The Hollow Wind

The wind howled through the valley that day, not with rage, but with a quiet sort of ache—the kind that lingers after something breaks. It carried a voice, or maybe just the memory of one, brushing against the cracked windows of the old farmhouse where Clara had returned for the first time in twelve years.

The place had been abandoned since her father died, and it looked the part: shutters sagging like tired eyes, vines wrapping the porch columns like arthritic fingers. The wooden steps creaked beneath her boots, as if remembering her weight. As if accusing her.

She hadn’t come for forgiveness. She didn’t even know if she deserved it. But the wind—it seemed to be waiting.

Inside, the house smelled of dust and rot and pine from the forest beyond the ridge. Clara ran her hand across the mantle, stirring up motes of forgotten years. Her father’s old rocking chair stood by the fireplace, unmoved, like it had been waiting for his ghost to return and finish his last thought.

She didn’t believe in ghosts. Not really. But she believed in echoes. And this place was full of them.

As she climbed the stairs to her childhood room, the wind pushed against the house, whistling through cracks in the wood like a song half-remembered. She stopped at the doorway. Everything was smaller than she remembered. The bed, the bookshelf, the mirror with the little scratch in the corner. Time had shrunk it all, or maybe she had just grown away from it.

Clara sat on the bed and opened the box she’d brought. Inside were yellowed letters—unsent, some torn in places, all written in her father’s careful, blunt handwriting. She’d found them in a drawer in his old workshop last month, during a reluctant visit to the lawyer. Letters addressed to her. Letters he never sent.

She read them one by one.

Clara, I was angry that day. But not at you. I hope one day you’ll understand.

I should’ve gone after you. I didn’t. I don’t know why. Maybe I was afraid you wouldn’t want me to.

Your mother would’ve known what to say. I never did. I only knew how to fix broken things with my hands, not my words.

By the fourth letter, her hands trembled. By the seventh, she was crying. Not for the words on the page, but for the ones never spoken aloud. The ones she might’ve forgiven years ago—if only they’d reached her in time.

The wind picked up outside, keening across the fields. She stood and crossed to the window, wiping the glass with her sleeve. The forest beyond the cornfields swayed like an ocean of dying color. Fall had bled into the branches, and winter waited just beyond the horizon.

She remembered running through those trees as a child, chasing fireflies, pretending she was wild and free. Her father used to whistle from the porch when it was time to come in. One long note. Sharp and clear.

Now, the silence felt like punishment.

But then—she heard it.

A low, drawn-out whistle. It came not from her memory, but from the edge of the woods. Real. Present.

She blinked.

It came again.

Clara stepped back, heart hammering. “No,” she whispered. “It can’t be.”

Yet the sound called her like it used to, tugging at some long-abandoned thread inside her. She grabbed her coat and flashlight, not because she believed—but because she had to.

Outside, the wind wrapped around her like a shroud. The sky had darkened into bruise-colored clouds. She moved toward the tree line, each step crunching over brittle leaves, each breath pulled ragged from the cold.

And then she saw it.

Near the old oak tree—the one with her initials carved in its bark—stood a man. Or a shadow of one. Tall. Still. His head tilted slightly, like he’d been watching her for some time.

“Dad?” she called.

The wind hushed. The figure didn’t move. But something in her chest shifted—some old splinter of grief dislodging.

She didn’t move closer. She didn’t need to.

The figure raised a hand. Slowly. Almost… apologetically.

And then, just as the wind rose again, he was gone. Dissolved into the falling dusk. No drama. No storm. Just a silence that somehow felt… less hollow.

Clara stood there long after the wind died down.

She didn’t know what she believed. But she knew this: Some ghosts don’t linger to haunt. Some come back simply to say goodbye.