Hollow City
Page 38
“I think so,” I said. “I’ll call my parents. Or go to a police station, or something. I’m sure there’s a poster of my face in every precinct in Britain by now, knowing my dad.” I laughed a little, because if I hadn’t, I might’ve started crying.
“Okay, then,” she said.
“Okay, then,” I said.
We looked at each other, not quite ready to let go, not sure what else to do. My instinct was to kiss her, but I stopped myself. That wasn’t allowed anymore.
“You go,” she said. “If you never hear from us again, well, one day you’ll be able to tell our story. You can tell your kids about us. Or your grandkids. And we won’t entirely be forgotten.”
I knew then that, from now on, every word that passed between us would hurt, would be wrapped up with and marked by the pain of this moment, and that I needed to pull away now or it would never stop. So I nodded sadly, hugged her one more time, and retreated to a corner to sleep, because I was very, very tired.
After awhile, the others dragged mattresses and blankets into the room and made a nest around me, and we packed together for warmth against the encroaching chill. But as the others began to bed down, I found myself unable to sleep, despite my exhaustion, and I got up and paced the room for a while, watching the children from a distance.
I’d felt so many things since our journey began—joy, fear, hope, horror—but until now, I’d never once felt alone. Bronwyn had called me brother, but that didn’t sound right anymore. I was a second cousin to them at best. Emma was right: I could never understand. They were so old, had seen so much. And I was from another world. Now it was time to go back.
* * *
Eventually, I fell asleep to the sound of ice groaning and cracking in the floors beneath us and the attic above. The building was alive with it.
That night, strange and urgent dreams.
I am home again, doing all the things I used to do. Tearing into a fast-food hamburger—big, brown, and greasy. Riding shotgun in Ricky’s Crown Vic, bad radio blaring. At the grocery store with my parents, sliding down long, too-bright aisles, and Emma is there, cooling her hands in the ice at the fish counter, meltwater running everywhere. She doesn’t recognize me.
Then I’m at the arcade where I had my twelfth birthday party, firing a plastic gun. Bodies bursting, blood-filled balloons.
Jacob where are you
Then school. Teacher’s writing on the board, but the letters don’t make sense. Then everyone’s on their feet, hurrying outside. Something’s wrong. A loud noise rising and falling. Everyone standing still, heads craned to the sky.
Air raid.
Jacob Jacob where are you
Hand on my shoulder. It’s an old man. A man without eyes. Come to steal mine. Not a man—a thing—a monster.
Running now. Chasing my old dog. Years ago she’d broken away from me, run off with her leash still attached and got it wrapped around a branch while trying to tree a squirrel. Strangled herself. We spent two weeks wandering the neighborhood calling her name. Found her after three. Old Snuffles.
The siren deafening now. I run and a car pulls alongside and picks me up. My parents are inside, in formal wear. They won’t look at me. The doors lock. We’re driving and it’s stifling hot outside, but the heater is on and the windows are up, and the radio is loud but tuned to the garble between stations.
Mom where are we going
She doesn’t answer.
Dad why are we stopping here
Then we’re out, walking, and I can breathe again. Pretty green place. Smell of fresh-cut grass. People in black, gathered around a hole in the ground.
A coffin open on a dais. I peer inside. It’s empty but for an oily stain slowly spreading across the bottom. Blacking the white satin. Quick, close the lid! Black tar bubbles out from the cracks and grooves and drips down into the grass and sinks into the earth.
Jacob where are you say something
The headstone reads: ABRAHAM EZRA PORTMAN. And I’m tumbling into his open grave, darkness spinning up to swallow me, and I keep falling and it’s bottomless, and then I’m somewhere underground, alone and wandering through a thousand interconnecting tunnels, and I’m wandering and it’s cold, so cold I’m afraid my skin will freeze and my bones will splinter, and everywhere there are yellow eyes watching me from the dark.
I follow his voice. Yakob, come here. Don’t be afraid.
The tunnel angles upward and there’s light at the end, and standing at its mouth, calmly reading a book, is a young man. And he looks just like me, or almost like me, and maybe he is me, I think, but then he speaks, and it’s my grandfather’s voice. I have something to show you.
For a moment I jolted awake in the dark and knew I was dreaming, but I didn’t know where I was, only that I was not in bed anymore, not in the meeting hall with the others. I’d gone elsewhere and the room I was in was all black, with ice beneath me, my stomach writhing …
Jacob come here where are you
A voice from outside, down the hall—a real voice, not something from a dream.
And then I’m in the dream again, just outside the ropes of a boxing ring, and on the canvas, in the haze and lights, my grandfather faces off against a hollowgast.
They circle each other. My grandfather is young and nimble on his feet, stripped to the waist, a knife in one hand. The hollow is bent and twisted, its tongues waving in the air, open jaws dripping black on the mat. It whips out a tongue and my grandfather dodges it.
Don’t fight the pain, that’s the key, my grandfather says. It’s telling you something. Welcome it, let it speak to you. The pain says: Hello, I am not other than you; I am of the hollow, but I am you also.
The hollow whips at him again. My grandfather anticipates it, makes room in advance of the strike. Then the hollow strikes a third time, and my grandfather lashes out with his knife and the tip of the hollow’s black tongue falls to the mat, severed and jolting.
They are stupid creatures. Highly suggestible. Speak to them, Yakob. And my grandfather begins to speak, but not in English, nor Polish, nor any language I’ve heard outside my dreams. It’s like some guttural outgassing, the sounds made with something other than a throat or a mouth.
And the creature stops moving, merely swaying where it stands, seemingly hypnotized. Still speaking his frightening gibberish, my grandfather lowers his knife and creeps toward it. The closer he gets, the more docile the creature becomes, finally sinking down to the mat, on its knees. I think it’s about to close its eyes and go to sleep when suddenly the hollow breaks free of whatever spell my grandfather has cast over it, and it lashes out with all its tongues and impales my grandfather. As he falls, I leap over the ropes and run toward him, and the hollow slips away. My grandfather is on his back on the mat and I am kneeling by his side, my hand on his face, and he is whispering something to me, blood bubbling on his lips, so I bend closer to hear him. You are more than me, Yakob, he says. You are more than I ever was.
I can feel his heart slow. Hear it, somehow, until whole seconds elapse between beats. Then tens of seconds. And then …
Jacob where are you
I jolted awake again. Now there was light in the room. It was morning, just the blue beginning of it. I was kneeling on the ice in the half-filled room, and my hand wasn’t on my grandfather’s face but resting atop the trapped hollow’s skull, its slow, reptilian brain. Its eyes were open and looking at me, and I was looking right back. I see you.
“Jacob! What are you doing? I’ve been looking for you everywhere!”
It was Emma, frantic, out in the hall. “What are you doing?” she said again. She couldn’t see the hollow. Didn’t know it was there.
I took my hand away from its head, slid back from it. “I don’t know,” I said. “I think I was sleepwalking.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Come quick—Miss Peregrine’s about to change!”
* * *
Crowded into the little room were all the children and all the freaks from the sideshow, pale and nervous, pressed against the walls and crouched on the floor in a wide berth around the two ymbrynes, like gamblers in a backroom cockfight. Emma and I slipped in among them and huddled in a corner, eyes glued to the unfolding spectacle. The room was a mess: the rocking chair where Miss Wren had sat all night with Miss Peregrine was toppled on its side, the table of vials and beakers pushed roughly against the wall. Althea stood on top of it clutching a net on a pole, ready to wield it.
In the middle of the floor were Miss Wren and Miss Peregrine. Miss Wren was on her knees, and she had Miss Peregrine pinned to the floorboards, her hands in thick falconing gloves, sweating and chanting in Old Peculiar, while Miss Peregrine squawked and flailed with her talons. But no matter how hard Miss Peregrine thrashed, Miss Wren wouldn’t let go.
At some point in the night, Miss Wren’s gentle massage had turned into something resembling an interspecies pro-wrestling match crossed with an exorcism. The bird half of Miss Peregrine had so thoroughly dominated her nature that it was refusing to be driven away without a fight. Both ymbrynes had sustained minor injuries: Miss Peregrine’s feathers were everywhere, and Miss Wren had a long, bloody scratch running down one side of her face. It was a disturbing sight, and many of the children looked on with openmouthed shock. Wild-eyed and savage, the bird Miss Wren was grinding into the floor was one we hardly recognized. It seemed incredible that a fully restored Miss Peregrine of old might result from this violent display, but Althea kept smiling at us and giving us encouraging nods as if to say, Almost there, just a little more floor-grinding!
For such a frail old lady, Miss Wren was giving Miss Peregrine a pretty good clobbering. But then the bird jabbed at Miss Wren with her beak and Miss Wren’s grasp slipped, and with a big flap of her wings Miss Peregrine nearly escaped from her hands. The children reacted with shouts and gasps. But Miss Wren was quick, and she leapt up and managed to catch Miss Peregrine by her hind leg and thump her down against the floorboards again, which made the children gasp even louder. We weren’t used to seeing our ymbryne treated like this, and Bronwyn actually had to stop Hugh from rushing into the fight to protect her.
Both ymbrynes seemed profoundly exhausted now, but Miss Peregrine more so; I could see her strength failing. Her human nature seemed to be winning out over her bird nature.
“Come on, Miss Wren!” Bronwyn cried.
“You can do it, Miss Wren!” called Horace. “Bring her back to us!”
“Please!” said Althea. “We require absolute silence.”
After a long time, Miss Peregrine quit struggling and lay on the ground with her wings splayed, gasping for air, feathered chest heaving. Miss Wren took her hands off the bird and sat back on her haunches.
“It’s about to happen,” she said, “and when it does, I don’t want any of you to rush over here grabbing at her. Your ymbryne will likely be very confused, and I want the first face she sees and voice she hears to be mine. I’ll need to explain to her what’s happened.” And then she clasped her hands to her chest and murmured, “Come back to us, Alma. Come on, sister. Come back to us.”
Althea stepped down from the table and picked up a sheet, which she unfolded and held up in front of Miss Peregrine to shield her from view. When ymbrynes turned from birds into humans, they were naked; this would give her some privacy.
We waited in breathless suspense while a succession of strange noises came from behind the sheet: an expulsion of air, a sound like someone clapping their hands once, sharply—and then Miss Wren jumped up and took a shaky step backward.
She looked frightened—her mouth was open, and so was Althea’s. And then Miss Wren said, “No, this can’t be,” and Althea stumbled, faint, letting the sheet drop. And there on the floor we saw a human form, but not a woman’s.
He was naked, curled into a ball, his back to us. He began to stir, and uncurl, and finally to stand.
“Is that Miss Peregrine?” said Olive. “She came out funny.”
Clearly, it was not. The person before us bore no resemblance whatsoever to Miss Peregrine. He was a stunted little man with knobby knees and a balding head and a nose like a used pencil eraser, and he was stark naked and slimed head to toe with sticky, translucent gel. While Miss Wren gaped at him and grasped for something to steady herself against, in shock and anger the others all began to shout, “Who are you? Who are you? What have you done with Miss Peregrine!”
Slowly, slowly, the man raised his hands to his face and rubbed his eyes. Then, for the first time, he opened them.
The pupils were blank and white.
I heard someone scream.
Then, very calmly, the man said, “My name is Caul. And you are all my prisoners now.”
* * *
“Prisoners!” said the folding man with a laugh. “What he mean, we are prisoners?”
Emma shouted at Miss Wren. “Where’s Miss Peregrine? Who’s this man, and what have you done with Miss Peregrine?”
Miss Wren seemed to have lost the ability to speak.
As our confusion turned to shock and anger, we barraged the little man with questions. He endured them with a slightly bored expression, standing at the center of the room with his hands folded demurely over his privates.
“If you’d actually permit me to speak, I’ll explain everything,” he said.
“Where is Miss Peregrine?!” Emma shouted again, trembling with rage.
“Don’t worry,” Caul said, “she’s safely in our custody. We kidnapped her days ago, on your island.”
“Then the bird we rescued from the submarine,” I said, “that was …”
“That was me,” Caul said.
“Okay, then,” she said.
“Okay, then,” I said.
We looked at each other, not quite ready to let go, not sure what else to do. My instinct was to kiss her, but I stopped myself. That wasn’t allowed anymore.
“You go,” she said. “If you never hear from us again, well, one day you’ll be able to tell our story. You can tell your kids about us. Or your grandkids. And we won’t entirely be forgotten.”
I knew then that, from now on, every word that passed between us would hurt, would be wrapped up with and marked by the pain of this moment, and that I needed to pull away now or it would never stop. So I nodded sadly, hugged her one more time, and retreated to a corner to sleep, because I was very, very tired.
After awhile, the others dragged mattresses and blankets into the room and made a nest around me, and we packed together for warmth against the encroaching chill. But as the others began to bed down, I found myself unable to sleep, despite my exhaustion, and I got up and paced the room for a while, watching the children from a distance.
I’d felt so many things since our journey began—joy, fear, hope, horror—but until now, I’d never once felt alone. Bronwyn had called me brother, but that didn’t sound right anymore. I was a second cousin to them at best. Emma was right: I could never understand. They were so old, had seen so much. And I was from another world. Now it was time to go back.
* * *
Eventually, I fell asleep to the sound of ice groaning and cracking in the floors beneath us and the attic above. The building was alive with it.
That night, strange and urgent dreams.
I am home again, doing all the things I used to do. Tearing into a fast-food hamburger—big, brown, and greasy. Riding shotgun in Ricky’s Crown Vic, bad radio blaring. At the grocery store with my parents, sliding down long, too-bright aisles, and Emma is there, cooling her hands in the ice at the fish counter, meltwater running everywhere. She doesn’t recognize me.
Then I’m at the arcade where I had my twelfth birthday party, firing a plastic gun. Bodies bursting, blood-filled balloons.
Jacob where are you
Then school. Teacher’s writing on the board, but the letters don’t make sense. Then everyone’s on their feet, hurrying outside. Something’s wrong. A loud noise rising and falling. Everyone standing still, heads craned to the sky.
Air raid.
Jacob Jacob where are you
Hand on my shoulder. It’s an old man. A man without eyes. Come to steal mine. Not a man—a thing—a monster.
Running now. Chasing my old dog. Years ago she’d broken away from me, run off with her leash still attached and got it wrapped around a branch while trying to tree a squirrel. Strangled herself. We spent two weeks wandering the neighborhood calling her name. Found her after three. Old Snuffles.
The siren deafening now. I run and a car pulls alongside and picks me up. My parents are inside, in formal wear. They won’t look at me. The doors lock. We’re driving and it’s stifling hot outside, but the heater is on and the windows are up, and the radio is loud but tuned to the garble between stations.
Mom where are we going
She doesn’t answer.
Dad why are we stopping here
Then we’re out, walking, and I can breathe again. Pretty green place. Smell of fresh-cut grass. People in black, gathered around a hole in the ground.
A coffin open on a dais. I peer inside. It’s empty but for an oily stain slowly spreading across the bottom. Blacking the white satin. Quick, close the lid! Black tar bubbles out from the cracks and grooves and drips down into the grass and sinks into the earth.
Jacob where are you say something
The headstone reads: ABRAHAM EZRA PORTMAN. And I’m tumbling into his open grave, darkness spinning up to swallow me, and I keep falling and it’s bottomless, and then I’m somewhere underground, alone and wandering through a thousand interconnecting tunnels, and I’m wandering and it’s cold, so cold I’m afraid my skin will freeze and my bones will splinter, and everywhere there are yellow eyes watching me from the dark.
I follow his voice. Yakob, come here. Don’t be afraid.
The tunnel angles upward and there’s light at the end, and standing at its mouth, calmly reading a book, is a young man. And he looks just like me, or almost like me, and maybe he is me, I think, but then he speaks, and it’s my grandfather’s voice. I have something to show you.
For a moment I jolted awake in the dark and knew I was dreaming, but I didn’t know where I was, only that I was not in bed anymore, not in the meeting hall with the others. I’d gone elsewhere and the room I was in was all black, with ice beneath me, my stomach writhing …
Jacob come here where are you
A voice from outside, down the hall—a real voice, not something from a dream.
And then I’m in the dream again, just outside the ropes of a boxing ring, and on the canvas, in the haze and lights, my grandfather faces off against a hollowgast.
They circle each other. My grandfather is young and nimble on his feet, stripped to the waist, a knife in one hand. The hollow is bent and twisted, its tongues waving in the air, open jaws dripping black on the mat. It whips out a tongue and my grandfather dodges it.
Don’t fight the pain, that’s the key, my grandfather says. It’s telling you something. Welcome it, let it speak to you. The pain says: Hello, I am not other than you; I am of the hollow, but I am you also.
The hollow whips at him again. My grandfather anticipates it, makes room in advance of the strike. Then the hollow strikes a third time, and my grandfather lashes out with his knife and the tip of the hollow’s black tongue falls to the mat, severed and jolting.
They are stupid creatures. Highly suggestible. Speak to them, Yakob. And my grandfather begins to speak, but not in English, nor Polish, nor any language I’ve heard outside my dreams. It’s like some guttural outgassing, the sounds made with something other than a throat or a mouth.
And the creature stops moving, merely swaying where it stands, seemingly hypnotized. Still speaking his frightening gibberish, my grandfather lowers his knife and creeps toward it. The closer he gets, the more docile the creature becomes, finally sinking down to the mat, on its knees. I think it’s about to close its eyes and go to sleep when suddenly the hollow breaks free of whatever spell my grandfather has cast over it, and it lashes out with all its tongues and impales my grandfather. As he falls, I leap over the ropes and run toward him, and the hollow slips away. My grandfather is on his back on the mat and I am kneeling by his side, my hand on his face, and he is whispering something to me, blood bubbling on his lips, so I bend closer to hear him. You are more than me, Yakob, he says. You are more than I ever was.
I can feel his heart slow. Hear it, somehow, until whole seconds elapse between beats. Then tens of seconds. And then …
Jacob where are you
I jolted awake again. Now there was light in the room. It was morning, just the blue beginning of it. I was kneeling on the ice in the half-filled room, and my hand wasn’t on my grandfather’s face but resting atop the trapped hollow’s skull, its slow, reptilian brain. Its eyes were open and looking at me, and I was looking right back. I see you.
“Jacob! What are you doing? I’ve been looking for you everywhere!”
It was Emma, frantic, out in the hall. “What are you doing?” she said again. She couldn’t see the hollow. Didn’t know it was there.
I took my hand away from its head, slid back from it. “I don’t know,” I said. “I think I was sleepwalking.”
“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Come quick—Miss Peregrine’s about to change!”
* * *
Crowded into the little room were all the children and all the freaks from the sideshow, pale and nervous, pressed against the walls and crouched on the floor in a wide berth around the two ymbrynes, like gamblers in a backroom cockfight. Emma and I slipped in among them and huddled in a corner, eyes glued to the unfolding spectacle. The room was a mess: the rocking chair where Miss Wren had sat all night with Miss Peregrine was toppled on its side, the table of vials and beakers pushed roughly against the wall. Althea stood on top of it clutching a net on a pole, ready to wield it.
In the middle of the floor were Miss Wren and Miss Peregrine. Miss Wren was on her knees, and she had Miss Peregrine pinned to the floorboards, her hands in thick falconing gloves, sweating and chanting in Old Peculiar, while Miss Peregrine squawked and flailed with her talons. But no matter how hard Miss Peregrine thrashed, Miss Wren wouldn’t let go.
At some point in the night, Miss Wren’s gentle massage had turned into something resembling an interspecies pro-wrestling match crossed with an exorcism. The bird half of Miss Peregrine had so thoroughly dominated her nature that it was refusing to be driven away without a fight. Both ymbrynes had sustained minor injuries: Miss Peregrine’s feathers were everywhere, and Miss Wren had a long, bloody scratch running down one side of her face. It was a disturbing sight, and many of the children looked on with openmouthed shock. Wild-eyed and savage, the bird Miss Wren was grinding into the floor was one we hardly recognized. It seemed incredible that a fully restored Miss Peregrine of old might result from this violent display, but Althea kept smiling at us and giving us encouraging nods as if to say, Almost there, just a little more floor-grinding!
For such a frail old lady, Miss Wren was giving Miss Peregrine a pretty good clobbering. But then the bird jabbed at Miss Wren with her beak and Miss Wren’s grasp slipped, and with a big flap of her wings Miss Peregrine nearly escaped from her hands. The children reacted with shouts and gasps. But Miss Wren was quick, and she leapt up and managed to catch Miss Peregrine by her hind leg and thump her down against the floorboards again, which made the children gasp even louder. We weren’t used to seeing our ymbryne treated like this, and Bronwyn actually had to stop Hugh from rushing into the fight to protect her.
Both ymbrynes seemed profoundly exhausted now, but Miss Peregrine more so; I could see her strength failing. Her human nature seemed to be winning out over her bird nature.
“Come on, Miss Wren!” Bronwyn cried.
“You can do it, Miss Wren!” called Horace. “Bring her back to us!”
“Please!” said Althea. “We require absolute silence.”
After a long time, Miss Peregrine quit struggling and lay on the ground with her wings splayed, gasping for air, feathered chest heaving. Miss Wren took her hands off the bird and sat back on her haunches.
“It’s about to happen,” she said, “and when it does, I don’t want any of you to rush over here grabbing at her. Your ymbryne will likely be very confused, and I want the first face she sees and voice she hears to be mine. I’ll need to explain to her what’s happened.” And then she clasped her hands to her chest and murmured, “Come back to us, Alma. Come on, sister. Come back to us.”
Althea stepped down from the table and picked up a sheet, which she unfolded and held up in front of Miss Peregrine to shield her from view. When ymbrynes turned from birds into humans, they were naked; this would give her some privacy.
We waited in breathless suspense while a succession of strange noises came from behind the sheet: an expulsion of air, a sound like someone clapping their hands once, sharply—and then Miss Wren jumped up and took a shaky step backward.
She looked frightened—her mouth was open, and so was Althea’s. And then Miss Wren said, “No, this can’t be,” and Althea stumbled, faint, letting the sheet drop. And there on the floor we saw a human form, but not a woman’s.
He was naked, curled into a ball, his back to us. He began to stir, and uncurl, and finally to stand.
“Is that Miss Peregrine?” said Olive. “She came out funny.”
Clearly, it was not. The person before us bore no resemblance whatsoever to Miss Peregrine. He was a stunted little man with knobby knees and a balding head and a nose like a used pencil eraser, and he was stark naked and slimed head to toe with sticky, translucent gel. While Miss Wren gaped at him and grasped for something to steady herself against, in shock and anger the others all began to shout, “Who are you? Who are you? What have you done with Miss Peregrine!”
Slowly, slowly, the man raised his hands to his face and rubbed his eyes. Then, for the first time, he opened them.
The pupils were blank and white.
I heard someone scream.
Then, very calmly, the man said, “My name is Caul. And you are all my prisoners now.”
* * *
“Prisoners!” said the folding man with a laugh. “What he mean, we are prisoners?”
Emma shouted at Miss Wren. “Where’s Miss Peregrine? Who’s this man, and what have you done with Miss Peregrine?”
Miss Wren seemed to have lost the ability to speak.
As our confusion turned to shock and anger, we barraged the little man with questions. He endured them with a slightly bored expression, standing at the center of the room with his hands folded demurely over his privates.
“If you’d actually permit me to speak, I’ll explain everything,” he said.
“Where is Miss Peregrine?!” Emma shouted again, trembling with rage.
“Don’t worry,” Caul said, “she’s safely in our custody. We kidnapped her days ago, on your island.”
“Then the bird we rescued from the submarine,” I said, “that was …”
“That was me,” Caul said.
