Welcome to the Ghastly Journal, where we unearth the forgotten tales that lurk in the shadows of history. Today, we journey back to 1850, to the rolling hills of southern Alabama, where the name Ellison was once spoken only in hushed whispers.

 In an era of southern prosperity, when cotton was king and fortunes were built on the backs of enslaved labor, the Ellison family stood among the elite of Alabama society. Their story passed down through generations serves as a chilling reminder that wealth and status offer no protection against forces that defy understanding.

 As we delve into their history, prepare yourself for a tale that has haunted the region for over a century and a half. A mystery that remains unsolved to this day. The Ellison plantation stood proud amidst acres of cotton fields that stretched toward the horizon. A grand two-story mansion of white columns and dark mahogany built by the hands of those who served the family’s growing fortune.

 Known as Magnolia Hill to locals, the plantation house was positioned on the highest point of the property, allowing Josiah Ellison to survey his domain from the wide veranda that wrapped around three sides of the structure. Ornate iron gates marked the entrance to a long drive lined with ancient oak trees, their branches forming a natural archway that led visitors to the imposing front steps.

 The family patriarch Josiah Ellison had arrived in Alabama in 1825 with nothing but ambition, a small inheritance from his late father, and three slaves he had inherited, a man named Moses, his wife Ruth, and their teenage son Samuel. Starting with just 50 acres, Josiah worked alongside his slaves in those early years. His hands becoming as callous as theirs as he cleared land, planted cotton, and gradually expanded his holdings.

 He was known for his relentless work ethic and shrewd business acumen, qualities that earned him respect among his peers, but fear from those he outmaneuvered in land deals and cotton trades. By 1835, a mere decade after his arrival, he had established himself as one of the region’s most prosperous cotton planters. His property expanded to over 500 acres and his slaves numbering nearly 40.

 The simple cabin he had initially built gave way to the magnificent plantation house that now dominated the landscape. Its construction completed in 1838 to coincide with his rising status in Alabama society. Josiah took particular pride in the carved wooden staircase that spiraled up through the center of the house. Each ballister handcrafted by a skilled slave carpenter he had purchased specifically for the task.

 Josiah married Elizabeth Montgomery, the daughter of a neighboring plantation owner in 1830. She was 20 years his junior, a woman of delicate beauty and quiet determination, with amber eyes that seemed to hold secrets and pale blonde hair that she wore in elaborate styles fashionable for southern ladies of means. Their courtship had been brief, arranged largely by Elizabeth’s father, who saw in Josiah a man on the rise whose ambition matched his own.

 The wedding was held at St. James Episcopal Church in the county seat attended by the most prominent families in the region and followed by a reception at the Montgomery plantation that lasted 3 days as was the custom for wealthy families at the time.

 Elizabeth brought with her a substantial dowy including 10 house slaves skilled in cooking, sewing, and household management as well as a collection of family heirlooms that dated back to the early days of the Virginia colony. Most notable among these was a silver hand mirror. its handle intricately wrought in the shape of intertwined vines bearing the Montgomery family crest.

 Elizabeth was rarely seen without this mirror close at hand, often pausing in her daily activities to gaze into its reflective surface, with an intensity that made the house slaves uncomfortable. Their union was blessed with five children, one son, Thomas, born in 1831, and four daughters. Margaret, born in 1834, Catherine, born in 1836.

 Josephine, born in 1838, and Little Sarah, born in 1844 after a gap that had led many to believe Elizabeth’s childbearing years were behind her. Each birth was celebrated with a lavish christening ceremony, and as the family grew, so too did Josiah’s reputation and wealth. By the time of Sarah’s birth, the Ellison name was synonymous with prosperity throughout southern Alabama.

The Ellisons were respected members of their community, known for their generosity during times of hardship and their lavish gatherings during the harvest season. When drought struck the region in 1843, Josiah opened his storehouses to neighboring farmers, offering grain and provisions to those whose crops had failed.

 During the scarlet fever outbreak of 1845, Elizabeth sent the family physician to attend to afflicted families who could not afford medical care, an act of charity that saved many lives. These gestures of goodwill earned the Ellisons the gratitude of the community, though some whispered that their generosity was merely a means of asserting their superior position.

 Their seasonal balls were legendary, drawing guests from as far as Mobile and Montgomery. The Christmas ball of 1846 was particularly memorable with the plantation house adorned with fresh pine boughs and red velvet ribbons, silver candalabbras casting a warm glow over the assembled guests in their finery. The banquet table groaned under the weight of roast turkey, glazed ham, oyster dressing, sweet potato pies, and syllabub.

 All prepared by the skilled hands of Ruth, now the head cook, who had been with the family since Josiah’s arrival in Alabama. Each Sunday, they would attend service at St. James Episcopal Church. Arriving in a polished carriage drawn by four matched Bay horses, the family dressed in their finest attire.

 Josiah served as a vestri man, contributing generously to the church’s building fund and missionary efforts. Elizabeth taught Sunday school to the children of other planter families. Her gentle manner and firm moral guidance making her a favorite among her young charges. The family occupied the first pew, their presence a weekly reminder of their standing in the community.

 After services, they often hosted Sunday dinner for the minister and select parishioners, discussing theology and local affairs over Elizabeth’s renowned peach cobbler. On the surface, they embodied the prosperity and gentility of the antibbellum south, a family blessed by God and fortune, untouched by hardship or sorrow.

 Their slaves were well-fed and clothed by the standards of the time, their fields productive, their future secure in a society that valued lineage and land above all else. But beneath this veneer of southern respectability, a darkness was brewing, a darkness that would consume the family over the course of a decade, leaving behind a legacy of fear and superstition that persists to this day.

 Some said it began with the purchase of the land itself, a transaction that old-timers in the county had advised against. Others pointed to Elizabeth’s peculiar habits, her interest in books that proper southern ladies were not supposed to read, her midnight wanderings on the plantation grounds. A few brave souls whispered about the old oak tree that stood at the edge of the property.

 A massive ancient thing that had been there long before the Ellisons arrived, its gnarled branches reaching toward the sky like supplicating arms. The house slaves had their own theories, shared in whispers late at night in their quarters. Bessie, Elizabeth’s personal maid, claimed she had seen her mistress conversing with empty air beneath that oak tree on moonlit nights, speaking words in a language Bessie had never heard before.

 Moses, now elderly but still responsible for the gardens, swore that flowers planted near the tree grew in unnatural ways, their blooms larger and more vibrant than seemed possible, yet giving off a sickly sweet scent that caused headaches and strange dreams. Young Samuel, now grown and serving as Thomas Ellison’s valet, once reported seeing pale figures moving among the branches, though he was soundly whipped for spreading such superstitious nonsense. But if the family was aware of these whispers, they gave no indication.

Life on Magnolia Hill continued in its orderly rhythm, the days marked by the seasons and the work of the plantation, the social calendar of balls and dinners, the milestones of the children’s growth and education until that summer of 1845 when everything began to change. Our story truly begins in the summer of 1845 when Margaret Ellison, the eldest daughter, was preparing for her 16th birthday.

 In Antabbellum Southern Society, a young lady’s 16th year marked her transition from childhood to womanhood, the time when she would be formally presented to society and begin the process of finding a suitable husband. For the daughter of a wealthy planter like Josiah Ellison, this was a milestone of tremendous importance, one that would be celebrated with a lavish coming out ball and the commissioning of a portrait to commemorate the occasion.

 Margaret was a spirited young woman with chestnut hair that fell in natural waves to her waist and her father’s determined gray eyes. Unlike many girls of her station, who were content with needle work and pianoforte, Margaret had a voracious intellect that sometimes concerned her mother.

 She devoured books from her father’s library, histories, philosophical treatises, even medical texts that were considered highly improper for young ladies. She excelled in her studies, particularly in literature and French, subjects she learned from her governness, Miss Abigail Porter, a spinster from Boston, who had come south seeking employment after her family’s shipping business failed.

 Miss Porter recognized Margaret’s unusual intelligence and encouraged it, sometimes to Elizabeth’s dismay. She will never find a husband if she insists on discussing Voltater at the dinner table. Elizabeth complained to Josiah after one particularly awkward evening with the neighboring Bowmont family, whose son James was considered a prime matrimonial prospect.

 Josiah, however, took pride in his daughter’s sharp mind. “She’ll marry when and whom she chooses.” He replied, I’d rather have a daughter with thoughts in her head than one who can only simper and pour tea. In the weeks leading up to her birthday, Margaret had been unusually withdrawn, spending long hours alone in her bedroom or walking in the gardens, particularly near the old oak tree.

 The change in her demeanor was noted by many in the household, from her siblings to the house slaves who attended to the family’s needs. Thomas, home from his studies at the University of Alabama, expressed concern to their father that Margaret seemed somehow diminished, as if a part of her were already gone. According to the journal of Miss Porter, which was discovered decades later in the attic of a distant relative, Margaret had confided in her governness about the cause of her distress.

 The leatherbound volume, its pages yellowed with age, but the ink still legible, contained detailed accounts of conversations between teacher and pupil during those fateful weeks. Margaret confided in me today about her dreams. Miss Porter wrote on June 12th, 1845, she speaks of a woman with hollow eyes who calls her by name.

 The figure appears to her nightly, always standing beneath the old oak tree at the eastern boundary of the property. Margaret describes her as wearing a white dress of a fashion from another era, her hair loose about her shoulders in a manner no respectable woman would wear in public. The woman never speaks.

 Yet Margaret insists she can hear her voice in her mind, calling her daughter and promising to bring her home. I assured her it was merely the result of reading too many Gothic novels before bedtime. But there is a haunted quality to her gaze that troubles me deeply. A week later on June 19th, Miss Porter made another entry. Margaret’s dreams have worsened. She now speaks of multiple women, all in white, all with the same holloweyed gaze.

 They sing to her, she says, a melody without words that stays with her upon waking. She hummed it for me today. A strange atonal sequence that made the hairs on my arms stand on end. I suggested that perhaps she should speak with her mother about these dreams, but Margaret became agitated at the suggestion.

 “Mother already knows,” she said in a voice so cold it scarcely sounded like her own. “She’s always known they would come for me.” Miss Porter apparently took her concerns to Josiah, who dismissed them as the overroought imagination of a girl approaching womanhood. “Mister Ellison suggested that perhaps Margaret needs more fresh air and exercise, less time with her books.

” She wrote on June 25th, “He has instructed me to focus our lessons on practical matters such as household management rather than literature or philosophy. When I attempted to explain the disturbing nature of Margaret’s dreams, he cut me off, saying, “Miss Porter, I implore you to educate my daughter not to interpret her nightmares.

 I fear there is more happening in this house than anyone is willing to acknowledge.” On the morning of Margaret’s birthday, July 15th, 1845, the household was a buzz with preparations for the celebration to be held that evening. Dawn broke clear and warm, promising a perfect summer day.

 The Ellison plantation was a flurry of activity as slaves moved about the house and grounds, carrying out Elizabeth’s detailed instructions for what was to be the social event of the season. In the kitchen, Ruth supervised the preparation of Margaret’s favorite dishes. roast duck with orange glaze, sweet potato sule, fresh corn pudding, and a three- tiered cake adorned with crystallized violets that had taken the assistant cook, a young woman named Lucinda, two days to perfect.

 In the ballroom, crystal chandeliers were being cleaned and fitted with fresh beeswax candles, their light to be supplemented by silver candalabbras positioned strategically around the perimeter of the room. Garlands of fresh flowers, magnolia, roses, and jasmine from the gardens were draped along the staircase and wound around the columns of the front portico.

The pianoforte had been tuned the day before by a specialist brought in from Mobile, and a string quartet from the same city was expected to arrive by midafternoon. Thomas had risen early to oversee the erection of a dance pavilion on the lawn, where younger guests could enjoy the evening air while their elders socialized inside.

 Josephine and Catherine, excited to wear their new dresses of pale pink and lavender silk respectively, practiced their dancing in the morning room under the watchful eye of their mother, who corrected their posture and the placement of their hands with gentle but firm instruction.

 Slaves moved about the house, arranging flowers and preparing the feast under Elizabeth’s watchful eye. Despite the celebration to come, she seemed distracted, her gaze often drifting toward the window that offered a view of the old oak tree in the distance. Twice she was heard muttering to herself, though when addressed directly, she would compose her features into a serene smile and continue with her instructions as if nothing were a miss.

 Josiah had commissioned a portrait of his daughter as a gift, and the painter, a Frenchman named Henri Bumont, who had recently established a studio in Mobile, was expected to arrive the following week. Josiah spent the morning in his study, reviewing the final guest list with his overseer and ensuring that sufficient accommodations had been prepared for those traveling from a distance who would stay overnight.

 57 guests had confirmed their attendance, including the governor’s secretary and his wife, a connection that Josiah hoped might lead to political appointments in the future. Margaret herself had spent the early hours of the morning in her room, seated at her writing desk, composing letters to friends from her finishing school days, who had been unable to travel for the celebration.

 She wore a simple morning dress of pale blue muslin, her hair braided and pinned up in preparation for the more elaborate styling that would happen later. According to her lady’s maid, a young slave named Dileia, Margaret had seemed calm but distant, responding to questions with one-word answers, and staring for long periods at her own reflection in the mirror.

 Margaret spent the morning receiving gifts from her family members, a leatherbound journal with her initials embossed in gold from her mother, a silver locket containing miniature portraits of her parents from her brother, a collection of Shakespeare’s sonnetss bound in Moroccan leather from her sisters, and a collection of poetry from her governness.

 Each gift was received with polite thanks, though those closest to her noted that the spark of pleasure that would normally light her eyes upon receiving such treasures was noticeably absent. At midday, as the July sun reached its zenith and the heat pressed down upon the plantation like a physical weight, Margaret asked permission to walk in the gardens, wanting a moment of solitude before the guests arrived. The request was unusual.

 Proper young ladies rarely sought to be alone, particularly on such an important day. But Elizabeth, distracted by a minor crisis involving the placement of dinner plates, agreed without much thought. She did, however, instruct one of the house slaves, a woman named Bessie, who had been with the family for many years and served as Elizabeth’s personal maid, to keep watch from a distance. “The sun is fierce today,” Elizabeth cautioned.

 “Make sure she doesn’t stay out long enough to spoil her complexion.” Bessie, a tall, dignified woman in her 50s with graying hair hidden beneath a white head wrap, nodded her understanding and followed Margaret at a discrete distance as the girl made her way through the formal gardens at the rear of the house.

 The gardens were laid out in a geometric pattern typical of the period with gravel paths separating beds of roses, fox gloves, and hydrangeas. At the center stood a small marble fountain featuring a cherub pouring water from an urn. the splash of water on stone offering the only sound besides the occasional buzz of insects and the distant calls of slaves working in the fields beyond.

 According to Bessie’s testimony recorded during the subsequent investigation, Margaret walked among the blooms with a purposeful stride, unusual for a young lady of her station, who would typically stroll at a more leisurely pace. She paused briefly at the fountain, trailing her fingers through the water before continuing toward the eastern edge of the garden, where the cultivated landscape gave way to more natural surroundings.

 Beyond the last row of rose bushes lay a meadow of wild flowers, and beyond that, the dense woodland that marked the boundary of the Ellison property. The old oak tree stood at the edge of this wood, visible from the garden as a dark silhouette against the bright midday sky.

 Bessie watched as Margaret’s pale blue dress moved among the vibrant colors of the garden, a cool contrast to the fiery reds and yellows of the summer blooms. The girl seemed to be wandering aimlessly, but Bessie, who had raised five children of her own before they were sold to other plantations, recognized the deliberate nature of Margaret’s movements.

 The girl was heading toward the oak tree, though by such a ciruitous route that it might not be obvious to a less observant eye. Concerned by this, Bessie moved closer, abandoning her position near the kitchen garden to follow Margaret into the wilder area beyond the formal beds. The tall grass of the meadow brushed against her skirts as she walked, and she noted with disapproval that the hem of Margaret’s fine dress would be soiled by the time she returned to the house.

 She was about to call out to remind the girl of the time and the need to prepare for her guests when a disturbance caught her attention. A chicken, one of the prized Dominikes that provided eggs for the plantation kitchen, had somehow escaped its enclosure and was pecking at the ground near the garden shed.

 Knowing the cook’s reliance on these birds and the trouble that would ensue if it wandered off, Bessie turned away briefly to chase it back toward the barnyard. The task took only moments. The bird was cooperative, scuttling ahead of her outstretched hands back toward its proper place. But when Bessie turned back, her heart stuttered in her chest. The meadow was empty.

 Margaret Ellison, in her distinctive pale blue dress, was nowhere to be seen. Bessie called out, her voice carrying across the open space, but received no answer. She hurried forward, her eyes scanning the tall grass, thinking perhaps the girl had sat down to rest or to pick wild flowers. The meadow was not large.

 perhaps 50 yards across before it met the woodland, and a person standing should have been clearly visible. Yet Margaret had vanished as completely as if she had never been there at all. At first, no one was alarmed. When Bessie returned to the house, breathless and wideeyed, reporting that she had lost sight of Margaret, Elizabeth merely sighed with the exasperation of a mother whose plans were being disrupted by a willful child.

 She’s probably gone to the spring house to cool herself,” she said, adjusting a flower arrangement on the dining table. Or perhaps to the stables. “She’s always had a fondness for that new mayor.” She dispatched a kitchen boy to check these locations, expecting the matter to be resolved quickly. As the hour grew later, and the first carriages began to appear on the long drive leading to the house, concern began to mount.

 Thomas and two house slaves had searched the immediate grounds, the spring house, the stables, the smokehouse, and even the slave quarters, though it was unthinkable that Margaret would have gone there unshapered. They found no trace of her, nor had anyone seen her since she had entered the garden with Bessie following at a distance.

 Josiah, initially irritated by what he perceived as a childish prank on an important day, now paced the veranda, his expression darkening with each report of another location, searched without success. She must be found before the guests arrive, he insisted, his voice tight with suppressed anger.

 I will not have the Bowmans and the Calhouns greeted with a household in disarray, because my daughter has chosen this day for some foolish game. But as the first guests began to arrive and there was still no sign of the birthday girl, concern grew into panic. Elizabeth, maintaining a brittle composure as she greeted early arrivals, dispatched them to various parts of the house with vague explanations about Margaret resting before the festivities.

 Meanwhile, Josiah gathered the male servants and slaves, organizing them into search parties to comb the wider plantation grounds. The search began in earnest as the sun began its descent toward the western horizon, casting long shadows across the manicured lawns and cultivated fields of Magnolia Hill. The house and gardens were systematically examined.

 Every room, closet, and outuilding inspected multiple times. As twilight approached, and still no trace of Margaret had been found, Josiah made the difficult decision to inform the assembled guests that his daughter had taken ill suddenly, and the celebration would need to be postponed.

 The announcement was met with murmurss of sympathy and offers of assistance, which Josiah declined with as much grace as he could muster under the circumstances. As the last of the disappointed guests departed, the search expanded to the surrounding fields and woods. Slaves were roused from their quarters to join the effort, carrying torches and lanterns to illuminate the growing darkness.

 Neighboring planters, hearing of the situation through departing guests, sent their overseers and field hands to assist, a gesture of community solidarity that transcended the usual competitive relationships among the cotton aristocracy. Lanterns flickered across the plantation through the night, their light catching on the dark leaves of magnolia trees and the rippling surface of the creek that ran along the western boundary of the property.

 Men called Margaret’s name until they were, the sound echoing back from the woods with no answering cry. Dogs were brought in, blood hounds owned by the Crawford plantation 5 mi east, but they showed confusion rather than purpose, circling the area where Margaret had last been seen, but unable to establish a trail leading away.

 By midnight, with no sign of the missing girl and exhaustion setting in among the searchers, some began to whisper of darker possibilities. Could Margaret have been taken by runaway slaves? There had been rumors of a band hiding in the swamps 20 mi south, occasionally raiding isolated farms for supplies, but the Ellison plantation was hardly isolated, and no other disturbances had been reported that might suggest intruders.

 Others speculated about a secret bow. A clandestine meeting arranged for her birthday that had gone arry. But Margaret had shown no interest in the young men of the county, and her movements had been closely supervised, as was proper for a girl of her age and station.

 The idea that she might have planned an alopment was considered and dismissed. She had taken nothing with her, not even a shawl against the evening chill. As dawn approached on July 16th, a discovery was made that only deepened the mystery. The only clue was a single shoe, a white satin slipper with a pearl button closure, part of the new pair Elizabeth had commissioned from a shoemaker in Mobile, specifically for Margaret’s birthday celebration.

 It was found by Samuel Thomas’s valet, who had continued searching long after others had returned to the house for a brief rest. The shoe lay on its side at the base of the old oak tree, the very one from Margaret’s dreams, its pristine fabric unstained despite the dew dampened ground beneath it.

 Samuel immediately called for Josiah, who arrived moments later, disheveled from the night searching, his eyes bloodshot and his normally impeccable attire wrinkled and stained with sweat. When he saw the slipper, he fell to his knees beside it, reaching out with trembling hands, but stopping just short of touching it, as if afraid it might dissolve into mist at his touch. “This is hers,” he said, his voice horse.

“This is what she was to wear tonight. But where is the other? Where is my daughter?” A thorough examination of the area revealed nothing more. The ground around the tree was undisturbed. No signs of struggle, no footprints leading away.

 The grass stood upright, showing no signs of having been trampled by multiple feet, as would be expected had Margaret been carried off against her will. The bark of the oak tree bore no marks of climbing, no scrapes or broken branches that might suggest she had somehow ascended into its massive canopy. The single white slipper sat alone, a solitary testament to Margaret’s presence and subsequent vanishing.

 Most disturbing to those gathered was the condition of the shoe itself. It was completely dry despite the heavy dew that had fallen overnight, soaking the grass and leaving every other object in the vicinity slick with moisture. When Josiah finally picked it up, handling it as reverently as a holy relic, he noted that it was warm to the touch, as if it had just been removed from a living foot, though it had clearly been there for hours.

 “This isn’t natural,” whispered one of the slave women, only to be silenced by a sharp look from the overseer. But her words gave voice to what many were thinking. There was something uncanny about the lone slipper, something that suggested forces beyond their understanding.

 In the days that followed, Josiah Ellison spared no expense in the search for his eldest daughter. He hired private investigators from Mobile and Montgomery, offering substantial rewards for information leading to Margaret’s whereabouts. Notices were placed in newspapers throughout Alabama and neighboring states, describing the missing girl and the circumstances of her disappearance.

 Strangers arriving in the county were viewed with suspicion and questioned closely by local authorities at Josiah’s insistence. As July turned to August with no sign of Margaret, Josiah’s methods grew increasingly desperate. He consulted with a Cherokee tracker who had a reputation for finding those who did not wish to be found, paying the man an exorbitant sum to examine the area around the oak tree.

 The tracker spent a day in silent contemplation of the site, but at sunset he returned the gold coins Josiah had given him, saying simply, “This is not a matter for my skills. Your daughter walks paths I cannot follow.” By September, with hope fading and conventional methods exhausted, Josiah turned to less orthodox approaches.

 Despite his position as a church vestri man and his previous disdain for what he termed heathen superstitions, he now sought out those who claimed connections to the unseen world. A conjure woman from the swamps, known only as Mother Surreal, was brought to the plantation undercover of darkness. She performed rituals involving herbs and bones, muttering incantations in a mixture of French and African dialects, but could offer no concrete information about Margaret’s fate, only cryptic warnings about women who wait beyond the veil.

 In October, at Elizabeth’s insistence, Josiah consulted a spiritualist from New Orleans, a Creole woman known only as Madame Lavo, reputed to have the power to communicate with the dead. The seance conducted in the formal parlor of Magnolia Hill, with only the immediate family present, ended abruptly when the medium began to speak in a voice not her own, a high childlike tone that Elizabeth identified with a gasp as Margaret’s.

 The women in white have welcomed me home, the voice said through Madame Lavo’s lips. “Do not seek what is freely given.” Then the medium collapsed, and upon reviving, claimed to have no memory of what had transpired. The local newspaper, The Southern Sentinel, carried weekly updates on the search. But as summer turned to autumn, hope began to fade.

 The articles grew shorter, relegated to inside pages rather than the front page coverage of the early weeks. By Christmas, mentions of the Ellison case had dwindled to occasional paragraphs, noting the lack of progress, often accompanied by reminders of the standing reward for information. Elizabeth Ellison took to her bed, consumed by grief.

 Thomas at 17 shouldered the responsibility of managing the plantation while his father devoted himself to finding Margaret. The younger daughters were kept under constant supervision, never allowed to wander alone, even within the house. The oak tree, once a distinctive landmark on the property, became an object of fear.

 Slaves refused to work near it, crossing themselves or making other protective gestures when forced to pass it. Josiah considered having it cut down, but couldn’t bring himself to give the order, haunted by the irrational fear that doing so might somehow sever his last connection to his missing daughter.

 Miss Porter’s journal entries from this period reveal the atmosphere of dread that had settled over the Ellison household. There is a terrible silence in the house now, where once there was music and laughter, now there are only whispers and fertive glances. Mrs. Ellison wakes screaming in the night, claiming to have seen Margaret standing at the foot of her bed, her clothes soaked as if she had been caught in a downpour. The other children are afraid, though they try to hide it.

 Little Catherine asked me yesterday if she too would disappear when she turned 16. I did not know how to answer her. Life on the plantation eventually settled into a new rhythm, one punctuated by Josiah’s increasingly desperate attempts to find his daughter.

 He traveled as far as New York and Boston, following rumors and supposed sightings, always returning empty-handed and a little more holloweyed. The once ambitious planter now moved like a man 20 years older, his shoulders stooped, his eyes constantly searching the horizon as if expecting Margaret to materialize in the distance. By the summer of 1847, the search had been all but abandoned.

 The Ellison’s held a memorial service for Margaret, though Elizabeth insisted that a place still be set for her at the dinner table each night. She might come home hungry, she would say, her voice distant, her eyes fixed on some unseen horizon. And then, as July approached once more, the household was forced to confront a terrible reality.

 Catherine Ellison’s 16th birthday was drawing near. Catherine had always been the practical one, less dreamy than Margaret, more interested in the running of the household than in books or music. She had her mother’s blonde hair, but her father’s steady gaze and a nononsense approach to life that had become more pronounced since her sister’s disappearance.

 In the two years since Margaret had vanished, Catherine had matured quickly, helping her mother manage the domestic affairs of the plantation and caring for her younger siblings. She had taken over many of the duties that would normally have fallen to Elizabeth, who remained fragile and often confined to her bed with mysterious ailments that the family physician could neither diagnose nor treat.

 As her birthday approached, Catherine showed no signs of the dreams that had troubled Margaret. She maintained a brisk efficiency in her daily tasks, supervising the house slaves with a competence that belied her young age. When Miss Porter tentatively inquired about her sleep, Catherine replied simply, “I sleep soundly, thank you. I have no time for nightmares.

 I don’t put stock in coincidences or curses,” she told Miss Porter. According to the governness’s journal, “Margaret’s disappearance was a tragedy, but it won’t happen to me. Father has hired extra men to watch the property, and I have no intention of wandering off alone.” Josiah Ellison had indeed taken precautions.

 Armed men patrolled the boundaries of the plantation day and night. The old oak tree had been cut down and its wood burned. Despite the protests of some of the older slaves who warned that disturbing the tree would only bring more misfortune, Catherine was never left alone. A companion slept in her room at night, and she was accompanied everywhere during the day.

On the morning of Catherine’s birthday, October 3rd, 1847, the atmosphere in the house was tense. Elizabeth had not left her bed in days. Overwhelmed by memories of Margaret’s disappearance, Josiah moved about the house like a man in a trance, checking and re-checking that the guards were at their posts.

 Catherine herself remained composed, though Miss Porter noted a certain resignation in her manner, as if she were preparing herself for an inevitability she dared not name. The day passed without incident. Catherine received her gifts, shared a small cake with her family, and retired early, exhausted by the constant scrutiny and the weight of unspoken fears. It was just before dawn when the screams began.

The companion who shared Catherine’s room, a cousin named Harriet, who had come to stay with the family after Margaret’s disappearance, awoke to find Catherine’s bed empty. She immediately raised the alarm, and within minutes, the household was in chaos.

 Catherine’s night gown was found laid out neatly on her bed as if she had simply stepped out of it. The window was closed and latched from the inside. The door had been locked, the key still in the keyhole on the inside of the room. And yet, Catherine Ellison was gone. The search was immediate and frantic.

 The guards swore that no one had approached the house during the night and no one had left. The blood hounds picked up no scent trail beyond Catherine’s room. It was impossibly a repeat of Margaret’s vanishing, only this time from within a locked room in a house surrounded by watchful eyes. The second disappearance broke something in Josiah Ellison.

 He no longer spoke of finding his daughters, but instead became obsessed with protecting those who remained. Josephine, now 14, and Sarah, just three, were moved into the master bedroom, where both parents could watch over them day and night. The plantation began to decline. Josiah neglected the fields in favor of building ever more elaborate security measures around the house.

 Iron bars were installed on all windows. Additional locks were added to each door. No one was permitted to enter or leave without Josiah’s explicit permission. Elizabeth, meanwhile, retreated further into her own world. She began to speak to her missing daughters as if they were in the room with her, setting places for them at meals, folding their laundry, arranging flowers in their empty bedrooms.

 The slaves whispered among themselves, saying that the land itself had turned against the Ellisons, that they had built their home on ground that didn’t want them there. Some spoke of an old burial ground that had been plowed under when the plantation was first established, of spirits disturbed and seeking vengeance.

 Others blamed Madame Lavo, suggesting that her attempts to contact Margaret had opened a door that couldn’t be closed. Miss Porter’s journal from this period grows increasingly disturbed. I fear for my sanity in this house. Last night I dreamt I saw Catherine walking across the cotton fields, her white night gown billowing through there was no wind. When she turned to look at me, her face was that of an old woman.

 Her eyes dark pits and a withered face. Behind her walked Margaret, and behind Margaret a procession of women I did not recognize. All in white, all with the same holloweyed gaze. They were singing something, a melody I could not quite grasp, but which filled me with such dread that I woke screaming. Mrs.

 Ellison merely looked at me and said, “You’ve seen them, too, then. God help us all.” By 1849, the once prosperous Ellison plantation was in shambles. Many of the slaves had been sold to pay debts, as the cotton crop had failed two years in a row.

 The remaining house servants whispered that the land was cursed, that nothing would grow until the Ellisons were gone. And still inexurably, time moved forward, bringing Josephine’s 16th birthday ever closer. Josephine had been 12 when Margaret disappeared, 14 when Catherine followed. Now, as April 1849 approached, she was a solemn young woman who rarely smiled and never ventured beyond the confines of the house.

 Unlike her sisters, she seemed to anticipate her fate with a kind of grim resignation. Josephine came to me last night, Miss Porter wrote in February 1849. She asked if I would take Sarah away before April comes. They won’t stop with me. She said, “They’ll take Sarah, too, when her time comes. But you can save her, Miss Porter. Take her north. Change her name. Never speak of the Ellisons again.

” When I asked who they were, she looked at me as if I were simple and said, “The women in white, of course. The ones who were here before us, the ones we displaced. I promised I would consider it, though in truth I do not believe Mr. Ellison would ever let his youngest child out of his sight, let alone into my sole care.

 As April approached, Josiah Ellison’s preparations took on an almost manic quality. He dismissed the remaining house servants, unwilling to trust anyone outside the family. He boarded up every entrance to the house, save one, which he guarded himself. Rifle in hand, he consulted engineers about the possibility of building an underground chamber where Josephine could be kept safe.

 But by then his funds were too depleted to undertake such a project. Elizabeth, in a rare moment of lucidity, suggested they leave the plantation entirely. We’ll go north, she proposed at the dinner table one night in March. We’ll change our names, start a new where this shadow cannot follow us. But Josiah refused.

 This is our home, he insisted. I built it from nothing. I won’t be driven away by by whatever this is. We’ll stand our ground. We’ll break this curse. As the fateful day approached, Josephine grew increasingly withdrawn. She spent hours staring out the barred windows, her expression unreadable.

 Sometimes she could be heard humming a strange a tonal melody that made the hairs on the back of the neck stand up. On the eve of her birthday, April 22nd, 1849, Josephine asked to speak with her father alone. What transpired during that conversation was never recorded. But afterward, Josiah emerged from her room looking shaken.

 He summoned what little staff remained and ordered them to prepare the carriage. The family would leave at first light, he declared, heading for Mobile and then taking ship to Boston, where his brother lived. It was the first sign of hope in that household for many months.

 Miss Porter helped Elizabeth pack a few essentials while Josiah secured the valuables that remained. Little Sarah, now five, was told they were going on an adventure, and she clapped her hands in delight. Too young to understand the desperation that drove their flight. They worked through the night, planning to depart before dawn, Josephine was calm, almost serene, as she helped her mother select which keepsakes to bring.

Only what we need, she reminded them. We can buy new things in Boston. As the first hint of light appeared on the horizon, the family gathered in the entrance hall, trunks packed, ready to leave behind the house that had become their prison. Josiah counted heads. Elizabeth, Josephine, Sarah, Miss Porter, all present.

 “Where is Thomas?” he asked, suddenly realizing his son was missing. Thomas, now 21, had been tasked with readying the horses. He should have returned by now. Josiah opened the front door, the only one not boarded up, and stepped onto the porch, calling his son’s name. There was no answer.

 The carriage stood ready, but there was no sign of Thomas or the horses that should have been hitched to it. Stay here, Josiah told the women. Bar the door behind me. I’ll find him. As Josiah disappeared into the pre-dawn gloom, Miss Porter secured the door as instructed. The four females huddled in the entrance hall, listening to the silence that seemed to press in on them from all sides.

 “He’s coming for me,” Josephine whispered, her voice eerily calm. “I can hear him calling.” Elizabeth clutched Sarah to her chest, murmuring prayers under her breath. Miss Porter tried to reassure them, suggesting that Thomas had simply had trouble with one of the horses, that Josiah would return shortly and they would be on their way.

 But as the minutes stretched into an hour and the hour into two, their fear grew. Outside, the sun had risen, casting long shadows through the cracks in the boarded windows. It was Sarah who first noticed the humming, a low, melodic sound coming from everywhere and nowhere at once. Josephine lifted her head, listening intently, then smiled.

 A terrible knowing smile that transformed her young face into something ancient and other. “They’re here,” she said simply. And then, before anyone could stop her, she walked to the front door, lifted the bar, and stepped outside. Miss Porter lunged after her, catching her by the wrist. But Josephine turned to her with such a look of peace and certainty that the governness’s grip faltered.

 It’s all right, Josephine said. This is how it must be. Look after Sarah. Remember your promise. And with that, she pulled free and walked down the porch steps, her white dress bright in the morning sun. Elizabeth screamed, rushing to the doorway. But something stopped her at the threshold.

 An invisible barrier that she beat against with her fists, wailing her daughter’s name. Miss Porter, not feeling the same resistance, made to follow Josephine, but froze at what she saw. Across the overgrown lawn, standing in a semicircle, were seven women in white. Their faces were indistinct, their forms wavering like heat shimmer on a summer day.

 Among them, Miss Porter would later swear, were Margaret and Catherine, their expressions serene, their hands extended toward their sister. Josephine walked toward them without hesitation. As she reached them, the women parted, revealing the old oak stump, which now impossibly sprouted new growth, a slender sapling rising from the charred wood.

 Josephine knelt before it, placing her hands on the fresh green shoots, and then between one heartbeat and the next, all eight women were gone. The lawn was empty, saved for the sapling, now grown to a young tree in the space of seconds, its branches reaching toward the sky. of Josiah and Thomas Ellison. No trace was ever found. The property, now abandoned, fell into greater disrepair.

 Elizabeth, broken by the loss of nearly her entire family in the space of 4 years, took Sarah and Miss Porter and fled to her family in Virginia. She never spoke of the Ellisons again, and when questioned would only say that her husband and elder children had died of fever.

 Sarah Ellison grew up as Sarah Montgomery, raised by her maternal grandparents as if she were their own child. Elizabeth died in 1855, having never recovered from the trauma of those final days in Alabama. Miss Porter remained with the Montgomery family as Sarah’s governness until the girl was grown. In 1860, as war clouds gathered over the divided nation, she compiled her journals and the fragments of the Ellison story she had pieced together, sealing them in a cedar box with instructions that they not be opened until after her death.

That box remained untouched until 1902 when it was discovered during renovations to the old Montgomery house in Richmond. By then, both Miss Porter and Sarah Montgomery were long dead. Sarah having succumbed to tuberculosis in 1870 at the age of 26.

 The journals might have been dismissed as the ravings of a disturbed mind had it not been for one unsettling detail. Sarah had died on her birthday, July 7th, the day she turned 26, not 16, as with her sisters, but still her birthday. And according to the attending physicians notes, in her final moments, she had looked toward the window and smiled, saying clearly, “They’ve come for me at last. My sisters have waited so long.

 But what of the Ellison plantation itself?” After the war, the land was divided and sold to former slaves and northern investors. The house, or what remained of it, was torn down in 1867. Only the oak tree was left standing, now grown to an impressive size despite its traumatic beginning. Local legend held that on certain nights, particularly in the spring and summer, when the Ellison daughters had been born, the tree would be surrounded by flickering lights like lanterns carried by invisible hands. Those brave or foolish enough to

approach reported hearing women’s voices singing an unfamiliar melody and feeling a profound sense of peace mixed with melancholy. In 1897, a historian from the University of Alabama became interested in the Ellison story, having come across references to the disappearances in old newspaper archives. Dr.

 William Harkort spent several months researching the case, interviewing elderly residents of the area who might have had connections to the family or the plantation. What he discovered suggested a deeper, older mystery. The land where Josiah Ellison had built his plantation had indeed been a burial ground, not for local tribes, as the slave rumors had suggested, but for an obscure religious sect that had settled briefly in the area in the late 1700s before disappearing under mysterious circumstances.

 These settlers, primarily women, had practiced a form of worship that combined elements of Christianity with older pagan traditions. They had been led by a woman called Mother Abigail, who claimed to receive visions from the women beyond the veil. According to the few records that survived, the sect had been accused of practicing witchcraft after several young men from nearby settlements vanished after being seen in their company.

 A mob had descended on their compound in the spring of 1798, intending to drive them out or worse. They found the buildings empty, the women gone without a trace. The only living thing remaining was a massive oak tree in the center of their settlement, festoned with strange symbols carved into its bark. The locals had tried to cut down the tree, but every ax that struck it broke on impact.

 Eventually, they had given up, declaring the place cursed and avoiding it for decades until Josiah Ellison, newly arrived from Virginia and unaware of the local history, purchased the land for his plantation. Dr.

 Harkort’s research took a personal turn when he discovered that his own great-g grandandmother had been a member of Mother Abigail’s sect. Among family papers, he found a letter written by her just before the group’s disappearance. We go to join those who came before beyond the veil where time flows differently. The tree is our anchor and our gateway.

 Through it we will return when needed to reclaim what is ours and to welcome our scattered daughters home. They will know us by the calling in their blood by the dreams that come as their 16th year approaches. None can stop what has been set in motion. We are patient. We can wait. Dr. Harkort published his findings in a small academic journal in 1899, suggesting that the Ellison disappearances might be connected to this earlier history.

 His theories were dismissed by his colleagues as fanciful nonsense, and he was encouraged to focus on more reputable historical research. Disheartened, but not deterred, Harkort made one final visit to the Ellison property in the summer of 1900. By then, the land had been divided into smaller farms, but the oak tree still stood now enormous, its branches spreading wide over what had once been the center of the plantation.

 Harkort set up camp beneath the tree, intending to spend the night there and record any unusual occurrences. He was never seen again. His equipment was found the next morning, including his journal, which contained a final entry. Midnight, the humming has begun, just as the locals described. There’s a quality to it that defies description. Not quite music, not quite language, but something in between.

 The air around the tree seems to shimmer, as if the boundary between this world and another has grown thin. I can make out figures moving among the branches, women in white with faces, both young and impossibly ancient. They’re looking at me. They know why I’ve come. One of them, could it be mother Abigail herself, is beckoning to me.

 I should be afraid, but instead I feel only curiosity and a strange sense of homecoming, as if I’ve been expected. I’m going to approach them. God forgive me if this is madness, but I must know the truth. The oak tree still stands today, protected now as a historical landmark, though few remember the true story behind its preservation.

 Local children dare each other to spend the night beneath its branches, but none have disappeared, at least not that anyone admits to. But there are whispers still of women in white seen walking through the fields on moonlit nights. Of a strange humming that rises from the ground around the oak’s massive roots, of dreams that come to young girls approaching their 16th year.

 Dreams of women calling them home. And occasionally, very occasionally, a girl does go missing. Usually one with no connection to the area, perhaps visiting relatives or just passing through. The searches find nothing. The cases eventually go cold and life moves on.

 Except for those who know the history, who recognize the pattern, who understand that some hungers transcend time and physical boundaries, who know that somewhere beyond a veil, we cannot perceive the women in white are still waiting, still watching, still calling their daughters home. Some say that if you stand beneath the oak at midnight on the anniversary of Margaret Ellison’s disappearance, July 15th, you can hear the voices of all four Ellison women singing together in perfect harmony.

 Their song is beautiful and terrible, a promise and a warning intertwined. We are waiting, they seem to say. We have always been waiting. And when your time comes, we will be waiting for you, too. The Ellison family’s Macob legacy lives on. A whispered story passed down through generations. A warning to those who would build their fortunes on ground that does not welcome them.

 A reminder that some mysteries are never meant to be solved, only witnessed from a safe distance, acknowledged with respect and more than a little fear. As for the oak tree, it continues to grow, its roots reaching deep into soil, nourished by secrets.

 According to the last survey, its trunk now measures over 30 ft in circumference, making it one of the largest and oldest oak trees in Alabama. Though experts are puzzled by this as historical records suggest it couldn’t possibly be more than 150 years old. But then time moves differently for some things, doesn’t it? Especially for those with patience, with purpose, with an unending hunger that only specific souls can satisfy.

 Sleep well tonight, dear viewers. And if you hear humming in your dreams, if you glimpse women in white beckoning from the shadows, perhaps it’s best not to follow. Some invitations once accepted can never be rescended. This has been the ghastly journal. Until next time, remember the past is never truly gone.

 It merely waits for its moment to return. In the years following Dr. Harkort’s disappearance, interest in the Ellison case faded. The academic community, embarrassed by what they considered the delusions of a once respected colleague, quietly removed his work from circulation.

 The local farmers who worked the subdivided plantation lands avoided speaking of the strange occurrences that sometimes happened near the oak tree, fearing it would affect their property values. But in 1927, the story resurfaced when a young woman named Elellanar Pritchard, a student at the Alabama Women’s College, chose the Ellison disappearances as the subject of her thesis in American folklore.

 Unlike her predecessors, Eleanor approached the case not as a historical mystery to be solved, but as an evolving folk narrative that revealed the anxieties and beliefs of the region. Eleanor’s research took her beyond the dry newspaper accounts and property records. She sought out the descendants of those who had known the Ellisons, collecting oral histories that had never been written down. What emerged was a more nuanced picture of the family and the circumstances surrounding their tragedy.

Josiah Ellison, it seemed, had not simply found the land for his plantation. According to the granddaughter of his former overseer, Josiah had won the property in a card game from a man desperate to be rid of it.

 The man, whose name had been lost to time, had warned Josiah that the land was cursed, that no one who lived there prospered for long. Josiah, flushed with the arrogance of youth and ambition, had laughed off the warning. More troubling were the stories Ellaner collected about Elizabeth Montgomery Ellison. Far from being the delicate southern bell portrayed in earlier accounts, Elizabeth had apparently been known in her youth for an interest in the occult.

 Her family had connections to New Orleans, and she had spent several seasons there before her marriage, reportedly studying with practitioners of voodoo and other mystical traditions. The most startling revelation came from Bessie Johnson, once a house slave at the Ellison plantation, who at 98 years old was one of the few people still living who had witnessed the events firsthand.

 According to Bessie, Elizabeth had not been an innocent victim of the tragedy that befell her family. Miss Elizabeth knew what that land was. Bessie told Ellaner in a recorded interview from 1927. She knew what lived in that oak tree. She thought she could control it, make some kind of bargain with it.

 I heard her sometimes late at night talking to something that wasn’t there or wasn’t there for the rest of us to see anyway. She’d go out to that tree with offerings, locks of her children’s hair, little drops of their blood taken while they slept. Said she was protecting them, marking them as her own so the tree women wouldn’t take them. But you can’t bargain with spirits like that.

 They take what they want when they want it. When Elellanar asked why Elizabeth’s strange behavior hadn’t been reported, Bessie laughed bitterly. Who was going to believe a slave over a plantation mistress? And besides, Mr. Josiah didn’t want to see it. That man could blind himself to anything that might interfere with his precious cotton and his precious reputation.

 By the time he started to understand what was happening, it was too late. The bargain had already been made, and the price was being collected. Elellaner’s thesis completed in 1928 presented the Ellison story as a complex intersection of historical fact, supernatural belief, and the social dynamics of the antibbellum south.

 She suggested that the disappearances, whatever their actual cause, had been interpreted through the lens of existing folk beliefs about the land and its previous inhabitants, creating a narrative that served as both warning and explanation for events that defied rational understanding. The thesis earned Ellaner high marks and the attention of folklorists beyond Alabama, but it also attracted unwelcome attention of another kind.

 Shortly after her graduation, while visiting the oak tree for one final round of photography, Ellaner Pritchard disappeared. Her camera and notebook were found at the base of the tree, but of Ellaner herself, there was no trace. The search for Ellaner brought renewed attention to the Ellison case and the history of disappearances associated with the property.

 Authorities, embarrassed by their inability to explain yet another vanishing, suggested that Elellanar had staged her own disappearance to add mystique to her research, perhaps planning to write a sensational book on the subject. Her parents and professors vehemently denied this possibility, pointing to Elellaner’s serious academic ambitions and the fellowship to study at Oxford that she had been scheduled to begin the following month.

 The disappearance became a brief national news story with the more lurid newspapers suggesting everything from murder to voluntary cult involvement. When no body or other evidence was found after 6 months of searching, the case was officially classified as unsolved and gradually faded from public consciousness.

 But Ellaner’s thesis and the attention her disappearance brought to the Ellison case had one lasting effect. The oak tree and the surrounding 5 acres were designated a historical site in 1930. Protected from development or destruction. The official reason given was the treere’s remarkable age and size, but locals understood the real motivation. No one wanted to risk disturbing whatever dwelled there.

 Through the Great Depression and World War II, the Ellison story remained a local legend. Occasionally revived when a young person would go missing in the area, but never gaining wider attention. The oak tree continued to grow. its massive branches now spreading over nearly half an acre, creating a cathedral-like space beneath that remained perpetually shadowed even on the brightest summer days.

 In 1965, a developer purchased the land adjacent to the oak trees protected acorage, planning to build a subdivision of middleclass homes. Despite warnings from locals, work began in the spring of that year. Almost immediately, problems arose. Equipment malfunctioned inexplicably. Workers reported feeling watched, hearing whispers in the rustling of the oaks leaves.

 Several men quit after experiencing vivid nightmares of women in white calling them by name. The developer, Howard Daniels, dismissed these concerns as superstitious nonsense. To prove there was nothing to fear, he staged a publicity stunt, announcing that he would spend the night alone beneath the oak tree on July 15th, the anniversary of Margaret Ellison’s disappearance, and broadcast the experience live on local radio.

 On the appointed night, Daniels arrived with a radio crew who set up their equipment at what they considered a safe distance about 50 yards from the tree. Daniels, equipped with a portable microphone and a sleeping bag, made himself comfortable at the base of the massive trunk, his back resting against the gnarled bark. The broadcast began at 10 p.m.

 with Daniel’s joking about ghost stories and the power of suggestion. There’s nothing here but an impressive old tree and a lot of overactive imaginations. He told his listeners, “The Ellison disappearances, if they happened at all, probably had perfectly rational explanations.

 Young women ran away all the time, especially from the restrictive environment of the Antabellum South. As for Dr. Harkort and that college girl, Elellanar, well, history is full of opportunists who saw a chance to disappear and start fresh.” As midnight approached, Daniel’s tone grew more subdued. It is unnaturally quiet here, he admitted around 11:30. No crickets, no night birds, and the air feels strange, heavy somehow, but that’s just the summer humidity and the natural acoustics created by this massive canopy above me.

 At 11:45, the broadcast was interrupted by bursts of static. When Daniels’s voice returned, it was noticeably tense. “There’s something moving in the branches above me,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. I’m told there are no animals nesting in this tree, but I can definitely hear. Well, it sounds almost like footsteps moving around up there. And there’s a humming, very faint, but constant.

Probably just the wind. Though, I have to say, the air is perfectly still down here. At 11:55, Daniels requested that the radio crew turn off their spotlight, which had been directed at him throughout the broadcast. The light is creating strange shadows, he explained. I keep thinking I see figures moving at the edge of the illuminated area.

 It’s distracting. I’d rather sit in darkness for these last few minutes. The crew complied, though they were becoming increasingly concerned by Daniels’s behavior. In the darkness, his voice grew softer, more contemplative. You know, there’s something peaceful about this place once you adjust to it.

 I can almost understand why someone would want to remain here. It feels outside of time somehow, separate from the noise and chaos of the modern world. At exactly midnight, according to the radio station’s log, Daniels gasped. The microphone picked up what sounded like movement, a rustling of fabric, and then Daniels’s voice oddly distant. They’re here, my god, they’re beautiful. Nothing to fear at all. They’re just waiting.

Always waiting. There was a sound like a sigh and then silence. The radio crew, alarmed, turned the spotlight back on and rushed toward the tree. Daniels was gone. His sleeping bag remained, unzipped and empty. The portable microphone lay on the ground, still transmitting the sound of the wind through the oak’s leaves.

 The broadcast, which had been recorded, became one of the most requested pieces of audio in the station’s history. Analysis by audio experts revealed no evidence of tampering or staging. Whatever had happened to Howard Daniels beneath the oak tree that night had happened exactly as the listeners had heard it. Daniels’s body was never found. The development project was abandoned.

 The land eventually donated to the state as an extension of the historical site. The oak trees protected area now encompassed 15 acres with a fence and warning signs keeping the curious at a safe distance, but the signs and fence did little to deter everyone. Over the decades, the oak tree became something of a pilgrimage site for those drawn to the unexplained.

 Paranormal investigators, thrill-seeking teenagers, grieving families hoping for some connection to lost loved ones. All came to stand beneath those spreading branches, to listen for the humming, to watch for women in white. Not all who came left again, though the disappearances were sporadic enough and spread over enough years that no clear pattern emerged to outside observers.

 a college student in 1972, a paranormal researcher in 1984, a young mother in 1991, a retired history teacher in 2003. All vanished without trace. All last seen near the oak tree. Local authorities, weary of unsolvable cases and unwilling to acknowledge the pattern for fear of encouraging more foolhardy visitors, tended to classify these disappearances as voluntary.

 people who had chosen to walk away from their lives for reasons of their own, using the treere’s reputation as a convenient cover. Perhaps they were right. Perhaps there were perfectly rational explanations for each disappearance. Explanations that had nothing to do with women in white or bargains made with forces beyond human understanding.

 Perhaps the Ellison story was nothing more than a tragic series of coincidences embellished over time into something supernatural. But if so, how to explain the dreams that still come to young girls in the area as they approach their 16th birthdays? Dreams of women calling them by name, beckoning them toward a massive oak tree where safety and belonging await.

 Dreams so vivid, so compelling that parents in three counties have been known to send their daughters away to relatives in other states until the dangerous birthday has passed. How to explain the fact that the oak tree, despite multiple examinations by arborists and botonists, defies all natural laws of growth and aging? Its rings, visible in core samples, suggest an age of barely 150 years, exactly matching the time since Josephine Ellison knelt before the charred stump and vanished.

 Yet, its size indicates a tree that should be at least 500 years old. And one of the items occasionally found at its base, a white satin slipper with a pearl button, perfectly preserved despite the passage of time, a silver locket containing a miniature portrait of a solemn-faced young woman with chestnut hair.

 A leatherbound journal with blank pages, save for a single line written on the first page in faded ink. They are calling me home. These artifacts appear and disappear with no discernable pattern. Visitors have reported seeing them one moment only to find them gone when they look again. Those who have managed to take photographs find only a blur where the object should be, as if it existed partially in some other reality, imperfectly translated into our own.

 In 2015, a team from a popular paranormal investigation television show spent three nights near the oak tree equipped with the latest technology for capturing evidence of supernatural activity. Their experience, aired as a special episode, included unexplained temperature drops, audio recordings of what seemed to be women’s voices singing in an unidentifiable language, and a video sequence that showed what appeared to be human figures moving among the branches, visible only through infrared cameras.

The most compelling moment came on the third night when the team’s only female member, a skeptical technical expert named Jordan, reported feeling compelled to approach the tree. The cameras followed as she walked toward it, her expression shifting from professional detachment to wonder.

 “They’re talking to me,” she whispered, her hand reaching out toward the trunk. “They’re saying I belong with them, that I always have.” Her colleagues, alarmed, physically restrained her from touching the tree. Jordan later had no memory of the incident, though she resigned from the show shortly afterward, citing personal reasons.

 Her social media accounts went silent a few months later and attempts by fans to locate her have been unsuccessful. The show’s producers, when questioned about Jordan’s current whereabouts, claimed to have lost touch with her after her resignation. Her family, when approached by reporters, refused to discuss her or the events at the oak tree, saying only the Jordan found her path and wishes to be left in peace. And so the Ellison mystery endures, neither fully debunked nor conclusively proven.

 A shadow story that lingers at the edges of rational explanation. The oak tree still stands, still grows, still whispers to those with ears to hear. The women in white still walk its branches on moonlit nights, still hum their strange melody, still wait within human patience for their next daughter to come home.

 For some secrets belong not to history, but to something older, something that existed before human memory, and will continue long after we are gone. Some hungers transcend time and physical boundaries, enduring through centuries, patient and persistent. And some stories once begun have no true ending, only a continuing, a becoming, a slow and inevitable unfolding that we can witness but never fully comprehend.

 So, if you find yourself in southern Alabama and curiosity draws you toward a massive oak tree standing alone amid protected acres, remember the Ellison Daughters. Remember Eleanor Pritchard. Remember Howard Daniels. Remember all those who approached that tree seeking answers and became instead part of the question. Listen for the humming. Watch for the women in white.

 And ask yourself, are you certain you know who is calling you home? This has been the ghastly journal. Until we meet again, remember that some mysteries are best admired from a distance, and some calls are best left unanswered. In the soft glow of your screen, in the comfort of your home, the Ellison story might seem merely an entertaining tale, a pleasantly chilling diversion.

 But somewhere in Alabama, beneath an impossibly ancient oak that should not exist, the women in white are still waiting. They have all the time in the world.