The Hollow That Refuses to Give up its Memories.

by John Wallis

There’s a place in Kenwood where you can stand on the edge of a certain ridge and swear there’s nothing there—no houses, no fences, no chimneys reaching for a sky that’s learned to ignore them anyway, a place where the trees have grown back thick and patient and a portion of Saline Creek has smoothed its stones. It’s a place where thick green moss has quilted the ground into a jade-green patchwork. On paper, the place has been restored. But then paper has never been good at listening.

The hollow sits where the land dips just enough to hold sound not loudly. Unlike a canyon shouting itself hoarse, this hollow gathers sound the way cupped hands gather water. Footsteps linger. Breaths seem to pause before drifting off. Even the wind hesitates, as if unsure whether it has permission to pass through.

Published by Green Country Magazine, this book is a practical and philosophical guide to creating multimedia content for digital publication—especially for folklore, cultural narratives, and independent storytelling.

This book is: • A guide to intentional multimedia publishing • A framework for blending text, visuals, and audio with care • A philosophy for creators who value meaning over metrics • A workshop-style resource with exercises and reflection prompts • A publishing companion for writers, editors, and small presses It is written in clear, descriptive prose and designed to be used slowly, thoughtfully, and repeatedly. Get your free digital copy today!

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The locals don’t give directions to it anymore. They’ll say things like, “Down past where the road forgets what it was built for,” or “Follow the trees until they start leaning inward.” Some pretend they don’t know it at all. Others smile in that careful way people do when they know a place remembers them better than they remember it.

Once—long enough ago that the dates have slipped loose—the hollow had a name. It belonged to a handful of Indigenous families who planted gardens where the sun pooled longest and built homes close enough to hear one another at night. Children ran barefoot there, dogs slept under porches and songs drifted through open windows, tangling themselves in the forest branches.

Nothing dramatic drove them away like a fire, or flood big enough for a headline. It happened so insidiously, barely noticeable. It happened through the slow arithmetic of leaving: one farm sold, one funeral, one road rerouted slightly farther than it should have been. The hollow really wasn’t abandoned so much as outwaited. People moved on. The land stayed. That’s the part maps don’t warn you about—how the land around here keeps count even when no one else does.

However, if you walk into that hollow at dusk, you’ll notice how the light behaves strangely and doesn’t fall quite evenly. It gathers in patches, as if choosing where to rest. Some spots feel warmer than others, though the sun is already gone. Some say that if you stand still long enough, you’ll feel it: a sense of being noticed without being judged. It’s not a sense of being watched as much as it is of being listened to.

Folklore in this part of Oklahoma doesn’t often speak of ghosts as figures. There are no rattling chains or translucent faces peering from behind trees. Instead, the stories talk about weight. About places where your chest feels heavier for no reason. About paths that curve back on themselves when you swear you walked straight. About hollows that echo sounds you didn’t make.

Old-timers will say “Memory doesn’t live in the mind alone. It sinks into soil and knots itself into the roots of every living thing. Every step taken with intention presses something into the ground, and the ground, being generous, keeps it. Some say that’s why the hollow refuses to let go of its memories.

The premise behind the creation of Green Country Magazine of Folklore and Faerytales is to share the many legends, myths, and folklore of Northeast Oklahoma. Many of these legends originate from Native imaginations and serve as a geographical reminder that this was once Indian Territory.

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People who wander through it sometimes report small things—nothing they’d call supernatural if asked directly. A whiff of woodsmoke on a windless day. The faint creak of a screen door where no house stands, or the distant, disembodied laughter that seems to come from just behind you, always behind you, but never close enough to touch.

Children seem to feel it strongest. They stop suddenly, mid-step, and tilt their heads. They ask questions adults don’t know how to answer.

“Who was here?” “Why does it feel like someone just left?” “Why is it so quiet, but not empty?”

Adults tend to rush them along.

But the hollow doesn’t hurry. It has learned patience from the trees.

The land remembers the shape of the homes that once rested there. Grass grows differently where foundations used to be, rising in slightly firmer lines, as if the earth is still bracing for walls. After heavy rain, water pools in rectangles and right angles that no longer exist above ground. It seems that even absence leaves a footprint.

The new journal includes references to the Memorial Day tornado that ravished our area in 2024, along with a variety of poems, fiction, and a collaboration on one story in particular. It is approved for all audiences and the aim is to instill hope and inspiration of the good news of Jesus Christ to everyone who reads it.

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There is a belief whispered by the elders—half joke, half warning—that if you sit too long in the hollow, it will lend you a memory that isn’t yours. You might feel a sudden ache for a life you never lived. A longing for a face you cannot picture. A certainty that you’ve forgotten something important, though you can’t name it. That’s the danger, people say. Not that the hollow will harm you—but that it will remind you. Because memory, once stirred, is rarely civil. The hollow listens after we leave because it must have learned that from us. Humans are very good at leaving pieces of themselves behind. We do it all the time in houses, in fields, and in places where we cried or laughed or decided to stay just a little longer. We assume the land will tidy up after us. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it holds on to everything.

At night, the hollow grows deeper—not in a physical sense, but in feeling. Sounds flatten. Stars seem to stretch farther away. If you speak, your words don’t echo back so much as sink downward, absorbed. The silence that follows isn’t blank. It’s full. Pressed tight with things unsaid.

Those who know better don’t stay overnight. They’ll tell you the hollow isn’t unkind, but it is thorough. It doesn’t distinguish between what you meant to leave behind and what slipped from your pockets without you noticing.

By morning, most visitors feel relieved to go. They say the air outside the hollow feels lighter, thinner, almost careless by comparison. Roads hum again. Birds sound less deliberate. The world resumes its forward motion.

But the hollow remains, holding its secrets.

Years from now, the trees will be older. The creek will change its course by inches, or sometimes even feet. Names will continue to fade. Even the stories will soften at the edges.

Still, the land will listen.

Because places like this do not exist to haunt us. They exist to remember on our behalf. To prove that what was lived here mattered enough to leave an imprint deeper than words.

The hollow in Kenwood does not refuse to forget out of spite. It refuses because forgetting was never part of its nature. And if you ever find yourself standing at its edge, feeling that gentle, unmistakable sense of being noticed—do not be afraid.

You are not just being watched.

You are being remembered.