The Legend
Of Avery Hollow
A Forgotten Texas Legend
Welcome to Avery Hollow.
Some places are forgotten for a reason.
Scroll to begin: The Place Beneath the Oaks
The Place Beneath the Oaks
CHAPTER 1
Long before Avery Ranch, there was Avery Hollow.
It was a little settlement beside Brushy Creek, where three enormous oak trees reached across the sky.
Strange lights floated through the woods. Voices whispered in the dark. Some wondered if the Hairy Man legend began here.
The land wasn't evil. Just unusual.
Plate I. — Avery Hollow, circa 1853.
Beneath those oaks, the veil between the living and the dead was thin. Very thin.
Still, families built homes and a cemetery. A few spooky noises weren't going to scare off Texas settlers.
PLATE I : THE TARNISHED LOCKET EXCAVATED FROM THE SUBFLOOR (OCTOBER 1888)
CHAPTER 2
Three Sisters and a Secret
In the 1870s, three sisters moved into a cottage beneath the oaks.
Mercy Bellweather, the oldest, was the protector. Brave and loving, she would do anything to keep her family safe.
Temperance, the middle sister, was the scholar. She studied ancient magic.
Prudence, the youngest, was the dreamer. She believed impossible things might be possible.
Some neighbors called them healers. Others called them witches.
The sisters kept a secret: an enormous leather-bound book called The Book of Shadows and Souls.
It was a grimoire, filled with powerful spells. Inside was a warning:
What crosses the veil must always pay the price.
The book had a strange history. Stories linked it to the Frankenstein family, a physician who vanished in New Orleans, and a wagon found abandoned in the Texas Hill Country.
Were the stories true? Nobody knew.
But Temperance knew this: some spells should never be spoken aloud.
CHAPTER 3
Mercy and the Cowboy
Bartholomew “Bart” Graves
Then Mercy met Bartholomew Graves.
Everyone called him Bart.
He was a cowboy with a crooked smile, dusty boots, and a knack for trouble. Mercy loved him. And Bart loved her right back.
But a greedy land baron named Silas Thorne wanted Avery Hollow, especially the ground beneath the three oaks.
Bart stood in his way.
One evening, Bart disappeared. His body was found near the cemetery.
Everyone suspected Thorne. Nobody dared challenge him.
They buried Bart beneath the Texas soil.
Mercy couldn't bear it.
Then she remembered the book.
Plate I. The overgrown verge leading into Avery Hollow, October 1884.
CHAPTER 4
The First Spell
“Bring him back,” Mercy begged.
Temperance warned that the spell was dangerous. Prudence wondered if it might work.
At last, the sisters opened the grimoire beneath the oaks.
They lit the candles. They spoke the words.
The wind howled. The earth shook.
And Bart’s grave began to move.
Up came Bart, cowboy hat and all!
There was just one problem.
Bart wasn’t exactly alive.
He walked slowly, barely spoke, and stared at people as though he’d forgotten their names. Mercy was overjoyed. Her sisters were worried.
Then another grave opened.
And another.
Soon the dead wandered through Avery Hollow.
The sisters had opened a doorway between worlds.
And it was growing wider.
CHAPTER 5
Halloween Night, 1887
By Halloween, Avery Hollow was in terrible trouble. Ghostly voices filled the houses. Dead figures wandered among the headstones. Strange lights burned in the woods.
The sisters had to close the doorway before the two worlds spilled into each other.
Beneath the oaks, Temperance read the spell. Prudence drew its symbols. Mercy, torn between Bart and everyone she needed to protect, spoke the final words.
A brilliant light flashed across the cemetery. The ground shook.
And everything went horribly wrong.
Instead of closing the doorway, they broke the barrier between worlds.
Then silence. When morning came, Avery Hollow was gone.
Not burned. Not buried.
Gone.
The settlement, the cemetery, and everyone inside were trapped between the living and the dead.
The sisters were trapped too.
Only their combined magic could hold the broken barrier together.
So they stayed, guarding the doorway they’d torn open.
CHAPTER 6
Whispers in the Woods
Years passed. Roads appeared. Neighborhoods grew. Most people forgot Avery Hollow.
But strange stories survived.
In 1932, a woman near Brushy Creek saw a pale figure beneath the oaks whispering, “Bartholomew.”
In 1948, two fishing brothers ran from a floating lantern that followed them through the woods.
In 1976, three mysterious stones appeared beneath the trees, then vanished overnight.
And in 2001, a construction worker reportedly found an old marker carved with two words: AVERY HOLLOW. Fog rolled in. When it cleared, the marker was gone.
Maybe they were only stories.
Or maybe the Hollow was never far away.
CHAPTER 7
The Hollow Returns
Every Halloween, the veil grows thinner.
And sometimes, Avery Hollow appears again.
The cemetery rises from the mist. The cottage waits beneath the oaks. A bridge crosses a dark swamp. Beyond the trees, a strange doorway glows.
Bart still wanders among the graves, neither alive nor quite dead.
Temperance, the scholar, and Prudence, the dreamer, drift like ghosts among the branches.
But Mercy, the protector, walks among the living. She watches over her sisters, the Hollow, and anyone who comes too close to the doorway.
Together, the sisters still hold the broken barrier.
No one knows how long they can keep it from falling.
So if you follow the lanterns into Avery Hollow this Halloween, listen.
You might hear a whisper. You might see a cowboy climbing from his grave.
And if you meet a woman standing guard beneath three ancient oaks, be polite. She may be the only thing keeping whatever waits beyond that doorway from coming through.
Welcome to Avery Hollow.
Some places are forgotten for a reason.
PLATE VII : SUNRISE OVER THE UNMARKED RESTING PLACE, CIRCA 1878
CHARACTER GALLERY
Souls of Avery Hollow
Mercy Bellweather
THE PROTECTOR
Temperance
THE SCHOLAR
Prudence
THE DREAMER
Bartholomew “Bart” Graves
THE COWBOY
AVERY HOLLOW
Welcome to Avery Hollow. Some places are forgotten for a reason.
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