Hell's Hollow

by Summer Stone

  “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.

  “How do you know about that?” he asked.

  “I came looking for you. The ivy seemed out of place, smashed to the side.”

  “I should be more careful,” he said. “It’s hard to get the dirt off them. I can rub it off my jeans so she won’t notice. But the socks… there’s no way to hide it. So I leave them in the ivy where she won’t find them.”

  “This is so messed up,” I said.

  He shrugged.

  “Do you need anything? Can I bring you something else?”

  He looked at me with this weird expression, like he wanted to move closer, but instead he scooted farther away. “Maybe a book?” he asked. “She used to bring me a different one every week. I still get the workbooks, and TV is cool and all, but predictable. I miss reading new books — not knowing what’s going to happen.”

  I nearly cried. “Sure, I can bring you lots of books. That’s easy.”

  “Only one… at a time,” he said. “I’ll have to hide it.”

  “She shouldn’t be imprisoning you like this. It’s got to be illegal. I could get you help.”

  “No!” he shouted, then quieted. “You have to promise. She has her reasons. I shouldn’t even be here.”

  “Okay, I’m sorry. I’ll bring you a book. Is there any certain kind you like?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “The ones I’ve read, they’re mysteries mostly, adventures, sometimes fantasies. I like them all.”

  An overwhelming desire to reach out and touch his hand swept over me. But I knew it was risky. I was too open. But if I touched him and I could feel his skin against mine, I could be sure. Still, I didn’t do it.

  “I wish I could bring you something,” he whispered.

  “You do. Every time you come,” I replied.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  My face burned. I was almost afraid to say the word out loud, afraid to spoil it. “A friend?” I knew it sounded hokey, but it was true, at least from my perspective. I hoped maybe it was true for him, too. It had been a really long time since I’d had someone my own age to talk to.

  “A friend,” he said, and his cheeks changed in the subtlest of ways. Suddenly he seemed sad and serious. I worried that it meant he wasn’t interested in being friends with a freak like me — that he was struggling to find some polite way of blowing me off.

  “Please don’t run away,” I said. “I won’t bother you.”

  “You don’t bother me,” he whispered, avoiding my eyes.

  “If I ask something you don’t want to answer, just say so. It kills me to have to wait days to find you again.”

  “How do you… know when I’ll be here?” he asked.

  I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to freak him out, make him feel vulnerable. And I still felt scared about revealing my own secret. “It’s part of the connection to The Hollow,” I said.

  “Do you know when anyone is here?”

  I shook my head. “Only some.”

  “Why me?” he asked.

  “It’s hard to explain.”

  “Because I’m … different,” he said.

  “Sort of,” I replied.

  He scooted away from me a little more. “Sorry.”

  “For what?” I asked.

  “I should go,” he said.

  “What are you sorry for? Zach, you promised.”

  “Don’t you get it? I’m dangerous.” His body seemed to tremble.

  I wondered if it was that he understood about my sensitivity, how much his pain could take from me. But that wouldn’t explain why he’d be shook up about it. “To me?” I asked.

  “To everyone,” he whispered. And in the moonlight his eyes lit up with a scary sort of anger.

  “To everyone?” That didn’t make sense at all. “How could you be dangerous?” He didn’t respond. “Is that why she keeps you locked up?” My mind raced trying to imagine how he might be a danger to anyone.

  “You won’t want to know me anymore if I tell you,” he said.

  “I’ll always want to know you,” I promised.

  And then, as if the pressure to hold in his secrets had finally become too much, he spilled. “I’m a murderer,” he whispered, “and the son of the devil.” His eyes bulged like he couldn’t believe what he’d admitted. And then, promise or no promise, he was running.

  Chapter Six

  In the morning, as I walked the dusty road toward the old church, my mind raced as it had all night. Who could he have killed? What did he mean by ‘son of the devil.’ Was he some sort of Satan-worshipper? I couldn’t imagine Myra Clay allowing that. I didn’t really even understand what the devil was. So I headed to church, thinking maybe I’d find answers in the house of God.

  I snuck into the back of the old clapboard building and slipped into a wooden pew, trying not to draw attention. The cool of the sanctuary came as a relief after the hot walk over. Bennett was leading today’s service with only a couple of followers up in the front row. Not being the religious-type, I never knew which group would be using the church on any given day. It was shared by all the religions in the area.

  Bennett was chanting and singing, while Mason McDowell played a beat-up guitar. It gave me the shivers when Bennett brought out a wooden bin and lifted from within it a couple of rattlesnakes, holding them up to the congregants. The people danced around looking spastic, and some of them took turns holding the snakes. Bennett played the harmonica while he danced.

  “Our God is a lovin’ God, and he would not harm us,” he called. “Let yourself be called to do his work and show your trust in his love.”

  The rattlers rattled and hissed.

  After they put the snakes away, someone stepped out from the shadows that led to the rectory. It was Myra Clay, holding a goblet and a fancy glass bottle. She held the goblet, while Bennett poured in the contents of the bottle. Myra took a small sip, then passed the goblet, and the others drank too.

  “We drink this strychnine as God decreed,” Bennett said. “For as he spake in the Bible, ‘They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them.’”

  Melody McDowell, Mason’s mom, who’d been beating on a tambourine, started screaming, “I feel the power! I feel the power!” Then she lurched around on the floor like she was having a seizure, raised her hand up in prayer and cried.

  Honestly, it all seemed like nonsense to me. What if one of them had been bitten? Or died from poison? Would that mean the devil was present? That God had condemned or forsaken them? What was the point? If Myra was drinking poison, what did that mean for Zach? Would she expect him to do it, too? What if she was harming him, causing him the pain I sensed? I wondered if something about her beliefs caused her to make him think he was the opposite of divine.

  As the few congregants thanked Bennett, I slipped closer to the wall, hoping not to be seen. Melody McDowell lingered, chatting with him, tossing her hair and waggling her hips. “That was such a lovely service,” she said. “It brings me such peace, such a closeness to God.”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” Bennett said.

  “Maybe we could meet for coffee later to talk some more about how to bring a few more folks in to try it out. It’s so inspiring the way you handle the serpents.”

  “Why thank you,” Bennett replied. “I’d be much obliged.”

  Once she’d gone, Bennett came and sat in my pew.

  “Good mornin’, Seraphina. We appreciate you joinin’ us today.”

  I smiled politely.

  “Perhaps you’re lookin’ to God to retrieve yer voice fer you,” he said.

  I didn’t respond. It didn’t really matter why he thought I was there. I wasn’t even sure myself anymore.

  “I must let you know that I’d need yer mother’s permission before I was to let you join in on the serpent handlin’ or the drinkin’ of the poison.
”

  I shook my head intently, not at all interested in joining in on any of that.

  “Just watchin’?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “Curious about the Lord’s work?”

  I shrugged.

  “Curious about religion? God? The devil?”

  I nodded.

  “Religion is somethin’ you feel in yer heart. If you feel it when you come to my church service, then you know God is speakin’ to you. That’s what brung me here to Hell’s Hollow. I was at a church service back home in beautiful Appalachian country when the Lord spoke to me. He said, ‘Son, there’s folks out there who need to hear My word.’ Travelin’ preachers used to be common, but weren’t so much no more. Still, I told my ma and my daddy I’d received Word and had a Mission. I’d planned to drive clear across the country to the Sodom and Gomorrah of San Francisco. But when I found myself stalled out here in these mountains that reminded me of home in a town calling itself Hell’s Hollow, I knew I’d found my place, knew God had sent me here where His word was needed. I reckon they let me use the church on occasion early on ’cause I never tried to force God’s word on anybody, just shared it with them that wanted to hear. And sure enough our little congregation grew, bit by bit mind you, but grew nonetheless.

  “If our way doesn’t speak to you, look to others. As long as you’re followin’ in the path of God, you’ve got nothin’ to fear. Just like my congregants don’t fear the serpents. Gettin’ led astray, not believin’ in the Lord, now that’s where Satan comes in. But you don’t need to worry about that, do you? Unless o’ course it’s Satan that’s got yer tongue.” He laughed, waved, and left me alone in the church.

  That wasn’t any help at all. I opened a Bible and flipped through. But it wasn’t giving me the answers I was looking for. I walked out to the square and saw Astrid sitting under a tree reading a book on intuition. I sat down beside her.

  “There’s too much gook in your aura,” she said, glancing at me for a moment through the glasses that made her eyes look all big and weird.

  “Do you believe in Satan?” I asked her. She was one of the few in town I usually felt safe talking to, as long as I kept my words few.

  “Satan? That’s some question on a sunny summer afternoon!” She smiled, pushing her glasses up into her frizzy hair. Then she started snatching at the air around me and shaking her hands as if she was trying to shake boogers off of them. “The idea of the devil is a man-made invention,” she said. “There’s no such thing. Inside every person there’s good and there’s bad. In each moment we choose which way to lean. But there’s no devil out there with horns and a red cape trying to entice us toward evil. You really need to do something about this aura, hon.”

  “Do you believe Jesus was the actual Son of God?” I asked.

  “Whew! What has gotten into you? Look, my mother’s Jewish and my dad Buddhist, so you may be barking up the wrong tree asking me this stuff. I believe we’re all the children of God and that Jesus was a very smart, very charismatic man with some excellent ideas. But that’s me. A Christian will tell you with just as much certainty that Jesus was absolutely the one and only child of God. Maybe you need to decide for yourself what to believe.”

  I wondered. Was Jesus the actual Son of God? Was that possible? Was there a devil? Could he have a son? Was that what Zach meant, or was it something else entirely? I hated feeling so confused.

  “What’s with all the religious questions?” she asked.

  I shrugged. I so wished I could tell her the truth, have a grown-up in on this secret with me so I’d know what to do. Because that was one thing I definitely did not know. If Zach was being imprisoned, shouldn’t I tell? But I couldn’t yet, not until I understood better why he was going along with it. Plus I’d begun having fantasies where I told the truth, and the police charged up to Myra Clay’s house, and it turned out I’d hallucinated the whole thing. Then I got locked up with Gran and MK as a bunch of kids from school pointed and laughed.

  “You really should be cleansing yourself,” Astrid said.

  Maybe my confusion and worry gave me cause to claim temporary insanity or maybe I was hypnotized by the aura cleansing. Something must have happened, because the next words to come out of my mouth were these: “Do you know anything about … natural forms of healing?”

  “What do you mean?” she asked, making me more nervous. “Like herbal? Acupuncture? Psychic healing?”

  Oh God, she has no idea what I’m talking about. “I’m not sure. Like something that comes from inside a person?” I couldn’t believe what I was saying. Mom would murder me if she knew. I should’ve kept my mouth shut.

  Astrid’s confused expression turned to light bulb inspiration. “Oh, you mean like intuitive healing, or hands-on.”

  My insides twisted, afraid to hope that maybe someone knew something about this that might actually be helpful. “Yeah, something like that, maybe.”

  “Sure. I must have a boatload of books on the topic. Why don’t you come by later and borrow a few?”

  A boatload of books has been written about this? “Maybe. Probably only one at a time, though,” I said, shocked to hear myself echo Zach’s words. “My mom doesn’t really like the idea of me looking into this stuff, what with my family’s history here and all.” I could hide a book under my mattress, but a boatload might get noticed.

  “Don’t be silly! Do you want me to talk to her about it?”

  “No! Definitely not. That would be disastrous,” I said.

  She waved off my concern. “You teenagers are so dramatic.”

  I had to make her understand. “Seriously, please, promise me you won’t mention it.”

  I guess she caught from my tone how terrified I was because she said, “Okay, no worries. I’ll put a stack on my doorstep for you in case I’m not home when you stop by. Take whichever one speaks to you.”

  “Thanks, Astrid,” I said, as I got up and walked toward the bakery. I passed Myra Clay’s house, looking to the windows, wondering if he was really in there, what he was doing, how he kept busy all day, if he was restless or bored or hot.

  When I reached the bakery, Mom waved me in and handed me the bank pouch. “Honey, would you run and get me some change, please?”

  I walked up the street to the bank. Melody was filing her nails behind the teller counter. I handed her the pouch. Mom had written out instructions for what kind of change she needed.

  “I saw you at church this morning,” Melody said, as if I’d intended it to be a secret. She counted out the dollar bills. “Don’t think your innocent routine is fooling anybody. Bennett is much too old for you. And he’s a decent man.”

  What? Did she think I was there to flirt with Bennett Taylor? Ew!

  She placed the money in the pouch. “I’ve been working on him ever since he stepped foot in this hellhole, so don’t you think for one minute I’m going to step aside and let you interfere.”

  I took the pouch from her without saying a word.

  “I’ll be watching you,” she muttered. As her boss came out from the back room, she called after me, “Have a great day!”

  Wow, that was creepy. I brought the change to Mom and headed toward the library. I had an errand of my own.

  The next time the need woke me I was ready. My bag was packed with nearly a dozen books I’d picked up from the library, along with a flashlight, and three kinds of candy bars I’d bought at Norita Tucker’s quick mart: The Mars bar he’d liked so much, a Reece’s King Size, and a Snickers. I threw on a sweatshirt and flip-flops and slipped out the creaking front door. My heart pounded on the way down, but I wasn’t sure if it was because I was excited to see him or if it was because I was terrified of finding out who he’d killed and why.

  He was lying on his back on The Hollow, looking up at the stars. Seeing Luke’s old hiking boots on his feet made me smile, like I was doing some small thing to help him. Something moved on his chest. I squinted to see better. A baby chipmunk snuggled a
gainst him.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, horrified.

  “It was cold,” he said.

  “Let it go!” I blurted. “They carry diseases.”

  His face changed, as if he was seeing me in a new way, one he maybe didn’t like so much. The chipmunk scurried away. He watched it run, looking as though I’d just stolen his best friend.

  “I brought you some books,” I said, setting my bag down and opening it so he could see what was inside.

  “I told you I can only take one,” he said.

  “I know. But I thought this way you could at least choose. There’s chocolate in there too.” I was dying to ask him more about being locked up, about being the son of the devil, about what he’d meant when he’d said ‘murderer’, but I needed to bide my time. “What made you decide to start sneaking out?” I asked instead.

  Zach looked up from the books he was sorting through by flashlight. He looked at me funny, squinting up the good side of his face, then he said one word. “Longing?”

  “Longing?” I repeated, thinking that wasn’t a word people really used all that much. I wondered if he’d read it in one of the books he’d read over and over.

  “I wanted … something. And this pull would wake me up, this ache. I followed it, and it led me to this spot. And even when I’m here it nags at me, and I don’t know why.”

  I gasped, wondering if maybe somehow he was sensitive, too, if that was why he’d been holding the chipmunk, if that was why he could manage the power of The Hollow. I shivered in the cool night air.

  “I figured I wouldn’t be a danger to anyone at night.” He sounded defensive. “Once I snuck out when she was at church and once during her bridge game in daylight. But I never came anywhere but here. I was always careful not to be seen. I didn’t think I could hurt anyone here.”

  “What you’re describing — the tug — it’s what brings me here, too.”

  “It is?” His face lit up.

  I nodded, wondering.

  “What does it mean?” he asked.

  “Like I said, it’s where our power comes from. What that power turns into is different for each person.”