The Hollow Girl

by Hillary Monahan

  “You’re such a woman sometimes, Cam. Brishen is strong. The drabarni looks like a wind would knock her over. And we have yet to witness her magic, remember.”

  “We haven’t, but others have. You’re going to get us killed, Silas. Banished or killed, and I’m not sure which is worse. You may not believe the old woman has power, but my mother says she saw the hag freeze a lake solid once to punish a fisherman for cheating us. My mother—” Cam’s voice was cut off with a shout.

  The vardo rocked before me, the furniture and trinkets inside hissing and thudding as they skidded around. Something heavy had been slammed into the vardo’s side. Judging by all the grunting and squabbling that followed, I had to assume it was Cam’s body.

  “Don’t feed me your superstitious nonsense, or I will pound you into the earth,” Silas barked.

  “Do not think being the chieftain’s spit makes you immortal!” Cam yelled. “We have to strike first. How you can’t see that with Brishen missing is—”

  The violence escalated. I backed away from the vardo in case it went sprawling onto its side with the rocking. I could hear Mander trying to calm his friends, telling them to stop turning on each other, but he was ignored.

  “You dare lay your hands on me?” Silas shouted. “The chieftain’s son? You dare?”

  “Yes, I dare. We followed you to that field, we did what you asked us to do, and you repay our loyalty by refusing to see the threat before your nose? You may as well hand us to the drabarni trussed up like roasted pigs on platters. Not all of us can hide behind our fathers, Silas. I warned you about touching that girl before we got to the field. I told you it was foolish, that it wouldn’t get you what you want, but you didn’t listen. Now you’re making us pay for your stupidity.”

  There were so many things I wanted to ask Cam. Why did he let Silas touch me if he knew it was wrong? Why hadn’t he told him to stop? Why had he stared at me with his cold wolf eyes and pretended none of it mattered? He had a baby sister—would he have allowed something like that to happen to her?

  I wrapped my arms around my knees and buried my face in my skirt, my teeth clenched on my tongue so I wouldn’t scream.

  “If you were so afraid of the drabarni, why didn’t you go see her when Tomašis did?” Silas taunted. “She gave you the chance. Why not give her an eye, too?”

  “Because you told us not to, you son of a dog, and now it’s too late! Someone has to do something. I will.”

  “If you dare hurt what’s mine, you and your family will suffer the consequence,” Silas warned. “Think long and hard before you cross me!”

  Cam didn’t answer. I wasn’t sure why until I heard Mander calling for him, pleading for him to come back.

  “Cam, stop walking!” Mander shouted. “Don’t do this. Don’t throw our friendship away!”

  “You’d best decide whose friend you want to be, Mander—his or mine,” Silas said grimly. “I’m finished with him. I’m going to talk to my father before Cam makes anything worse.”

  Grass crackled as Silas stomped off in a huff.

  “Silas. Wait, I…Hell.” Mander cursed in exasperation. I heard him hurl another glob of spit before stomping up the steps of his vardo, the door slamming behind him.

  I rounded the corner, the swish of my skirts forcing the fog to swirl away from the ground, and spied his tobacco spit cup nestled in the grass beside his door. I paused. Laced with leaf or not, saliva had to be as good as hair for the purposes of ritual. It came from the body, and there was certainly plenty of it present.

  I wrapped the red shawl around my fingers and collected the cup before lunging back into the fog and shadows, retracing my steps home. I paused at every new corner to listen for nearby people, afraid I’d encounter Silas or Cam. They were both threats to me, but for totally different reasons: Silas wanted me; Cam wanted to burn me alive.

  Neither was welcome.

  I let myself into Gran’s vardo, the cup in my grip, the knife clean and ready to be put to rest.

  “I washed the dishes myself. You do not need to return to the fire,” Gran said in greeting, without turning from her task.

  She was writing on our walls with white chalk, concentrating her efforts near the door and windows. She’d written letters above, below, and on either side of the frames to box them in. A line extended across the floor, too, as if she were creating a magical barrier.

  “These are our words,” she explained without turning around. “They’re special—they beseech fire. We got them from the Scottish witches. If you learn to read one day, there are many books about the cultures beyond our own. The world is a very big place, Bethan. Our displacement exposes us to many people.”

  I left the spit cup on the table and put the knife in the bureau drawer, alongside the mirror that still held Martyn’s image.

  “Letters can help against fire?”

  “It is the same as spellcraft—only useful if it helps me channel my will. In that, it will perform its function.”

  “I see,” I said, more to myself than her. “I overheard the boys arguing outside Mander’s vardo. Cam feels like his only chance against us is to go on the offensive. He’s talking of burning us still.”

  Gran snorted. “He has no chance.”

  “I know that, and you know that. I think he knows it, too, but he’s desperate.” I nudged the cup across the table to her. Her curt nod was enough to tell me that the saliva was useful for our purposes, and I pulled off my scarf and shawl, my fingers slipping the pins from my hair. Some locks had come loose thanks to the wet fog, and I didn’t like the way the ends felt brushing against my neck.

  Gran put her chalk aside to finger the dwayberry cutting she’d taken down earlier, pinching one of its fruits between her thumb and forefinger. “It is best if we wait until tomorrow to make the dream. It is not complicated, but it requires much focus. You need sleep to be strong,” she said.

  I wasn’t particularly tired, but if Mander struggled against me, I ought to be well rested.

  While Gran put the herb back on its hook overhead and closed the shutters to block the night, I assembled my makeshift bed, doubling up on blankets so I wouldn’t freeze. My gaze drifted to the patchwork shroud covering Martyn’s still body. I’d been so addled after my assault and so exhausted after my first experiences with magic that it hadn’t bothered me to sleep beside Martyn’s body the last two nights. Now that I was more clear-headed, I was fully aware that Martyn was all but dead two feet away. If he had been truly dead, it would be unclean to be so near to him, and I wasn’t sure if that made me afraid or disgusted.

  I only knew that our magic had to succeed. If it didn’t, surely a man who had died under such circumstances would return as an angry spirit.

  I helped Gran into her bed and then climbed into my own nest. After a bit of twisting and turning, sleep came, but a loud clap woke me. I reared up in the darkness, clutching my blankets to my chest, listening as a series of smacks rattled the door.

  I started to get up, but Gran growled, “Wait,” and I went still, my heart thudding in my throat. The shaking continued—something I quickly figured out was a hammer striking wood—and then someone pounded on our shutters. The wood groaned in strain, and there was another slam. The leftmost window exploded open under heavy impact.

  I screeched as splinters of wood pelted me in the darkness, forcing me to huddle down and cover my head.

  Torches sailed through the open window and my world went up in flames.

  The torches struck the vardo floor with wet plops, the ends saturated with lantern oil. Flames spread like rippling orange water, the cold in the wagon consumed by a pulsing, searing heat. I could hardly bear it. I clambered to the wall, tangy smoke filling my nostrils and burning my eyes. One torch hit the table, one hit the floor, and another landed on the blanket covering Martyn.

  Neither Gran nor I could do a thing for a body burned to ash.

  I crawled toward the door, thinking to kick it out, but Gran’s scream st
opped me in the middle of the vardo. The sound was earsplitting and primal, and for a horrible moment I thought I was listening to her death throes, but then I saw her behind the flames, her hands raised to the roof, her eyes blazing gold like she, too, burned from the inside out.

  She stooped low, her hands stretching for the fire gorging itself on Martyn’s blanket. “Come,” she said, and it leapt off Martyn to engulf her to her wrists. She should have been in agony; she should have been writhing and screaming and blistering; but no—she tilted her head back and laughed. I stumbled back. I was afraid of the fire, afraid of the woman wielding it with such obvious delight. Gran crooned to the flames like they were her beloved. She beckoned them, beseeched them to bend to her will. They were charmed, like snakes in a basket before a pipe player, and they flickered over her extended arms, no longer interested in consuming our modest home.

  “The door, Bethan,” she said. Fire snapped and hissed from her fingertips to her shoulders.

  I scrambled across the floor to wriggle the latch and found the metal cool despite the heat surging around me. It didn’t budge. Climbing to my feet, I shoved the wood with my shoulder, every collision of my body against the hard surface a small agony thanks to Mander’s beating. Still it didn’t move.

  “Let me.” Gran approached, her face serene, her arms blazing like torches. As soon as I stepped aside, she pressed her palms to the wood. The flames lashed out to steal an illicit taste, their golden hues brightening to star white. The door quivered and then it smoldered, new smoke billowing forth. I crouched low to avoid breathing it in, thrusting my arm across my mouth in an effort to protect my lungs. I didn’t have to endure it for long; soon the door and the boards nailed to it crumbled to ash, the metal hinges and latch plummeting to the tall grass below. The smoke was sucked away on a passing breeze.

  “My cane, Bethan,” Gran commanded. “And I will need your elbow. It is time to teach the boy his manners.” I was about to ask how she’d manage an oak staff given her condition, but my question answered itself when the fire that had engulfed her shrank to a fraction of its size. A tiny flame no bigger than a candle head danced upon her palm. It flitted between her fingers, playful, like it couldn’t wait for whatever fun she had planned next.

  I helped her down the steps and onto the ground. She pointed behind us, at the fresh, gaping gash in the vardo front. “Bring your knife. You will need it. And Wen best have someone who can put up a door tonight. It is too cold to go without.” I dashed inside, covering my hair with my scarf and retrieving both the knife and the red shawl. I snagged her a shawl, too, but she waved it off when I presented it. “I bear flame. I am plenty warm.”

  We pressed on to the bonfire, nearly colliding with the chieftain as we crested the benches. He looked startled to see us, as did Silas, who was on his father’s heels. We were face to face for the first time since he had attacked me, and our gazes locked. With his hands stuffed casually into his pockets, Silas tilted his head to regard me, his oily smile making my skin crawl.

  My anger was fast to rise. I stepped forward, already reaching for my knife, but Gran snagged the hem of my shawl and hauled me back.

  “Silas said Cam meant trouble. He was concerned,” the chieftain said, his big hand rubbing at his beard. His eyes swept from Silas to me and over to Gran. “We were coming to check on you.”

  Gran opened her hand to show off her flame, and let it grow to a torch-sized fire on her palm. “Had we relied on your charity, we would have burned alive. Would that have worried you, Silas? It is your crime that saw us lit aflame in the first place, was it not? Tick tock. Tick tock. Your time runs short. If this fire were not aimed at its maker, I would enjoy burning you to cinders.”

  Silas scampered back, his backside smacking against a feasting table. At last he had proof of Gran’s magic, and a tangible dread crept across his face, and I wanted to relish the rapid rise and fall of his chest, to revel in his fear, but I couldn’t. My numbness was being consumed by anger, and there wasn’t room for anything else, even satisfaction.

  Silas glanced at his father like he expected him to intervene, but the chieftain just stared at his dull, scratched boots. Silas’s confusion gave way to irritation, and he jerked his chin up, his nostrils flaring like a bull ready to charge. It was bravado—he couldn’t look Gran in the eye and his pulse jumped in his throat—but he fought valiantly for the appearance of calm.

  “I don’t wish for there to be problems between our families, drabarni,” Silas said. “I was extending a civility, from the chieftain’s family to your own.”

  “ ‘Civility,’ he says. Do you want to see my civility, reptile?” Gran lifted her hand to her mouth and blew on the dancing flame. Fire snapped out like a molten whip, biting at Silas’s face. He squawked and dove for the ground, and Gran blasted another fiery lash at his head. It scorched the grass beside his ear and dug a tiny smoking ravine in the hard-packed earth inches from his body.

  Silas pushed himself up and ran off without another word, the night pulling him into its inky embrace. I could hear his boots pounding across the ground long after I could see his retreating back.

  The chieftain looked after his son, and his left eye twitched with strain. Gran jabbed his leg with her cane. “Do not be stupid, Wen. He is Bethan’s to do with as she pleases. There is nothing you can do that will not cost you. Now send somebody to repair my door while I am out. I have a firebug to catch.” To illustrate her point, she waved the fire beneath his chin. The chieftain skittered back, his hand clutching the lapel of his green jacket defensively.

  “Of course. Good night, Drina. Bethan.” He lumbered off in the direction of his wayward son. I didn’t need Gran’s second sight to know he was still trying to figure out a way to save his boy, a way to buy our mercy.

  But mercy was not an infinite resource, and for Silas, that well had long ago run dry.

  Gran offered me her elbow, and I hooked my arm through hers. I wasn’t sure where Cam lived—there were enough traveling with the clan that I couldn’t keep track of everyone after the seasonal moves—but a cacophony from the east side beckoned us. We hurried along to the last row, where we discovered every lantern lit and every set of eyes peering out of their homes. All were watching a faded red vardo with open windows. Inside, I could see Cam’s father, Marko, pacing back and forth. His fingers raked through the dark hair at his temples.

  Behind him, Cam’s mother and baby sister cried.

  “I had to, Papa,” I heard Cam say. “It was me or them, and I picked me.”

  That was his mistake. Had he simply come the day before, had he allowed me to take my due, he might have walked away with his life. It may not have been as happy, removed from the family as he would have been, but at least there would have been other sunrises to see.

  That wasn’t an option anymore.

  “It is time, Cam!” Gran called, her voice carrying on the wind. “You baited your hook, and the fish are hungry.”

  Cam thrust the curtain aside. Seeing Gran there with fire on her palm and fog closing around her like she’d stepped out of a dream, he slammed the shutters closed. There was a thud, a crash, glass breaking, and a baby’s cry. Panicked voices became panicked screams. Then the door swung open. Cam emerged with his tiny sister in his arms.

  “No, Cam. NO!” Cam’s mother, Myri, lurched after him, grabbing for his shirt, but Cam shoved her back inside, the squalling infant clutched to his chest. His father bumbled down the vardo steps after him, but he’d been injured. Blood streamed down his temple from a jagged wound that hadn’t been there moments ago.

  “She’s your sister, Cam. Your sister,” his mother sobbed, but Cam ignored her, too busy eyeballing Gran and me. He pulled a spring knife from his pocket, opening it and pointing the blade at the terrified baby’s neck. She balled her fists in his shirt and wailed, not knowing why she’d been torn away from her mother.

  “Back away, all of you, or I’ll kill her. So help me, I will kill her.” I wasn’t
sure if I believed him or not. He jostled the baby up and down to calm her—an oddly soothing gesture, given his threat.

  Gran pointed her craggy finger in the baby’s direction. “What is that child’s name?” she asked me.

  “Lillai,” I croaked. “Her name is Lillai.”

  The baby bellowed again, and Cam shouted at her to shut up, bouncing her so hard that I thought she’d slip from his fingers.

  “What’s going on here?” I heard someone ask.

  “Cam’s threatening his sister!” someone else answered.

  I looked around. Seeing Cam’s knife pointed at the baby, the voyeurs’ curiosity about the ruckus had turned to anger. People emerged from their tents and vardos in their nightclothes with gardening hoes, shovels, and smithing hammers to intervene. Voices called for Cam to do the right thing and put the baby down, but he only snarled like a rabid animal.

  “Back, all of you. Back!” he screamed, and in his panic, the knife slipped. The baby shrieked, and a small splotch of blood appeared at the shoulder of her nightgown. Marko saw it, too, and he let out a roar as he charged his eldest child.

  Cam scrambled back to avoid a tackle, but others were jabbing at his back with their makeshift weapons, condemning his atrocities. Cam slashed blindly at the air with the blade, and I could tell by the panic on his face that the situation would only worsen. Even if Cam hadn’t actually wanted to hurt her, with so many people encroaching, the baby was well and truly in danger.

  Gran must have come to the same conclusion. She raised her hand over her head, her fire surging to the night sky. “Back away from the boy!” she bellowed. Everyone listened, either because she was an elder and drabarni or because her power terrified them. The circle surrounding Cam widened, but the men still stood shoulder to shoulder facing him, their weapons at the ready, blocking any hope of escape.

  “I’m going to go. I’ll leave the caravan like Brishen. I’ll leave Lillai at the fence. Just get away from me,” he croaked.