Hollow Sight

by Kristie Pierce

  I’m so elated to be listening to Liam tell stories of his past. It makes me feel closer to him and I’m happy to have him finally opening up to me, even if it’s just about the family business and his horse. It seems he knows so much about me, but whenever I ask him about his family and upbringing, he automatically shuts down with vague answers or ignores the subject all together. He then spoke of his sister, Lorelei, and also of his brother, Lyndon. Being they all attend boarding school, the family usually only had summers to be together. I learn Lyndon is the oldest and he’s away studying to be an architect. I wondered if this is where Liam’s interest came from when he spoke of designing his own house someday. Lorelei is also away studying abroad to be a fashion designer; somewhere in Paris. When I ask Liam what he wants to do after graduation, he says that he’s undecided. I sympathize with that as I still don’t know what I want to do when I grow up.

  Liam directs the horses back into the heated stables and I realize I have no idea how long we’ve been gone on our little adventure. I can feel though, that my cheeks are pink with chill and my fingers are a little numb. I don't mind in the slightest as it’s been very worth it for what Liam has shared with me today.

  I help him take care of the two horses that had served as our chauffeurs after he’s detached the sleigh from their reigns. He shows me the proper way to brush their shiny coats and where to put their buckets meant for feed, and when I try to help by attempting to take care of the half-saddle-thing-a-majiggy and manage to fall instead, Liam immediately drops his own load and rushes over to me to help me up.

  “Sorry,” I mumble as he brushes sawdust off my back.

  “No, I’m sorry. I should’ve explained that those are quite heavy.”

  “I just wanted to help.”

  “I know you did. Here,” he says while taking my hand and stopping us in front of a large pail of what looks like dry oats. “Why don’t you feed them instead and I’ll finish taking care of…”

  I look up to Liam as his voice has trailed off and I see that he’s staring at nothing in particular, but his face is now deeply sad. I know that look.

  I scan my eyes for Evie and see her standing next to a large black on black horse. Her blue eyes meet mine with mocking humor and that’s when everything goes dark.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  I am surrounded in black, darkness. I feel as though my body is weighted down like an anchor to the ocean floor. Pulling down, down, down... I can’t move my limbs. It doesn’t scare me, only confuses me. My thoughts are sluggish and I’m having a hard time focusing on… focus… focus…

  I struggle to think of each body part separately. Okay brain, try first to find your toes – let’s work from the bottom up.

  Nothing.

  Okay. Let’s try an arm… hands... fingers…. Nope.

  I open my eyes and see that I am still surrounded in nothingness. I did open my eyes, right? Or have they been open the entire time? I attempt to move my head to look around, but like my body, I can’t move that either.

  The more I try to fight against the blackness, the more weighted down I feel – the boat anchor falling deeper and deeper to the bottom abyss. It’s a sickening feeling, really. Something has locked around my stomach and is now dragging me backward. I imagine that I am in a bottomless hole of water – so dark and so alone. Nothing around me but black. My feet, legs, arms, hands, all of them are being strewn out helplessly in front of me as I continue to sink away into nothing.

  Being I can’t move, only sink, I try instead to listen. Listen to anything that might be making a sound beckoning me to come back. Back to… where? Focus. Listen.

  Nothing.

  I strain harder, pushing all of my senses outward hoping for any kind of reaction to let me know that I’m still alive. The only thing I can hear is the eerie nothing. So quiet, it’s deafening. The only thing I can see is the absolute dark in front of me. I smell nothing, taste nothing, feel… nothing. Wait, why am I being weighted down? Or rather, why am I being pulled down?

  What an odd feeling I seem to be experiencing. I’d passed out before and this is so much different. At least with passing out your body allows you to eventually come back to life. Only I can’t remember being able to think any kind of coherent thoughts – although listless thoughts – while unconscious. So am I conscious? Conscious but unresponsive? Is that possible...?

  I’m at least thinking, although at a much slower pace than normal, but still, I’m thinking. Is this what death feels like? Am I dying?

  Trying to move and trying to hear isn’t going so well, so I decide to think of where I was. What had I just been doing before the blackness took over? How much time has passed?

  Concentrate.

  I can remember the sun and its warmth on my face. Was that today? It seems like so long ago now. So where is that now? Where ever this is, it’s cold and so dark. I want to call out, but my body won’t let me. I want…. What do I want?

  Focus. Concentrate.

  Why can’t I see anything? My eyes are open, aren’t they? I think I had opened them before, hadn’t I? So why is it so black in front of me? I blink.

  “Don’t bother fighting it, Breckin,” a voice purrs. It’s threatening. Menacing.

  Who’s talking? It isn’t a voice I recognized. Is it?

  “I’m more powerful than you think and the more you try to fight, the more miserable I’ll make it for you.”

  I want to respond – just for the simple fact of knowing that I’m capable of speaking, moving, something – but I can’t. I lay here just as immobile as before. I know that I should probably be scared, but the more unable I am to move or respond, the more annoyed I become. Couldn’t this voice at least tell me what’s going on?

  “This is what it feels like, Breckin. If you’re not careful, you’ll be here with me.”

  What is this voice talking about? What, what feels like? Then without warning, I am jolted back to the present. The anchor violently lets loose of my body and I’m catapulted out of the blackness. I draw in a loud breath and clutch at whoever is holding me.

  “Breckin!” Liam is anxiously saying over me. I’m lying in his lap and when I discover that I hadn’t opened my eyes after all, and then that I finally can, I look to my surroundings.

  It’s warmer now and I see the hot bands of the sun shining in through the high mounted glass windows in the stalls. I hear horses neighing and moving about as their hooves stomp against the wooden floors, softened by mounds of hay. I feel the heat of Liam's body around me. I suck in another deep breath and smell the wheat scent of fresh oats fed to the horses. I glance up to meet Liam’s terrified eyes and that’s when I note a dull ache in my head. Well, hell. At least I certainly have my senses back.

  “Ouch,” I complain, rubbing the back of my skull.

  “Are you all right? What happened?” Liam asks in a worried tone.

  “Did I hit my head?”

  “Yes, on the side of the sleigh. You went down so fast... I didn’t have time to respond.”

  “Well, I guess that explains why my head hurts?” I’m so confused.

  “Let me see.” Liam sits me up and moves to examine the back of my head. I feel his hands gently parting my hair to get a better look. “There’s no blood, but you’ve got a pretty good sized bump back here. Let’s get you in the house and I’ll get you some Tylenol and ice.”

  “Okay,” I agree. I am still kind of in a daze.

  Liam helps me to my feet and wraps an arm around my waist and supports my hand and arm in the other to help me up to the house. Once inside, he sits me down at the kitchen table and walks over to a cupboard retrieving the medicine bottle. He grabs the bottle of pineapple juice – my favorite – from the fridge along with a glass and comes over to join me at the table.

  “Are you going to tell me what happened?” he asks in a low voice. He seems to remember he had wanted to get me ice then, so he gets back up and stalks over to the freezer with a washcloth in hand.

&nb
sp; I take the pills he’s handed me and swallow them with a big swig of juice. It’s sweet on my tongue and cold going down my throat. The ache in my head isn’t anything significant yet, but I know it will be later. These types of injuries tend to get angrier with more time passed. The bump on my head will probably claim more space too, getting bigger as well with the lapsing of more time.

  “Was it him?” he asks, more furiously as he sits back down and tenderly places the makeshift pack of ice against the back of my head.

  I think about what has just happened and realize that I don’t really know. “Um… actually no. I didn’t see him anywhere. I couldn't see anything.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense. You went down in an instant… I thought for sure he was standing near. Are you feeling all right, are you sick?”

  “No,” I shake my head. “I’m fine.”

  “Did you pass out?”

  “No. It was different than passing out. It was so unusual, I can’t seem to wrap my head around it.” And then I remember. I drop the washcloth holding my ice and it clambers to the floor. “Liam. It wasn’t Joseph this time. It was Evie.”

  “What?” he asks as bends over to pick up the ice cubes.

  “She’s the last thing I saw before I collapsed. But then it was all very strange after that. There was someone talking to me, but I have no idea who. And I tried to move but couldn’t… something was weighting me down, or pulling me down, my body felt heavy. And it was dark. Pitch dark. I've never felt so alone. And it was like... I could think coherently, but also like my brain was functioning at the pace of a sloth. So weird…” I trail off.

  “Has this type of thing ever happened to you before?”

  I shake my head as the terror of it all begins to sink in. I can’t remember being scared before, when I was surrounded in darkness. But the more I try to recall what had happened, the fear fast approaches, seeping its way throughout my body, wrapping its dark, icy hands around me causing a shiver to run down my spine. I realize I’m breathing quite fast as I repeat the memory of being pulled away from everything I know and love. How the darkness had seemed to swallow me up with such pleasure, making me feel utterly alone. My horrified eyes meet Liam’s alarmed expression and when he sees that I’m losing it, he reaches over to me to pull me into his arms.

  “I’m so sorry,” Liam murmurs in my ear.

  “Why are you sorry?” I answer back as tears begin to stream down my cheeks. “You didn’t do anything.”

  “I can’t stand this,” he says in a harder tone. “I can’t stand what this is doing to you. It was wrong to let you come.”

  Panic shoots through me like jagged shards of broken glass, tearing and ripping and cutting their way through my heart. Liam is saying the very thing I’m most afraid of. Seeing me this way over and over and over and over again is finally cracking him. Maybe I was stupid to think that he could handle it now, even after he assured me that he could. I sit up away from his chest so I can better see his face.

  “You don’t want me… here with you?” I whisper hoarsely. “You want me to go home?” I am unable to speak any louder. My heart is pounding against my ribs. Bubbles of red-hot lava is mocking and laughing its way toward the center of my chest desperately wanting to pour through the fresh gashes and tears made by the glass.

  He reads my face and his eyes widen as he realizes what I’m saying. “Of course I do, Breckin! My God, I can’t imagine one second without you. I just wish you didn’t have to go through any of this. That’s all I’m saying, love.”

  “It’s not only me going through this,” I remind him as I take deep, calming breaths. “We’re both going through it.”

  “You’re right,” he says and then kisses my forehead. “I just want to protect you.”

  “You can’t.” I answer glumly. More tears escape from my eyes as I allow the terror to consume me. I’m starting to feel just how alone I really am in all of this. “Not from this. No one can.”

  He takes my face into his hands and looks deep into my eyes. “That doesn’t mean I won’t ever stop trying.”

  “I know that,” I nod.

  Liam leans in to kiss me and of course I comply. Normally this would have worked to distract my thoughts, but I can’t shake the memory of the coldness and black that had swallowed me up and spat me back out. And that voice… the more I think about that voice, I realize that it had sounded menacing and almost hostile. The tiny hairs on the back of my neck stand on end as I try to focus on the remembrance of the message it gave to me.

  “I know what will cheer you up,” he says in an upbeat tone, trying to bring me out of my glum mood. “C’mon, follow me.”

  Liam clasps my hand and carefully stands me up. The room whirs around us for a second as the bump on my head throbs in protest. He cautiously leads us out of the kitchen and down the same hall that leads to the stables. However, instead of going straight out the double-doors that lead outside, he veers us left toward another door.

  “This you’ll love,” he says excitedly, stopping us in front of one of the many wooden doors in his large house. Liam’s face is so exultant that I have to smile in return. I wipe away the lingering tears with my shirt sleeve and give a pathetic laugh.

  “What will I love?” I choke.

  Liam’s smile widens as he turns the knob and opens the door. And again, I am in complete amazement of what’s in front of me.

  We walk into a room so bright that it makes me feel like I’m stepping outside. This room is made entirely of glass; the ceiling and the walls, all panes of long rectangles for three walls. It’s warm and slightly humid like I remember the tropics being when my mother and I had gone last summer. To the left is a large patio table with chairs to match and there are several brightly colored plants with flowers placed strategically throughout the room. Purple and yellow Ixora’s, pink and coral Ilima’s, Loelani’s and Hibiscus all surrounded by leaves the color of bright jade. I would never have known the names to these incredible flowers if it wasn’t for that tropical greenhouse tour my mom and I had taken while on our vacation. Further down the room, is a tiled bar complete with tall chairs for lounging or dining, and behind all that is what looks like what appears to be a tiny kitchen. The contrast to the scene in front of me against the snow falling outside the vast windows is truly brilliant. A back drop of sparkling white playing canvas to a summer playground as if we are standing inside an inverted snow globe. But the thing that really has caught my eye, what had my full attention as soon as Liam brought me through the door, is the large pool that sits exactly in the middle of the room. It seems too impossible to be true. I mean, who has a pool in their house for crying out loud?

  “Do you like it?” Liam asks as I stand staring at the calm turquoise water in front of me. I nod. How would I not? “I told you this house was ridiculous,” he laughs. “I’d meant to show this to you last night, as I promised to show you more of our home. I’m sorry for being so rude last evening and for ignoring my word.”

  I shoo off his apology with a dismissive wave of my hand. “It’s amazing,” I whisper. “It feels like I’m back in the Caribbean.”

  “Yeah, that’s the cool part about this room. It feels just like you’re on a tropical holiday. Of course it’s a lot nicer in the winter months for it to feel like that. In the summer we can open up the glass to the ceiling so the sun shines in directly, on the rare occasion it's warm enough. And over there, that entire wall is sliding glass doors, so those open up also,” he finishes while pointing out the windows.

  “Wow.”

  “So, would you like to go for a swim?” Liam says as he tugs me toward the edge of the pool. “The water is heated. It'll feel just like bath water.”

  “I didn’t bring a suit. I didn’t think it would’ve been something I needed,” I admit shyly, still unable to rip my eyes away from the calm water at my feet. Oh, it looks so inviting. I just want to dive right in.

  “Says the girl, who strips down to her knickers back home,
just so she can take a dip in front of a boy she barely knows.”

  “Har har.”

  Liam laughs. “Okay, we can wait until this evening. Marjorie probably has lunch nearly finished and then I’m taking you into London for some sightseeing.”

  “Okey dokey then,” I answer lamely.

  After enjoying hot ham and cheese sandwiches made from the left over dinner the night before, Liam and I go upstairs to get ready for our outing. He escorts me to my room and then heads toward his. I change into a nicer pair of jeans and a thick ivory sweater with a high neck. I opt for my boots though, because Liam said we’d be doing a lot of walking; I won’t want cold, wet feet. As I skip to my bathroom so I can brush out my hair, happier now as I realize I’ll be getting to see more of what makes Liam tick – his histories and where he spent his childhood –a figure catches my eye in the reflection of the mirror. It isn’t myself that stares back in the one-way glass.

  It’s Evie.

  I whirl around and brace myself against the sink. The room begins to cave in on itself and my peripheral vision becomes darker and darker until all I can see is straight in front of me. Evie steps directly into my line of sight and viciously smiles as she cocks her head to the side. I squint to focus on her as my vision is slightly blurry, blinking furiously against the hazy fog impairing my ability to see.

  “It was you,” I say to her. “You are the one that –”

  Evie laughs condescendingly, cutting me off midsentence. “Of course it was me. Who else would it have been? Now let me ask you a second time: what are you doing?”