Dale was the one who found it.

He had his heart set on moving out of the city–on

finding somewhere quiet for us to raise Theo. Away from the noise, the pollution,
the rush of everything that calloused folks around us.

The house sat on a patch of land that seemed to have been forgotten by time itself.
It was an old two-story farmhouse, sagging under the weight of years, its wood
greyed and splintered. It leaned slightly to the left when you looked at it from
the road, as if it were tired of standing. The shiplapped boards looked warped like
pages from a wet book. The windows were grimy, and the porch steps were crooked,
like a homely smile. The shutters were a sun-bleached green, almost completely void
of color. Beyond the property line was a thicket filled with local tree and shrub
species. The yard was overgrown; weeds and wildflowers sprouted up like survivors
left over to reclaim what was theirs.

The realtor, a thin, nervous woman with sharp eyes, gave us a tour of the inside.
To our surprise, it wasn’t nearly as tattered as the outside. Dark wooden stairs
stood directly in line with the front door. To the left, a large, open kitchen
offered a quiet refuge. There were familiar appliances–a retro mint-colored
refrigerator and a stove that was once white but now carried a patina of grease and
memories. The faded cream cabinets, cracked like old veins, added to the ambiance.
The well-worn wooden floors, scuffed by time, led to a small living room with green
corduroy furniture—a couch, loveseat, and ottoman—arranged around a heavy wooden
table. An old, dusty turntable silently awaited the sound of jazz for its revival.
I nudged Dale and pointed to it; this small detail was a huge deal breaker.

Tucked away from the kitchen was a bathroom that felt suspended in time. The walls,
creamy but cracked, framed a gleaming clawfoot tub. A pedestal sink with porcelain
handles chipping at the edges and a tarnished silver mirror completed the vintage
scene. The air was filled with a faint lavender scent mixed with the mustiness of
old wood.

A small bedroom with pale yellow walls and a white wrought-iron bed finished the
first floor, waiting to be filled with a child’s laughter. Upstairs to the left, a
small study exuded calm with an oak desk, a mismatched pine chair, and an empty
bookshelf stretching across the wall. A brass lamp and ink bottle were the only
items on the desk, the room smelling faintly of stale tobacco. I imagined Dale
sitting there, hard at work on his novel or reading the Sunday papers.

Opposite the study, a larger bedroom contained a massive four-poster bed. The
carved wooden headboard, softened with age, and pale blue walls created a peaceful
atmosphere. Light streamed through two large windows, filling the room with a
familiar snugness. The windowsill bore cigarette burns, and a cloudy ashtray held
the remnants of spent tobacco. Despite its wear, the room felt serene and safe.
That feeling of safety, however, was short-lived. Which is when we saw the pit.

It was in the backyard, large enough to swallow the whole house if it wanted to. It
was more than a hole–it was an abyss, a gaping maw that seemed to stretch down into
something far darker than the earth beneath it. It was not the result of a natural
collapse; it couldn’t be. Nor was it the work of any human hand. No. It felt wrong,
as if it had been there long before the house, long before us. Something about that
pit felt unnatural, like something was lurking beneath the shadows.
“You may want to avoid it,” the realtor said vaguely and then rushed to another
room, leaving us to gaze at the ominous hole in the earth. The edges were worn and
crumbled, as if something otherworldly had dug it out.

“No one knows where it came from or where it leads to. No one really cared to find
out, and rightfully so. That thing is petrifying. My apologies, I uh… care to see
the crawlspace?” said the realtor, quickly leaving us again.

Dale didn’t mind it. “It’s just a hole,” he said, shrugging as we stood on the
porch, looking out at the backyard. “Definitely a fixer-upper, but it’s got good
bones, honey. Maybe we can fill it in. Maybe it’s not so bad.” I thought otherwise,
but I had to bite my tongue. His optimism had been our saving grace so many times
before. We never intended to buy it. Not at first. But the price was almost
laughable for a place that size. And so, against my better judgment, we moved in.
For Theo, for the dream of a simpler life.

Our only neighbor was Maria. She lived in a small, dilapidated shed even older than
ours–a crumbling shack that was in near ruin. Maria was old–ancient, really–and had
a sharpness to her that felt as though she could cut through you like a blade. Her
hair was long and white, her skin thin and weathered like an old leather satchel.
But she didn’t talk to us. Ever. I don’t think she could.

Still, there was something about her that made my skin crawl. She would stand at
the edge of her sad excuse of a garden, behind her sad excuse of a house, and just
stare. She was always staring. Whether it was at us or the pit, her gaze weighed
down on you like a hundred pounds. Her eyes were dark, impossibly black, and I
never once saw her blink. She wasn’t unfriendly. No, it was worse than that. She
was indifferent, like she had no interest in us at all. Except for the pit. Dale
suggested that she was senile, which sounded believable. But not to me.

It was a few weeks after we had moved in, and I had just finished unpacking the
last box. Dale was plugging away on his typewriter in the study, finishing a
chapter of his upcoming novel. The keys sounded like coins bouncing off one another
in a rhythmic, peaceful melody. It was starting to truly feel like home.

Theo had already claimed the backyard as his kingdom. He was a curious child,
always running through the yard, exploring every corner of the land. I lost sight
of him from the window in the kitchen. It wasn’t unusual; he’d been known to wander
off, chasing butterflies or climbing trees. You could always tell he was around
because of his little singing voice. I realized I couldn’t hear it any longer, so I
called his name. There was no answer. I knew something was wrong.

My heart sank into my stomach as I yelled for Dale to help me. He started searching
every room in the house as I ran to the backyard, begging for Theo to show himself,
hoping he would pop out from behind a tree. My eyes darted to every corner of the
yard, eventually landing on Maria, who stood motionless behind her house in the
muddy garden that was overgrown with a mess of weeds. Her gaze wasn’t on me, but
she seemed focused on something in the distance. That’s when I saw Theo teetering
on the edge of the pit.

I remember running.
He couldn’t hear me. I was screaming at the top of my lungs in a full sprint
towards my son, who stood at the far edge, swaying as if hypnotized. His small body
was so close to the edge that it seemed impossible he wouldn’t fall, yet he didn’t
move. His face was slack, his eyes wide and unblinking, fixed on the darkness
below.

Don’t fall, I begged. Please God, don’t let him fall.

I reached him just as he lifted a foot to take a step forward. I grabbed his arm,
yanking him back with all the force I had. He fell on top of me in the long grass,
his head landing on my heaving chest. He didn’t cry. He just stared blankly at me,
as if nothing happened. I cried hysterically, having almost lost my little boy.
Dale embraced us as we came back to our house, my puffy eyes stinging from the
sweat and tears. I looked over to where Maria was standing, only to see she had
disappeared into seclusion.

The next day, Dale contacted the local lumberyard and began building a fence. With
the help of some of the workers there, they erected a fence in less than two days.
The fence came up to my shoulders and wrapped around our property in a horseshoe
shape. It extended all the way to the road on both sides, blocking off the view of
Maria’s eyesore of a house. Throughout the construction, Maria stood watching the
men work. It wasn’t a look of curiosity. It was something darker, something
disapproving. A good twenty-five feet beyond the fence’s limits was the pit, an
eerie pool of black mystery that loomed perilously.

I woke to the sound of cracking wood. My eyes flashed open in worry. Dale was
asleep next to me; the moonlight bounced off his stubble like a forest canopy. My
eyes scanned our bedroom for any sign of the noise. The light spilled into the
room, casting long shadows across the floor and the vanity. Was somebody breaking
in? I thought frantically. I listened for another few seconds and heard nothing.
Probably just a tree falling in the woodline. Ha. I guess it does make a sound when
nobody’s around.

This time it was closer, more of a splintering sound. It wasn’t in the house; I
could tell that much. It appeared to be coming from behind the house. I jumped out
of bed and ran to our windows. The only light that shone was from the moon, which
flooded the uneven terrain around our backyard with heavy shadows. I scanned the
silhouettes of trees in the distance and made my way up to where the pit would be;
it was lost in the darkness. And then I saw her.

Maria was standing at the base of the fence, tearing down the work Dale had done
with his own hands. She swung an axe and struck the pickets, pulling and
splintering the wood apart, her movements slow but deliberate. Several boards had
been removed already, and she continued to hack at the rails on the inner side of
the fence. How a woman her age could be producing that much power didn’t make sense
to me; it was terrifying. Theo.

I shook Dale awake. “Dale,” I said frantically. “Dale, she’s–she’s ripping the
fence down.”
His eyes looked confused, but once he heard that axe connect with the wood, he
joined me at the window. His entire demeanor changed. “Sylvia, go get Theo. Now!”
he asserted.

We scrambled downstairs, separating at the bottom of the stairs. I ran into Theo’s
room, the moonlight draped across his sleeping body. I shut the door, raced to the
kitchen window, and turned on the back porch light, where I saw Maria continuing
her destructive campaign. She’s not even breaking a sweat. Dale approached her,
yelling for her to stop. Ignoring him, she continued swinging, fracturing the wood
like a crazed lumberjack. “Hey! That’s enough, you hag!” he shouted, reaching for
her shoulder.

Without hesitation, Maria slammed her hand into Dale’s throat, who grabbed at his
neck, gasping for air. He stumbled to his knees, and Maria kicked his ribs. Dale
let out a squawk as he rolled backwards. Maria returned to the fence, pried the axe
out of the fragmented wood, and turned back to Dale. She slowly started moving
towards him with harmful intent.

My eyes welled with tears as I gripped my hands over my mouth. I wanted to scream
but couldn’t produce any sound. I was frozen in fear watching my husband and this
deranged woman who was hellbent with malice.

Dale returned to his feet, dazed but aware of the situation, and began to backpedal
towards the pit. Maria kept a constant pace and pursued him with the axe in both
hands, her skin taut like a crude drum. Dale froze as he ran out of room. The porch
light illuminated all the way to the pit, but nothing past it. He peered down into
it and couldn’t tell where it began or ended. The pungent stench of sulfur
permeated the surrounding air. He turned to see Maria with her arms overhead, the
cheeks of the axe illuminated under the moonlight. I shrieked like a banshee.

In one swift motion, Dale lunged towards Maria and used his momentum to swing her
into the pit. The silence was suffocating. She made no sound. She didn’t scream.
She never hit the bottom. She just disappeared into the darkness. Dale knelt in the
grass, lamenting under the luminescence.

In the weeks following, Dale couldn’t stop drinking. The days stretched on, endless
and empty. He would frequently fall asleep in the study behind a closed door. Theo
would ask if Daddy was okay, and Dale would put on a fake smile and tell him,
“Yeah, buddy. I’m doing just fine.” He didn’t speak of it. Only the bottle seemed
to speak for him, every night a little more, every drink a little deeper into the
abyss.

Then Theo disappeared again. I didn’t notice at first–the silence had become so
normal. It wasn't until the sun began to dip behind the horizon that panic clawed
at my chest. We yelled until our throats were raw. I feared the worst and began to
cry into my hands. “What if he–,” I choked on the rest of the words and buried my
head into Dale’s shoulder. This seemed to spark a fire in him–his eyes met mine,
and he shook his head. “We will find him,” he pronounced. “Where haven’t we
checked?” Our eyes simultaneously landed on the one place we feared the most:
Maria’s shack.
Upon entering, Dale and I were horrified by our findings. The air in her shack was
thick with a stifling, acrid odor that made my eyes and nose burn. Dampness seeped
from every crack, the wooden beams swollen and dark with rot. The floor was uneven
and slick with a layer of grime. The flickering light from several guttering
candles cast long shadows that crawled across the room, like a creature in the
dark.

Books lie scattered haphazardly across the floor, their covers stained and their
pages yellowed with age. Ancient texts opened to dog-eared pages, the ink faded and
smeared by countless hands. Symbols of witchcraft scrawled on the walls–pentagrams,
cryptic runes, and hastily drawn sigil-pulsed with an unsettling energy. Phrases of
a foreign tongue painted in blood-red strokes, their meanings as elusive as the
dark forces that lingered there.

A goat skull, its hollow eyes dark and empty, sat upon a rickety shelf, surrounded
by tarnished amulets, cracked vials, and half-opened jars filled with cloying herbs
and spices. The room felt alive with secrets, rich with danger and the promise of
the unknown.

Sylvia, get out of this place. Right now, I thought. But Dale wouldn’t budge. He
couldn’t. In all of our years of being married, I’d never seen the look that was on
his face at this moment. It was a look of utter aversion; his eyes lingered at
every unsightly horror within these walls. I practically dragged him out of that
shack.

As we stepped outside, we saw something that defied everything we’d ever

experienced; I couldn’t believe my eyes. I have to be hallucinating. Maria–or what
appeared to be Maria– floated effortlessly in midair, several feet above the pit.
Her pale, translucent skin glowed with an eerie, unearthly light. A palpable,
demonic aura coiled around her, dark and swirling, like steam rising from the
depths of the underworld. The air sputtered with raw energy, a magnetic force that
pulled our eyes to her figure, even as our instincts told us to look away. Her hair
moved as though submerged in water, flowing around her face in an ethereal halo.
Her tar-black eyes, wide and unblinking, seem to pierce through the very soul of
anyone who dared to look. The air filled with the redolence of decay–a malodorous
scent that was almost nauseatingly sweet. She was death reborn—powerful,
untouchable, otherworldly.

She floated in place, her arms outstretched, her fingers beckoning. Her mouth
opened and released a shrill and unnatural screech, vibrating with an unearthly
resonance that seemed to emanate from the very bottom of the pit itself. The sound
was both too loud and too soft, an agonizing contradiction that made the air
crackle, as if the sound could tear apart the very fabric of reality. The name she
called was distorted–a twisted echo that rang in my ears like a knife scraping
across glass: “Theo.”

No sooner than the sound ceased, Theo crawled out from beneath our crawlspace,
completely unscathed. I screamed his name at the top of my lungs, and Dale broke
out into a sprint towards him. Theo seemed mesmerized by Maria, in a sort of
trance. He ignored my cries for attention, and Dale advanced. Theo’s gaze never
left Maria’s aura, and he started moving towards the pit, hypnotized by the
preternatural.
I lost all sense of reality. I bolted for my son. Dale was much closer to grabbing
Theo than I was, but I didn't let up in my gait. “Please, Theo!” I pleaded. “Don’t
do it! Come back to me!”

But it was too late. Dale reached for him but only grasped air. As soon as Theo
jumped, Maria disappeared into thin air. There was no scream. There was only the
terrible silence that stretched and stretched and stretched until it swallowed the
world whole.