The Hollow

by Jessica Verday

  Mom finally caught up with me in front of the oil section. "What's the bergamot oil for?" she asked, watching me choose which size bottle I wanted.

  "You know that autumn harvest perfume I made for you last year? I want to make that one again this year, but with a more earthy tone to it." I debated between ginger and cranberry essential oil as I answered her.

  "I absolutely loved that perfume!" she said. "Can you make me one for winter this year too? Something with a Christmasy smell to it?"

  "Sure," I replied, adding peppermint, vanilla, and balsam oils to my collection. Then I grabbed small bottles of both the ginger and the cranberry and added those to my pile as well. The last thing I picked up, before tearing myself away from the shelf, was a huge bottle of jojoba oil.

  Now I had everything I needed.

  "I'm finally ready to go," I said, staggering under the weight of my selections as I led the way up to the front of the store.

  "This place is absolutely gorgeous," I told the lady standing behind the register, once I'd made it there. "The owners did a great job decorating it, and the supplies are amazing!"

  She laughed. "Well, thank you. I decorated it myself, and I appreciate the kind compliments."

  "Do you have a website that I can order some more stuff from?" I asked eagerly. "I usually get my supplies from a shop by my house, but they're really tiny and they don't have even half of what you have here."

  She laughed again and nodded, handing me a business card with the store name and website address boldly printed on it. I tucked it safely into my back pocket as she started ringing up my items. Mom surprised me by paying for my rather hefty bill without telling me to put anything back, and also picked up a classical music CD for herself.

  I grinned from ear to ear as we waved good-bye to the store owner and headed outside. "Thanks for taking me here, Mom," I said, piling the bags into the car. "It was fun."

  She just smiled at me, and we climbed into our seats. We didn't really talk on the way home, but she put on the CD she'd picked up at the register, and it filled the silence nicely. It was a calm and quiet ride back, and I actually managed to stay awake.

  Later that night, surrounded by my recent purchases, I was eager to finally get back into my work. Since Kristen's abrupt disappearance, I'd lost all of my passion for making perfume. My heart just wasn't in it, so I'd given up completely. But tonight it was different. I felt centered again, for the first time in a long time. I was ready to tackle a new project.

  I didn't have any worries about staying awake as I readied my work space. Every time I made a new perfume, it required steady concentration and copious amounts of note taking through-out the entire process, so I knew it would keep me busy. Midnight came and went, and I barely even noticed. By five a.m. I was surprised that it was already time for me to try to get some sleep.

  I slept soundly, and actually woke up feeling eager and excited later that afternoon. Creating new perfumes was a tricky business. It involved several rounds of testing different oil combinations, looking for reactions, checking notes, comparing samples, writing down new notes, and then starting the whole process all over again with each new scent choice.

  And I loved every minute of it.

  There were a million and one possible scent combinations, and it was up to me to find the ones that complemented each other. Sometimes it was difficult, but it was never, ever boring. And the best thing about the whole process was that each night seemed to fly by. They didn't drag on anymore, threatening me with shadows and dreams.

  I started working a little earlier each night, and sleeping a little less during the day. After perfecting the formula for Mom's autumn harvest perfume, and creating a brand-new winter scent, I decided to do something different. Something that filled me with fear, and more than a little trepidation, but something I knew I had to do.

  I was going to make a perfume for Kristen.

  She had asked me several times before to make one specifically for her, but I'd always hesitated. It was a challenging thing to do, creating scents for people that not only smelled good but also mixed well with their body chemistry. Since Kristen was my best friend, I always felt extra pressure to make sure her signature scent would fit her perfectly. I never wanted to disappoint her in any way. But this time I decided to give it a try.

  It ended up being much harder than I had ever thought it would be.

  I couldn't find scents that blended well, and after several hours of laboring on it, I gave in. Standing up from my worktable, I walked around the room to stretch my legs. A headache was starting to pound between my eyes, and I rubbed my temples with my fingertips. There was no way I could keep working with strong scents while I had a headache. I wouldn't be able to concentrate.

  Grabbing several pillows from the foot of my bed, I carried them over to the window seat and piled them up high. Hopefully, if I just rested my eyes for a while, the headache would go away… hopefully.

  I settled into my nest of pillows and rested my cheek against the window pane. It was cool and helped to ease the pounding in my head a little. I sighed at the temporary relief. This spot was pretty comfortable. / could stay like this for hoars.

  When I opened my eyes again, the world outside had gone suspiciously orange. Then I realized it was sunrise. I had slept through the night without any nightmares.

  Over the next couple of days I slowly readjusted my sleeping schedule. I didn't fall asleep until after midnight, but at least I wasn't sleeping during the day anymore. Which was a very good thing, because school started on Monday.

  Chapter Four

  First Days

  His school-house was a low building of one large room, rudely constructed of logs; the windows partly glazed, and partly patched with leaves of old copy-books.

  "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"

  It wasn't until I'd made it four blocks away from home on Monday morning that I realized I was going in the wrong direction. I stopped short, coming to an abrupt halt in the middle of the sidewalk. There wouldn't be a daily stop at Kristen's house to pick her up. Not this year… and not next year. Those wouldn't happen ever again.

  A small ache started throbbing in the vicinity of my heart, and it made my chest hurt. I rubbed at it while I turned in the direction of the high school and began walking slowly toward it. Alone. I took several gulping breaths of air to try to make the sensation go away, but it wouldn't. I kept feeling like I was forgetting something the whole time I walked.

  I was still occupied with my thoughts when I came to the metal doors that marked the entrance of the school, and passed through them to the main hallway. A large hand-lettered sign taped to the wall on my left directed all incoming traffic to the gymnasium for an assembly.

  Following the sounds of new sneakers squeaking loudly on the recently polished wooden floors, I shuffled along with the growing crowd, merely one more student in a very long line. As I pushed my way through the swinging red doors, I could see that several rows of metal bleachers had already been set up and were quickly being filled. Forcibly reminding myself that no one would be saving me a seat this year, I headed to the back of the room and chose a spot next to the section generally reserved for teachers.

  Principal Meeker stood awkwardly at a podium set up in the front of the gymnasium, and he cleared his throat loudly several times while waiting for the squeaking and shuffling noises to die down. He was wearing a seventies-style brown paisley shirt that did not flatter his portly frame in any way and, unfortunately, already bore the faint marking of a sweat patch under each arm.

  It was totally gross.

  When the noise finally settled to a dull roar, Principal Meeker clapped his hands together once and began to speak. "Welcome back, students and faculty. I trust that everyone had a beneficial and educational summer vacation?" Two caterpillar-esque eyebrows rose expectantly above his thick black glasses and he paused. After a moment of awkward silence he adjusted his glasses and resumed speaking.

  "Before
I go over some general rules for the upcoming school year, I wanted to address a recent tragedy that has greatly affected our school and community. As most of you already know, over the summer vacation Kristen Maxwell was involved in a… er… fatal drowning… accident."

  I could hear shifting in the seats as suddenly hundreds of heads seemed to turn and glance in my direction. Hollow High only had about four hundred students, and at that moment it felt like every single one of them was staring at me.

  My eyes locked onto the floor. I concentrated hard on the toe of my shoe so I wouldn't have to see them all looking at me. Haw much longer is he going to talk about this?

  "In light of this terrible event, we will have extra grief counselors on hand for anyone who needs help sorting through their grief." The heads shifted away, and I was no longer the main topic of interest. "They will be available both before and after the lunch period in the guidance counselor's office for this entire week. Please don't hesitate to stop in and see one of them if you feel like you need to talk to someone about this."

  He looked out at us and the eyebrows rose again. "Just remember, folks, this is not a get-out-of-class-free card. The counselors are only to be used by those who legitimately need them."

  Then he proceeded to share a few of his memories about Kristen and opened up the floor for anyone else who might want to do the same. Several teachers stood up and said all the usual false sentiments. Things people say when they don't really know the person but feel obligated to praise them in some way. It all ran together in one never ending blur.

  Every once in a while someone would glance back in my direction and give me the look, clearly wondering when I would stand up and speak. I was really starting to get tired of that look. Of other people trying to decide for me what I should or shouldn't do.

  Finally three sobbing, sniffling, teary-eyed girls stood up and slowly made their way to the front of the room. They were, of course, the most perfectly dressed, perfectly made-up, perfectly coordinated people in the entire school. A murmur of excitement rippled through the crowd.

  Everyone knew who these girls were.

  And / knew that not a single one of them had ever bothered to say anything to Kristen, or me, since we'd started middle school together.

  The tallest one, and clearly the leader of the pack, Shana Williams, spoke first. "We just wanted to say that we can't believe such an awful thing has happened. To lose one of our fellow students at such a young age is just so… so… tragic." She sniffed daintily and flipped her perfect golden hair with one hand.

  I rolled my eyes. These girls didn't care about Kristen. All they cared about was the attention they were getting.

  "The varsity cheerleading team has decided to dedicate this season to the memory of Kristen Markell," Aubra Stanton spoke up from the middle of the group. She was the only brunette of the bunch. "We will do our best to make sure her memory lives on through all of us."

  I snorted loudly when I heard this, causing several teachers to look at me with sympathy. They probably thought I was "sorting through my grief or something.

  The shorter blonde, Erika Something, took her turn. "She was just such a good person, you know? I can't believe she's really gone." She promptly burst into delicate sobs, being very careful not to smear her pristine makeup, while the other two girls hugged her.

  I almost gagged.

  First, they couldn't even get Kristen's last name right, and then they had the audacity to stand up there and act like they'd been best friends with her their whole lives? What total bullshit. They didn't care about Kristen. They hadn't even known Kristen.

  The sound of my boots hitting the wooden floor echoed loudly through the room as I stood up and made my way out of the gymnasium. I let the doors slam shut behind me and didn't bother to look back, choosing instead to head for the nearest bathroom stall to hide out in until the bell for first period rang.

  It was going to be a very long school year.

  The morning crawled by, and while everyone else around me struggled to get back into the habit of listening to teachers and taking notes again, I struggled not to think about Kristen. There wasn't even an empty seat waiting for her. Like nobody expected her to come back.

  When the bell finally rang signaling the end of history and the beginning of lunch, I slid out the door and hurried to the cafeteria. I desperately needed a break. But it wasn't any easier in there, and I automatically scanned the crowd for Kristen's face as I walked to our usual spot. A couple of people smiled at me when they passed by, but I couldn't smile back. I didn't want their pity. Or their forced company.

  After an excruciating twenty minutes spent picking at my food, I left the cafeteria before the main rush hit the hallways. Heading for my locker, I was grateful that Kristen's locker hadn't been assigned to anyone else yet, since it was directly next to mine. As long as it stayed empty, I wouldn't have to put up with someone new trying to take over her space.

  I jumped when the second bell rang, and then I grabbed my book bag, startled into action. Slamming my locker door shut, I rushed to my next class.

  The afternoon dragged on even slower than the morning, and every second was agonizing. I was relieved to find that my last class of the day was only a short study hall. A study hall, I quickly learned, that juniors and seniors were allowed to skip for the second half of the school year.

  That was the highlight of my whole day.

  But even that brief moment of happiness faded, and five minutes later I was ready to go. The eighteen minutes I had left until freedom felt more like eighteen hours.

  Since I wasn't going to actually study or anything, and no one was sitting next to me, I propped my books up to hide my head behind and closed my eyes. For a while I just sat there. Thinking about the day so far, and dreading the rest of the school year. Maybe I should talk to Mom about homeschool …

  It was the loud buzzing of the bell and someone bumping into my desk that jarred me awake. Wiping some drool off my mouth with one hand, I glanced around to see if anyone else had noticed. Fortunately, there wasn't anyone left to notice. I was the only one still here. Grabbing the books in front of me, I shoved them into my book bag and headed for the door.

  One day down, eight hundred million more to go.

  I took the long way home, mulling over the painful hours I'd just spent in school. It had not been a pleasant experience, and the last thing on earth I wanted to do was repeat today over again. That homeschool idea was starting to sound better and better.

  As soon as I reached the back door and walked into the kitchen, Mom's voice greeted me.

  "So how did your first day go? The principal called."

  All thoughts of homeschooling instantly left my brain, and I was frozen into place. A million different scenarios ran through my mind while that statement sank in. What did the principal call-about? Am I in trouble for storming out of the assembly? Or for taking a nap in study hall? How should I play this out?

  I tested the waters slowly, shrugging nonchalantly. "It was fine. Principal Meeker held an assembly and mentioned Kristen…"

  Glancing out of the corner of my eye, I saw that Mom was working on some paperwork at the table, and I sighed with relief. That was always a good sign. It meant she was thinking about something more important than me.

  "That's what he called about." She didn't even look over at me, but shuffled some papers around. "He was letting all the parents know about the extra grief counselors available at the high school. I hope you'll set a good example for the other students, Abigail."

  I had no idea what she meant by that. "Sure, Mom." Whatever. "I'm going upstairs to start on homework now. Call me when dinner's ready?"

  "Okay," she replied distractedly, and I took the opportunity to make a quick escape up to my room.

  Throwing my book bag onto the bed, I shut the door behind me and paced around the room, feeling caged-in and restless. I didn't know what to do with myself. I should be with Kristen right now. Walking throug
h the cemetery or hanging out at the bridge. Talking about the first day back at school and who had worn what. Sharing notes while commiserating about how unfair it was for teachers to assign homework the first night… any of those things.

  This didn't feel right. I wasn't used to being so alone.

  Desperate to hear her voice, to fool myself into thinking that everything was normal again, I picked up my phone and called her number. I was greeted by a cold automated the-number-you-have-dialed-is-no-longer-in-service message. I couldn't even hear her recorded voice anymore.

  Collapsing onto my bed, I was bombarded with images from the day. It was confusing, and overwhelming, and I couldn't hold back my tears anymore.

  I could still hear Principal Meeker announcing Kristen's death in front of the whole school. I could see the unused locker next to mine, where she should have been keeping her things. To call her phone and not have her answer it…

  Sliding down to the floor, I curled myself up into a little ball and rocked back and forth; trying to will away the hurt and emptiness, to shove it back down to that dark place inside so I wouldn't feel it anymore. A vise grip had grabbed hold of my heart and was squeezing all the life right out of me.

  I couldn't handle this type of pain. It was too big. Too raw. Too much.

  When Mom called me down for dinner, I told her that I didn't feel well and was going to bed early. It wasn't a total lie, since my chest hurt and I felt sick to my stomach. But I had no intention of going to bed. Instead I finished up all of my homework and started working on Kristen's perfume. It was a long and exhausting night, and I didn't sleep at all.

  The next day I had a hard time concentrating on my classes at school and ended up falling asleep in study hall again.

  But I knew it didn't matter. No one cared what I did anyway.

  * * *

  On Friday afternoon I hauled ass after the last bell rang and practically ran from the classroom, but slowed down once I left the building. On one hand I was extremely happy that I would have a two-day break from that miserable soul-sucking hellhole of a place called school, but on the other hand it wasn't like I was going to have all kinds of fun being alone at home.