‘Hemlock Hollow’: haunted by places we love

Please welcome guest author Culley Holderfield. Holderfield learned to love stories on the front porch of a cabin in a hollow in Western North Carolina. After completing his studies at UNC-Chapel Hill, he found his way to South America and later to Africa and Europe. When not writing or working in community development finance, he spends his time tromping through woods and paddling rivers. His short stories and poetry have appeared in a variety of publications. We’re pleased to offer you an excerpt from his debut novel, ‘Hemlock Hollow,’ forthcoming from Regal House. ‘Hemlock Hollow’ publishes on December 6^th and is available for pre-order now.

Synopsis: In the process of renovating the cabin her late father has bequeathed her, archaeologist Caroline McAlister unearths a century old journal, an unsolved murder, and the ghosts of a past she has run from her entire adult life. Hemlock Hollow is about how the places we love haunt us, and how we haunt them in return. 

The box wasn’t much to look at. Old and metal, at one point it had probably been gray. Over the years it had oxidized green. There were three clasps on the front, now corroded with grit and rust. Micah and his crew had discovered it in the attic and carted it through the old cabin to the card table we had set up out back. Decades of dirt and dust left a trail through the loft, down the stairs, and up the hill. More crumbled onto the tarp I had laid out.

My family had owned the cabin for my entire life, and I had never seen this box before. It had been sitting in an attic I didn’t know existed, waiting to be found for who knows how long.

“What do you say, Caroline?” Micah asked, wiping his brow with a bandana. He tugged at his scraggly beard. “Should we open it?”

I pondered the box. Whether to toss it and its mystery contents into the giant waste bin out front, or to open it and take the plunge into a dark past that I had spent a lifetime trying to escape.

Down the hill, Micah’s crew continued with their demolition work, their sledgehammers echoing through the hollow. Up the mountain a crow cawed.

“Well?” Micah asked. “I can get a crowbar.”

I sighed, my reluctance giving way to curiosity and compulsion. “If you get me a blowtorch and a flathead screwdriver, I can open this. I am an archaeologist after all.” 

“That so?” His eyes widened. He took off his Wilco hat and ran a hand through his untamed hair. “Like Indiana Jones?”

Everyone’s favorite archaeologist was in no way an archaeologist, but rather than lecture my general contractor, I shook my head. “No. More interpretive than old Indy. Less running from boulders and ghosts, more thinking about the ancient stars and writing about them.”

“You best watch what you say. Opening that box may release the spirit of the hollow.” He chuckled, winked, and plunged down the mountain to his old pickup truck.

I laughed at his joke, but that was exactly what I was afraid of.

The summer I turned twelve, Delores Appleton and Martha Boston, my two best friends at the time, had come up from Greensboro to spend the month of July at the cabin with me. We all shared a double bed upstairs. Oh, the late-night conversations we had! Even now in middle age, I blush at the suppositions we made about sex and boys and romance. 

Late one night, Delores and Martha had dozed off. I knew this because Delores snored, and Martha had the deep breathing of the truly asleep. I woke having to use the bathroom. It was so dark that I couldn’t tell if I had opened my eyes or not. I pushed down the covers and tuned my senses to the night. Outside, a breeze rustled the tall hemlocks. A spray of needles and tiny cones skittered down the tin roof. Katydids, so raucous in the early evening, had quieted to a low dirge. Everyone lay fast asleep; Mom and Dad in their bedroom on the main floor, Andrew, my brother, in his bedroom across from mine upstairs, the girls in the bed with me. The only bathroom was downstairs. 

As I steeled myself to climb from the bed, the old stairs creaked as if someone was coming up. I swiveled my head to better listen. Another step squeaked. Higher this time. Closer. I waited, clenching my urgent bladder. The next step let out a long and drawn-out sigh, as if the climber had sunk a heavy foot slowly. My mind ran through the possibilities. It could be my father, climbing up to check on us. I waited for his balding head to emerge in the stairwell. Another step followed, this time barely perceptible. My heart pounded. A step creaked near the top of the stairs. Maybe it was my mother.

As if on cue, everything fell silent, even the katydids outside. The air stilled. All the hair on my body stood straight out. A bone-deep chill chased the covers up my neck. I was overcome with the sense that somebody was in the room with us, somebody who wasn’t family and who wasn’t exactly alive.

The visage of a bearded sorrowful man in a brown suit flashed through my mind like an afterimage. Anguish seized me. I had never felt anything like that before. A twelve-year-old should never feel such despair. 

He was standing at the end of the bed. Though I didn’t dare look, I knew he was there. I buried my face in my pillow. He moved beside me, his breath heavy in my ear. 

I shuddered at the thirty-year-old memory and wiped my sweaty palms on my jeans. It had been since grad school that I’d actually worked with artifacts. These days I spent a lot of time looking at the stars from sites where ancient peoples had done the same thing. But I did remember a trick or two. I began chipping away at the crust of the thing. Soon Micah returned with the blowtorch and screwdriver and handed both to me. 

I lit the blowtorch, which induced a broad grin. “Nice,” he said, far too enthralled at my ability to work a tool.

I held the torch just close enough to heat the three clasps for the metal to start to expand.

“You don’t by chance have any liquid nitrogen, do you?” I asked.

He scrunched his eyes. “No.”

I killed the torch. Without chemicals, I’d have to apply brute force. Using the screwdriver, I worked the clasps until they gave way. I slid the lid up, moving it bit by bit until it let go and popped open. 

My heart jumped. Dozens of pairs of eyes caught the light of day. They searched the world from a scattering of old photos. Nestled among the photos was a journal. It was leather-bound, stained at the edges, but cinched tight.