—a world she might no longer belong to, filled with memories she might not fit into anymore. She thought of her brother’s laughter, the way he would nudge her when he thought she needed cheering up. His face swam in her mind, always accompanied by the echo of his voice calling her name, as if to remind her of who she had once been. She realised she battled not just the forest’s enigma, but her own deep uncertainties about returning to a life she might no longer belong to.

At first, she spoke to herself for comfort. Then she began to hear replies — faint at first, then clearer, answering her questions in her own voice. It should have frightened her, but somehow it didn’t. The breeze that moved through the hollow felt almost companionable, warm against her skin when she spoke, cool when she fell silent.

She began to think of it as listening.

Sometimes, at night, she dreamt of the reflection standing beside her makeshift bed, watching her sleep. Sometimes it spoke. Sometimes it only smiled. And always, when she woke, the wind was already moving through her hair, carrying the same scent of rain and pine.

Once, half-dreaming, she reached for the figure and felt not air but skin.

Eventually, she stopped trying to leave.

She built her fire each evening, sat beside the pool, and watched her mirrored self do the same. They moved together now, almost perfectly matched. But as the moments passed, she noticed tiny differences. Her reflection would tilt its head a fraction slower or let its smile linger a heartbeat longer. Once, it raised a hand to touch its cheek, a gesture that felt foreign to her own. When she spoke, the reflection’s lips followed just slightly out of sync. And in those moments of subtle dissonance, she felt an unsettling presence — as if the hollow pulsed with a life of its own, whispering that something was awry. Yet despite the strangeness, within this peculiar dance, she experienced the strangest peace, as if the hollow itself recognised her, claimed her.

But one night, the reflection spoke first.

“You know you don’t belong up there anymore.”

Alira frowned. “Up there?”

It nodded toward the sky. “That’s the other side. The waking side.”

“I’m awake now,” Alira asserted, but even as she said it, doubt crept in. She pressed her hands into the earth beneath her, feeling its damp coolness as if seeking reassurance. Her pulse throbbed gently under her fingertips, a reminder of her own existence. Yet, the uncertainty lingered, inviting her to question what ‘waking’ truly entailed.

“Are you?” The reflection smiled gently. “You never did tell us which world is real.”

The word us made her shiver. “There’s only me.”

The reflection’s eyes glinted, bright as water. “There always was.”

And with that, the wind rose again — fierce this time, pulling at her clothes, her hair, her breath. The pool began to churn, glowing brighter and brighter until it drowned the hollow in light. The reflection held out its hand.

“Come back,” it said.

Without thinking, she reached for it.

The world inverted.

Light transformed into weight, air shifted to water, and breath became silence. She seemed to float upward rather than fall downward, enveloped in layers of shimmering silver, until her lungs ached with an unfamiliar heaviness. When she finally opened her eyes, she found herself standing on the opposite side of the surface, gazing up at her reflection above. The sky there was black, sprinkled with stars drifting like embers. Sound moved sluggishly, as though wrapped in fabric, creating a strange, muffled world where every footstep boomed like whispers from afar. The forest was older, every tree appearing twisted and bone-white, casting long shadows that stretched into the endless night.

Her reflection — or her other self — peered down at her through the water’s skin. It didn’t look frightened. It looked… free.

“Don’t leave me here,” Alira tried to shout, but no sound carried. The other her only smiled, placed a hand against the water, and whispered something she couldn’t hear.

Then she turned and walked away.

Alira pounded on the water’s surface, but it might as well have been stone. The pillar glowed brighter, answering her heartbeat. The air — or whatever passed for it — began to hum with that familiar rhythm, and the wind returned, swirling around her though there was no space for it to exist.

The sound of her own name whispered through the current.

Alira. Alira. Alira.

She stopped struggling. The voice — her voice — was all around her now, soft and endless. For a moment, she couldn’t tell whether she was sinking or rising. The edges of the world began to blur.

And then came the breeze again — faint, cool, brushing across her skin.

When the villagers of Halewick passed through the woods that spring, they found the old hollow quiet as ever. The pool lay calm, clear enough to see the stone pillar beneath. The air was imbued with a faint scent, a blend of rain and flowers, reminiscent of a memory half-forgotten. No one remembered who had lived there last; only that the wind always seemed to whisper a name when you passed, Alira, echoing softly, like a gentle breeze brushing the skin.

On still evenings, when the breeze moved through the trees, you could feel it against your skin — cool, familiar — and for a heartbeat you might remember something you were certain you’d forgotten. Something about a woman, and a pool, and the way the wind once called her home.

But the thought would pass as quickly as the breeze itself, leaving only the faintest scent of rain and pine, and a feeling — light and uncertain — that somewhere, just out of reach, the world was still breathing your name.