The Hollow Places

by T. Kingfisher

  The only thing that stopped me was the phone ringing.

  I set down my keys, picked up the receiver, and said mechanically, “This is the Wonder Museum.”

  “Carrot? It’s Uncle Earl.”

  The ice began to crack. If I left, Uncle Earl would come back and there would be no one here to warn him. I knew that. I knew it. He would go into the willows and They would get him. I couldn’t just start driving.

  “Carrot? Are you there?”

  And I had to tell Simon. I couldn’t leave him to deal with this alone. I was briefly appalled at my own selfishness, for even thinking about leaving without telling him, or offering him a spot in the passenger seat.

  “I’m here, Uncle Earl. How are you feeling?”

  “Oh, I’m fine…. How are you?”

  “I’m fine,” I said automatically. I was not fine. Possibly I would never be fine again. I could not say any of that to Uncle Earl. “Are you sure you’re okay? How was the surgery?”

  “Well, I’m pretty sore, and they want me to take all these pills. But your mom’s taking real good care of me.”

  “Driving you nuts, I bet.” I was on autopilot. It was bizarre how much of a normal conversation I could have while I was screaming internally.

  He laughed, which was as close as he’d get to an admission that, yes, her hovering was making him nuts.

  Beau decided that he was not interested in being carried any longer and launched himself off my shoulder. I squawked.

  “Carrot?”

  “It’s fine.” I fumbled with the phone. “Just Beau.”

  “He’s a terror. Heard you had some excitement the other day.”

  This was the sort of understatement that should have been accompanied by a crack of thunder. For a second I couldn’t think what he was talking about, then I remembered the story I told my mother. “Yeah. I’m sorry, I had to close the museum for a day to take Simon to the hospital.”

  “You did exactly right. Don’t you worry about it for one minute. Is Simon okay?”

  “He’s still a little shook up,” I said, which wasn’t a lie at all. “But he’s getting better, I think.” Unlike me, who was apparently sleepwalking and trying to claw my way into a different universe.

  “Keep an eye on him, Carrot. He’s a real nice fella and he works too much.”

  “I will. And you should take it easy, too! Don’t strain anything, after they did all that surgery to get you fixed up!”

  “Doubt your mom will let me. Everything else okay at the museum?”

  I am not sure how I did not burst into tears or hysterical laughter. “Tourist knocked a hole in the drywall,” I said. “Simon patched it up, though.”

  “It’s always something.”

  We said our goodbyes and he hung up and I didn’t get in the car and drive away and three tourists came in at that exact moment, so I didn’t start screaming, either.

  Instead I stood at the front counter, clicking the end of a ballpoint pen, while my brain raced in frantic little circles.

  I’d been trying to get back to the willows in my sleep.

  Why?

  Was my sleeping brain suicidal? Was something deep in my psyche trying to fling itself into the void? I wasn’t the sort of person who looked over cliffs and heard a voice telling them to jump. I looked over a cliff and went “Damn, that’s a long drop,” and then stepped back to a sensible distance, possibly behind a guardrail.

  Maybe it’s not you, whispered the voice that didn’t ever tell me to jump. Maybe it’s the willows. Maybe they got their roots into you and they’re dragging you back.

  That did not seem any better.

  Well, there was only one thing to do. I was going to have to wait until the tourists left, then go next door and tell Simon that I had lost my sleeping mind.

  CHAPTER 16

  “That… is a problem,” said Simon.

  “Little bit,” I said. “Little bit of a problem.” I had tried to stay light and sarcastic, and I knew I wasn’t quite pulling it off, but if I stopped being sarcastic, I was going to burst into tears. “I don’t suppose you’ve been sleepwalking?”

  He shook his head. I could feel myself turning red. There is something horribly embarrassing about going mad. I’d had no idea how humiliating it would be.

  “Look, I’m mostly telling you this so that when I vanish, you’ll know where I went and you can maybe make sure the tourists don’t bang on the door too much. Put up a little sign or something.” I leaned against one of the tables. I could feel the sob lurking deep in my chest, but damned if I was going to let it out.

  “You don’t want that,” said Simon. “My handwriting is terrible. Come on, let’s go see what the hole is like.”

  We put up the BACK IN 5 MINUTES sign and tromped to the museum. I shoved aside the batik and turned my head away. I didn’t want to look at it. The long gouges looked like badges of shame.

  You’ve lost the plot, I told myself. You’ve gone around the bend. All this time, you thought you were pretty solid, but your sleeping brain is completely gone and you don’t have the money for meds or therapy and what would you even tell a therapist anyway?

  “Pretty impressive.” Simon reached out and touched the patch, where a big chunk had been pulled back and had fallen to the floor in a spatter of powder. It had been behind the raccoon case, and I hadn’t noticed it.

  I looked down at my hands, at the fresh bandages. “Yeah. I’ve been doing this for a few days, I think. My fingers were raw the first day, but I didn’t realize anything was wrong. It wasn’t until I noticed that there was air coming through…” I gestured.

  “Hmm.” He glanced over at the raccoon case. “It’s all up at the top. You weren’t moving the display case, just hauling the fabric out of the way, I think.”

  I shrugged. As consolations went, it wasn’t much.

  “We could put something else heavy in front of it.”

  “And I’ll probably yank it down on my own head,” I said bitterly.

  “I mean, it’s possible.”

  I put my head in my hands, trying to think of solutions. Concrete was too slow. “What if we burn the building down?”

  Simon gave me a startled look. “Hard-core. It’d kill your uncle to lose the museum.”

  “Yes, but he’d still be alive for it to kill him.” I grimaced. I hated the thought. I probably couldn’t light the match. But given the choice between Uncle Earl losing the museum, and losing him to the willows…

  “I doubt it would work,” said Simon. “Buildings are harder to burn than you think. And if you go to jail for arson, it’d still kill him, and the hole will still be there.”

  “Okay, but—”

  “And”—Simon held up a finger—“what if it doesn’t close the hole?”

  I blinked at him.

  “When we cut at the sides of the hole, the hole got bigger. What happens if it burns?”

  I had a sudden vision of a burned-out building, and the opening to the willow world hanging in midair above it, no longer small but huge and jagged and smoking at the edges, while firefighters stood underneath, scratching their heads.

  The description written in the Bible came back to me, about the razor wire and the plastic sheeting. The military would take control of it, wouldn’t they?

  They damn well ought to. The willows are no place for normal people.

  …And look how well the other military fared there. You think ours would do any better?

  They’d close it off, anyway, I argued to myself. And make sure no one got in.

  And a bunch of soldiers would die in the process. And downtown Hog Chapel would turn into an armed camp and you’d put Uncle Earl and Simon’s sister and everybody else out of business. The town would be done.

  “If I ever find the bastard that knocked that first hole in the wall,” I said through gritted teeth, “I’m going to kill him.”

  “I’ll hold him down for you. Assuming that it was a person, which I am increasingly skept
ical about. But I don’t think we’re going to get anywhere good burning the building down.”

  I sagged against the otter display case. “Why am I doing this?” I asked hopelessly. “Did they get in my head? Did I drink the water and now they’re trying to drag me back?”

  “I drank the water, too.”

  I groaned. Simon shrugged. “Maybe you’re nuts.”

  “I didn’t think I was.”

  “Yeah, that’s always a bitch when you figure it out, isn’t it?” He leaned next to me and thumped an elbow into my arm in a companionable way. “But, I mean, maybe you aren’t trying to get back. Maybe you’re just really, really pissed off and trying to attack the other world, by way of the drywall.”

  For some reason, that struck me as hilarious. I started laughing and nearly fell over. The giant otter gazed past me as I howled. “Oh, God! Oh, God, I’m trying to pick a fight with another universe!”

  “Could happen.” Simon grinned. “I mean, it’d be better if you just shouted Yo Mama jokes at it, but, hey…”

  I dashed hysterical tears from my eyes. Something in my chest felt a little looser. “Yeah, okay. That would be better. So what are we going to do?”

  Simon held up a finger. “First we’re going to go fix the drywall patch. Then we’re going to tie you to the bed.”

  “…Kinky.”

  “Yes, but you’re not my type, hon. It’s for sleepwalking. You tie your wrist to the bed, and then when you hit the end of the tether, you either wake up or stop sleepwalking, anyway.” He paused. “I’d offer to let you crash on my couch, but there’s a lot of stairs, and I don’t want you sleepwalking down them and breaking your neck. Also I’ve never had a woman tied up in my apartment, and I’d rather not set a precedent.”

  “Won’t the rope get, like, wrapped around my neck and then my head will fall off?”

  He grinned. “Not the way I’m gonna do it, no.”

  * * *

  “Pink leopard-print handcuffs?”

  I stared at the items in question for a good half minute, dumbfounded. “Pink. Leopard-print. Handcuffs.”

  “They’re not handcuffs,” said Simon. “They’re Velcro wrist restraints. Easier on the nerve endings.”

  He applied the wrist restraint, which was indeed on Velcro. I stared at it, then at him. “You’re kinda playing to stereotype here, Simon.”

  He laughed. “I would be, except these are from a Halloween costume.”

  I gave him a skeptical look.

  “High camp is one thing, tacky is another. Hold out your hand.”

  “Dear diary…,” I said as Simon secured my left wrist to the bedpost.

  “Not too tight? Circulation okay?”

  “Yeah, seems to be. What stops me from taking it off in the middle of the night?”

  “You’d have to stop and think about it. It’s not an automatic movement. You can work a doorknob in your sleep without thinking about it, but getting yourself loose from a bedpost is another thing. So if you’re sleepwalking and tearing at the drywall patch, this’ll stop you.”

  “Great.” It was a lot of faith to place in a pink leopard-print handcuff, but at this point, I was running low on options. “Shut the door on your way out.”

  Simon patted my shoulder, turned off the light, and let himself out of my room. “Nighty night, Carrot. Sleep tight.”

  “And don’t let the willows bite,” I said as the door closed behind him.

  * * *

  Sunlight blazed over the willows. The boatman stood at the edge of the island, beckoning.

  It didn’t work, I thought, despairing. I’m still having the dream.

  No, wait. That wasn’t right. The dream wasn’t the problem, it was the sleepwalking. As long as I was having the dream in bed, it wasn’t… well, it was a crappy dream, but at least I wasn’t trying to shred the patch on the wall and get into the willows.

  “This is a dream,” I told the boatman. I was standing on the steps gazing out, a little below his eye level. “I should wake up.”

  He said nothing. The sun was behind him and his face was in shadow. He beckoned again.

  I stepped up onto the next stair. I didn’t want to, but my feet were moving without me. Can you sleepwalk in a dream?

  Apparently you could, because I took another step.

  The boatman held a long pole in one hand. His boat was small, a raft only a few feet wide. I didn’t know how he could balance in it, let alone keep it upright.

  Don’t let him catch you, Sturdivant had said.

  “Go away,” I told the boatman. “Go away.”

  He beckoned again, impatient. The killdeer cried somewhere on the sandbanks.

  “I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t.” I took another reluctant step. Why weren’t my legs obeying me?

  I lifted my hand to push hair out of my eyes, and that worked fine. Was it just my legs?

  I bent down and grabbed my own knee, picked it up in both hands, and tried to walk myself back down a step. This didn’t work well at all, but I lost my balance and fell sideways, hitting my shoulder on the wall.

  The pain cleared my head a little. For a dream, this was extraordinarily vivid. I could see cracks in the walls and the tiny bits of sand and grit inside those cracks. And I hadn’t woken up, the way I usually do when I’m in a dream and realize I’m dreaming.

  Am I absolutely sure this is a dream?

  “I’m tied to the bed!” I told myself. “Look, I’m…”

  I look down at my left wrist. The garish pink restraint was still there with the long Velcro ties dangling behind it.

  “Oh, shit,” I whispered. “Oh, shit. This is bad.”

  I could hear the willows rustling behind the boatman, and the soft hiss of the current against the island.

  Whatever force inhabited my legs got me to my feet. The boatman watched me, impassive, or maybe I just thought he was impassive because I couldn’t see his face clearly.

  I reached the top step and stood there. The boatman was a little below me now, a dozen feet away. His boat didn’t move in the water at all, even with the river moving around it. He didn’t have to pole against the current to stay in place.

  Stop! I screamed at my body. Stupidawfulgoddamnbitchfeetstop!

  The gong noise sounded, very close now. I lifted my foot to step down.

  Something hit me from behind, grabbing me around the waist and hauling me backward. I yelped, slapping at the arms around me, and Simon yelled in my ear, “Carrot, wake up!”

  “I’m not asleep!” I screamed, and something snapped in my head. My feet stopped obeying an alien master. I let out a sob and the high alien noise came again, but shrill, like a hunting bird seeing prey.

  Simon and I clutched at each other on the top step. The boatman lifted his head and shrieked.

  It wasn’t a human noise. It wasn’t a human face. His jaw opened wide, wide, far wider than any human’s could, and his lips pulled back from impossibly long gums, like a baboon screaming.

  The shriek he made harmonized with the shrill alien sound and also with the willows. He jammed the pole down into the water, and the end of the raft lifted up onto the tiny island as he tried furiously to reach us.

  It was then that I noticed that he didn’t have any feet. His legs were rooted to the raft like willow trunks growing out of the ground. When the end of the raft came up, I saw white, wormlike roots coming from underneath.

  He shrieked again. I saw the flash of teeth.

  The pole came up. Simon and I fell backward into the bunker, skinning elbows and knuckles and God knows what else as we went, but the end of the pole hit the metal door, not us. My knee hit the edge of a step right under the kneecap, and pain exploded up my leg. The pole made a harsh metallic clang that cut across the humming and the rustle of willows, but I barely heard it.

  For a long second, all I could think of was the pain in my knee, not that we were all going to get eaten by Them. Simon and I hunched together while I clutched my knee and he cl
utched his elbow, and the sound of our harsh breathing echoed off the bunker walls.

  The boatman hit the door with the pole again, in evident frustration. I rocked back and forth, hands locked around my knee, tears streaming down my face. A minute earlier, I would have sworn that nothing could cut through my terror, but some pains were so extraordinary that they made terror seem positively quaint.

  The humming call came again, but farther away, as if whatever had sought us had lost track and moved off. The boatman, however, had not.

  I rolled sideways, deeper into the bunker. The pole hit the steps, not the door. Something whipped against the concrete steps.

  It’s the roots it’s the white roots oh shit oh my knee oh shit oh shit

  Darkness filled the bunker as the boatman blocked the doorway. I could see the roots backlit, squirming against the wall.

  Getting his roots in.

  “Get back!” Simon rasped, hauling on my arm. “Get back!”

  The pole hit the door again. Metal squealed. Dear God, could he get down the steps? Would he be pushing himself on those wriggling roots and the metal pole, down the corridor to the museum?

  “We’ve got to get the door closed,” I gasped. I must have unbolted it in my sleep. Shit. Why hadn’t we sealed it with a torch or something? Why did my knee hurt so badly? What had I done to it?

  The boatman tilted forward… and stopped. He was too large to fit through the doorway, rooted to the planks as he was. He couldn’t fit.

  Another scream filled the room, echoing off the walls, as the boatman shrieked his frustration. He slammed the pole against the door, over and over, wailing in rage and thwarted hunger.

  And then I heard the worst noise I could imagine hearing, worse even than Their humming.

  The hinges began to give.

  “Oh no,” said Simon.

  In the moment, what I remember is how resigned he sounded. It was the “oh no” of the toilet backing up or the car getting towed, one of life’s small but consuming annoyances. In another place, I might have laughed.

  The top of the door loosened from the hinges. I could not imagine how shattering the power in the boatman’s blows must be, to move that heavy metal door, but he kept pounding and screaming and the weight began to twist the lower hinge off as well.