The Hollowing

by Robert Holdstock

  Having left his marker, he returned to his house and began the process of unwinding, with fish and chips, red wine, and Cold Comfort Farm, a school favourite of his.

  * * *

  Two days later, she was waiting for him when he returned from a shopping trip to Gloucester. She had found the green ribbon and arrived in Shadoxhurst as fast as she’d been able. Finding the house open she had entered and called for Richard, but then gone outside and sat down against the base of the elm at the bottom of the garden.

  As he stepped through the gate she rose from the ground, startling him. She was dressed in a dull brown anorak and baggy trousers, tied tightly around hard working-boots the colour of mud. Her long hair was jet black, save for a silver streak at each temple. Her skin was tanned and her eyes an intense green. For a second she had seemed a part of the tree and its root system, but now she stood, breathing hard and extending a friendly hand.

  “I’m Helen Silverlock.” She tugged the streak of white and grinned. “My grandfather named me ‘Frightened of Foxes’ but I buried that one years ago. I left you the note. I guess you’re Richard Bradley?”

  “Yes, I am.” As he stepped closer to shake hands he became aware of her smell, stale breath and the damp, rather rank scent of wet undergrowth. Her gaze was startling, flickering over Richard’s face in a penetrating and inquisitive way that unnerved him slightly. As his grip curled around her fingers, he felt the scaly, bark-hard skin on the back of her hand, and was so taken aback that he broke the greeting prematurely and obviously.

  She smiled at him, rubbing the skin—which was almost black. Had she been burned?—and said, “It’s OK. It doesn’t cause me pain.”

  “Looks nasty.”

  “Necessary,” she said cryptically, and then, as if slightly embarrassed, put her hands into the deep pockets of her strange anorak. She was not tall, and her American accent gave him no hint as to where she was from in the States. As they walked to the house he asked the question.

  “Nebraska. A small town called Watanka Lake. I’m Lakota Sioux. Not pure blood, but not far off. I’ve lived in Brazil for four years, and here in the UK for over a year now, so home seems a long time ago…”

  “Well, you’re more than welcome in my own damp and humble home,” Richard said as he let her into the house.

  She confessed that she’d already entered once. “I forgot where I was. Back home it would have seemed normal…”

  Richard was easy about the intrusion, but then he began to remember the running woman of eight years ago, the intruder who had scrawled a note to him, an incomprehensible message. And connections, nagging connections, began to be made.

  Helen sat at the kitchen table, biting her lip and clearly not totally at ease. Richard offered tea, coffee, or red wine.

  “Not wine,” she said. “Coffee, if it’s made from beans.”

  “I’m afraid I only have Camp Coffee. It’s a liquid. Quite thick. Quite strong.”

  She grimaced, showing her teeth and just a hint of tongue, but smiling too. “Tea would be just fine,” she said.

  “I agree.”

  As he poured water into the kettle she asked, “Do you have a TV? A paper?”

  “No TV, I’m afraid. And I’ve chucked my paper away. Why?”

  She shrugged, loosened the zip of her overcoat. “This is going to sound odd,” she said. “But what’s today’s date?”

  He had to think for a moment. “It’s … I think it’s the eleventh. Yes, the eleventh of May. Does that help at all?”

  With a laugh, walking over to the window and peering out at the evening, she said, “Just helps me orient.”

  Richard leaned against the sink, watching his odd guest. He noticed a film of moisture on her forehead and, unsure as to whether she was hot or just nervous—she was behaving nervously—he suggested she shed her coat. Without response she unzipped the anorak and tossed it on the floor by the back door, returning to her chair at the table. The heavily lined, baggy trousers were tied about her waist with a belt of gadgets. Her undershirt was a startling affair of green webbing, a body stocking that hugged her slim frame like a skin. Watching the man watching her, looking at her body, she smiled sympathetically. “It keeps me warm, it keeps me cool. It’s based on what the astronauts wear on Apollo.”

  “I was staring,” he said, reddening. “I apologise.”

  “I don’t mind if you stare. It’s OK.”

  With a laugh he said, “You look and sound as if you’ve just beamed down from the Starship Enterprise.”

  “Isn’t that a neat show? I miss it. I miss a lot of TV. Did you ever see The Twilight Zone?”

  “My son did. I watched it with him sometimes. The programme I always liked was Quatermass. Did you see that in America? Quatermass and the Pit?”

  She shook her head. “I certainly heard about it. Some of the British guys at the Station grew up on it. Ancient Martians, right?”

  “Ancient Martians,” Richard agreed. “The Station?”

  “That’s where I’m based. Old Stone Hollow Station, Hollowstone for short.”

  The kettle boiled and Richard made the tea. His heart had started to race. Helen watched him, more relaxed now. The evening sun, through the window, made her hair shine. The musty, dank smell of her clothes was heavy in the air, but the scent of the tea became stronger for a moment. He was too aware of the gnarled skin on her right hand. He thought of the hand as ruined, but she flexed it easily, the black scales stretching like a lizard’s. He was more aware of her eyes. She seemed so familiar with him. Indeed, she seemed familiar to him. He thought of her note. He thought of the running woman. The thought nagged its way to expression.

  “How long did you say you’d been in England?”

  “About a year. In England.”

  “You wouldn’t have been in Shadoxhurst in 1959, then?”

  She seemed startled, frowning, then quickly said, “Damn it. No. No I wouldn’t. Why? I was still at college. Why?”

  Disturbed that he had alarmed her he turned and stared, then brought the teapot to the table. His head was in a spin—he consciously thought this as he tried to clear his thoughts—and he tried to visualise the writing on the note that the running woman had left all those years ago. Although he had long since lost the scrap of paper, he was sure that the writing was similar to Helen’s. And the running woman had been small, short-haired, and bulkily dressed.

  What had that note said? He struggled to remember. Some of it came back. “Do you have any idea about … pre-morphs?”

  “Pre-morphs?” She looked puzzled.

  It wasn’t the right word. “Proto-gamma-morphs?” he suggested hesitantly.

  “Proto gamma morphs? You have been watching too much Star Trek. No. It means nothing…”

  But for a second her face clouded, a moment’s concerned thought before she again shook her head and confirmed, “No. Nothing at all. Why?”

  “I feel I’ve known you before,” Richard said bluntly, and Helen laughed.

  “Great line. I’ve only heard it a hundred times.”

  “I feel I’ve known you before,” he insisted solemnly, watching her face carefully. She was upset.

  She stared at the table, good hand covering the black scales of the other. “Please don’t,” she said quietly.

  “Please don’t what? I’m not making a pass. I feel I’ve known you before. You’re very familiar.”

  “Don’t,” she insisted. “Just pour the tea. Don’t talk about it. Not yet. I didn’t come here for this. I’m not ready—”

  “But I’m sure it was you—”

  She erupted with anger. “Stop it, Mr. Bradley! Stop it now! You don’t know what you’re doing. Shut up about it!”

  Her fury was heavy in the room. Her eyes had widened and her whole facial demeanour had knocked the breath from Richard’s body. She had not just been angry: she had been terrified, and had covered the fear with a look of such draining aggression that he was incapable of speech for a moment.<
br />
  It was she who spoke finally and her words were an apology. Then: “I came to tell you something.”

  “Tell me then,” he said stiffly. “You’ve obviously been after me for some time. Tell me what you have to say.”

  “Don’t be angry with me. Please! I didn’t mean to upset you, Mr. Bradley. I can’t explain yet, but you were touching difficult ground for me.”

  Her candour softened him and he regretted the bitter tone that had touched his words. “Please feel free to call me Richard.”

  “Richard,” she echoed, “I bring you tidings of great joy, yet great difficulty. Greater than I’d realised, since you’re obviously in deeper than you know. And I’ve been in the deep end for a year, now…”

  “You’re not making any sense, Helen. What tidings of great joy?”

  “We’ve found your son,” she said in an urgent whisper, leaning toward him, trying to instil confidence.

  Richard’s heart stopped. He banged the cup into its saucer, his face reddening, her words touching anger in him again. “Alex? Alex died a long time ago. What is this? What are you doing?”

  “Please!” she said urgently. “Just listen to me. Alex isn’t dead. We’ve located him. He’s not dead. He’s alive. We’ve made contact with him. He’s been communicating with us since late last summer. He’s still alive, Richard.”

  Confused, wanting to feel anger yet aware that the certainty of the woman’s words, her assurance, were pointing up his own uncertainties about the fragile, sad remains that had once been discovered in the woods, he drew breath and closed his eyes.

  Dear God, he thought, I’m beginning to have hope again.

  Then he grew black. Alex was dead. Whatever this woman was talking about, whoever they had found, it was not his son.

  “Who’s we? ‘We’ve’ found him?”

  “We’re explorers. I’ll come to that later.”

  “What does he look like? Alex? How does he look?”

  Helen looked confused, now, shaking her head, angry at herself. “I’m not making a very good job of this. Lytton should have been the one to talk to you. Richard, it’s not as easy as perhaps I’m making it sound. I’m sorry. It’s hard to know how to approach it—”

  “Approach what?”

  “We’ve made contact with your son. But we haven’t exactly found him. Not yet, at least.”

  “He’s telephoned you?”

  “No. Nothing like that. We have found him. We’re going to need your help to bring him home…”

  Tears stung Richard Bradley’s eyes and he stood, facing the garden through the misting window, hands in pockets.

  Six years since Alex’s body had been found. Six long years, six empty ones. He could still remember the stink of the wood as he’d trudged with the police through the saturated bracken. The skies had been overcast, a dull, depressing rain falling. Beneath the trees it was stiflingly humid. Their footsteps, crushing through the undergrowth, had been the only sound in the world. A solemn group of men had stood around the cordoned area where the litter had been swept away and the distorted torso exposed, its empty skull upwards, the face no more recognisable than a crushed pile of autumn leaves.

  “I’d given up hope,” he said from the window. “I can’t believe you. My son went away. He’s never coming back. It’s too painful to give me this hope again. You shouldn’t have come.”

  There was no sound from the woman save for the gentle clink of her cup returned to her saucer.

  He went on, “The bones were very corrupted. Very rotten. They were an inch or two too short. Or were they? Who could tell what changes had occurred with a skeleton so decayed? The forensic tests were done hastily. They all knew it was Alex. It was easy to bury him and give up anguish. If I’ve had doubts about his being dead, they’ve ceased to gnaw at me. So I suppose I’ve accepted it.”

  “You’ve accepted that he’s not coming back, not that he’s dead. I spoke to the barman at the Red Lion. I know about your doubts. Forgive me, that’s why I was so blunt. I thought you’d be glad of the news.”

  “What news? You’ve brought me no news. You can’t give me evidence of Alex. You confuse me.”

  He had turned from the window, angrily watching the calm woman at the table. She leaned forward.

  “You said the bones were rotten—what exactly was said about them at the inquest?”

  “They were woody.”

  “They weren’t bone,” Helen said dogmatically, her eyes alive with certainty. “It wasn’t Alex. We have a word for what it was. A mythago. A false thing. And the boy we’ve located is Alex. Believe me.” Her face darkened. “The only problem is … we don’t know where he is exactly.”

  Suddenly suspicious, Richard came back to the table and leaned down on it. “The boy? How old is the boy who’s been speaking to you?”

  “About thirteen,” Helen said.

  Richard laughed sourly, walking away from her. “What is this? What sort of sick game is this?” But he couldn’t look at her as he chided. “If Alex is alive he’s nineteen, twenty years old, now. He’s a man.”

  Why was he crying? With disappointment? Anger? He didn’t want to be angry with Helen Silverlock. He didn’t want her to go. Perhaps hope had surfaced for a moment, but her words had dashed those hopes again.

  She said, “He’s still a boy, Richard.”

  Perhaps he was retarded … perhaps he sounded like the boy he’d been, even though he would be bearded, deep-voiced … NO!

  Helen went on, “We’ve learned a lot from him, including where he lived, this house, and we feel him strongly. He’s a boy, and he’s not complete. His mind is not complete. But he has strength, and he is drawing his world back to himself. It may take a long time, and it’s dangerous. He’s in great danger. Dr. Lytton doesn’t know if we will be able to help him, but we can’t do anything until we get our hands on him. That’s why we need you. We want to help you, and Alex too. But you have to be involved, which means one weird trip.”

  After a moment Richard sat down, tried to pick up his cup but the china rattled so badly in the saucer that he abandoned the simple act. “You’ve hit me where it hurts,” he said with a thin smile. “And I think you have something else to tell me. I can sense it. There’s something very wrong. Where is it you think Alex is?”

  “He’s built himself a defended site in a ruined cathedral. The cathedral is in the heart of Ryhope Wood—”

  “Ryhope? I doubt that. It’s on the Estate. An unpleasant and dangerous stretch of wood. But it’s far too small to have had a cathedral built within it.”

  Helen Silverlock laughed delightedly, shaking her head as she watched the man. “You’ll be surprised by what can be found there. But I’m not the person to show you. There’s more than a ruined church, Richard. And Alex is there too. We can get him back, with your help. But he’s a long way in. Maybe three months…” she said awkwardly, watching him.

  “Three months?”

  “Maybe three months to get to him. It’s hard to tell. There may be a short cut.”

  “Three months? In Ryhope?” Richard was laughing at the absurdity of what he was hearing.

  Helen ignored him, finishing, “And we don’t know what’s between the edge and the guarded zone he’s constructed. There’s an anomaly, an abnormality, something we can pass through, but can’t access.”

  “Lost,” Richard said kindly. “Totally lost.”

  “Who?”

  “Me.”

  Helen stood and fetched her coat from by the back door, shrugging it on and zipping it half-way up. “It’s late. I have to get back, and you need rest.” She seemed undecided and disappointed.

  Richard toyed with the cup, half-watching the woman, very much wanting her to stay, despite the pain he was feeling.

  She couldn’t be right. He shook his head. Alex would be twenty! They had the wrong boy. She couldn’t be right.

  “I’ve got to go,” she said. “If you change your mind, leave another marker. And have g
ood walking boots, weatherproofing, a good book, any medication you need, some food, a good brandy, two changes of clothing, and a rucksack, a good-sized one. Have them ready.”

  “I have a job in London. I have to be back in two weeks.”

  “You won’t need that much time.”

  “You said three months. Three months to find him. I don’t understand.”

  “I know. I know you don’t. I’m sorry, but it’s as hard for me at the moment. Will you come to the Station? It’s not far. Six or seven hours’ walk. Come tomorrow?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. You have a boy at the end of some sort of communication network and the boy is thirteen. And my boy is twenty. And unless his voice has failed to break, they can’t be one and the same. Is it possible he’s older than you realise?”

  “Maybe,” she said with a shrug. “I doubt it. We think he’s in a timeslow.”

  “Something else I don’t understand.”

  “Sorry.”

  She turned to go, opening the door to the gathering dusk.

  “Helen?”

  Glancing back, she hesitated and smiled. Richard stood and went over to her. “Thank you,” he said. “I’m sure your intentions are quite genuine.”

  “I’ll come back,” she said defiantly, smiling. “Don’t you worry about that!”

  As she walked down the path he called out, “Next time he calls you, ask him what stick I danced with round the fire. It was our secret.”

  “That’s a good idea,” she said dully, mocking him.

  He called again, “I’m being honest with you. I’m not sure I believe you’ve found what you tell me you’ve found. But I’ll know him when I hear his voice. I’ll know him. If you can arrange it.”