The Hollows--A Novel

by Jess Montgomery

  Missy’s face convulses with sorrow—and something else. Fear. She does not want to be with the Dyers. Yearns to go back to the farm—which surely can’t be any more miserable than this household. Yet she stays. Why?

  Lily clears her throat. “Thea Kincaide came upon your gathering at your old house. The poor woman was haunted by a choice she was forced into as a child—and she was trying to set it right. She’d overheard two nurses at the Hollows Asylum talk of the WKKK’s plot to attack and kill Clarence Broward—referring to him by how he looks, rather than by name, and assuming any nearby residents wouldn’t understand, or care, what they were saying. That is what prompted Thea’s desperate plan to leave the Hollows—not that she knew Clarence. Just that a man was in danger, and she had her own reasons—”

  Margaret gives a dismissive wave of her hand. “Haven’t we been over all this?”

  “I just came from talking with Mrs. Cooper,” Lily goes on as if she hadn’t been interrupted. “She admits recognizing her cousin, and says Thea became upset, accusing Mrs. Cooper’s father’s gang of attacking Thea’s father’s wagon and killing him. She says that she brought Thea to you.”

  The room goes still as Margaret stiffens. A snake almost caught. A snake wishing to strike. “Indeed, she did.”

  “Then what happened?” Lily asks.

  “I told her she should deal with the woman—who was her cousin, after all.” Margaret smiles thinly. “Apparently she did.”

  Lily shakes her head. “I don’t think so. If she had ‘dealt’ with her, why admit to me that she’d even seen Thea there? I think she did bring her to you—but I think Thea’s ravings confirmed something you might have suspected all along, living in the Dyer farmhouse. Seeing the gravestones. Wondering, as I did, about Perry’s father, Murphy, being born to a sickly woman who’d never been able to have children, but who suddenly was able to give birth at fifty-one. Hearing tidbits about Perry’s stepmother and stepaunt—Thea herself—coming to live at the house so soon after Murphy was born. And now I have writings by Thea claiming that Murphy really was born to another slave on that wagon—a woman named Garnet.”

  Lily takes a quick glance at Perry—and sees from the shocked look on his face that he has just figured out his actual lineage.

  Margaret laughs. “You have it in writing? When, exactly, did Thea write this? Near the end of her life? The delusions—”

  “I know, I know.” Lily finally loses patience. “The delusions of an old woman with dementia. Except I found the burial site of Garnet—right where Thea’s writings placed her. I’ll have the remains exhumed—and buried properly, with respect. Even after all this time, the coroner should be able to approximate age and gender. Plus, at the site is a slave tag, likely used in hiring out slaves as part-time labor in Charleston, which is where Thea’s writings say Garnet and John came from. Who knows why Garnet would have kept it—perhaps as a reminder of what she was hoping to escape.” She looks at Perry. “Hoping to keep her descendants from experiencing.”

  Margaret gives Perry a look of distaste. “Well. How awkward for you. Perfect motivation for killing your great-aunt Thea—”

  “No.” Lily studies Perry’s shell-shocked expression. “This is news to him. But not to you. A perfect motivation to kill Thea—lest word got out. You couldn’t stand the notion of being married, all this time, to someone of mixed race. Especially as the leader of the WKKK. And you knew that if word got out, you’d not only lose that position; Perry’s chances of getting votes from the prejudiced members of our community would put his election as sheriff in jeopardy.”

  Perry jumps up, fists clenched. “My God, Margaret. My God. I didn’t want to run, I didn’t want to move, I did this for you, trying to make you happy for once in our miserable lives—”

  Margaret laughs. The out-of-place trill shocks Perry and Lily but not, she notes, Missy. “Oh please,” Margaret says. “I didn’t kill that old woman.” She cuts her sharp eyes to Missy. “If you ever want to see your boy again—even from behind the bars of a prison cell—”

  Missy drops back to her knees, sobbing. “She told that poor woman that we were going to go find the baby. She made me come with them and help get Thea to the top of the tunnel.”

  Lily’s blood goes cold. Thea wouldn’t have been strong enough to make that climb by herself. It had nearly bested Lily. As tiny as Thea had been, carrying her corpse up the ravine had been a challenge. Getting the confused but wiry and determined old woman to the top of the tunnel would be hard, even for a strong woman such as Margaret.

  So she’d picked Missy to help her. Missy—vulnerable, and foolish, and no doubt caught up in the moment. Just like the Klanswomen who had put the burning cross in Lily’s yard.

  The truth finally hits Lily, why Missy had stayed working as a servant for Margaret, even as Missy gasps out the confession between ragged sobbing breaths: “She told me I had to. That it was … it was an initiation rite I had to do … that if I gave the old woman a little push, I’d be putting her out of her confused misery, and she’d, she’d get Ralf to stop hitting me, so I could go back and be happy with him, and I know I shouldna done it, but it was like something took over me, and I was finally going to be free and part of something big, and I wanted to do it, and so … so I did.” Missy stares up at Lily, shivering at the awfulness of what she’s confessed—but more than that, at relief, as if finally expelling the sick that had roiled within her ever since. “I killed Thea Kincaide.”

  Margaret’s smile widens, even as Perry stares at her in horror. “Well, there you go, Lily. You have your confession.” She looks at Perry. “And now that word will get out—well, perhaps we should dissolve our marriage. I could run for office as sheriff in my own right. I’d have plenty of supporters, voters I’d turned out for you, but—”

  Missy hurls herself at Margaret, spitting, scratching, clawing. Perry pulls the sobbing woman back. “Stop,” he says. “Stop. She’s not worth it.”

  Lily stands. “I’ll take in Missy. But I’m taking in you, too.”

  Margaret snorts. “Weren’t you listening? She just confessed.” She gives another dismissive wave. “And I’ll vow in court that everything she said is true.”

  Lily looks at Perry. “Will you swear to what your wife just said?”

  Perry nods. Even as he holds the sobbing Missy, tears course down his cheeks. “I knew about the meetings Margaret has been going to and having this past year. I didn’t approve, asked her to stop. I found her notes about the initiation ceremony that was to happen at our old farm and finally forbade it, but when I got back home after work, Margaret was gone. I knew she’d found someone to drive or take a mule and wagon to the access path we used to get to Moonvale. I went after her, but once I got to the village I—I just couldn’t bring myself to go to the old house. I knew if I did, our marriage would get even more troubled. Now I wish I had gone.”

  Lily returns her gaze to Margaret, who suddenly looks confused as to the undercurrents about what had just happened. Lily smiles grimly. “You’ve just admitted to being an accessory to murder. Olive is filing charges against you for assault. I’m guessing we can convince Missy to testify you coerced her, then held her against her will with blackmail—that should reduce her sentence. And if I put word out that I won’t stop digging until I find out who was the ringleader behind the attack on me, my family, and my home—and by now, I think everyone knows I won’t stop—one of your supporters will step forth and point the finger at you. Even if it all doesn’t stick, enough will for you to spend a good long time in prison.”

  HILDY

  Saturday, October 2—4:00 p.m.

  Hildy sits on a kitchen chair down by the Kinship Tree. Mama and Mrs. Gottschalk had fussed at her that she should be inside, in bed, but when she told them she’d had enough of being cooped up inside, they’d look first struck and then understanding.

  They’d insisted on carrying out the chair for her and only left her alone after she was cozily secure under a d
ouble layer of quilts. For a long time she’d looked around, poking her gaze under bushes and between trees, hoping to catch a glint of the old-fashioned lady—Thea—in the corner of her eyes. But she knew she never would again.

  So now her eyes are closed, her face tilted up toward the sky. Though a bright blue day, it is cold, and a stiff wind clips along with the thrumming creek. But the fresh wind and air feels like a sweet caress of freedom. Hildy breathes deeply, savoring the hum of the creek but most especially the musty scent of autumn, which foretells the dying of leaves and the barrenness of fields and gardens—but to her, it is not a hollow season. The scents and riotous colors of leaves in their last glory, of goldenrods at last blazing like their name, also foretell the spring to come after winter. After a period of rest, new life comes after the old one is shed.

  Hildy hears the tread of footsteps and knows it is him.

  But she keeps her eyes closed even as his tread grows closer, then stops. There’s his scent—earth and tobacco. Tom.

  When at last she opens her eyes and turns to look at him, she sees him before her, hands clasped on one knee as if in prayer, though he is staring up, wide-eyed. She knows he would have waited as long as need be, even forever, for her to open her eyes.

  Giving her time. At last.

  She smiles, and that is all it takes for the tears to start coursing down his cheeks.

  “Hildy. Oh, Hildy. I came to check on Olive, to give her the news that the union voted yesterday. It was close—but for integration.”

  Hildy nods. Good. That is good.

  “Mrs. McArthur and Mrs. Gottschalk told me—” Tom’s voice breaks, like rock under pickaxe. “Told me what happened.”

  “I will be fine,” Hildy says. “I just need … time.”

  “Yes, all the time you need. Hildy—I couldn’t take it if something bad happened to you. If I lost you. I mean from this world. If’n you don’t want me, I understand, and I’ll be glad to know you’re all right, but if’n you’ll have me … Hildy? Will you marry me?”

  For a long moment, Hildy gazes into her beloved’s eyes, as far and deep as she can, savors his gaze entering hers. Slowly, she untucks her warm hands from the quilt and cups them around his cold, whiskery, dear face. Then she puts her forehead to his and whispers.

  “Oh, Tom. Yes. But first I have something I need to do.” It’s an idea that just struck her, in the first few minutes she’d been sitting out here. Suddenly she is sure. “I want to get my teaching certificate and maybe, if I’m lucky, teach in Rossville.”

  Tom gently strokes Hildy’s hair. “Take all the time you need, my love.”

  LILY

  Saturday, November 6—1:00 p.m.

  A brisk wind bearing the promise of snow sweeps across the Kinship Cemetery and swirls the last of the leaves from the cedar’s boughs around the gray headstones.

  Lily walks quickly, Jolene on one side and Micah on the other, their mittened hands in hers. Micah stops, jerking Lily’s arm.

  She looks down at him, sees fear puckering his little face, and doubt douses her heart. Maybe bringing the children here, for the first time since their father’s burial, was a bad idea.

  Jolene pulls away from Lily and runs around to Micah, pulling him to her in a hug.

  Jolene’s soft voice barely reaches Lily over the wind and scuttling leaves. “Mama wouldn’t bring us anywhere that isn’t all right.”

  Jolene’s confident proclamation goads Lily’s heart into a sharp flip. Lily wants to believe her daughter is right—not just about this cemetery visit, but about their upcoming move to the Gottschalk farm.

  Now their farm.

  When Mama had first broached the idea, Lily had started to reject it out of hand.

  Then the statement Harold had made at the Quaker meeting weeks before echoed across her mind—the wisdom he’d intoned, seemingly directed right at her.

  Find the wisdom in your grief.

  She thought, would it really be wise to move herself—her children, her mama, her little brother—here?

  It’s the sight of the Kinship Tree, where she has so many happy memories of Roger. Where she and Marvena had bonded their friendship a year before.

  Yet across the way is the house where Daniel had spent a miserable childhood—and so much drama had played out after his murder a year ago.

  But that’s also where she’d met Daniel, years ago. Where they’d fallen in love. She’d never trade a moment of her life with him for anything—or the memories.

  Find the wisdom in your grief.

  Maybe the wisdom is finding a way to hold both sorrow and joy, tragic and blissful memories, in your heart without breaking it.

  A new family lives in Daniel’s childhood home. Life goes on.

  Maybe Mama and the old Quaker man were on to something. Maybe her and her family’s life should go on in Widow Gottschalk’s house.

  So Lily had bought the house the day after the election on November 2, going from the courthouse after voting across the street to the Kinship Trust Savings & Loan to sign paperwork with Mrs. Gottschalk. Moving out of the town, into the countryside, on the land with the Kinship Tree felt right whether she won the election as sheriff or not. She’s calculated—she can drive her children, and several others along the way, into town for school and if she wins the election, go into the new office in the courthouse. If she doesn’t win, well, she’ll have to figure that out. Maybe instead of leasing out the land for buckwheat farming, she’ll farm it herself.

  Now Lily says gently to Micah and Jolene, “We don’t have to go look today.”

  Micah looks from Lily to Jolene, eyes wide as he stares up at the big sister with whom he usually tussles and quarrels. Jolene gives a small nod.

  Micah looks up at Lily. “I’m ready, Mama. I can do it.”

  Lily hesitates. Should she really trust the judgment of her small children?

  Go on, her own mama had said that morning. Go on, and take them. It’s not going to get easier. Your young ’uns—they’re strong, Lily. But they need you to help them get on with life. Then Mama had looked away, back to the clothes she was folding for her and Caleb Jr.’s own move. Mama has sold her house, and they are going to move in with Lily and her children. Just like you’re helping me. This house … it’s full of too many sorrows. Too many haunts. Mama meant Daddy and Roger, and Lily wondered if they ever came to life for her in the shadows, the way Daniel sometimes did for her.

  Now Lily scoops up Micah in one arm and holds Jolene’s hand. They continue on across the cemetery. Lily glances at a fresh grave—the new burial site for Garnet. Seth had confirmed the information about the slave tag. Lily doesn’t pause, for this will be too much to explain to the children, but she knows she’ll come back after the marker she’s ordered is in, to properly pay her respects.

  Finally, they come to Daddy’s and Roger’s markers, side by side, labeled In Memory Of, for Daddy’s physical remains are under the coal mine cave in where he’d died trying to save others and Roger’s body never came home from France.

  And next to Roger—Daniel’s grave.

  Lily had received word last week that Daniel’s headstone had finally been engraved and installed.

  Slowly, still holding Micah in her arm and Jolene’s hand in hers, Lily sinks to her knees before the grave. Micah wiggles and Lily gently releases him. Lily blinks, hard, swipes the back of her hand across her eyes, stinging as the wind pulls forth the tears she’s trying to hold back.

  “‘Here rests Daniel T. Ross,’” Jolene reads the engraved words. “‘Loving husband and father. February 11, 1892–March 25, 1925.’ Did I get it right, Mama?”

  Lily clears her throat. “That’s right, sweet pea. That’s what Daddy’s marker says.”

  “This is where Daddy is, now?” Micah asks.

  “No, silly,” Jolene says. “Mama said he’s in our hearts and smiles and eyes, that one night. Don’t you remember?”

  Micah gives Jolene a little shove. “I’m not silly! You
are!”

  “Children!”

  They both look at Lily, afraid of getting in trouble. But Lily laughs. Life goes on. Life does go on, in all its troublesome, petty, wonderful, detailed, glory.

  Lily pulls her children to her. “I wanted you to see that your daddy’s marker is all complete. And Jolene’s right—your daddy’s remains are here, but he’s not here. The spirit of him.” He lived now only in the memories of everyone who’d known or loved him. “He’s in our memories and hearts. But sometimes it’s good to come to the cemetery where someone’s remains were laid to rest. To remember them. Talk to them, in your heart, even.”

  “Do they hear us?” Micah asks.

  “I don’t know,” Lily says. “I think what’s important is that we pay attention to what we want to say.”

  Micah wiggles free and goes to the headstone. He presses his forefinger into the lettering, tracing it, and then he rests his head on top of the stone. “I miss you, Daddy,” he says.

  Oh! How Lily misses him, too. And will always miss him, no matter what else—or even who else—life brings her.

  As Jolene goes to stand with her brother, Lily looks beyond the headstone and the fence, into the woods. And there he is—the shimmery, silvery boy. Lily draws back as he grins at her. All along she’d thought she’d been envisioning a child from a future they’d never had.

  Perhaps it was a young Daniel—Daniel from before the weight of his own father’s anger and pain, from before life was so brutal.

  At the very notion, Lily quivers. Why would she see, all along, this young version of Daniel she’d never known—carefree and unfettered as he chased after whatever it was that had caught his attention and desire.

  “Lily?”

  She jumps, then realizes it’s Hildy, come up quietly behind her.

  Lily stands, turns, looks at her friend. Dear Hildy. The bruises and marks on her face have faded. Light has returned to her eyes, and a soft rose to her cheeks. Since both Clarence and Olive have left the area—separately but, Lily hopes, finding each other again in a new location—Hildy has taken on Olive’s job as a substitute school teacher in Rossville while making plans to eventually get her official teaching certificate. She’s excelling at it—as well as at living life independent of her mother, who whines at anyone who will listen, which are few people. Merle has started courting another young woman in Kinship. Junior, Lily has verified, did run back home to his father, Ralf, and so far, there has been no trouble between Junior and Jolene.