# The Silence Beneath Hollowmere
On the northern edge of the country, where maps thinned into guesswork and the sea breathed like a living thing, there stood the village of Hollowmere. It was not a place people found by accident. The road curved away from it as if embarrassed, and the trains refused to stop there after dusk. Even the birds seemed to avoid its air, choosing instead to circle high above, watchful, silent.
Hollowmere had one defining feature: a lake so still it looked like a slab of black glass laid gently into the earth. The villagers called it Mere Hollow, though outsiders often reversed the words without realizing why that felt wrong. The lake had no visible inlet or outlet. Rain fell upon it; fog rose from it; but nothing ever seemed to leave.
On the morning Eliza Morland arrived, the lake was perfectly calm.
She came with a leather suitcase, a notebook already half-filled, and a letter that smelled faintly of smoke. The letter had been written by her uncle Thomas, a man she had not seen in nearly fifteen years, and it contained only a few lines:
*If you still believe the truth matters, come to Hollowmere. Something here is unfinished.*
Thomas had died two weeks later.
Eliza rented the only room available at the Anchor House Inn, a narrow building that leaned forward like it was listening. The innkeeper, Mrs. Calder, handed over the key without asking Eliza's name.
"You're here about the lake," she said, not unkindly.
Eliza paused. "Is it that obvious?"
Mrs. Calder smiled, but her eyes didn't move. "It always is."
That first night, Eliza slept poorly. The silence pressed against the walls, thick and deliberate. No wind rattled the windows. No insects sang. At some point before dawn, she woke with the certainty that she was being watched—not from the hallway, but from below, as though the ground itself were attentive.
She dreamed of water filling her lungs, slow and cold, while unseen hands held her still.
---
Hollowmere revealed itself reluctantly in daylight. The streets were clean, the houses orderly, the people polite to the point of stiffness. Conversations ended when Eliza approached. Curtains twitched. Doors closed softly but firmly.
At the village records office—a converted chapel with boarded windows—she found what she had expected and feared: gaps. Births listed without deaths. Deaths listed without causes. Entire years summarized in a single, careful sentence: *No notable incidents recorded.*
"What happened here?" she murmured to no one.
The clerk, a thin man named Harold Pike, cleared his throat. "History is subjective," he said. "We prefer not to dwell."
"On what?"
He met her gaze then, briefly. "On what the lake remembers."
---
Eliza first walked to Mere Hollow that afternoon. A narrow path led through a stand of alder trees, their roots twisting like arthritic fingers into the soil. The air grew colder with every step, and sound faded until even her own breathing felt intrusive.
The lake lay before her, impossibly dark. No ripples. No reflection of the sky above—only a suggestion of depth, as if the surface were a doorway rather than a mirror.
She knelt and dipped her fingers into the water.
It was warm.
She recoiled, heart hammering. Lakes in the north were never warm, not even in summer. Yet the water clung to her skin like a living thing, leaving behind a faint tingling, as if she had brushed against something electrical.
Behind her, a voice said, "It doesn't like to be touched."
She turned sharply. A boy stood a few paces away, perhaps sixteen, with dark hair and eyes too old for his face.
"Who?" Eliza asked.
"The lake," he replied. "Or what's in it."
---
His name was Jonah Reed, and he was the only person in Hollowmere who spoke to Eliza without hesitation. They sat on a fallen log near the trees, never quite turning their backs on the water.
"People used to drown here," Jonah said matter-of-factly. "Not by accident. The lake called them."
Eliza swallowed. "Called them how?"
"In their dreams. In their grief. In their guilt." He picked at the bark with a knife. "It knows what you carry."
Eliza thought of her uncle, of unanswered questions, of the long silence between them that had ended only with his death. "Why doesn't it call everyone?"
Jonah shrugged. "Some people listen. Some don't."
"Do you?"
He hesitated. "It calls me every night."
---
The truth emerged slowly, like a body rising from deep water.
Decades ago, Hollowmere had been larger, louder. Children played by the lake. Lovers met there at dusk. Then came the first disappearance—a woman mourning her husband, last seen walking toward the water. Then a man accused of a crime he swore he didn't commit. Then a child who claimed the lake whispered secrets no one else would tell.
Panic followed. Priests, doctors, officials—all failed to explain it. Finally, the village elders made a decision.
They would feed the lake.
Those who were troubled, disruptive, or simply inconvenient were encouraged—gently at first, then firmly—to walk into the water. In return, the lake grew quiet. Crops improved. Storms passed by. Hollowmere survived.
"What did they think the lake was?" Eliza asked Jonah one evening.
"A mirror," he said. "Or a mouth."
---
Eliza found her uncle's final journal hidden behind a loose stone in the inn's cellar. The pages were warped with moisture, the ink blurred in places, but the message was clear.
*The lake is not evil,* Thomas had written. *It is hungry. And it has learned our names.*
He described dreams of standing at the water's edge, hearing voices rise from below—not screams, but whispers, layered and patient. He believed the lake held the consciousness of those given to it, merged into something vast and aware.
*It remembers everything we try to forget,* the journal ended. *And it wants to be whole.*
That night, Eliza dreamed of standing beneath the lake's surface, breathing easily while shadows drifted past her like schools of fish. They spoke in unison.
*Stay,* they said.
---
The village council confronted her the next morning.
"You need to leave," Mrs. Calder said, her voice trembling despite her composed expression. "You're waking it up."
Eliza laughed softly. "You never put it to sleep. You just stopped listening."
Harold Pike slammed his hand on the table. "We did what we had to do!"
"So did it," Eliza replied. "And now it's calling in its debt."
Outside, the ground shook—not violently, but insistently. The lake sang.
---
People gathered at Mere Hollow as if summoned by instinct. The water rippled for the first time in living memory, glowing faintly from below. Faces appeared beneath the surface—dozens, hundreds—familiar and strange, eyes open, mouths moving.
Jonah stood beside Eliza, pale but resolute. "It wants a voice," he said. "Someone to speak for it."
Eliza understood then why she had been called. Why her uncle had reached out. Why the lake had felt warm to her touch.
"I'll go," she said.
Jonah grabbed her arm. "You won't come back."
She smiled sadly. "None of them did. But they're not gone."
---
Eliza stepped into the lake.
The water closed around her, gentle and enclosing. She felt memories flood her—not just her own, but others': love, fear, regret, hope. The lake was full of stories, pressing against each other, desperate to be acknowledged.
She did not drown.
She listened.
---
When dawn came, the lake was still once more. But something had changed.
The silence lifted.
Birds returned. Wind brushed the water's surface. The villagers felt lighter, though none could explain why. Jonah swore he could no longer hear the lake in his dreams—only a quiet presence, watching, waiting.
Eliza Morland was never seen again.
But sometimes, at dusk, when the light strikes Mere Hollow just right, the water reflects the sky perfectly. And if you listen closely, you can hear a woman's voice beneath the ripples, telling stories the village can no longer forget.
Hollowmere endures.
And the lake remembers.