I ran down the trail, through the boulder circle, and into the deadened wood. But when I came closer to The Hollow, I slowed, not wanting to spook him. I tried not to get my hopes up. If it wasn’t Zach, it might be a badly wounded animal, who might be afraid and ready to lash out.
I moved toward the sequoia and saw him lying on The Hollow itself, looking like your typical brooding teenager, except for the scars.
“Zach?” I called.
He shot up.
“It’s me, Sera,” I said.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“I thought you might like some pie,” I said, taking it out of my bag and setting it down within his reach.
“How’d you know I’d be here?”
I shrugged, not sure that I should tell him it was his pain that drew me. “Go ahead,” I encouraged. “It’s chocolate.”
“Chocolate pie?” he asked, sounding tortured.
“Yeah,” I said, “my mom’s a baker. Do you know the bakery in town?”
He looked at me, then back at the pie, but didn’t respond. He ate slowly, savoring every mouthful. “I’ve never tasted anything that good ever,” he said when he’d finished.
His tug had opened a gaping hole in my chest, this weird sensation that my insides were on the outsides.
“How come you don’t wear shoes?” I asked, catching him off-guard.
He tucked his feet under his legs.
I offered him the thermos of milk.
“What’s that?” he asked.
“Milk,” I said.
He reached out to take it, then stopped to pull his sweatshirt sleeves down over his hands, turning the scarred side of his face away from me. He drank the milk down in one long swallow, while I tried not to stare at his mostly-covered hands, wondering how they got so messed up. “I don’t have any,” he said.
“Any what?” I asked, having lost track of what we were talking about.
“Shoes,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
I wondered if he was homeless. Who doesn’t have a single pair of shoes? Maybe I could find an old pair one of the boys had left behind at the house. “Do you know what size?” I asked him.
He shook his head, looking away. “I should go,” he said.
“Why?” I asked. “No one’s even awake.”
“You are,” he said. “And… you should stay away. This is a bad idea.” The worry in his face lit up in the moonlight.
“Don’t be afraid of me,” I said.
“Not of you,” he said, shaking his head, “for you.” And then he backed away.
“Don’t run,” I begged. My mind raced, wondering if somehow he knew about the pull to heal and how dangerous it could be for me to give in to it. “I won’t do anything, I promise.”
“What do you mean?” he asked, looking confused.
I caught myself. “What did you mean — when you said you were afraid for me?”
He looked away. “I’m not someone you should be around.”
“Yeah, you are,” I said softly, wondering if he was really other than what he seemed, and then wondering, too, if he might be a sign of a psychotic break, a figment of my imagination.
“I’m evil,” he said, “like prince of darkness kind of stuff. You should stay away. And… I shouldn’t be here.” He stood to go.
I shivered. “I don’t understand,” I said, moving closer to him even though it made my whole body hurt. “Why shouldn’t you be here? How could you be evil?” My mind started imagining all sorts of horrible things he might have done. I knew nothing about him. He could be the axe murderer for all I knew.
“I never should’ve talked to you,” he said.
“You’re not making any sense,” I said. “Won’t you come back and hang out again?”
“Just… forget you ever met me,” he replied. And then he loped off through the woods.
Chapter Five
In the morning, I dug through my brothers’ closets and found a couple pairs of old shoes — flip-flops in Gabe’s room, hiking boots in Luke’s, and sandals in Michael’s. I stuck them in a box and dragged them down to The Hollow, leaving them by the oak Zach sometimes ducked behind. I hoped he’d be back — that he wouldn’t stay away for good. It was crazy to be hoping to spend more time with someone who referred to himself as the prince of darkness. But for some reason, that was exactly what I was doing — hoping — instead of doing what I should’ve been doing, which was being terrified of the idea of being alone with him.
I hiked up toward town. The traffic light was on the blink again.
George McGraw plopped his meaty hand on my shoulder, scaring the crap out of me. “Did you hear?” he asked.
I shook my head, turned down my music.
“They’re saying Myra Clay’s ghost was at it again. Melody McDowell heard a great crashing sound over at Myra’s in the middle of the night. They think it may be Old Abe expressing his displeasure at the way Myra’s been attending Bennett’s unusual church services. Can’t say I blame him. Those snakes give me the heebie jeebies. What say we go see what they’re saying over in the bakery?”
Saying or serving, is what I was thinking. George could eat baked goods all day. But I was right behind him. I always loved stories of Myra Clay’s ghost. They’d been entertaining me since I first started school.
The bakery was buzzing. I slipped behind the counter to help Mom, as the line was surprisingly long. The place reeked of almonds and coffee.
“Thank you, baby,” she said, as I started filling orders.
I looked across the room and saw why the bakery had become such a hotspot. Myra Clay herself was in the back corner holding court. As usual, she was drinking a hot cup of tea, but not indulging in any of Mom’s creations. Chocolate is the devil’s food and sweets are for the weak, was what she usually said when she ordered her tea or a dry bagel.
“It most certainly was not a raccoon or rat up in my attic. I take great pride in the cleanliness of my house. I can assure you there are no rodents!” Myra said. Her hands shredded a napkin under the table.
“Besides,” Melody added, “the sound I heard was too big for a raccoon to make. Something crashed over there and it was something big. I do believe Abe was giving Myra a piece of his mind this time.” She winked at George.
“Mind your own business, Miss Busy Body,” Myra snapped. “If my Abraham were visiting, it would surely be to tell me how much he misses me. In fact, this morning when I came downstairs our wedding photo on the piano was turned to face the breakfast nook, and I’m certain I didn’t leave it like that yesterday. I always have it facing the couch.” She fingered her gray hair, covering the thinning spots.
Astrid pulled up a chair. “He should have passed over by now, Myra. Something just isn’t right about this. A ghost coming by for all these years should have found peace by now.”
Myra’s face tightened. “He simply can’t live without me, even in the afterworld.” She laughed, but it didn’t reach her eyes. And her hands kept twisting and tearing the napkin she held under the table. “Shouldn’t you be at home working on your interweb astrology mumbo jumbo?”
“It’s an online astrological charting service,” Astrid snapped.
But I stopped listening to the conversation then. It was the napkin shredding that caught my attention. Myra Clay was hiding something. It was one of those revelations that hit you out of nowhere and you just know.
“Are you helping or not?” Mom nudged me and pointed to a tray of sticky buns that needed glazing. The icing was marzipan today, which explained the overpowering scent of almonds.
I got back to work. But my mind was going somewhere totally new. Myra Clay was hiding something. There was a crash at her place in the middle of the night. She was telling her usual stories. But today I didn’t believe them. I doubted if anyone actually believed her. I had been gullible all these years because I'd wanted to believe it. But the grown-ups were teasing her. What did they imagine was the
truth? That Myra was having some kind of rendezvous? That she’d been drunk and stumbling around?
I had a different idea. Because I knew of one absolute real possibility of what or rather who might have caused a crashing sound in the middle of the night. It had to be Zach. I didn’t know why he’d be hiding out at Myra Clay’s. But if she wasn’t being truthful, then did that mean she knew? The thought made the hairs on my arms prickle.
“Good Lord, Seraphina, if you want to help, could you at least try to pay attention to what you’re doing?” Mom said.
I looked down at the mess I’d made with the glaze, the way it was glopped on top of the buns and oozing all over the worktable. “Sorry,” I muttered, trying to fix it.
“Let me,” Mom said, taking the icing bag from my hand and shooing me in the direction of the customers.
When things finally settled, I washed down the worktable, swept the floor, and poured Mom a cup of coffee with steamed milk.
“Thanks, doll,” she said, sitting down at an empty table.
I sat beside her. “When did Myra Clay’s ghost start coming?” I asked her softly.
She looked at me funny. “You don’t still believe all that, do you?”
“When did she start claiming it I mean?”
She looked up at the ceiling. “Not long after Abe passed, I guess. Just the ramblings of a lonely old woman. A way to get a little attention.”
“But he died not long after Dad, didn’t he?” I asked.
“Yes, I suppose that’s true. You were about four or so.”
I jumped up and ran outside. Four? There’s no way Zach’s been hiding at Myra’s for twelve years. But I’d felt so sure that would explain it. I wandered down the road toward her house, thinking back on all the stories people had told over the years about the ghost, the moaning and crying neighbors heard in the early years, which Myra claimed as proof that Abe missed her, the thumps in broad daylight and the bumps in the night.
I stood in front of her big gray house. It seemed completely quiet. I went up and rang the bell, knocked on the door. Nothing. Heavy blinds blocked the windows. But even with my shield reinforced for town, I could sense Zach’s wounds close by, now that I knew what his felt like. The way my body hurt all over, the way it burned, felt exactly like it did when he was in The Hollow.
I wandered around to the back of the house, looking for anything that might belong to a boy — a bike, a baseball glove, a comic book. But her yard was immaculate, not a blade of grass out of place. I scanned the walls. Ivy grew thick on the trellis. But in one spot, it looked slightly smashed to the side. I stood at the base and considered climbing up. But that probably wasn’t exactly legal to do on someone else’s property. I put my hand on the vines and reached into the part that didn’t look quite right. There, tucked behind the greenery, rolled up in a tight ball, was a pair of dirty white socks.
Days passed before I felt his tug again. It was late, and Mom had turned out her light hours earlier. Still, I opened the front door as carefully as I could so she wouldn’t hear me leaving. The creaking of the hinges seemed as loud as a scream. But no sound came from her room.
Once I was safely on the path, I was so excited about finally seeing him again that I tripped over my own feet and slid halfway down the hillside.
As soon as I saw his silhouette, I called out to him, “Zach! I’m so glad you’re here! I was afraid you might not come back.”
“Shh!” he said, looking around as though he expected to get caught. “I thought I heard someone.”
I couldn’t help wishing he might be happy to see me. “It was probably me. I fell.”
“Are you okay?” he asked, sounding concerned, which made me smile.
“Fine,” I said, coming closer to hand him a Mars bar. “Did you find the shoes?”
“What shoes?” he asked, taking the candy and a step away from me.
“Behind the tree,” I pointed to where I’d left them.
He went back to the tree where I’d placed the box and returned with the hiking boots on his feet. The awkward way he walked made me think they might be too big. “Thanks.”
“You should take some flip-flops, too, for hotter days.”
“That’s okay, these are fine,” he said, sitting back on The Hollow and finishing the Mars bar. “That chocolate was really good. I don’t think I’ve ever seen commercials for that one.”
“Do you watch a lot of TV?” I asked, prying for information wherever I could.
He shrugged. “I guess.”
I sat on the bank across from him. “There’s so much I want to talk to you about.”
“Like what?” he asked, looking like he feared I might ask him something he couldn’t or maybe shouldn’t answer.
“Like, why did you say you were afraid for me? And have you been hiding at Myra Clay’s, and are you her so-called ghost? But how could you be because it’s been there forever? And how come you don’t have any shoes and you always wear the same long clothes even on hot nights?”
He started to get up, his face drawn tight.
“Don’t go. Please,” I said, wishing I’d kept my mouth shut and wondering why I couldn’t. “You don’t have to explain. Just… sit with me.”
“I really shouldn’t be here,” he whispered.
“I won’t ask anything,” I promised. I moved a little farther from him to sit by the sequoia, needing distance from his pull. Why did I get so rambly around him? It was as if all the words I didn’t say in town got stored up and overflowed. “I don’t know why I can’t shut up around you. I don’t really talk … to people… that much.”
“Why not?” he asked.
“It’s hard to explain,” I replied. “It’s different with you, though.”
His face changed in the moonlight then, as though I’d said something hurtful, and he started backing up.
“Zach,” I said, “please don’t go.”
“You don’t understand,” he said.
“What don’t I understand?” I asked. “Explain it to me.”
He shook his head, then spoke softly. “You’re sweet and kind, and… all I can bring you is darkness.”
And then, as if this was some Hollywood movie, a cloud slipped over the moon, shutting out the light.
“I’m not afraid of the dark!” I called. When the cloud passed, Zach was still sitting in The Hollow. “You didn’t run,” I said, surprised.
“I probably should’ve,” he replied.
I shook my head. “Why doesn’t The Hollow affect you? I’m sorry, I promised to quit asking questions.” What was wrong with me?
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“Guys usually can’t get close to The Hollow. The energy vortex … it’s uncomfortable for them. My brothers used to dare each other to go near it. It was different for them because they have some of my mom’s blood, so it wasn’t as bad as it is for other guys, who can get knocked down by it. But you sit on top of it like it’s nothing.”
“I’m not normal,” was his reply, looking like he was still considering bolting.
“You mean your scars?” I asked just to keep him there.
“That’s only part of it,” he said. “Why doesn’t this energy thing affect you? Is it because you’re female?”
“That’s only part of it,” I echoed.
“What’s the rest?” he asked.
“I’m not normal either,” I said, my heart pounding. I’d never admitted this before, not even to my once best friend, Sierra. Well, there was the time I’d healed her finger in kindergarten after she accidentally sliced it in the paper cutter. But I’d never explained how I’d done it. And neither Mom nor Sierra had ever let me forget what a dangerous mistake it had been.
“How are you not normal?” he asked.
My body trembled. He didn’t know me as the freak. “I’m not allowed to talk about it.” The rule was too deeply ingrained. I couldn’t just brush it off.
“Me neither,” he said. And then he crept to my
side of the bank and sat closer to me than he ever had before.
The proximity of his need was like a crashing ocean wave against me. I didn’t want to offend him by backing away. Between The Hollow coursing through me and his need smashing up against me, I almost couldn’t bear to be in my own skin. If I could feel him so intensely that had to mean he was real, didn’t it?
“Tell me,” he whispered, his dark eyes pulling on mine, filled with a different desperation. In the moonlight, I could see the scars on the right side of his face more clearly. They stopped just below his eye. I hadn’t noticed how long his dark lashes were before.
His need mixed together with some strange new feeling of my own, a reckless desire. The words slipped out without my permission. “The women in my family have lived here beside The Hollow for centuries. Its power works through us.” My face got hot and I felt this crazy flip inside my chest. What was I doing? “Most of them go crazy from it.”
“You’re not crazy,” he whispered.
“Yet,” I replied. The moment passed. I could say no more. “Your turn. I’ve asked a million questions. Pick one to answer.” My heart beat against my chest like a berry-drunk bird crashing against the windowpane.
He looked up to the sky as though the answers were there. “I don’t have shoes because I’m not supposed to leave the house.”
“So you are Myra Clay’s ghost!” I gasped.
“You can’t tell anyone,” he said.
“Of course,” I promised. “I would never. Besides, I told you, I don’t talk to them much.”
“Why not?” he asked. And the way his eyes held me was like nothing I had ever known, something I’d craved all my life without realizing it.
“No one can know about us, my family I mean, about how we use The Hollow — or how it uses us. They’d be afraid again, like they were in the old days. I’d end up at Meadowland with the crazies. If I talked, I might accidentally spill. Why are you supposed to stay in the house?” I asked, horrified by the idea that he’d been stuck inside all these years.
He shook his head, looked away from me.
“Is that why you hide your socks behind the ivy?” I said softly, not wanting to upset him, but too curious to let it go.
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