The Hollows--A Novel

by Jess Montgomery

  Lily arches her left eyebrow.

  “Not that you’ve turned out anything but right nice, it’s just that, it’s, it’s hard for you, and I don’t want it to be so hard for Jolene—”

  “You’ve always been proper, Mama! How has that made it easy for you? And how is it going to be easier for Jolene if people around her—her mama, her mamaw, her teacher—show her that her word doesn’t matter?” As Mama’s expression turns to hurt, Lily puts her hand on Mama’s. “I’m sorry, too, Mama.”

  Mama pats the top of Lily’s hand, then lets hers rest there, too. For a moment, they sit like this, and Lily’s heart blooms with gratitude for her dear mama.

  Oh, Hildy … The memory of her friend, so nervous, around her mother and fiancé, quickens that bloom into sorrow.

  Mama gives Lily’s hand a reassuring pat, then gently pulls away to take a long sip of her sugar milk and tonic. “Go on. Tell me of your day.”

  Lily shares the facts of the day, from tracking the woman to the Dyers’ old house in Moonvale Hollow Village, to finding the compass, to talking with the Quaker woman, to tracking the dead woman to the Hollows Asylum and discovering the identity of the woman as Hildy’s first cousin once removed, to breaking this news to Hildy and her mother.

  She leaves out the horrid comment she’d made to Marvena about not knowing loss. The swinging bridge. The guards at the asylum.

  The visions of a young silvery boy, laughing and chasing his ball through the woods.

  Mama looks worried enough. Her expression had pulsed with revulsion at the description of the WKKK caped hood and then settled into concern for the remainder of Lily’s recitation.

  For a long moment, Mama is quiet. The parlor clock ticks the half-hour mark. The sounds of early autumn—the last of the crickets, an occasional hoot of an owl in the not-so-far-off woods, the sigh of wind—leak into the house.

  Then Mama says, “Well, if I were you, I’d get to the newspaper office tomorrow. I don’t know anything about Rupert Edward Kincaide, but if this Thea was retracing his steps from long ago, and if he was murdered, the newspaper would have covered it. And you’ll need to find all the facts you can. Now you need to get to bed!”

  And in spite of her weariness and all that has transpired over the past twenty-four hours, Lily smiles at how much alike she and Mama can sound.

  * * *

  Later, as the parlor clock chimes midnight, Lily quietly comes down the stairs, taking care to step over the squeaky third step from the bottom.

  She’d had her cold-water sink bath, donned her flannel gown, and slid under the blanket and quilt in her now too-big bed. Thoughts—not of the eventful, bizarre day, but of all things, of the letter from Benjamin Russo—flood over her. She’d tried to fall asleep by counting back from one hundred—twice. By the third time she hit thirty-seven, more awake than before, she flung off her blanket.

  Now, fueled by a second wind of energy, she crosses the parlor, finding her way in the dark by the coal-oil streetlamp shining through the front picture window, glinting off her shotgun hanging over her fireplace. She brushes against Daniel’s leather chair. She lets her hand linger on the smooth arm. This is as much as she’s allowed herself in the year and a half since his death. She has not sat in it. She’d wondered, a few times, how she’d react if either Jolene or Micah, or even little Caleb Jr., climbed in it. None of them have. It sits silently by the fireplace in the corner. Sometimes Lily thinks she can smell Daniel’s cherry-scented pipe tobacco, as strong as if he’d just lit the pipe.

  She inhales—but tonight there is no phantom scent to tease her. She makes the rest of her way to the desk, lights the coal-oil lamp, and spots Benjamin’s letter, still out. Yes, she reassures herself, it’s perfectly proper. Nothing more than checking in on a friend’s widow.

  She pushes aside the letter—better to put this sprout of energy toward organizing all she’s learned today. Lily rereads her notes and calculations: Thea Kincaide likely leaving the Hollows Asylum between 4:05 and 4:55—given her age, the distance, and the rough terrain—in order to end up at the top of the Moonvale Hollow Tunnel right as the train came through at 9:20 p.m.

  She’d have left, then, when there was still daylight, before dinner. Surely someone had to miss Thea, notice her absence. What would drive an elderly, senile woman to leave the asylum, make that trek? Surely not a WKKK meeting. Would she have learned of the meeting at the asylum? Felt she had to get to it? Mrs. Cooper had said that Thea’s father was allegedly killed by a runaway slave he was trying to help. Would Thea have remained sympathetic to the Underground Railroad cause?

  On a fresh notebook page, Lily lists questions: “What drove Thea to leave the Hollows? Who saw her leave? What happened to Thea’s shoes, by the side of the cemetery? What does the Athens landlady know? Who is Thea’s son—or did she really have one?” These are questions Lily cannot hope to pry into until she has a search warrant for the asylum.

  And she needs to start a list of who might have purposefully or accidentally killed Thea. Someone at the WKKK gathering? A random stranger from Moonvale Hollow Village? Perry Dyer?—he’d been acting strangely enough. Even … Mabel Cooper? She’d been so shaken by the notion of her cousin possibly coming to see her. About being listed as next of kin.

  Lily shakes her head. She’s never particularly liked Mrs. Cooper—but she can’t imagine her at a WKKK gathering. If nothing else, she’d find the rituals ridiculous and improper.

  Or maybe that was the point of hiding under such bizarre garb. Anonymity offering freedom to embrace the grotesque, the darkest impulses, the anger and fear and hate that couldn’t be discussed over coffee and ham salad sandwiches and pie at ordinary, harmless women’s clubs.

  Now Lily’s head throbs. She closes her eyes, rubs her temples.

  So many questions. Maybe the sketch and the article Hildy had run in the newspaper will miraculously inspire someone to come forward with all the answers. Wouldn’t that be lovely.

  In the meantime, tomorrow Lily will request the search warrant. Go to the newspaper and read all she can about Thea’s father—Mrs. Cooper’s uncle. Go to the school, talk with Jolene’s teacher. Talk, again, with the Ranklins.

  Oh, and make the damned vinegar pie for the county fair contest.

  When Lily opens her eyes, her vision is swimming. She tries to focus on her notebook, blinks hard, ends up staring at the letter again.

  Well, here at least is something she can do now—write a reply:

  Dear Mr. Russo,

  Thank you for checking on me and the children. We are doing fine.

  Congratulations on your new post.

  Lily hesitates. She could simply end right there.

  Her hands shake again. Oh, for pity’s sake! She’d been able to write out questions and theories about a murdered woman and the rise of hatred in her community—but a simple reply rattles her. She should just sign the letter—Cordially, Mrs. Ross—confident, even after only meeting him once, that Benjamin would know she was signaling him to not come calling.

  As her heart pounds, she writes instead:

  I believe you would find Kinship an excellent location for economical lodging. Should you need guidance or a home-cooked meal while searching, please do let me know. My mother and I would be glad to host you.

  Cordially,

  Mrs. Ross

  Lily’s second wind gives way to exhaustion. She pushes the letter aside, too weary to dig out an envelope and postage. She stands, staggers toward the stairs, and stumbles into the side of Daniel’s chair. For a moment, she wants to collapse into it, curl into a ball, the chair wide enough to enfold the whole of her.

  Her face flaming from the letter she’d just written, she instead trudges up to her bedroom.

  CHAPTER 16

  HILDY

  Thursday, September 23—8:00 a.m.

  Hildy hurries up Plum Street toward Lily’s, determined to quickly dispense with her duties at the jailhouse. And since she hadn’t the night be
fore, she will tell Lily about seeing Fiona with George but, more important, Missy coming by, followed quickly by Margaret, and their strange conversation—so odd that Margaret has taken such an interest in Missy. Plus, Lily needs to know about the WKKK editorial that Seth had bumped for the sheriff’s notice and sketch of Thea Kincaide.

  Oh—and she will show Lily the postcards from Thea.

  She’d barely slept the night before, reading and rereading the postcards—just three of them—but they’d emboldened her. They’d been sent when she was young. Daddy had collected their mail every few weeks at the post office. Would he have snuck the postcards to her, so Mother wasn’t aware? Yes. That made sense.

  After meeting with Lily, Hildy would go, at last, to Tom. Apologize. Surely he’d take her back. Give her time to find the best way to break off with Merle. To break the news to Mother—who had kept to her bed this morning with another coughing fit, so that Hildy had to bring her breakfast in bed.

  Thea would approve of Hildy’s plan. She can almost see her elegant cousin taking shape before her, nodding encouragement. She smiles at this fanciful notion—obviously she can’t see Thea, except in her imagination—but she also doesn’t see the man lunging out at her from between the houses. He grabs her by the arm, and she yelps, pulls away, stares up at his face, for a moment not registering that this is Merle. His face is ravaged with anger, his eyes glinting dark and dangerous.

  “Oh!” Hildy looks desperately back at Lily’s house. He jerks her away, grasping her so tightly in his meaty hand that pain shoots up her thin arm, pulling so hard that she stumbles. People out on the street—other shopkeepers heading to their stores, mothers with strollers, men on the way to the courthouse or train depot—glance away as if they’ve seen nothing, though the swiftness of their looking away reveals they’ve seen everything. Hildy’s face blazes with humiliation and fear, her earlier resolve crumbling.

  Soon they are at Douglas Grocers, and Merle pulls a key from his pocket, clumsily trying to unlock the door one-handed. He has not let go of Hildy’s elbow, as if she might run off.

  “You were going to Lily’s.” Merle’s voice is deep and gruff, but also weary, and Hildy guesses that he’s been up all night, obsessing about last evening’s scene. “I knew you would this morning—no matter that I told you that you need to quit.”

  Guilt washes over her, along with doubt that Tom will take her back. The question that plagued her the night before returns: Which would be worse? Living the rest of her life with Merle, but wanting Tom? Or breaking off from Merle and living the rest of her life as an old maid, much of it with Mother’s constant bitterness—and still wanting Tom?

  Suddenly she wishes to be alone. But how could a woman in this world function and survive alone, unless, like Lily, a husband had left her well situated?

  Finally, she finds her voice, but only to say, “Please let go of me. I’ll stay and help you.”

  Merle gives her a petulant look but releases her. As Hildy rubs her arm, he quickly finishes unlocking the grocery door. Then he pulls her inside. The bell over the door gives a merry, welcoming chime. It is the chime that Lily’s father had put over the door years before.

  Hildy stops, gazes around the small grocery. Waits for her usual feeling of comfort at being back in the grocery that had been Lily’s father’s, that was supposed to be Roger’s, supposed to be McArthur & Son Grocers—to come back over her. This morning, the usual comforting smells—the briny pickle barrel, the sweet of the penny candy, the cheese and bologna—make her nauseous.

  Hildy focuses on the checkout counter and soda fountain, the polished wood and gleaming brass fixtures and NCR cash register. Where she’ll work day after day after she weds Merle. The counter suddenly reminds her of an animal pen.

  “I told you last night that we have a new shipment of Campbell’s tomato soup and other canned goods in the back,” Merle is saying. “I’m thinking of taking out the penny candy counter, adding some new shelves for canned goods—”

  The rows of shelves rush in at her. She focuses on the first thing she sees on the counter—a jar of licorice.

  A memory hits her hard. Just before Roger was to leave with the American Expeditionary Forces Thirty-Seventh Division, they’d had an argument. She was terrified that she’d never see him again, a premonition of death crawling over her like an army of ants. Roger came to her house, stood in the doorway with his hand behind his back, then presented a fistful of licorice whips, like a bouquet of exotic flowers. She couldn’t help but laugh.

  She stares at her face, a hollow, ghostly reflection in the glass of the candy case.

  Roger would want you to be happy.

  That’s what Mama had said the day before.

  What Lily would say—if Hildy had only the nerve to tell her the truth.

  And—as fanciful as it is—what she is sure Cousin Thea would say.

  She thinks again of Roger’s gentle face, eager and pleased at his goofy gift.

  Then sees Roger’s face fading away like the moon at sunrise, and another face rising before her, like the sun promising a new day. Tom. Not to take Roger’s place, for no one could. A new promise.

  “Hildy?”

  She jumps, looks at Merle, realizes she’d actually forgotten him for a moment. He looks so sad, she feels sorry for him, despite his earlier brusqueness. She isn’t being fair to him, either. Marrying him would, eventually, make both of them miserable.

  Merle regards her with concern. “I’m sorry. I—I shouldn’t have rushed you so fast. How ’bout you sit on the stool back here, take care of any customers, I know you can do that, and I can handle the inventory myself; I should never have asked you. And I know you’re nervous about the wedding. Soon, though, we’ll have you settled in my house!”

  Now. Now is the time to tell him the truth—

  The bell gives a merry chime as the door opens, and Margaret Dyer walks in. She is perfectly, primly dressed, as if going to church or a Kinship Woman’s Club meeting.

  For a moment, she looks from Hildy to Merle, and back again. A slow smile crawls up Margaret’s face—she’s sensed the tension between Hildy and Merle and finds it amusing. “The store is open, is it not? I’m not interrupting anything?”

  “Of course we’re open,” Merle says quickly. “What can we help you with?”

  “Well, I saw in last night’s newspaper…” Margaret pauses and flicks her eyes toward Hildy, and for a moment she wonders if Margaret might actually know something helpful about Thea, might help resolve what had brought Thea to the village where the Dyers had lived until the previous year. She looks back at Merle. “I saw an advertisement for Campbell’s soups. I prefer to cook from scratch, but with the pressures of helping on my husband’s campaign—”

  “Oh yes, we have them, just not out,” Merle says.

  “I can go fetch them,” Hildy says, desperate to get away.

  “Please—let Mr. Douglas get them. I want to talk with you about another matter.” Margaret gives Merle a coquettish smile. “About the Woman’s Club, and the fundraiser at the county fair this weekend. Women’s talk.”

  Merle nods approvingly. “I’m glad to see Hildy expanding her friend circle. Good influences, like you.”

  As soon as Merle exits to the storeroom, the smile drops from Margaret’s face—not unlike, Hildy realizes with dismay, hers just moments before. Margaret turns a coal-hard gaze to Hildy. “I’m glad to find you here. I was on business at the newspaper to file a complaint that an item I’d expected to see in the paper was not included last night. The reporter—a friend of yours, I believe?—told me you’d used your influence to knock it from the newspaper with the sheriff’s announcement.”

  Hildy swallows hard, keeps her breathing even. Had Margaret been behind the WKKK op-ed piece? She forces her eyes to hold Margaret’s gaze. “I used my authority as deputy sheriff to request that the announcement was run.”

  “Oh—your authority. So glad it wasn’t your influence, given your pen
ding nuptials.”

  Hildy clears her throat. “May I ask—what was the newspaper item you wanted to run?”

  “Of course. I worked on it so hard, after all, with your dear mother.” The blood drains from Hildy’s face. Oh God. Margaret’s smile returns. “It was an announcement about wishing for fine women to join us—the Kinship Woman’s Club, that is—in raising funds at the county fair for a library. Your mother hasn’t mentioned anything like that to you, has she?”

  Hildy shakes her head.

  “Oh, that’s too bad. As Mr. Douglas just said, it would be good for you to expand your circle to include a better sort of friend.”

  Ire clenches Hildy’s heart. “Lily is the best sort of person, and friend, possible—”

  “Is she? How lovely. But I wasn’t talking about her. I meant Olive Harding. The schoolmarm over in Rossville? I liked her well enough when you brought her as a guest to a Woman’s Club meeting a few months ago, but there have been rumors lately of, shall we say, illicit activity between her and Clarence Broward.”

  Hildy’s legs tremble. Even as it seems everything around her falls away and all she can see is Margaret’s face scrunched up with hatefulness, she forces her breath to slow. Her legs to not give way.

  Oh God. Even as she’d covered for them, she’d warned Olive—not against falling in love with Clarence. She knows all too well that the heart will find its own direction, whatever the mind dictates. But to be careful. Some people wouldn’t care. Most would look askance. But some—some would be cruel. Even dangerous. She’d noted the varieties of responses just about the integration of the mines—what’s more, the move to integrate the union. It suddenly strikes her—she’d told Olive about her father’s old hunting shack between Rossville and Moonvale Hollow. Had they come close to where Thea had wandered by Moonvale?

  Then the editorial that Seth had shown her flashes before her. We are the soul of America!