Lampwick Holler - The Haint Jars

Lampwick Holler is a stretch of mountain land so thick with ancient timber that daylight barely pierces through. Locals say it’s always twilight there, the kind of place where a man could lose his way by noon. Travelers once carried oil lanterns there, even in full sun, giving the place its name.

The people who live in Lampwick Holler are few, tucked in weathered cabins and old houses hidden by the deep woods. Stories cling to the place like moss - tales of lights that drift among the trees, of voices carried on the wind, and watchful eyes that never blink.

When the rumor began to spread of the sentient dolls wandering the pumpkin patch at Raybury Farm, the people living deep in the holler grew uneasy. They had their own ways of dealing with restless spirits...charms of twigs and thread, horseshoes nailed over doorways, bottles buried at doorsteps - but this was something different. Dolls that moved on their own were too close to witching, too close to a thing with its own will.

So the holler folk did what they always did: they turned fear into protection. Broken doll heads were collected - castoffs from the farm, leftovers from childhood, even discarded toys found along the roadside. Each head was placed inside a mason jar, sealed tight, sometimes packed with moss or bits of cloth.

The people called them Haint Jars.

They were set on porch rails, in root cellars, in barn lofts - anywhere something might try to creep in at night. The belief was simple: the dolls, with their cracked porcelain faces and unblinking eyes, would recognize the wandering spirits of their own kind and keep them from crossing the threshold. Some said you could hear scratching inside the jars at night, as though the dolls were fighting to keep the unseen at bay.

Now, if you walk the holler after dusk, you’ll still see them - lined up on fence posts, tucked on shelves, staring out from dusty windows. They are weathered, dirt-clouded, their glass jars fogged with age. But the locals will tell you: as long as the Haint Jars remain, the eerie dolls of Raybury Farm will not leave their fields.