by Ransom Riggs
“You misunderstood,” Sophie said calmly. “You know the prophecy?”
“Yeah, yeah. Seven will shut the door,” Noor said angrily.
“Seven may shut the door.” The doll was whispering to Sophie again. “That is, any of you are enough to fulfill the prophecy all on your own. You don’t need seven. Only one.”
“The other six,” said Miss Petrel, “are fail-safes.”
Julius and Sebbie looked at each other, revelation dawning. “Like, backups?” said Sebbie.
Miss Petrel snapped her fingers. “Precisely.”
Sebbie rubbed the back of her head like she was kneading some intractable idea out of it. “So, you mean . . . we don’t actually have to have . . .”
“Why didn’t someone just tell us this?” Noor exploded again. “Why’d we have to come all the way across hell on earth just to find this out?!”
“Three reasons.” Miss Petrel held up a hand with three fingers raised. “The information was too sensitive. It had to be told in person.”
“That’s true; we intercepted all your calls,” Millard said. “It’s a good thing you didn’t say more over the phone.”
“Two.” Miss Petrel ticked down one finger. “We couldn’t risk anyone not coming because they were ‘only a fail-safe.’ Each of you is needed.”
“Why?” Julius said. “You’ve seen what I can do; I don’t need help from anyone.”
“Because.” Miss Petrel gave Julius a sharp look and ticked down another finger. “Your powers are stronger together.”
“Six is a lot of fail-safes,” Millard said doubtfully. “You’d only need so many if the objective was unlikely to be accomplished on the first, second, or third try.”
“Thank you, invisible boy, for that confidence-inspiring observation,” said Julius. “But I know my own capacity, and it’s second to none.”
“And the unlikely objective is?” said Noor.
“To ‘shut the door’ and save peculiardom. No less than that.”
“Yes, but HOW?” Noor said, swiping the air in frustration. Without meaning to she’d torn away a strip of light from in front of her face and had to step through it so we could see her again. “Does anyone know what that actually means?”
Miss Petrel paused, blinking. “There’s another bit of prophecy that explains in more detail, but I’m trying to recall the exact wording. Pensevus, can you remember?”
Sophie held the doll up to her ear. I heard the clack of Pensevus’s wooden jaws opening and closing while Sophie nodded. The light leaked slowly from Noor’s hands back into the black scar she’d made. Horace held his breath in anticipation, hands clutched against his breastbone.
Sophie looked up. “Penny says you’ve got to eat Caul’s soul.”
Julius tightened his gloves and looked down, maybe hiding that he was finally starting to sweat a little. “And how are we supposed do that?”
Sebbie tossed up her hands, swiped a wide patch of light from the air above our heads, and slapped it into her mouth. “Wike bis!” she said through a full mouth, then swallowed and repeated, “Like this!”
“Yeah . . . if Caul’s made of light,” Noor said skeptically. “I thought he was a giant tree made of rotting meat, or something. That’s what that kid who saw him said.”
“Well,” said Julius, like he was explaining something to a child, “then his soul must be made of light.”
Sebbie glared at Noor. “Why would you doubt the word of an ymbryne?”
“You mean the whisperings of a doll?” said Enoch.
“He’s more than just a doll,” Sophie said, scowling. “Which Noor Pradesh knows very well for herself.”
“Okay, we’re getting way off track here,” I said. “Let’s just figure out how we’re getting back and then get the hell going. We can argue about how to eat Caul’s soul on the way.”
Everyone nodded. Finally, something we could all agree on.
“Yes, there isn’t time to waste,” said Miss Petrel. “Caul’s forces have already begun massing outside the gates of your loop in London.”
Bronwyn clapped her hands over her mouth. “They have?” she said through her fingers.
“Have you talked to the ymbrynes there?” Millard asked. “Are they all right?”
We’d been gone a half day already. Anything might’ve happened in that time.
“Attempts have been made to breach their defenses,” Miss Petrel said, “but so far they’ve not been successful. Their shield is strong—but only as strong as the ymbrynes who made it. If any of them are hurt, or lose consciousness, it may falter.”
“You mean they can’t even sleep?” said Julius.
“No,” Miss Petrel replied. “But fortunately, we don’t often need to.”
Miss Hawksbill and Miss Tern came walking up. They’d been standing nearby and had heard the whole exchange.
“We stand ready to help in any way we can,” said Miss Hawksbill.
“Thank you,” said Miss Petrel. “Right now we need to prepare these children for their journey back to London.”
* * *
◆ ◆ ◆
We went back inside the house to fetch our backpacks and coats, the ymbrynes forming a plan as we walked. Miss Hawksbill suggested it was better not to risk returning to London the same way we’d come, through the front lines and no-man’s-land to her loop, and the others agreed. I think if it had just been my friends and me, she might not have had the same doubts, but I worried Julius and Sebbie wouldn’t survive that battlefield crossing.
Miss Tern, though tense and looking increasingly confused, suggested a safer option. It involved exiting her loop through a small tear in the membrane only she knew about. Leaving via this particular tear would lead us not into the wider world of November 1916, but back into the present—“Your present,” she said, frowning. “Whenever that is.”
It seemed to be dawning on her that her loop had collapsed; that she was trapped here, a looped remnant of the past, though her sister was not.
“Outside the loop you’ll find a modern train station,” Miss Hawksbill said, “and from there the Eurostar will whisk you back to London in two comfortable hours.”
“The membrane isn’t terribly far,” said Miss Tern, “but you don’t want to stray off track. I’ll ready my fastest horses, and my sister and I will guide you from the sky.”
Miss Hawksbill gave her a look of both pity and gratitude, and then they hugged, kissed each other on both cheeks, and Miss Tern leapt into the air. In a burst of wings she assumed her avian form: a great white seabird with a black stripe that resembled the beret she wore, which had tumbled to the floor with the rest of her clothes. She let out a laughing cry and flew through an open window.
“I do miss her spark,” Miss Hawksbill said wistfully.
“At least you get to see her sometimes,” I said.
“Aye. That’s been nice. But I’m thinking of closing my loop here, packing up my heads and coming to join your ymbrynes in London. Now that the seven have come together, or what’s left of you, this loop has more than served its purpose.”
“But if you let your loop collapse, won’t it be a lot harder to see your sister again?”
“I’ve hung onto this broken shard of her for too many years. It’s time I let her go.”
She seemed to realize that she was not just talking to me but to all of us, and she stiffened and changed the subject. “Let’s not let this food go to waste.” She stepped to the long table and began tossing uneaten baguettes to each of us. “Tuck these into your packs. You might get hungry on the train, and the food on board is terribly overpriced.”
Miss Hawksbill made me achingly sad. Partly because her pain was so visible: It was evident in the slouch of her shoulders, the grooved lines around her eyes. But mostly because I understood. How many people would spend their lives a
mong shades and ghosts, were they able? Every parent who’d lost a child, every lover who’d lost a mate: If they had the choice, wouldn’t most do the same? We’re all riddled with holes, and there were days when I would’ve done anything to patch mine, if just for a while. I was glad I didn’t have a choice. Gladder still that I didn’t have the powers of an ymbryne. The temptation to misuse them would’ve been overwhelming.
We gathered up our things, loading, at Miss Petrel’s behest, still more of the leftover food from the table into our bags. Bronwyn hefted the steamer trunk and hitched it to her back with rope. Then we all went downstairs again to wait for Miss Tern. The big straw-floored room was almost empty now, the animals outside marveling at the stripes of dark Julius had left in the sky, which were slowly filling in again. While the others talked I tried to prepare myself for what was coming. It had been months since I’d ridden a horse, and I wasn’t the best at it. As long as we aren’t riding at a full gallop, I thought, I’ll be okay.
I’ll be okay was the last thing that crossed my mind when the screams began, sharp and panicked and coming from outside. We all ran to the soot-grimed window. A plume of fire was consuming a small outbuilding, and the animals were scattering in all directions. Miss Hawksbill and Miss Petrel turned and sprinted toward the door, but before they got there it burst inward, flying off its hinges and knocking Miss Hawksbill to the floor. Miss Petrel froze, then took a step backward.
I felt a terrible clench in my gut. I knew what was coming through the door before I saw it with my eyes: a hollowgast, down on all fours and growling like a mad dog, its eyes dripping black and teeth dripping blood. There was a collar around its neck with a leash attached. A man in a German soldier’s uniform was holding the lead, and he trailed the hollow into the room.
His eyes were blank.
The hollow saw me and yanked the wight’s arm straight.
“Down, boy!” the wight shouted, jerking the leash, and the hollow crouched into a coil of trembling muscle.
His accent was British, not German.
“Wight,” Emma hissed.
“Can you see his hollow?” I asked.
She gave a quick, terrified nod. My heart dropped, though I’d known the answer already: This was one of the new hollows. The kind I couldn’t control, and couldn’t feel except in close proximity.
“Is there a back way out of the house?” Bronwyn hissed.
As if on cue, a gunshot rang out behind us. We spun to see another man in German army grays filling the rear doorway, the one that led to the staircase. In one hand he carried a modern-looking pistol with a gunsight, and in the other he balanced a sort of rifle, except there was a flame curling up from the end of the barrel, and it was attached via tubes to a backpack the man wore.
Not a rifle. A flamethrower.
“Hey!” he shouted, then shot a spray of fire over our heads. We ducked, heat crisping the backs of our necks. Sebbie knocked off Julius’s hat, which had caught fire, and he dropped to his knees and beat it out against the floor.
“Turn out the lights and he’ll fry you like a chicken,” warned the man holding the leash.
“I—I won’t,” Julius stammered.
Miss Hawksbill groaned on the floor.
“What do you want from us?” Miss Petrel said, defiant.
“Merely to die,” the man said. “We’re not here to negotiate, and there’s no use in making speeches.” He drew a pistol from his belt. “Let’s get this over with, Bastian. Caul’s going to make us immortal for this . . .”
My mind was racing, but I could see no way out. Every exit was blocked.
“Don’t do this,” Emma said, trying to sound calm and controlled, trying to buy time. “We can work something out—”
Uncoiling itself, the hollow stood up to its full height.
The man wasn’t listening. “Bastian, you do the honors.”
“Happy to,” said the man behind us, and he raised his pistol and aimed.
There was a loud pop. But instead of one of us dying, it was the wight with the leashed hollow who stumbled back against the door frame, looking shocked while his throat gushed blood from a ragged hole. He dropped the hollow’s leash, gagging, and sagged to the ground.
The hollow let out a shrill, startled screech, then unhinged its massive jaws. I didn’t know what the hell was going on, but my instincts told me to intercept the hollow and hope someone else would deal with the flamethrower man. I shoved Horace and Enoch aside and ran toward it. Two of its tongues shot across the gap between us and wrapped around my legs, tripping me to the floor. It sent a third tongue at Noor and collared her neck, then a fourth at Julius, handcuffing him before he could steal any light from the room.
I was being dragged toward the hollow’s open mouth.
Someone was shouting in Hollowspeak.
I was about to disappear into the hollow’s jaws, but just before I reached them the tongues dragging me went limp and let go of me. Then the man with the flamethrower strode past me toward the hollowgast, still yelling in a strange dialect of Hollowspeak I couldn’t fully understand. The hollow had gone slack and was staring open-jawed at the man. It sucked its tongues back into its mouth and lay down on the floor next to its dead master.
The man turned to face us, his flamethrower lowered. “I’ve come to help you,” he said. “My name is Horatio. Mr. Portman, Miss Pradesh, we’ve met before.”
“What’s he talking about?” said Julius, rubbing his wrists where the hollow had bound them. “You know this man?”
“Yes,” I said, my head spinning. I could feel the hollowgast’s desire to kill me, but Horatio had ordered it down, and down it stayed. “He’s a wight.”
Horatio didn’t dispute it. “I am the former hollowgast of Harold Fraker King, known to you as H.” His voice was clear and his words were crisp. His face wasn’t a half-formed mass of just-born flesh any longer, but that of a normal-looking man, albeit one without pupils in his eyes. “I rejoined my former comrades and made them believe I was still one of them. They found you and tracked you,” he said to Miss Petrel.
“What?” she said. “But how?”
“I can explain later. Right now you’ll just have to believe me. There are more coming, and worse.”
“What could be worse?” Sebbie asked.
And then we heard a roar from outside, a sound I associated with Godzilla or the dinosaurs from Jurassic Park.
“Murnau,” said Horatio. “And he’s bringing several more hollowgast with him.”
“Murnau?” Noor said, not quite believing her ears.
And then I heard his voice, deep and bellowing, from the front lawn. “Oh, children! Come out, come out, wherever you are!”
We ran back to the window. A giant, lumbering horror was thundering up the front drive. A nightmare twenty feet tall, his bottom half a formless mass of shifting black slime, the top resembling a melted and supersized Murnau.
He was still bellowing. “My lord has blessed me with a new body and a boundless appetite . . .”
Racing up behind him, I could see, then feel, three more hollowgast. The new kind, bigger than the old ones and visible to all.
“Run!” cried Miss Hawksbill, picking herself up from the floor with help from Bronwyn. “You’ve got to run—take the horses—”
“Take Sophie with you!” Miss Petrel said, shoving the girl at me. “She isn’t part of this loop . . . she can leave, too . . .”
And then we were running, tripping, dragging one another out of the house through a back exit, where five horses were saddled and waiting for us in a vegetable garden. They were shy and shifting, but after a little coaxing from Miss Petrel they let my friends mount.
I turned to Horatio, who was stripping off his German army jacket to reveal a neutral collared shirt. My eyes flicked to the hollow hunched behind him, slavering black drool on some
tomato vines. “Will you be able to control the others, too?” I asked.
Horatio tossed away the jacket. “Not likely. This is the only one I’ve had proximity to for any length of time. Their language has changed, and their minds have toughened.”
Horatio hoisted the flamethrower, aimed it at the house, and with one long pull of the trigger he filled the room we’d just run out of with fire.
“To slow them down a little,” he explained. He was about to drop the flamethrower when I caught his arm. He snapped his head at me, a reflex presaging violence, but caught himself.
“Easy there,” I said, then nodded at the hollow. “Shouldn’t you do him, too?”
Nearly all of us were mounted now. Emma called after me. “Jacob! Come on!”
“It isn’t necessary,” he said.
I narrowed my eyes at him.
“We are damned but not unredeemable,” he said, and then he turned and growled something to the hollow; the hollow skittered away toward the woods, harmless as a cat. “He won’t bother us again.” He mounted a horse, then reached his arm down to help Sophie on, too.
The house was filled with the crashes and howls of angry hollows. We could hear Murnau screaming at them to kill as many of us as they could—but to leave Jacob Portman for him.
I lurched onto a horse with Emma, who’d been paired with me because she knew how to ride so well. Noor rode with Enoch; Horace with Julius; and Bronwyn with Sebbie, who clung awkwardly to the trunk strapped to Bronwyn’s back.
“Miss Hawksbill and I will guide you to the tear in the membrane,” Miss Petrel shouted after us. “Watch the skies!”
She and Miss Hawksbill leapt into the air and transformed in a flurry of feathers, then flapped off toward some trees at the back of the property, where I caught a glimpse of Miss Tern already circling.
Our horses broke into a trot and followed them.
“Wait! What about Addison?” Bronwyn cried.
He was hurrying alongside us, still on the ground.
“I can run!” he said proudly.
