Hell's Hollow (8 page)

“I figured I wouldn’t be a danger to anyone at night.” He sounded defensive. “Once I snuck out when she was at church and once during her bridge game in daylight. But I never came anywhere but here. I was always careful not to be seen. I didn’t think I could hurt anyone here.”

“W
hat you’re describing — the tug — it’s what brings me here, too.”

“It is?” His face lit up.

I nodded, wondering.

“What does it mean?” he asked.

“Like I said, it’s where our power comes from. What that power turns into is different for each person.”

“So it’s the devil’s work you do.” An owl hooted in the distance.

“What? Zach, it’s not.” Why was he so obsessed with the devil?

“How do you know?” he asked.

And for a minute I wasn’t sure. Maybe that’s why we all went crazy. Maybe the power
was
the devil’s. But that couldn’t be right. I didn’t even know if I believed in the devil. And besides, none of us had ever intended anyone harm. I shook my head.

“It’s
Hell’s
Hollow,” he said. “Not God’s. Maybe we’re all condemned.”

“The power I feel from The Hollow, it’s pure, it’s… good.” And for a second I wondered why I bothered to fight it.

“Maybe the devil tricked you into believing that,” he said.

He was starting to piss me off. “The tug you feel to come down here, has it caused any harm?”

“Not yet,” he replied. “But maybe it’s my father calling from the underworld. Maybe he wants me to do something for him again.” He shuddered. “Maybe… you could be in danger right now.”

The breeze picked up, sending a chill up my spine.

“What do you mean ‘again’?” I asked.

“Don’t ask me that,” he said. “I can’t talk about that.”

“If I tell you my secret, will you tell me yours?” I asked. “Please. I’m not afraid,” I lied, because I was scared in the quiet of the night with someone who admitted to being a murderer.
Mom would freak if she knew
. I probably should have stayed away, run home. But I felt magnetized to him, his need too strong for me to ignore.

“I don’t know,” he murmured. “She said…”

“Not everything she says is true. I’ve seen her lie about you over and over. If she lies about you, she could be lying about other things, too.”

“Tell me yours first,” he said.

“I’m not supposed to tell either,” I replied.

He nodded, waited.

I couldn’t believe I was about to break one of the cardinal rules again, about to tell a stranger — or maybe a hallucination — our secret. “The power in The Hollow gives me…” I stopped, took a breath, almost couldn’t get the words out, “the ability to heal.” My face got hot, embarrassed. “I know it sounds crazy. Or like witchcraft or something. But it’s true. I can heal animals, even people. I’m not allowed to, though.”

“
That’s
your secret?” he asked. “That’s something
good
! How is that a secret?”

“Because,” I tried to remember why it was so crucial that I never tell anyone. “My family, the ones who have the sensitivity, they end up crazy. People treat them differently. We’re freaks. In some generations, the town tried to get them kicked out of here or locked up young. Mostly it’s the tale of Hell’s Hollow that stops them. But my mom has done a ton of work to appease them and get into their good graces, especially with people like your grandmother.”

“Tell it to me,” he said.

“What? The tale?”

He nodded, and something about him pulled at me to give in.

“It goes back to the 1800’s,” I started. “Supposedly, this area was marked for logging. They’d built a mill, started a town. But then a Miwok medicine man called Tall Tree tried to stop them, said the trees here had to be protected, that The Hollow was a magical place. A rumor started that it was actually gold he was trying to protect, that he wanted to keep it all for himself. So a few of the local men tried to sneak in and lay claim to this land. There was an earthquake that night. A couple of the men were injured. After that, everyone swore, especially men, that when they tried to step foot in The Hollow, it ejected them like a cannon.”

“Like,
actually
?” he asked, starting in on a
Reece’s
cup.

“Yeah. And at first it seemed that Tall Tree had won, that the land would be protected. The locals figured the medicine man had put some kind of curse on the place. But then an outlaw called Jack McDowell came to town. He’d heard about the gold. He figured if you kill the medicine man, you obliterate the hex. So he tried to shoot Tall Tree. But his gun refused to fire. So instead, he crept up on him while he was sleeping and strangled him in the night.”

“No way,” Zach said.

“Tall Tree was dead, but The Hollow’s curse remained. Any man who tried to enter found they couldn’t come in at all. And the effect of the magic caused weird stuff to happen in the town -- anything mechanical went haywire, grain spoiled. The people were afraid.”

I took a breath. “That’s where my family comes in. The Wylde women found themselves drawn to the area right after the earthquake. They built a house right at the edge of the wood, didn’t seem affected by The Hollow at all, at least not in the negative way it seemed to be affecting others. People thought they were strange. But their presence acted as a buffer. Fewer mishaps occurred in the developing town. Grain quit going rancid. Milk no longer soured in the night — or so they say. The town grew. Loggers went ahead with their plan, but steered clear of the immediate area around The Hollow. The mill thrived. And as long as the Wylde women lived here, the strange occurrences were minimal.

“But as each of the women in my line aged, they lost their minds and ended up institutionalized. From what I understand, in the 1800’s that was even scarier than it is now. They used all kinds of sick torture devices to expel the insanity. Anyway, the townspeople figured it was the long-term effect the hex had on the women that made them crazy.”

“It doesn’t feel like it’s bad,” Zach said, touching the ground below him.

“Neither do you,” I said. He looked away and I went back to the story. “My grandma, when she was a young woman, decided to move away. She didn’t want to end up with the same fate as the rest of them. She took her daughter, Mary Kate, and went to San Francisco. At first it was okay. Her own mother was still here to buffer the energy of The Hollow. But as her mom started to lose it, to go crazy herself, more and more strange things happened in town. More cars broke down, telephones quit working altogether, power went out regularly, toilets exploded, and mayhem reigned. Her mother
— my great-grandmother — ended up in Meadowland. And Gran, who’d given birth to a second daughter in San Francisco, had to come back to take care of her own mother and to serve as the buffer for the town. Once she returned with her two girls, life in Hell’s Hollow settled down again. The locals found my Gran to be eccentric. They kept their distance. They feared her ability to know what they were thinking. Myra Clay even campaigned to have her locked up in Meadowland
before
she went crazy.

“The town continued to both fear and need my family at the same time. Mom says it’s changed a lot in her generation. People don’t believe in all that magic stuff anymore. But she thinks we have to make sure to keep it that way, we have to seem as normal as possible so they’ll accept us and not be afraid.”

“But what’s to be afraid of? If all you do is heal people and make things better?” he asked.

“People fear what they don’t understand. And besides, I’m the only one that can heal, at least that I k
now of. When my aunt was young… She sees things. Only she didn’t warn the people. She told the police where to find the car that went off the road. It creeped people out or something, made them afraid of her.

“My mom forbid me from ever letting anyone see what I could do. When I was little, I once healed my friend’s finger at school. She’d accidentally cut it with the paper cutter. It looked awful, the tip nearly sliced off altogether. I couldn’t leave her like that when it was so easy for me to fix. It hurt me when others were hurt and made me feel better when I healed. So it seemed the logical thing to do. I did it fast before anyone else had a chance to see what had happened. It was the only time in my life my mom ever spanked me. I wasn’t allowed to go out to play for a month.”

“But you didn’t do anything wrong. You helped the girl.”

I shrugged. “That’s the way it has to be. Besides, my mom was right. After that day, Sierra was afraid of me, kept her distance, whispered about me to the other ki
ds. I never had a friend again — until now.”

“It doesn’t make sense,” he said. “Do you think the story about the curse is true?”

“It’s what they’ve told me all my life,” I said. “I wouldn’t know how to not believe it.”

“So why can I sit here?” he asked. “Why doesn’t The Hollow eject me?”

“I don’t know,” I whispered.

“You’ve always been able to?” he asked.

“My whole family can. But the boys — it makes them feel uneasy. They don’t like living in its shadow. It agitates them. They say it’s what killed my dad. That his heart rhythm went haywire from the effects of being so close to The Hollow all those years. It’s why my brothers all moved away as soon as they turned eighteen — to be free of it.”

“And the tug that makes you come down here, you only feel it sometimes?” he asked.

“When there’s a wounded animal in need. The bigger the animal or the wound, the stronger the tug.”

“That’s why you said you don’t sense everyone who comes here.”

We were getting into dangerous territory. I didn’t want to scare him off. I nodded.

“You feel my wounds?” he asked.

I nodded again.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“Why sorry?” I asked.

“You shouldn’t have to feel that. No one should have to feel that.”

“Neither should you,” I said.

He shook his head. “I deserve it. It’s my fault.”

“What’s your secret?” I whispered.

For the longest time he wouldn’t look at me. Finally, his eyes met mine. “I killed my mother.”

I swallowed hard, forcing down the gasp that wanted to escape. Part of me wanted to get the hell out of there. But I couldn’t. Not yet. I needed to understand. “How?” I asked, my voice sounding squeakier than I’d meant for it to.

“I burned the house,” he said.

Goose flesh crawled over my skin. “On purpose?” I asked.

He shook his head. “I don’t know. I don’t remember doing it.”

“Then how do you know you did?”

“
She
told me. My grandmother. I was only four. I remember the flames, the smoke. My mother burned inside the house.”

“Oh my God, Zach. I’m so sorry.”

“Why are
you
sorry?”

“Because that’s not anything any kid should ever have to live through.”

“Didn’t you hear me?
I
started the fire.
I
caused her to burn.
I
caused…” He stopped himself.

“The scars,” I finished for him. “That’s what’s on your hands and face, isn’t it, burns?”

“All over,” he whispered.

His socks, jeans, and turtleneck, they were probably all covering scars. It was why his pull was so strong. I wondered if… but I wasn’t allowed to… but maybe… but I wasn’t sure I even remembered how. My mind was reeling. “You can’t hold yourself responsible. You wouldn’t have hurt your mom on purpose. You loved her.”

“I shouldn’t have told you. I don’t blame you if you hate me.” He tried to look tough.

“I don’t hate you,” I said. “And I don’t blame you for whatever happened. And I definitely do not believe this has anything to do with the devil. Maybe you were playing with matches and something caught fire, or maybe there was an electrical fire that had nothing do with you. I wouldn’t be so quick to believe Myra Clay.”

I could tell he was exhausted. It was strange; telling him my secret felt sort of liberating. Having him see it my way instead of Mom’s was reassuring. And yet his telling of his own secret seemed to have drained the life right out of him.

“I wouldn’t know how to not believe her,” he echoed, then stood to go, book in hand.

“Promise me you won’t stop coming.”

“I have no choice,” he replied. “The devil keeps calling. And I
’m not strong enough to resist.

Chapter Seven

He didn’t come down the next night. I worried that he’d stay away for good. When he was in The Hollow at night I couldn’t sleep because of his tug. And when he didn’t come at all I couldn’t sleep because I couldn’t stop thinking about him, worrying about him, wondering if I should break my promise and tell someone a
bout him, and also — wondering if he was real.

But I didn’t feel crazy in any other way. And I hadn’t given in to the pull. So that probably meant I hadn’t imagined him. Unless the increasing of the sensitivity was enough to send me over the deep end, which didn’t seem fair at all since I had no control over that. I made a mental note to ask Gran what hallucinations felt like on our next visit.