Evergreen Hollow

I came up with this story one day when we were driving back from some family excursion. We passed a sign that said Evergreen Hollow and this idea of a ghost story popped into my head. This is just a little sample of the story that’s been banging around for the past year or so.

Claire Whitmore had always believed that places could remember. Some memories were gentle—soft impressions in the grain of old floorboards, laughter held in the walls like a lingering perfume. Others clung like ghosts, refusing to be forgotten.

Evergreen Hollow was the latter.

The Virginia estate stretched before her in the dying light, its once-white columns gray with age, its shutters weathered and sagging like tired eyelids. The air was thick with the scent of damp earth and the musk of horses, remnants of the grand training grounds it had once been. The house loomed in the distance, standing watch over the land like a sentinel of its own past.

She pulled her coat tighter around herself, suppressing the shiver that ran down her spine. It was late October, but the cold here was different—seeping, clinging, like the estate itself had a pulse beneath the soil.

“You sure you want to do this?” James Calloway’s voice cut through the silence, low and steady. The stable master stood beside her, arms crossed, his sharp green eyes studying her like he was waiting for her to change her mind.

“I didn’t come all this way to turn back,” she said, exhaling a slow breath.

He nodded once, but his face remained unreadable. “Then you should know—this place don’t take kindly to outsiders. Or anyone, really.”

Claire turned her gaze back to the estate. “Good thing I’m not just anyone.”

A Legacy of Ashes

She had inherited Evergreen Hollow from a distant relative, a woman she barely remembered. The letter had arrived six months ago, an offer too strange to ignore. The estate is yours, should you wish to claim it. But be warned—the past is not always willing to stay buried.

She had laughed at the dramatic phrasing at first, dismissing it as the ramblings of an eccentric old woman. But standing here now, the weight of the words pressed against her chest like a stone.

Inside, the house smelled of dust and old wood, the kind of scent that spoke of long-forgotten secrets. Her footsteps echoed as she moved through the grand foyer, her fingers trailing along the curved banister of the staircase. A massive mirror hung across from the entrance, its surface warped with age.

As she passed, she could have sworn she saw a shadow that wasn’t hers.

She paused, heart thudding, but when she turned back, the glass reflected only the dimly lit hall behind her.

Just her imagination.

She moved deeper into the house, pushing open a set of double doors that led into what must have once been a study. Books lined the walls, their leather spines cracked with time. Papers lay scattered across a heavy oak desk, untouched for decades. And above the fireplace, a portrait loomed—a woman in a riding dress, her dark eyes solemn, lips pressed into something that was almost a smile but not quite.

Claire felt an inexplicable pull toward the painting. The woman’s gaze held her, searching, knowing.

A name whispered through her mind before she could stop it.

Isabelle.

She didn’t know how she knew, but she was certain.

A gust of wind rattled the windows, and for a brief moment, Claire thought she heard something else beneath it. A whisper, soft and pleading.

Find me.

She took a step back, pulse quickening. The room suddenly felt smaller, the air too thick to breathe.

It was just the house settling. The wind. The weight of too many years pressing in.

Still, as she left the study and climbed the stairs toward the bedrooms, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was being watched.

The First Night

Sleep didn’t come easily.

The guest room was grand but cold, the four-poster bed draped in thick, dust-coated curtains. Claire lay awake, listening to the rhythmic creak of the old house. At some point, she must have drifted off, because when she opened her eyes, the world had changed.

The air was warmer, scented with fresh hay and honeysuckle. The light had shifted, no longer the dull glow of the bedside lamp but the golden hues of late afternoon. The walls were different—brighter, alive. And she was no longer alone.

A woman stood by the window, dressed in a riding habit of deep green. Her auburn hair was pinned in a loose twist, strands escaping to brush against her cheeks. She was staring outside, fingers pressed against the glass.

Claire tried to speak, but no sound came.

The woman turned, and for a fleeting second, their eyes met—dark and filled with something unspoken. A warning. A plea.

Then, suddenly, she wasn’t there.

Claire sat up with a gasp, her breath coming in quick, shallow bursts. The room was back to its decayed state, dust motes swirling in the pale light of the bedside lamp.

It had been a dream. A hallucination. A trick of the mind.

And yet, when she looked toward the window, she swore she could still see the faintest outline of a handprint on the glass.

Echoes of the Past

The days that followed were filled with unease. The horses in the stables shied away from the training arena, their eyes rolling white whenever Claire led them near. At night, she would wake to the sound of hoofbeats thundering across the grounds, only to find the pastures empty.

James noticed her restlessness but said little.

“You’re seeing things,” he finally said one evening, leaning against the barn door as she brushed down one of the mares.

“Maybe.” She didn’t believe it.

He exhaled, running a hand through his dark hair. “Look, you should know—this place has a history. A bad one. People don’t talk about it much, but they remember.”

“Remember what?”

He hesitated. “A woman. Isabelle Montgomery. She lived here during the war. Was supposed to marry some Confederate officer, but she fell in love with someone else.”

Claire’s stomach turned. “Nathaniel Quinn.”

James’s expression darkened. “So, you already know.”

“I don’t know how, but… yeah.”

He studied her, then glanced toward the house. “They never found her body. Folks say she still walks the grounds, looking for him.”

Claire gripped the brush tighter, her pulse pounding in her ears.

She had seen her.

She was sure of it.

And she had the sinking feeling that if she didn’t uncover the truth of what happened at Evergreen Hollow, she wouldn’t be the last.