The Hollow Boy

by Jonathan Stroud

  “No! I need to see you….” I said. “Please. Not in the dark. Not like this.”

  “I cannot. It would distress you.”

  “Please—show me.”

  “Very well.” Bright blue fire erupted around the shape; flames as delicate as liquid glass pooled up against the ceiling. And I saw him.

  I saw a great and bloody wound, open in the center of his chest. His shirt had been ripped open by the force of whatever had driven through it. Tattered remnants of his coat hung on either side, fading, at its base, with the rest of the apparition.

  I saw his thin, pale face, twisted and terrible, his eyes dull and despairing. Yet, even so, he smiled at me, and the tenderness and grief contained within that smile made the image horrible beyond imagining.

  Blackness flared at the edge of my vision; I felt as if I would pass out. Instead I lurched to my feet and staggered toward him, hands outstretched. And as I did so the bloodied head turned suddenly to look back along the passage, and I saw that it was not a solid head at all but an empty mask, and that its hollow contours were filled with wisps of shadow.

  The face turned back to me. “Lucy—I must go now. Remember me.”

  From the front, it was perfect: I could see the pores in the skin, that little mole I always noticed on the side of his neck. The hair, the jaw, the crumpled details of the shirt and coat—everything was right. But from the side and back…it seemed to me that not just the head but the body itself had been utterly scooped out, hollow as a fibrous papier-mché shell.

  “Wait, Lockwood…I don’t understand. Your head…”

  “I must go.” Once more, the figure looked behind it, as if something had disturbed its concentration. And I wasn’t wrong. It was an empty thing. Thick black fibers dangled at the margins, like the edges of an unfinished rug. Beyond was a net of grainy wisps, intricate yet chaotically woven, like a great gray spiderweb that had been molded into a contoured membrane. I saw the inverse of Lockwood’s face, the curve of the cheekbones, the indentation of the nose.

  There were blank holes where the mouth and eyes should be.

  Now it faced me once more. The mouth smiled sadly; the eyes shone with wisdom and remote knowledge. “Lucy…”

  Those fibers…I thought of the jerking, crawling thing.

  My head cleared. I staggered back, filled with revulsion and relief.

  “I know what you are!” I cried. “You’re not him!”

  “I am what is to come.”

  “You’re a Fetch! An imposter! Feeding on my thoughts!” The flare! Where was it? I couldn’t see it in the dark.

  “I show you the future. This is your doing.”

  “No! No, I don’t believe you.”

  “Not everything you see is what has passed. Sometimes it is what is yet to be.”

  A pale smile shone in the pale, pale face. It looked at me with kindness and with love.

  Then a sword point cut straight through it.

  Down from the scalp, through the hair, right through the center of the nose and across the mouth and chin; down into the substance of the chest. It all happened in an instant; the body showed no more resistance to the blade than a bag of air.

  Lockwood’s head and body peeled away on either side, split in two by the shimmering silver point. The black wisps from the voids behind the contours of the hollow face drifted free, like twists of black juice tumbling in water. The body fell away, dissolved to threads of plasm that coiled themselves to vapor and then to nothing.

  Behind it, in the exact same spot, hair tousled, face bloodied, coat torn, one hand held outstretched behind him to counteract the driven blow, was Lockwood.

  He had no gaping wound in his chest. His shirt, white, but a little grubby with dust and mud, was still done up neatly to the second button. He grinned at me. “Hey, Lucy.”

  I didn’t answer. I was too busy screaming.

  A little later on we were sitting together on a block of stone at one corner of the chamber. Lockwood had kicked a few skulls away to make a clear space near us. He’d scattered a bit of iron and salt over the piles of bones to discourage further nuisance, and two candles from his belt pouch were burning brightly in the middle of the floor. Somehow he’d even found some chewing gum. It was all quite cozy, really.

  “So, you’re all right?” he said for the tenth time.

  “I think so. I don’t know.” I stared at my knees. Lockwood gave my arm a friendly squeeze. He had a scrape down the side of his face, and a corner of his lip was puffy. Still, he looked an awful lot better than the white-skinned thing that had stood and talked to me before. “You know,” he said, “we need to find a way to get back up top; George will be having kittens up there.”

  “George! Is he okay? The others…”

  “Fine. George is fine.”

  “And…and Holly?”

  “Good. Good….A little bashed up. We all are. They all went to find medics for Bobby Vernon. Kipps was going to try to contact Barnes. I left George in charge of it all when I climbed down the hole after you.”

  “You shouldn’t have done it,” I said. “You shouldn’t have risked yourself.”

  “Come off it,” Lockwood said. “You know I’d die for you.” He chuckled. “Heaven knows, I’ve come near it often enough. Scrambling down a crack in the ground is nothing….Hey, look at you now, you’re shaking. Put my coat on. Come on, I insist.”

  I didn’t argue. I’d had enough of that. And the coat was warm. “I don’t remember any of it,” I said dully. “You know, how I got down here. I know I must’ve banged my head when I fell—I haven’t been thinking quite straight since.” I thought of the skeletons, and our one-way conversations. Then I thought of the hollow boy.

  Lockwood nodded. “I’m not surprised. It was all a little hectic. Well, after you were sucked down the hole, the Poltergeist blew itself out. It was like you were the focus of it, Luce. All that raging air just stopped, like it was frozen in time. You could hear things thumping to the floor all around the building. I was quite lucky—I was in midair, quite high up when it happened, but I was over the escalators, so I didn’t fall too far. I landed on that central part, and just slid gently down. I lay there, upside down, watching all those tissue leaves wafting slowly down across the foyer. It was like falling snow. Apart from their being red, of course. It was quite pretty. I wish Mr. Aickmere had been there to see it. Got to admit the place doesn’t look quite so attractive now.”

  I rubbed my eyes. “That poor department store…”

  “Oh, think of all that free publicity we’re going to give it,” Lockwood said. “It’ll do really well.” He scratched the bridge of his nose. “Either that or go out of business. Anyway, who cares? One thing’s for sure, they’ll have to do something about the hole in the floor. It goes pretty deep, and the earth is very unstable. I had quite a job getting down in one piece. When I got to the bottom, I hacked through this layer of broken stone and dropped down into the old prison chamber. I found one of your candles on the floor and knew you were alive. I set off up the passages, but got lost—at least, I ended up in one that was half-filled with water. I don’t think you went that way.”

  “No.”

  “But in the end it paid off for me because, before I found you, I came across the entrance to a long straight tunnel, part waterlogged and stinking of the river. I swear I could hear the lap of the Thames at the far end—it wouldn’t surprise me if that was another way out. We could try it, maybe—save us trying to climb back up the hole.”

  I looked at the floor, so carefully swept clean. “I think it will be a way out,” I said softly. “Lockwood, the ghost you saw with me—”

  “Yes, what was that thing? I heard you talking to it, but to me it seemed just a horrible tangle of black wisps. I could hardly make out a shape at all, even when I crept close with my rapier.”

  “So you didn’t see its face?”

  “Should I have?”

  “Oh, no—it doesn’t matter.”

&nb
sp; There was a silence, then. In truth, I found I couldn’t easily speak of the Fetch to him. To forestall immediate questions, I pointed out the signs of previous activity in the room: the swept floor, the cigarette end, the burn mark in the center, and wax stains here and there. Lockwood was at once alert; he paced the chamber, studying it with a frown.

  “You’re quite right,” he said. “This is a mystery. Someone has been here, and very recently. Look at the marks here: it’s Chinese wax they’ve been using”—he scraped it with his finger and held it to his nose—“scented with jojoba oil. You get that at Mullet’s. Top quality stuff. And as for that cigarette…Its brand might tell us something….” He picked it up and scrutinized it, rolling it between his fingers, scanning it against the candle light, narrow-eyed. “Hmm…aha. Yes….”

  “So what brand is it?”

  “Haven’t a clue. It just looks white and tobacco-y to me. But I bet we could find someone to tell us more.” He gazed around at the skeletons. “So what on earth were they doing? You know, Luce, George said that something funny might be going on to stir so many ghosts up so quickly these last few weeks. And he was right. I want him to see this. He’s got just the right kind of slightly fussy, obsessive mind that might notice something. We need to do it fast, too, before Barnes shows up. As soon as he does, you can bet DEPRAC will boot us out and take over.”

  I nodded. That was usually how it went. “The Chelsea outbreak…do you think we’ve stopped it?”

  Lockwood was all energy again; he held out his hand to pull me up. “We’ll find out soon enough.” He looked over at the skeletons, peppered with salt and iron. “But if this room doesn’t turn out to be the Source, with all this lot, and with an unknown someone doing something weird, I’m a Bunchurch agent. Look at the bones! If these guys were all entombed alive here, that’s enough psychic charge to light up a city district.” He patted my arm. “And you found it, Luce. You did so well.”

  That wasn’t how I was feeling. “Lockwood,” I said slowly, “about the Poltergeist…you were right, earlier. I was the focus. When we were upstairs, I…I argued with Holly. I picked a fight with her. We stirred the Poltergeist up. I’m really sorry, Lockwood. It’s all my fault. I couldn’t control myself. I’m a liability. I could have killed us all.”

  “You and Holly saved Bobby Vernon, don’t forget,” Lockwood said, but he didn’t actually contradict what I’d said.

  “She probably told you, did she?” I said. “Maybe she didn’t have time.”

  “No, she didn’t say anything. She seemed worried about you, Lucy. We all were.”

  He produced a penlight and led me out of the room of bones, down a narrow passage. We went in silence for a while.

  “Lockwood,” I said, “I need to apologize. About recently. I’ve not been myself.”

  It was a tight corridor; we walked almost side by side, following the beam of light. His voice was calm and quiet in the dark. “Well, neither have I,” he said. “After what happened at the Wintergarden house, I’m afraid I haven’t treated you very well. I know I might have seemed standoffish. It’s just”—he took a deep breath—“I didn’t trust myself to be with you. I was too anxious about what might happen.”

  I stepped carefully over a fallen stone. Water was pooling around our feet. “Um, what might happen in exactly what sense?”

  “In an operative situation, when our lives were again in danger. Your Talent is just so extraordinary, Luce—yes, we go left here; I know it looks like sewage, but it’s algae, mostly—I mean, I heard you talking to that thing just now. It’s getting easier for you, isn’t it? It’s not just the skull anymore. It’s unique, your Talent, but it makes you so vulnerable. And I have to look after you.”

  Something knotted tightly in my chest. In the dark of my mind I saw again the palely smiling face. “No, Lockwood, you really don’t. You mustn’t. It’s not your responsibility to—”

  “But it is, Luce. Look, I know I don’t talk about it, but it’s happened to me before. Losing someone dear to me. I can’t let it happen again.”

  I stopped. Water was up to our knees; the meager flashlight beam showed a break in the wall, and beyond it, over tumbled blocks, an earthen passage. Lockwood gestured with the flashlight to indicate we should go through, but I didn’t move. I couldn’t go any farther without—

  “Lockwood,” I said, “I’ve got to admit to something. I’m going to tell you, and then you can switch the flashlight off and just leave me here if you want. Block the tunnel in. I don’t care, and I’ll deserve it.”

  There was a pause; water sucked and flowed through the gap in the wall.

  “Blimey,” Lockwood said, “it isn’t you who’s been pinching my stash of Choco Leibniz biscuits from my desk drawer, is it? I always thought it was George.”

  “No. That wasn’t me.”

  “Then it is George…that little devil. Or I suppose it might have been Holly…”

  “Lockwood.”

  “Yes.”

  I took a deep breath. “I went into your sister’s room. I looked at one of the photos—of you and your sister. I’m so sorry. I had no right to do it. And that’s not the worst of it, Lockwood. When I was going out, I fell and touched the bed and I heard…I didn’t mean to, I swear it, but I heard echoes, Lockwood, echoes of what happened, and I know it’s unforgivable, and you can do what you want to me, I’ll completely deserve it, but it’s been killing me ever since, and that’s it,” I finished. “I haven’t got anything more to say, and I’ll shut up now.”

  More water, doing its sucking and flowing thing.

  “Take another breath now,” Lockwood said. “I’d advise it.”

  “Okay.”

  “I should be angry with you,” he said. “I should be furious….” He turned the flashlight downward, directing it against the wall beside us, so that we were both picked out in discreet shadows, neither violently spotlit, nor given that creepy under-lighting that makes even the best-looking person look like a shambling Type Two. Not quite seeing each other’s faces helped right then, at least for me. Maybe Lockwood felt the same.

  “It’s not that I don’t want to share that stuff, Lucy,” he said at last. “It’s just…too painful for me.”

  “Oh, I know! Of course I know that. I—”

  “Will you shut up for a minute? My sister was like you, you know, in a lot of ways. Hotheaded sometimes, stubborn, but faithful to a fault. She looked after me, and I adored her. But I was a kid, Lucy, and I was lazy and willful and all the rest of it. I just wanted to do my own thing, so I didn’t listen to her half as often as I should. On the night it happened, she was going through one of the boxes that our parents had left. You never knew what might be in them. She asked if I wanted to help. No, I wouldn’t. I was too busy outside climbing the apple tree, and messing about in the playroom, which is where the office is now. I was down there as it happens, by the garden door, when I heard her scream. I ran up—but it was too late….What happened after that, I can scarcely recall. Maybe you’ve got a better idea than me.”

  That was the only time his carefully neutral tone wavered; and I was gladder than ever that I couldn’t meet his eyes.

  “I destroyed the ghost that did it,” he said, “but what good was that? It was too late. And I felt…” I could sense him groping for the words. “Under the anger and the sorrow, Lucy, I was just left feeling hollow. Because I should have been in the room. I should have been there for her. And it’s not going to happen to me again. Whatever the cost, as long as you’re in my company, be sure I’ll always be there for you.” He moved the flashlight around to face the gap in the wall. “But I swear, if you go in that room again without my permission, or steal my Choco Leibniz, for that matter, I’ll never forgive you. And now perhaps you can hop through that gap first. It may or may not be algae this time, and I’d like it to be you who finds out.”

  It was mostly water, as it happened; we proceeded slowly up the tunnel.

  “Thank you,” I said
, after a silence. “Thank you for telling me all that.”

  “That’s okay. So now you know a little about how it began for me. After that, what option did I have but to become an agent? I got a job with a man called Sykes.”

  I whistled. “Yeah, ‘Gravedigger’ Sykes…That’s a really cool name.”

  “Mm…His first name was Nigel.”

  There was a pause. “Why tell me that? It takes the shine off, somehow.”

  “He was still a cool customer. The bane of Fittes and Rotwell while he was alive. He’d heard about what I did to…to the ghost. That’s why he gave me the job. So now you know.”

  “Yes, only…”

  “My parents? Oh, they’re another story entirely. A very long time back.”

  I nodded. “Maybe you hardly remember them,” I said. “You were so small.”

  “Oh, I remember them, all right.” Lockwood smiled at me. “They were my first ghosts. And look, I think I see the exit from the tunnel now.”

  He pointed: far ahead a pale blue coin hung above the water, shimmering, as we waded slowly nearer, with the first light of the dawn.

  So night bled into morning, and Lockwood & Co. emerged blinking from the darkness with its future changed.

  The tunnel terminated beneath an abandoned wharf on the north shore of the Thames, a couple of blocks from the department store. There was evidence that the entrance had been carefully concealed: a large number of rotten posts had been propped against the muddy bank; some, sawn through and ingeniously attached to a kind of rough panel, had clearly been set across the hole to hide it from view. The way the panel had been cast aside suggested that someone had made a hasty exit, and boot prints in the mire supported this. Even as Lockwood and I emerged, however, the incoming tide was pooling in the prints, and soon they were lost to view.

  At Aickmere Brothers, or what remained of it, much was going on. A DEPRAC ambulance had recently removed Bobby Vernon. The prognosis had been favorable, a sprained ankle and suspected concussion being the worst of it. Kate Godwin had gone with him to the hospital. The others were sitting outside the shattered glass entrance doors, shivering in the half-light and talking in muted voices to other agents, who were arriving in dribs and drabs from across Chelsea. Periodically, people would go up to the doors and peer in wonder at the ruined foyer. From a distance it looked like a doll’s house that had been picked up and briskly shaken by an angry toddler. There was almost nothing standing; everything lay formless and in heaps. In the center of the floor, startling in its vastness, a chasm opened to the buried rooms below. George and Kipps were grim-facedly fixing a rappeling line to one of the columns, prior to climbing down in search of Lockwood and me.