by Maguire, Ily
“It’s just the crows. The crows did it. The crows did it,” Dory mutters then laughs. “The crows did it. The crows did it. The crows did it. The crows did it.”
The room spins. “Shut up, Dory! Shut up!” My mouth is dry and I’m cold now. Ice. Frost. Ahhh! I want to scream! What is she talking about? My head throbs and my limbs are heavy. My real arm twitches and my fake arm tightens around my shoulder. I gasp for my own breath. The cooler in the morgue. The Hollow. “Let them out! They can’t breathe. Let me out!”
Pike grabs my arms to steady my swaying body. I fall into him. “Breathe, Rose. Breathe.”
“Like I said, Rose,” Dory continues, “They are very smart.”
I push all thoughts of The Hollow out of my head. Air fills my lungs. Pike makes me feel safe.
We get to the bottom of the stairs. I feel queasy. Dory isn’t the same person I left behind. She’s not the person I thought I knew at the hospital when I was sick and scared. I don’t know if I’ve ever known her, or anyone for that matter.
“Is this the underground rail?” Pike asks.
“The entrance to the Excellus is to the right,” Dory answers, robotic. “We have to go down another flight and the door to the containment area will be on the left. It leads to the quarantine cellar.”
We follow Dory down only five more steps to a cast iron door that matches the iron walls around us. With Dory’s hand shaking, she swipes an implanted chip in her wrist across some invisible screen. The lock clicks and the door slides open.
I realize she hasn’t told me where everyone else is. Just that they’ve gone.
“Dory, where did they go? Where’s Evie?”
2
“Evie,” Dory repeats, like a parrot, mimicking.
“Yes! Evie! Mom and Dad and Evie. Dory, snap out of it!” I yell and my voice bounces off the walls. Dory blocks the doorway and while it’s open, I can’t really see inside.
“Rose,” Pike puts his hand on my real arm. It stops shaking. I look at him. “No, don’t push her, Rose. You can see. She’s not well.”
“I know,” I whisper back, head bowed. My fake arm twitches.
“Tell me about Evie, Dory. Is she with your parents?” Pike squeezes by me, getting my sister’s attention.
“No, they left her-” she answers as she moves through the open door and we follow into a smaller space than the stairwell we were just in. The door closes behind us. It’s a tight, airless space; a stainless-steel, sealed box. A containment area where no more than three or four people could ever fit comfortably. My heart races and I’m sweating again. It’s sweltering in here. I can’t see straight. My face tingles and flushes. My mouth is dry. I can’t swallow. I can’t speak. I’m on a gurney. I’m in The Hollow. I shake the thought away, moving my head from side to side. My arm stops twitching and with it I robotically clutch Pike’s wrist. I’m dizzy.
A fan whirrs on, ventilating the area. I release my grip on Pike. My heart slows down closer to normal. Sweat on my skin dries and now I’m cold.
“What happened to her, Dory?” Pike continues his line of questioning.
“Oh she’s fine,” Dory tells him. She smiles and nods her head. Her eyes open and close slowly.
“Where. Is. She?” My stomach lurches.
“Is she down here?” Pike remains calm.
“No.” She turns to me and clutches my shoulders with enough strength to hurt. She stares me straight in the eyes and I believe her. “She’s fine. I made sure of it. Don’t you believe me, Rose?” Dory lets go and turns to another door directly behind her. One camouflaged with this corrugated metal box we are in. The door sucks open, like a vacuum-seal being broken.
I don’t get to answer before we’re flooded with crisp, cool air. My constricted throat opens and visions of The Hollow begin to dissipate. The long and narrow endless corridors. The cold and wet tunnels. Cement cinderblocks, broken tiles, confining, yet open spaces of an institution. The corrupt Dr. Flint. The dark. The morgue. Death. I push it out of my mind. Jenny. Tithonus. Leland, Delia, and Christophe.
We step out of the containment area and into the quarantine cellar. Mustard-colored sandbags line cement walls to the left and right of the doorway. The lights are on, sunlight-bright, and the ceiling above is blue and looks like the sky. The floor under my feet is green and feels like grass. It smells clean and fresh. Crisp. Fans filter in air and there is a breeze of warm air around us. We walk into the cellar. There’s an entire house down here - right in front of me!
And through a doorway we are led into a living room where there’s a plaid couch, a solid blue love seat and four plush chairs. Standing lamps that have a bowl on top point the light to the ceiling and have H2O written on the base. They don’t turn on automatically and Pike has to press a tiny button at the top to make it light up. A coffee table on a large, fuzzy area rug is covered with stacks of electronic magazines.
I look around the room. I see a kitchen to the right of where I came in and a short hallway ahead. Four doors are at the back of the space. Closed. Warm. There are no windows, but it isn’t completely dark. There are flat screens mounted on the walls. Four feet long by two feet tall, there are four screens on the wall above the couch alone. At least ten screens that I can see in this living space and the kitchen.
Pike walks over and taps one of the screens. It reacts to his touch by forming some sort of oil spot before dissolving. It takes a second, but it turns on. Or actually, opens up, like the shutter of a camera. Within another second, we are all looking at the same thing, on all of the screens, all around the room: outside.
The real grass of my front lawn. Trees in the distance, their leaves all but gone. The weather is changing, or is it the climate? Whatever it is, it’s happening fast. We’ve only been here a few hours.
“Can we just rest a bit? I’m very tired.” Dory sits on the couch and closes her eyes. Within seconds, there is motion beneath her lids, eyes darting around in deep sleep. Her brow is furrowed and she doesn’t look peaceful. She looks upset. Mad. I look at Pike.
“We’re locked in. It’s probably not a bad idea.” Pike sits across from Dory in one of the chairs and folds his arms across his chest. I sit in an identical chair, but my head is spinning. Maybe I’m overwhelmed or maybe it’s anxiety. I yawn. Maybe it’s exhaustion.
“I guess we can figure it out after we take a break for a bit and you know, clear our heads. Then we can look around in those rooms back there,” I say, though Dory is asleep and Pike’s eyes are already closed. My eye lids are heavy. I close them and then open them.
Pike’s up and across the room. Dory’s still asleep on the couch. I must’ve fallen asleep, too. My arm twinges. The artificial one. It’s contracting with the temperature change. At least ten or fifteen degrees. It’s gotten colder and it’s pinching my skin. My shoulder.
“Someone’s out there.” Pike points to the screen he tapped moments, or hours, before.
“I don’t see anything,” I say, moving closer. With his fingers closed, he puts them up to the screen and widens them, making the view bigger at a certain spot outside.
I see it. “A shadow. On the left side.”
He taps again and the view zooms out and the aspect changes. The shadow is gone. The screen still projects my front lawn, but the trees are no longer visible. The front door is.
“Cameras must be installed all around the perimeter,” he says. He taps it again.
“I didn’t even think-” I say. How could I be so clueless?
Dory sits up now, looking at the screens with us. There is color in her cheeks and she seems rested, but there is sharpness to her features, too. Her eyes squint and her lips form a thin line.
“Not good. Not good at all,” she repeats, staring straight ahead. “They’re watching. Always watching.”
I look back up and Pike is making the view wider. A squirrel with thick, grey fur bounds across the lawn. The sun shines on its plump body. It stops, look around, forages among the debris of my
house. A shadow passes overhead. It looks up and then down. A cloud. The squirrel finds something, sits back on its hind legs, brings whatever it is to its mouth, and goes back to searching the ground.
Suddenly, a crow swoops down, snatching the squirrel up. A flutter of black and tufts of fur fall to the ground. It all happens so quickly. We don’t hear anything. There isn’t any sound.
“Dory, if Evie isn’t here, where did she go? Where did you take her?” I ask, calmer this time.
“I already told you, she’s fine.” Dory is testy. “She’s being looked after. I made sure of it.”
“Then where is she?” Pike adds. “You need to give us something.”
“She’s in the hospital room, of course. She’s safe there,” Dory answers.
I take her face in my hands and try to gain her attention. Get her to focus so that we can find something out. Something more useful than this constant questioning and her non-answers.
“I did. To keep her safe.” Dory shakes her head from my grip and I loosen it. She walks to the kitchen. A small, square space with glass cabinets above a gray, granite countertop. White dishes are lined up and stacked in neat piles behind the glass. Identically colored white canisters on the counter claim to contain things like flour, sugar, coffee, and tea. The hardwood floors in here are lighter in color than the dark wood floor beneath the area rug in the living space. A deep sink, small stove, and a tall, white refrigerator are in a row along one of the walls.
“What is she doing there?” I recall the room well. My mother’s room. With its custom-made curtains and rug. It’s cold comfortability. I and can’t imagine my five-year old sister being there at all.
“One, two, three.” Dory has one of the cabinets open and counts porcelain plates out loud. “She’s safe there,” Dory answers with a smile.
“Dory, do you know if there is any way we can use these cameras to see Evie? Inside the hospital?” Pike asks. His tone is gentle. “Do you know if the satellites overhead could be used to gain access into your family’s hospital room?”
“Oh no, sorry. Can’t do that,” she answers, stepping in front of the screen. She triple-taps it and they all turn off.
“Why not? Why’d you do that?” I ask. The room darkens a bit. Pike turns on another lamp.
Dory paces back and forth in the kitchen and then through the living room, down the hall, and into one of the closed rooms. She comes back out a few minutes later. There is a whooshing sound.
“Bathroom. You have to manually flush the toilet,” she says and I’ve got no idea what she’s talking about.
“I’m sure we can connect to the room in the hospital. Evie will have the screens on, I’m sure of it.” I rush over to the wall.
Dory follows me and puts her hand on my back.
“You don’t want them to know you’re here, do you?” Dory asks and I stop.
“The Hollow,” I say and the realization that I don’t know what we’re doing hits me hard. “What are we doing? What do we do?” I back up and sit down. Pike puts his hand on my shoulder.
“We know that the Imperial Bead knows everything and that The Hollow will need to get you back.” Pike moves his hand to my head and rubs down my hair. It must be a mess. “But we’ve just got to stay ahead of them and find out where the rest of your family is and how we can keep you safe.”
“They must know I’m here already, so why haven’t they come in to get me?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” Pike answers. “I honestly don’t know.”
Dory doesn’t answer, but instead paces back to the kitchen. Dory pulls the fridge open to reveal glass jars on the shelves and an icebox within. She takes something out and puts it on the counter. It’s a muddy, greenish liquid that she shakes before unscrewing the top. It pops and she pours the contents into a glass she pulls from a cabinet. She drinks it in one gulp, replaces the lid, and returns it to the fridge. I don’t know what it is and I don’t ask. Dory gently places the glass in the sink.
“Where did Mom and Dad go?” I walk into the kitchen and while there isn’t enough space for a formal table and chairs, there is more granite countertop on four wooden legs in the middle of the space. One, two, three, four, five tall stools around this center table and another in the corner. One for Jenny.
“Four, five, six,” she continues to count.
I look at Pike.
His head shakes.
What’s happened to her?
“We should go back upstairs and look around,” Pike whispers to me. Dory has left the kitchen and sits on the couch, which doesn’t conform to her shape, but rather sags under her weight, which isn’t much.
“Okay.” I look over at my sister. She twists her hair around her finger. “She should stay here,” I say to Pike.
“As long as she doesn’t lock us out.” He glances at her. He’s thinking she’s nuts. I’m thinking she’s nuts and I’m guilty because I’m the reason for it.
“She won’t,” I say. “She’ll let us back in, won’t you, Dory?”
Dory gasps like she was surprised and she looks at me to smile. She’s still in there. Somewhere.
I get up and walk toward the door. Dory’s voice across the room stops me.
“You’re not leaving me, are you, Rose? You won’t leave me.” The panicked tone starts to rise in her voice and her eyes widen. Her face has lost some of the color it regained after she drank whatever that was from the fridge. She stands and wrings her trembling hands.
“No. Of course we’re not leaving you.” I rush back over and hug her. Tight. “But you don’t want to come back up there with us, do you?”
She shakes her head and I grab it with my hands.
“We will be back, I promise. We just want to go upstairs and look around. We won’t leave you for long, okay?” I smooth back her hair. “We’ll just be upstairs. When we come down, you let us back in. I don’t have the ability to get us in.” I wave my bionic arm at her and she reaches out and touches the black pads that are my fingertips and then she touches my wrist and rubs it. I can almost feel it through the light grey plastic. The nerve endings are regenerating throughout my shoulder and connecting to the wires of the arm. She smiles, but it’s a sad smile. I smile for reassurance. Hers and mine.
“Okay.” She sits back down and puts something in her mouth she had tucked in the sleeve of her shirt. She lies down on the couch in the fetal position. I cover her with a soft, fuzzy blanket and kiss her cheek. The colors of the blanket turn from bluish-purple to pink, reacting to her body heat. Dory closes her eyes.
“Let’s go,” I say to Pike as we head for the door.
3
“You’re sure about this? If we get locked out there-” he says as we stand by the door.
I shake my head. “I’m not sure, but we don’t have much of a choice. There has to be something upstairs that will help explain what’s going on. And we can’t stay down here.”
He agrees by nodding his head. He opens the quarantine cellar door by pressing a large, circular red button. Once inside the containment room, the door closes behind us, another opens, and we’re at the bottom of the stairs.
“Where’s your father’s room?” Pike asks before we even make it a flight up. He doesn’t stop until he reaches the landing of the first floor.
“That way,” I point to the right. The opposite direction of the family rooms, the kitchen, and dining room.
We hurry down the hall, but slow down when we reach the front door. Pike looks up and around, over his shoulder. A commotion on the lawn outside is loud and distracting. What is it? We don’t stop. At least the crows making the noise are out there. I want to make sure we avoid my bedroom at all costs.
The opening in the roof above blows cold air over my good arm. This is the part of the house that has been destroyed. The center. As we move through the middle, around the bottom of the stairs, away from the front door, and down the hall toward my father’s offices, it gets better. Warmer, but darker. No cold air.
The runner rugs in the hall are wet and squelch water as I step. The walls have grown what looks like moss on them from the baseboards up to the crown molding. The doorways off the hall have been closed.
“Did your father keep security cameras?” Pike asks and slows down. He opens a door without a lock. Warm, musty air wafts out and he closes it again after glancing inside.
“No. Well, maybe a few, I guess.” Growing up with cameras, you don’t really ever think about them. They’re around, but I couldn’t tell Pike where. I look around and realize they’re everywhere. Over every doorframe, in the corners of the hallway, and as I look closer, in the rectangular air transmission grate along the bottom of the wall. The glass reflects my face as I crouch down and peer beyond the metal into the camera screen.
“Which way?” Pike asks. We’re at the back of the house and the hallway splits to the left and the right. It’s so much darker with all of the doors closed. To the right is the Conservatory and Jenny’s room. The maids’ rooms and the cooks’ are to the right as well, just a little farther back.
“Over here,” I pull him toward the left. There isn’t the usual electric charge like I expect. Up a small set of stairs to my father’s rooms. Only five steps, carpeted with hand-woven rugs, we’re on a half-floor. There is a door that is three-quarters the size of a normal door. It leads into my father’s wing. The scan plate has been blown off and the middle of the door is shattered, too. Shards of wood are scattered on the floor. While we could step through this massive hole, I push open the door.
We step into the room. Even though we’re on a half-floor, the room inside is as tall as a normal room, if not taller. One and a half floors.
The room itself is square-shaped and larger than I remember. I haven’t been here since I was a little kid. Another off-limits area.
Across the room are two windows and the only source of light. It floods into the room. This part of the house was designed almost a full story taller. The slate tiled roof is covered with thin solar magnets that can extend up and over the house. Like a canopy, they absorb most of the ultraviolet radiation and prevent the rays from ever reaching the front of the house where most of us live. Lived.