The priest arrives in the village on a grey
morning, his cassock tucked into a suitcase. The
local pub, The Hollow Bar, is still run by his
former sisterinlaw, who refuses to speak to him.
A child disappears from the fields, and the
villagers blame the priest’s return.
The priest begins to notice strange symbols
carved into the pub’s wooden beams, matching
those found on old church records. He finds a
hidden cellar beneath the bar, sealed for
decades. A local man, a retired GAA player,
warns him not to disturb it.
The priest drinks a pint at the bar, and the
patrons fall silent. A woman, long dead, appears
in the mirror behind the bar. She speaks in a
voice that echoes through the room. The priest
realises the pub is a threshold between worlds,
and the missing child is trapped in the liminal
space between the living and the dead.
He offers a confession, not to God but to the
land itself. The symbols glow, and the child
emerges from the wall, coughing and shaking. The
pub’s walls begin to bleed, and the villagers
flee. The priest stands alone, the last light
fading in the bar.
A new sign is nailed to the door: “Closed for
Renovation.” No one sees the priest again. The
child grows up, never speaking of that night.
The pub remains empty, its secrets buried in the
soil.
