Fogbound Pilgrimage to the Hex House
Walked into the morning like stepping into an old photograph someone left out in the rain. A soft, heavy fog rolled through Southern Pennsylvania’s hills, muting the world into shades of pewter and ghosts. I followed the narrow road into Rehmeyer’s Hollow, where the trees lean close, like old friends whispering secrets they’re tired of carrying.
The Hex House sits back from the road, hunched into the earth like a wounded animal that survived a fire but never forgot the heat. Even the birds above it seemed to circle wider, giving the roof a cautious berth.
A crow watched me from a branch that looked too frail to hold anything living. I offered a polite nod. One never knows with crows. They keep their own councils.
Inside, the scent hit first – damp wood, long-settled ash, a faint sweetness like someone once boiled apples here and time never bothered to scrub it away. The floorboards groaned under me, the kind of groan that feels personal, like the house is waking just enough to acknowledge an intruder.
And there, in the center room, under a pane of glass:
A dark scorch mark.
A stubborn wound in the wood.
The place where kindness died, and fear held the match.
Nothing moved, but the air felt aware.
I stood long enough for the fog outside to crawl in after me, curling along the floor like a pale cat. The whole hollow seemed to breathe in slow wintery sighs.
There was no apparition, no spectral powwow doctor or vengeful hex – nothing cinematic. Just the deeper, quieter haunting of memory. The kind that settles behind the ribs and knocks politely whenever a shadow crosses the window.
Before leaving, I rested a hand on the banister. It felt warm, impossibly warm, like sunlight through a window even though the sky outside looked like wet wool. Maybe houses remember. Maybe they hold heat for the people who can’t anymore.
Walking back through the hollow, I caught sight of a fox near the treeline – thin, cautious, glowing rust-red even in the muted light. It watched me with that look foxes have, as if deciding whether I was real or just another wandering spirit.
I didn’t blame it.
In a place like Rehmeyer’s Hollow, even your own footsteps feel borrowed.
