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The Whispering Pines of Elder Hollow
In the year of our Lord 1847, nestled deep within the rugged wilds of Elder Hollow, there lay a modest campground known only to trappers, drifters, and the occasional preacher bound for the territories. The place was called Whispering Pines, owing to the strange rustle that passed through the tall, ancient trees even on windless nights. Some claimed the sound was naught but owls and foxes. Others said it was the forest speaking its secrets.
One cold October eve, a party of five travelers came upon the clearing—each with their own story, each burdened by secrets of their own.
There was Mr. Thaddeus Crane, a widowed schoolmaster from Vermont with a crooked gait and a leather-bound journal he guarded like gold. Miss Prudence Weller, a spinster of thirty-seven with sharp eyes and a quieter tongue, claimed to be on her way to visit her cousin in Missouri. Ezekiel “Zeke” Boone, a grizzled fur trader with a hawk’s stare and a bloodstained knife ever at his side. Then there were the Davenport twins, Hiram and Cyrus, boys of nineteen, always whispering to each other in tones too low to make out, each carrying a locket worn smooth with use.
They lit a fire beneath the crooked boughs and shared dried meat and hardtack, stories of cholera, lost gold, and prairie ghosts. As the light died down to embers, Miss Weller leaned forward and said, “Does anyone know what became of the missionary camp that once stood here?”
The others looked at her, puzzled.
“There was a Reverend here, some ten years past,” she continued. “Reverend Silas Judd. Brought settlers to tame the Hollow. None were ever seen again.”
Zeke spat into the fire. “They say he tried to build a church, but the land wouldn't take it. Every beam he raised was torn down by mornin’. Folk say he went mad, preachin’ to the trees.”
A hush fell.
That night, the wind returned—though not a leaf stirred—and a low, humming chant echoed through the pines. Miss Weller was the first to vanish. Her bedroll lay neatly folded come morning, her bonnet still hung on a branch—no sign of struggle. No tracks.
The men searched for her. Thaddeus muttered about “pagan lands” and scrawled frantic passages in his journal. Zeke called it “witchery” and clutched his knife tighter. The Davenport boys said little, their faces pale, eyes wide.
The next night, Cyrus disappeared. Hiram swore he saw him standing at the edge of the trees, speaking to a pale figure dressed in a preacher’s coat, holding an open Bible with pages that turned though no breeze blew.
By the third night, Zeke was gone too, his knife found stuck in the trunk of a black pine. Blood led from it to nowhere.
Only Thaddeus and Hiram remained. In desperation, Thaddeus revealed his secret: he was a descendant of Reverend Judd, and he had come to put the land to rest. His journal was filled not with lessons, but Judd’s last sermons—mad ramblings, calls to sacrifice, and invocations of “The Hollowed One Beneath.”
But it was too late.
As the fourth night fell, the fire refused to light. Hiram wept and begged the trees for forgiveness. And as the chanting rose once more, Thaddeus whispered his final entry:
"The Pines whisper still. Not of wind or weather, but of hunger. The Hollow remembers its own."
They were never seen again.
To this day, when the moon hangs low over Elder Hollow and the pines sway though the air is still, travelers claim to hear a voice preaching in forgotten tongues—and see ghostly figures moving just beyond the firelight.
But no one stays at Whispering Pines after dark.
Not anymore.
Mystery Writer
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