Hell's Hollow (13 page)

“What if using it kills
who you are?” she whispered.

“It won’t,” I promised.

“You can’t know that. “

And I knew I wasn’t going to win this one tonight. We were deadlocked. “Thanks for dinner,” I said, clearing my plate.

“Seraphina, you promise me you aren’t going to try anything.”

I went to the bathroom to take a shower.

“Seraphina!” She sounded frantic.

Somehow, I had to make her understand. If she knew about Zach maybe everything would be different. If I could make her believe me that he existed. First I had to convince him it was a good idea. I wouldn’t break his trust. I hoped he’d come down below later. We so needed to talk.

Chapter Twelve

“I asked Myra Clay to give me a job working for her around the house,” I told Zach that night.

“She’ll never do that,” he said. “She’d never let anyone in.”

“She must get deliveries sometimes.” I knew he was used to her restrictions. But we had to find some way to loosen them.

He focused on the chocolate croissant I’d brought him.

“Zach?”

“It’s no big deal,” he said. “She just … when she goes out, or when a repairman comes, she sorta locks me in.”

I gasped.

“It’s not as bad as it sounds. It’s just so no one finds out.”

Maybe my sensitivity was in overdrive, but I couldn’t swallow, couldn’t talk, couldn’t stand the thought of him locked up like a prisoner, not just in the house, but… “Where?” I asked.

He shrugged. “A small bedroom upstairs.”

“Your dad’s old room?”

He shook his head.

“Like a guest room?”

“Not exactly. And it’s not like I’m up there all the time. I used to think of it as my own little hideout. I’ve got my dad’s old weights up there now so I can exercise. I’m getting stronger.”

“Zach?”

“It’s just one level up from the bedrooms, that way I don’t have to worry as much about being heard.”

One level up from the bedrooms? There was no other level. Only… “She locks you in the attic?”

“Seriously. It sounds way creepier than it is. And I spend most of my time downstairs. It’s only at night and when she goes out.”

“She locks you in at night?”

“You’re making too big a deal of it. And besides, locked in or not, I find my way out. I’m just saying I don’t think it’s likely that she’d hire you, that’s all.”

“And if she did, it would mean more time locked up for you.” Now I hoped she wouldn’t hire me. This whole thing was so messed up. I wished I could fix it for him, fix something, anything in his messed up life.

“There’s something I need to do,” I said. “Something I want to try.” Talking to Luke had given me courage. And I was pretty sure I’d figured out what I’d done wrong
with the chipmunk — giving it too much of The Hollow’s energy for its little body.

“What is it?” Zach asked. And there was something about him, sitting there in The Hollow in the moonlight, that for a moment I thought I might want to kiss him. I pushed the thought away, knowing he could never feel the same about a freak like me.

“Come over here,” I said, as I moved to my spot beneath the sequoia.

“Sera,” he said, shaking his head. “You’re not supposed to.”

“You’re not supposed to be here, but you are. And I’m afraid that shutting out the healing might end up being the thing that actually makes me crazy. This could help me understand what the right thing to do is — to give in or not. You’d be doing me a favor. Please?”

He crept over to my side of The Hollow. “Are you sure?”

I nodded. “Are you scared?”

“No,” he said without hesitation.

“It won’t be like with the chipmunk. I know what I did wrong. He was so little. I should have only let a bit of The Hollow go into him. I didn’t remember I needed to control the amount.”

“I’m not afraid,” he said. “I’m only afraid of hurting you.”

My heartbeat sped up. “You can’t,” I replied. “Just sit here beside me and open to the energy I send into your body.”

“If it doesn’t work, don’t be disappointed,” he said, tugging at his jeans.

“It’s okay,” I said, thinking he was the one that was worried it wouldn’t work. “I’m nervous, too. We won’t know until we try.” It had been a long time since I’d healed a human. I imagined roots growing down from my body, intertwining with the roots of the sequoia for strength. “Okay,” I said, “here we go.”

Our eyes met. Heat pulsed between us. I put my hands on his knees
— they were solid, he was real. I dropped my shield. At once the power of The Hollow smashed into me along with the pain of Zach’s wounds.

The feeling of damage overwhelmed me. So much damage. The Hollow poured into the deadened, wounded areas. But it was as if they were so starved for healing they pulled me in along with them. And inside there, below the damage raged a raw, rancid pain
— as if his initial wounds had been reopened. They burned like nothing I’d ever imagined. It shocked me, like lightning strikes from within. I needed to pull away. It was too much. I couldn’t bear it. I was terrified I’d kill him. But I didn’t know how to pull back, how to make it stop. And there was this magnetism between us that held me to him. I couldn’t let go. I couldn’t breathe. I reared back, pulling The Hollow into myself. Zach’s pain was so huge, I couldn’t hold it. My head felt like it would split open. I lost all sense of my own body as I fell into the raging chasm.

When I came to Mom was screaming. My head pounded. My skin burned. I was on the front steps of the house. He must have carried me up here, because there was no way I could’ve done it myself. Oh, poor Zach, what I put him through, what he must have thought. At least if he’d managed to get me up here that meant I hadn’t killed him.

“Jesus, Seraphina! What happened? Why are you crumpled out here like this? Did someone hurt you?” Her pink bathrobe felt soft against my face, which burned.

It took all my effort to get words to come out of my throat. “I’m fine,” I lied. My head felt like it was under one of those pounding machines I’d seen at construction sites — crush, crush, crush. And the rest of me felt like it had been thrown from a horse and trampled. There was nothing left but a whisper.

“If you’re so fine, then get up,” she said.

I couldn’t, didn’t even have the strength to sit.

“I’m calling 911.”

“Mom, don’t,” I said. “I just need to rest.”

“What. Happened?”

I shook my head.

She tried to sit me up, but I couldn’t hold myself. “We’re going to the hospital.”

“No, not there!” I cried, using the last of my strength, before passing out again.

The next time I woke up, my clammy sheets wrapped around me. My dry throat felt like it had been laced with sandpaper. My skin felt sunburned. I forced my eyes open. Mom was sitting in the rocking chair that usually lived in her room.

I tried to talk, but my throat was too crackly. She handed me a glass of water with a straw from the bedside table. I slurped down the whole thing, then realized I probably shouldn’t have when I felt it rising back up.

“Anchor it with some food,” Mom said, handing me a couple of crackers.

The saltiness calmed my stomach. “Can you get me something for my headache?” I asked.

She drew a bottle of pills out of the pocket of her flower print dress.

“Prepared as always,” I said, trying to smile. She didn’t smile back. “Shouldn’t you be at work?” I asked.

“I didn’t open. It’s nearly dinnertime. You’ve been out all day.”

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered. Mom never ever closed the bakery unless one of us was desperately ill.

“I was going to take you to the hospital, but I worried the need there might have made matters worse. Old Dr. Gates came by. Do you remember her? She used to tend to Gran before she… before Meadowland. She understands about our… differences. She said your pulse and your breathing were okay. She said to give you until tonight. You had me worried sick. Now, you’re awake, you’re going to sit there and tell me what happened.”

I was hugely relieved that she hadn’t taken me to the hospital, couldn’t imagine what that would have felt like, surrounded by need at my weakest. Still, I couldn’t tell her what had actually happened. I had to think of something and fast.

“I’m serious, Seraphina. What happened?”

“Um, it’s hard to remember clearly,” I said.

“Don’t BS me. I’ve been a teen, I’ve raised three boys, I know when you’re lying.”

Damn.
I was going to have to confess to at least part of it. “I tried to heal … an animal… that was too … um, wounded,” I said. It was mostly the truth.

“I
knew
it was the healing. Now do you see why I can’t let you do that?” she said, pacing my small room. “At least now you’ve seen if for yourself. You won’t be tempted again. What kind of animal was it? We should probably take some precautionary measures.”

“No,” I said.

“No what?”

“No, I don’t see. If you’d let me learn to do it right when I was growing up, I would have known what to do, I would have been stronger. I could’ve helped him. My sensitivity has become
useless
. You should have let me learn so I’d know what I was doing.”

She looked like I’d slapped her in the face. “Him?” she asked.

Oops
. “
It
. I meant it.”

“I’m trying to keep you
sane
.”

“Gran said I should figure out how to use my sensitivity.”

“Gran said?
Gran
said?
Gran
is a crazy person!” She stood and leaned over me. “Is that how you want to end up? Is it?”

“No,” I whispered.

“Like MK then?”

I shook my head. “Is she any better?”

Mom looked away, collapsed back into her chair. “Gran says she’s never seen her like this. They can’t seem to medicate away the visions, which are completely freaking her out. Do you see what this thing can do to you? Tell me, what could be worth that?”

Zach
, was all I could think. But I couldn’t say it. And I didn’t believe her that healing was what would send me there.

“That’s what I thought,” she said to my silence. “No more Hollow.” And she walked out of my room.

I lay my head on the pillow, though the material irritated my skin. While I focused on trying to keep the crackers in my stomach and my head from exploding, I knew that what I needed more than anything was to go sit by my sequoia and let the power of The Hollow fill me up. I also knew there was no chance in hell of that happening. My mind drifted back to last night. I’d never felt anything so intense in my entire life.

I wondered what had happened after I’d passed out. Had Zach really managed to carry me up the hill, risked being caught? And what about the scars? Had I had any impact at all? Had I scared him? Did he think he’d hurt me? Would he tell Myra Clay about it?

She was my only option now, my only “in” to reaching him. Mom would be on super high alert for any sign of me trying to get down to The Hollow. But she’d probably approve of me focusing on a new job, helping out an elderly member of the community. And once I was spending time at Myra’s, I was bound to find a way to communicate with Zach. I couldn’t bear the thought of him locked up in the attic while I was there. But I couldn’t think of any other way to reach him.

Part of me wanted to go ahead and tell Mom about him. But would she even believe me? Would she risk going up against Myra Clay and possibly the town when I didn’t even have proof that Zach existed? They’d probably think I’d gone nuts like the rest of my family. And Myra would simply hide him someplace else. No, I had to wait, had to find the way to do it right, to be sure he would be freed and healed and safe. And then ano
ther thought nagged at me — what if he actually
wasn’t
real and the crazy had already taken hold?

Chapter Thirteen

Mom woke me before sunrise. “Get dressed. You’re coming to work with me today.”

I groaned. “Do I have to?”

“Yes. I want to keep an eye on you, and I can’t keep the bakery closed again.”

I rolled over, pulled the quilt closer around me. “I’ll be fine. I’ll stay in bed all day. I just want to rest.”

“When you can’t make good decisions for yourself, I have to make them for you. If one of the boys could have come home to watch you, I would’ve let you stay. But they’re all busy. And you’re not staying home alone. Bring a book. I won’t make you work the whole time.”

“
Mooooom,”
I moaned.

“Get moving, missy.”

I pulled on cut-off shorts I’d made from a pair of jeans that had once belonged to Luke, threw on my ratty Ben Harper t-shirt, slipped into my flip-flops and stumbled to the bathroom to wash up. My skin looked irritated, raw and red like the time I got sun poisoning.