My grandfather told me never to enter the grove at the far end of the village. He had many rules when I was a child, but that one he repeated with a gravity that left no room for curiosity.

  "You do not go near the crooked trees," he would say, his weathered face shadowed by something older than fear. "You do not speak their name. You do not even think of them when the sun goes down."

  As a child, I obeyed. There was something about the way he said it that settled in my bones, like frost creeping under my skin. The grove lay past the crumbling stone wall at the edge of our land, its trees twisted and bent as though caught mid-scream. Even from a distance, they looked wrong. Their branches clawed at the sky, never blooming, not even in spring.

  When I was eleven, my friend Tomas dared me to step over the wall. He was older, braver, and his father did not tell him such stories. I refused, and Tomas laughed at me until my cheeks burned. He said I was still a babe, still clutching my grandfather’s skirts.

  That summer, Tomas disappeared.

  They searched the woods for weeks, calling his name until their voices cracked. His mother tore her hands bloody clawing through the underbrush. They found no trace of him. Not a shred of clothing, not a footprint in the mud.

  That autumn, the trees in the crooked grove turned black.

  I grew up, left the village behind, and thought I had left the stories with it. But the years stretched long and thin, and after my grandfather died, I returned to settle his affairs. The house felt hollow without him, a brittle shell filled with echoes. Dust drifted in the light from the small windows, and the air smelled of old books and damp stone.

  I told myself I would stay only long enough to sell the place. Just long enough to clear out the remnants of his life.

  But something pulled at me.

  The first night back, I dreamed of the grove. In my dream, the trees swayed as though breathing. Something pale moved between them, glimpsed only for a moment before vanishing behind the gnarled trunks. I woke with my heart pounding and the bitter taste of copper on my tongue.

  The second night, I found footprints in the dirt outside the kitchen door. Bare, human footprints, too large for a child, too small for a man. They trailed off toward the stone wall.

  I did not sleep the third night.

  Instead, I sat by the window, watching the horizon darken. A thin mist crept along the ground as the sun dipped below the hills. The grove stood in silhouette, its black branches writhing against the dying light. I should have looked away, but I could not. I watched as something shifted between the trees. Slow, deliberate movements, as though whatever it was knew I watched.

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  My grandfather had kept journals. I found them buried beneath loose floorboards in his study. Most were filled with mundane entries about harvests, weather, and village gossip. But one, bound in cracked leather, held darker tales.

  He wrote of the old beliefs, the ones whispered when the fires burned low. He spoke of the Hollow Folk, pale figures who moved between worlds, feeding on memory and bone. He claimed they lived beneath the crooked grove, in tunnels older than the village itself.

  They called to the lonely. They beckoned to those who strayed too close.

  And when the time came, they took.

  I tried to dismiss it as the ramblings of an old man, but I could not ignore the footprints. Nor could I ignore the way the wind carried faint voices at night, voices that sounded like children laughing in the dark.

  On the fourth day, I found something hanging from the old oak beside the house. A bundle of twigs, tied with twine, shaped like a man with broken arms. Its chest was hollowed out, and inside rested a small scrap of cloth. I recognized the pattern instantly.

  It was from Tomas’s shirt.

  My breath caught in my throat. My skin prickled with cold sweat. I burned the effigy in the fireplace, though the flames fought me, sputtering as though something inside resisted the fire. When it finally caught, the bundle shrieked. Not the crackle of burning wood, but a high, thin wail that chased me into my nightmares.

  I should have left. I should have packed my bags and fled that very moment. But some cursed pull kept me tethered. Maybe it was the blood of my grandfather running through my veins. Maybe it was the unspoken bond to the land itself.

  Or maybe, deep down, I needed to know.

  That night, I crossed the stone wall.

  The ground felt wrong beneath my feet, soft and yielding like rotten flesh. The air grew colder with every step, heavy with the scent of damp earth and decay. As I approached the center of the grove, I saw that the trees were not merely crooked.

  They were deformed.

  Their bark twisted into grotesque shapes, faces frozen in silent screams, mouths open as if caught in the moment of their last breath. Some of the faces were disturbingly human. Familiar, even.

  I recognized Tomas.

  His face peered from the trunk of the largest tree, his eyes wide with terror, his lips parted in a voiceless plea.

  I stumbled back, my breath ragged. Roots coiled around my feet like serpents, pulling me to the ground. From the shadows, figures emerged. Tall, gaunt, their skin pale as bone. Their eyes were pits of endless black, void of mercy or thought.

  They spoke without moving their mouths.

  I tried to scream, but no sound escaped me. The Hollow Folk reached for me, their fingers long and brittle, like branches starved of light. They touched my face, and the world dissolved into cold and silence.

  When I awoke, I was home.

  The sun rose beyond the hills, casting golden light through the window. For a moment, I believed it had been a nightmare. Then I saw the footprints in the dust. Small, bare feet, circling my bed.

  I have tried to leave the village, but the road twists back upon itself. No matter how far I walk, I return to the crooked grove. The Hollow Folk wait among the trees, patient as the slow death of memory.

  I understand now. My grandfather stayed not out of duty, but because escape was never possible. The grove binds those who know its secrets.

  The village is quiet. The fields lie fallow. The houses stand empty.

  Only I remain, and the Hollow Folk grow hungry.

  If you find this letter, if you ever hear the laughter in the wind, do not follow it. Do not cross the stone wall. Do not seek the grove.

  For once you have seen them, they will never let you go.