The Monster in the Hollows

by Andrew Peterson

  But his brother wasn’t there. Janner ripped back the cover and found a quilt wadded up as a decoy. Kalmar was gone.

  Janner rushed to the window and threw back the curtain, whispering, “No, no, no, no, no.” He opened the window and cringed at the cold. The snow had stopped, and the hills were crusted with a pristine spread of white, like icing on a cake.

  Footprints, vivid under the bright moon, led from the snowdrift below the window, out past the barn, and into the night.

  37

  Sara’s Army Makes Ready

  Tomorrow is the day,” Sara Cobbler whispered to Borley. He turned over in his cot and smiled. His eyes were bright against the soot on his face. “Just wait for my signal. All right?”

  “I’ll be ready,” said Borley.

  Sara weaved through the beds in the bunk hall to another cot and squeezed the toe of a little girl. “Hello, Veera.”

  “Hello, Sara Cobbler,” the girl whispered.

  “Sleep well. Tomorrow’s the day.”

  “Is it going to be scary?” Veera whispered. She tucked her blanket under her chin.

  “Yes,” said Sara. “But I think it’s going to work.”

  “Me too,” said Veera, and she closed her eyes.

  Sara wondered if she believed her own words. Did she really think it was going to work, or was she acting out of desperation, putting the lives of so many young ones in danger? She had worked for two months now, so it wasn’t a rash decision. She’d had plenty of time to turn back, to rethink the plan, to talk herself out of it, or to be caught. But as far as she could tell, neither the Overseer, nor Mobrik, nor the Maintenance Managers had noticed that she and her little band of children had been stealing daggers, swords, and even forks.

  The idea had struck her the night Borley showed Sara the dagger he had stolen. He had asked why they couldn’t use it to escape, and she had lain in bed asking herself the same question for hours. It wouldn’t work if just one person tried. She knew that. But what if all the children took up arms? Would the Overseer have time to get help? Would Mobrik?

  She had hidden Borley’s dagger in her bunk and watched the Maintenance Managers for two days before she swiped another. Managers were stationed at the ends of the conveyor belts and at each station, and they were supposed to keep count of the blades and inspect them for flaws. But Sara noticed that even the older, meaner ones were usually too distracted to do their jobs well. They talked to one another and were always watching for Mobrik. They knew they didn’t have much time before the ridgerunner informed them that they’d been promoted out of the factory (as the Overseer put it), so they cared less about their jobs and never saw when a sword or dagger went missing.

  Even the Overseer’s regular appearance on the factory floor worked to Sara’s advantage. The evil man in the fingerless gloves would stomp through the aisles and machines, cracking his whip and spitting curses at the children. Sara kept her head low when he was nearby, but as she sharpened or pared or polished at her station she watched the Maintenance Managers. She saw how frightened they were of him. She saw how their eyes darted and how they only pretended to count the blades in the barrels.

  Sara refused to let her little army take any weapons. She couldn’t bear the responsibility of them being caught and beaten or thrown into the coffin. So she took one blade a day. When she caught glimpses of Mobrik on the far side of the smoky room, skittering about on rafters or the tops of metal shelves, and when she was certain the Maintenance Managers were preoccupied, she slipped the jagged hunks of metal up her sleeve.

  At first she had been terribly nervous and convinced herself over the course of her shift that she had been seen and that the Overseer would spring out from behind a pile of coal with his brownish teeth and bloodshot eyes. Her hands shook as she worked and continued to shake right through her meal until she got to her cot and slid the dagger beneath her pillow.

  After the first week, she grew in confidence, but she was more careful than ever for one good reason: she had run out of room to safely hide the weapons in her bunk and had made the difficult decision to hide some in Borley’s as well. He had been eager to help.

  “You can’t tellanyone, Borley,” Sara had whispered over their bowls of soup. “And you can’t play with it. Just pretend it isn’t there, all right?”

  He had nodded and said, “Anything for you, Sara Cobbler.”

  When the edges of Borley’s cot had been lined with weapons, carefully hidden beneath the mattress and in the folds of his blanket, she had asked Grettalyn to help, and in a few more weeks, Veera. Soon she lost count of how many names she knew.

  Sara hadn’t recruited them. They had come to her, quietly, innocently, drawn by something Sara couldn’t name. All she knew was that before Janner Igiby came, she hadn’t thought of escaping because she hadn’t thought of anything at all. Her mind had become numb. Any hope of escape was killed by the overwhelming futility of it. How could any child escape when there were boys and girls with chains to beat you, an Overseer with a whip, a ridgerunner spy, and only one way out? But Janner Igiby had proven that it was possible, and something that had fallen asleep in Sara Cobbler’s heart was awake now.

  Many of the children sensed it and came to her and were comforted. But some of the slaves ignored her. She smiled at them when they passed and sometimes asked their names, but they only looked at her blankly and moved on. She tried to wake them, but she couldn’t reach them all. They cowered from the Maintenance Managers and shuffled to their cots in silence, no matter how many times Sara tried.

  But the others, the ones who dared to believe, smiled back. They followed her. They winked from across the sharpening station or as they passed with wheelbarrows of coal. She told them at the mess table to stay quiet, to hold their tongues whenever any Maintenance Manager was around, and never to speak to each other on the factory floor. And once they promised her on the Maker’s name, she leaned forward, looked to her left and right, and told them stories.

  She told them of Janner Igiby’s daring escape. She reminded them of the sunlight, which was so easy to forget in the smoky darkness. She reminded them that they had names. They weren’t tools in a factory, she told them, but sons and daughters, brothers and sisters. They were Borleys and Grettalyns and Maddies and Yerbiks, children who had to fight to remember there was a world outside the Fork Factory, where the sun shone. The Overseer wanted them to forget, she said. That was how he controlled them. If they remembered, they were strong, Sara told them.

  She asked them about their parents, about their houses, about their friends before they had been taken by the Black Carriage or kidnapped by the hags and beggars in Dugtown. The children didn’t want to remember at first, but Sara kept asking, in spite of their tears and their loneliness for their parents and homes. She taught them that the homesickness was good, because it helped them remember the world outside the factory.

  And now the time had come. Sara slipped from cot to cot, watching for Mobrik and the Maintenance Managers. Her next shift was about to begin, so she whispered to each of the children in bed to be ready. She told them that tomorrow was the day—that yes, she thought it would work. She knew her friends were many, but that night she was surprised by how many cots she visited and how many names she knew.

  A boy with a bell marched through the room, announcing the next shift. It was time for Sara to face another night at the sharpening station. As she grabbed her gloves from her bunk, it occurred to her that there was no turning back now. There would be no way to spread the word to her little army if the plan changed. It was going to happen tomorrow, no matter what.

  She turned from her bed and bumped into one of the Maintenance Managers.

  “Excuse me,” Sara said, pretending to have just woken up.

  “I’ve been watching you, tool,” said the boy. He was a head taller than Sara, skinny but strong, with a missing front tooth. He held a chain in one fist and swayed it back and forth. Sara quickly looked at the floor. She had to re
mind herself to act like a factory tool, not a girl. “I’ve been watching you for a long time.”

  “Excuse me,” she repeated and tried to walk around him. He stepped sideways and blocked her path.

  “Look at me,” he said.

  Sara couldn’t slip by him, and she couldn’t look at him. She was afraid if he saw her eyes he would know in an instant that she was up to something. He would report her to Mobrik and that would be the end of it. If she was thrown into the coffin or punished, the children wouldn’t know what to do. Borley was bold enough and foolish enough to try to do it without her, and she couldn’t let that happen.

  “I saidlook at me.” The Maintenance Manager grabbed her face and forced it upward.

  Sara could pretend no more. She looked into his eyes, but not as a factory tool. She decided not to hide her awake-ness but to pour it into him. If he saw the light in her, maybe it would wake some compassion in him and he would let her go. It was a terrible risk, but she didn’t know what else to do. She willed him to see her as a girl, as someone he might have known before the Fork Factory, someone he could have been friends with. If she carried any of Janner’s fire, she prayed it would cross the few inches between them and make its way through his eyes and into his soul.

  He looked ready to raise an alarm or to hit her, but after a while he let go of her and said, “Get to work, tool.” Then he walked away.

  Sara panted and struggled to control the trembling in her legs. Then she pushed through the doors, crossed the dining hall, and entered the roar and clank of the factory floor for what she hoped was the last time.

  38

  Wolf Tracks in the Snow

  Even with gloves, a scarf around his face, an extra layer of underclothes, and his Durgan uniform, Janner cringed at the cold when he landed in the pile of snow below his window. He crouched there for a while to be sure no one in the house stirred, but all he heard was his breathing and the hoot of a fleck owl in one of the trees.

  He thought about Guildmaster Clout’s lessons on sneakery:always keep your joints from cracking, listen before you move, be patient, pay attention to night creatures—if they move, you move. The owl told Janner it was safe to sneak. Doing his best to step in Kalmar’s footprints, he edged out from the shadow of the house and into full moonlight.

  Janner’s footsteps were deafening in all that snowy silence, and he felt exposed, especially wearing so much black. He was a splatter of ink on a blank page. Surely there were white Durgan uniforms for snow sneakery, he thought, but he had no choice. These were the warmest clothes he had.

  The tracks were easy to see, though a dusting of fresh flakes softened their outline. That meant it had still been snowing when Kalmar left. Janner followed the tracks past Freva and Bonnie’s little cottage to the barn. The door was open wide enough that Janner was able to squeeze through without a sound. He stood in the hay-scented darkness for a moment, listening. “Kal!” he whispered, but the only answer was a snort from one of the horses. He crept past the stalls and found the back door standing open. A small drift of snow had blown in, and Kalmar’s footprints led through it, out past the goat pen and the kennel where Leeli kept her houndrick dogs. The dogs woke and wagged their tails when Janner approached, but they didn’t bark.

  Janner stopped every few steps to listen. He didn’t know how long Kalmar had been gone, or how close he might be. It was possible, after all, that Kalmar was only slipping out for a romp in the snow. It was a beautiful night, and maybe he couldn’t sleep; maybe he snuck out the window because he didn’t want to wake anyone. But Janner knew somehow that this wasn’t the first time. What about all the other nights?

  Beyond the barn, the tracks turned left and circled back around to the front of Chimney Hill. They followed the lane, but a stone’s throw to the right of it, angling from tree to tree as they descended the hill. Janner could see where Rudric’s horse’s hooves had pocked half-moons in the snow on his ride to and from the house. At the bottom of the hill, Kalmar’s trail led not to the bridge, but down the creek bank. Janner was thankful for the bright moon, or he wouldn’t have been able to spot the stones Kalmar used to hop across.

  As soon as Janner set foot on the opposite bank, he heard a rumble in the distance. His heart skipped a beat and he saw a large, dark, steaming shape crest the hill coming from Ban Rona: horses. The thunder of hoofbeats grew in volume as they sped toward Janner. He scrambled along the creek bank and hid in the shadow of the bridge just as they shot past. Janner counted at least twenty horses, their riders garbed in black, sword hilts and hammers rattling and glinting in the moonlight. It was Rudric and the Durgan Patrol, on their way to the Outer Vales. They were gone as fast as they had come.

  Janner eased out of the shadow of the bridge, still shaken by the passing of the horses, and found Kalmar’s tracks again. He didn’t walk on the road but kept off to the right, on the opposite side of the creek, all the way up the big hill and out of the valley. Janner crested it and saw Ban Rona below, every rooftop soft and white, every tree branch outlined with snow. Kalmar’s trail led down the road and turned left, into the city.

  The sneak into town was less difficult in some ways—there were plenty of hiding places, for one thing. Kalmar’s tracks zipped from bush to hedge, from park bench to stone fence. Janner followed in bursts, just as the tracks indicated Kalmar had. But creeping through the city was harder in other ways—every window facing the street was like an eye watching him pass. Janner sensed the sleeping presence of people in the houses. He wondered how he would explain himself if he were caught. And where was he going? The farther Janner followed his brother’s trail, the more his dread loomed. He was terrified of what he would find at the end.

  He ducked through a front yard, paused behind a fat tree, then tiptoed to a garden table at the edge of the yard, where Janner half-expected to find Kalmar hiding. Instead, the trail cut right, between two houses and into a dark alleyway. Janner’s ears tingled, but he heard nothing. He saw no tracks coming back out. He was scared to go on, not sure he wanted to know what waited at the end of the alley. But he had to know. He had come this far. It was too late to turn back.

  Janner stepped into the shadows of the alley and listened, waited, tried to pay attention to every one of his senses. He heard little other than the creak and thud of ships rocking in the harbor. He smelled a tinge of chimney smoke, but little else; the cold and the snow hid the usual scents of mud and horse and the ocean’s salty breath. When his eyes adjusted, he inspected the alleyway and saw nothing unusual: refuse bins, crates, a broken old wagon wheel, something made of wire mesh in a wood frame, rakes and shovels hanging from the stone walls on either side—everything dusted with snow.

  At the back of the alley was a structure of some kind, but Janner couldn’t tell what. Kalmar’s footprints led straight to it.

  39

  What Janner Found in the Alleyway

  Quiet as a whisper, Janner placed his feet in Kalmar’s tracks, one at a time, nearer and nearer to the rear of the alley. When he was halfway in, he saw that the structure was a hen coop. It had nine small, square doors with a wire mesh window framed in the center of each. The coop stood a few feet above the ground on four legs, and beneath it was an open space where old planks of lumber were stacked beside some empty milk canisters.

  Janner could hear his own heartbeat as he crept closer. He struggled to control his breathing. Why was he so afraid? It was only Kalmar.

  Janner reached the coop without a sound. Kal’s footprints led beneath it. A blood-spattered pile of white feathers littered the snow, as if someone had emptied a pillow and sprinkled berry juice all over it. Janner clenched his teeth against the sudden urge to vomit.

  Just as he gathered the courage to peek into the shadows beneath the coop, Kalmar’s hand shot out and grabbed Janner by the leg. His claws dug in, and Janner fell. The little Fang snarled and leapt on Janner. He thrust his snout into Janner’s face and bared his teeth. Little feathers were stuck in his dark
, wet whiskers.

  Janner froze in fear. He tried to see past the black nose and the blood and the terrible teeth. He tried to see Kalmar’s eyes in the dark. He needed to see their color and depth, to know if the thing attacking him was a Grey Fang or Kalmar Wingfeather. One of Kalmar’s wet hands was on Janner’s forehead, holding him to the ground, and the other was wrapped around his throat. All Janner heard was a growl made more monstrous by its controlled softness.

  “Kalmar,” Janner whispered. “K-Kalmar, it’s me. It’s Janner.”

  After a moment Kalmar’s hands flew to his mouth to quiet a whimper. He flung himself backward, beneath the coop again, knocking over the milk canisters. Janner scrambled to his feet and wiped the hen blood from his face and neck. He could smell it now, like metal and burnt soup. Kalmar’s tail protruded from the shadows, trembling in the snow. He was crying.

  “Kal? What’s going on?” Janner whispered. He edged forward, as if he were approaching a wounded animal. “What are you doing?”

  “I’m sorry,” Kalmar whimpered. “I didn’t mean to.”

  “It’s all right. I’m coming in with you. Can I do that?”

  Kalmar nodded from deep in the shadows. Janner could just make out the glint of his eyes. He eased under and sat beside his shivering brother, trying not to think about the hen bones scattered beneath him. He couldn’t think of anything to say, so he put his arm around Kalmar and whispered his name. As frightened as Janner had been, it was Kal who wept.

  Finally, Kalmar sat up and wiped his eyes. “I messed up. I didn’t think the snow would stop so soon.”