The village of Elmhollow had always been quiet, a place where time moved slower and the wind carried whispers of old. It was said that the land was once sacred, a meeting ground for spirits before the first settlers arrived. The villagers spoke of an ancient curse, though none could remember its origin. They only knew that those who disturbed the old stones or trespassed into the forest beyond the river were never seen again. Eleanor had come to Elmhollow seeking peace after a life filled with loss. Her brother had died in a strange accident, her mother had vanished without a trace, and her father had gone mad from grief. She believed the quiet of the village would heal her. But the moment she stepped off the creaking wooden bridge that led into town, she felt it—a coldness that didn’t belong to the autumn air. The villagers greeted her with polite smiles, but their eyes lingered too long on her face. They never asked about her past, nor did they offer help. Instead, they gave her a small cottage at the edge of the woods, far from the center of town. “It’s peaceful,” they said. “You’ll like it.” The house was old, its walls warped by time and damp. The floorboards creaked when she walked, as if the house itself were breathing. One evening, while exploring the attic, Eleanor found a hidden compartment behind a loose panel. Inside lay a bundle of yellowed papers tied with a red ribbon. The writings were in an unfamiliar script, but some symbols were etched into the wood of the wall—symbols that looked like they had been carved by hand, not by tools. She couldn’t read them, but she felt their weight in her chest. That night, she dreamed of a woman with long black hair and hollow eyes, standing at the edge of a dark lake. The woman called her name, but the sound was wrong, like a voice from another world. When Eleanor woke, her hands were covered in dirt, and the window above her bed was open, though she had not touched it. Days passed, and the dreams grew stronger. The woman appeared more often, always near the river, always watching. Eleanor began to notice things—the way the shadows stretched unnaturally in the morning light, the way the birds stopped singing when she approached the forest. She started to feel watched, not just by the villagers, but by something else, something deeper. One night, she followed the woman’s voice to the riverbank. The water was still, reflecting the moonlight like a mirror. The woman stood there, her feet bare, her dress flowing as if caught in an invisible breeze. “You are not welcome here,” the woman whispered, her voice echoing in Eleanor’s mind. “But you are already part of the curse.” Eleanor tried to run, but the ground beneath her feet shifted, pulling her forward. The woman reached out, and Eleanor felt a sharp pain in her chest, like a needle piercing her heart. She fell to her knees, gasping, and when she looked up, the woman was gone. The river was now dark and churning, and the trees around her seemed to lean closer, their branches whispering secrets. The next morning, the villagers gathered outside her door. They said she had screamed through the night, but no one had heard anything. They offered to help, but Eleanor refused. She knew what they were hiding, and she knew she had crossed a line she could not return from. In the weeks that followed, Eleanor became more withdrawn. She spent hours in the attic, studying the symbols, trying to understand. She found a journal among the papers, written in the same strange script. It spoke of a ritual, a binding between the living and the dead. The curse was not a punishment, but a debt—one that had to be paid. One night, she performed the ritual. She lit candles, arranged the symbols in a circle, and spoke the words she had copied from the journal. The air grew heavy, and the temperature dropped. A figure emerged from the darkness, not the woman, but a man with a face like a mask, his eyes empty and glowing. He spoke, but his voice was not his own. “You have awakened what should have remained asleep,” he said. “Now the cycle begins again.” Eleanor felt a pull, as if the earth itself were calling her. She tried to stop the ritual, but the symbols burned into her skin, and the man’s voice echoed in her mind. The last thing she saw before everything went black was the woman, standing at the river’s edge, smiling for the first time. When the villagers found her, she was gone. Only her journal remained, its final page blank. No one dared to speak of what happened, but every full moon, the river glowed with an eerie light, and the wind carried a voice that no one could quite understand. Some say it is Eleanor, trying to find her way back. Others say it is the curse, waiting for the next soul to answer its call.