Hell's Hollow (20 page)
We sat around the living room watching TV, something Mom hardly ever did. The glee of the last attempt at MK’s health was missing. We were all afraid to hope. I stared at the screen, while I tried to figure out how I was going to get out of there and get to Zach. It made me nervous that Mom wasn’t baking. I couldn’t remember a time when she’d been too upset or too worried to bake. It didn’t make sense. I kept catching her staring at MK. It would be days before we knew for sure if she was okay.
I thought about sneaking out at night, after they’d gone to bed, but Mom didn’t seem to sleep either. She stayed on the couch all night long. And I was afraid if she went into my room and found me gone, she’d really lose it. But I was terrified about what might be happening with Zach. And I was afraid to be in my room alone in case the girl in the mirror reappeared. So I stayed on the couch with Mom, making it seem like I was being supportive, when really I was just terrified.
In the morning, Mom was stressing over the checkbook.
“You could open,” I said. “We’ll be okay here.”
She shook her head.
“Then take us with you. MK can stay in your office.”
She looked at the checkbook, then back at me, then nodded slowly. I knew this was a big deal for her. It also meant I could go check on Zach.
She situated MK in her office with a stack of books and magazines and told me to watch her. MK was happy with the steady stream of sweets Mom also provided. She was beginning to seem less sedated. But her arm still twitched.
“How are you feeling?” I asked her, while she stuffed half an éclair into her mouth.
She nodded. “I think it’s going to be okay this time. I mean I don’t know. It felt okay last time — until it didn’t. But so far so good.”
“Seraphina!” Mom called, “Can you give me a hand?”
I came out and found the place packed. I guessed everyone had missed Mom’s baking while she was closed. Either that or they wanted the scoop on why a workaholic like her had been failing to open so much lately. I fell in beside her, covering the cash register until the rush died down.
“You really should invest in something more modern,” I said, pointing at the antique register.
“Believe it or not I paid more for that thing than I would’ve for the new ones. People like the look of a place that’s got some history. It’s comforting.”
MK came out and sat down at one of the little white tables with a book. “What?” she said, looking at Mom. “It’s cramped back there. That room is stifling. Too hot without the air conditioner, too cold with it.” It was true.
Mom nodded. MK sat quietly, reading and twitching.
A little while later, Mason McDowell and Sierra Guttierez came in to get donuts. I served them without saying anything. Mason kept pointing at MK when she twitched. They giggled.
“Who’s that?” Sierra asked me.
“My aunt,” I said. “Why?”
Mason giggled.
“No reason,” Sierra said. “Just wondered. I hadn’t seen her before. How’s your summer going?”
“Okay,” I shrugged.
Mason took the box of donuts and paid for it. As they were leaving he whispered, “That’s the one that went nuts. Dude, did you see the way she twitched? Twitchy
witch
.”
Mom put her hand on my arm. I shrugged it off. “Why don’t you take a break for a little while,” she said. “Get some fresh air.”
I had my chance. I went. I didn’t even bother knocking on the door first. I just ran straight to Myra’s backyard, climbed the trellis, and opened the window.
He was moaning softly.
“Zach?” I said.
He got quiet.
I pulled the shades open to let in some light. He looked awful, his bandages all oozy and gross. What looked like a rabbit skin blanket covered his lower half. It made images of all the diseases Mom had warned me about pop into my mind.
“You should go,” he said. “She’ll be up to check on me soon.”
I shook my head. “Listen to me. I can fix this.” My heartbeat felt as though it had forgotten its rhythm. “You have to come down to The Hollow as soon as you’re feeling well enough. We have to try one more time.”
He shook his head. “She’s taking me back to the hospital tomorrow.”
His tug felt awful — nauseating and aching and burning. It felt hard to breathe. “Then you have to get down there tonight.” I wasn’t sure how I’d get away, but I’d have to find a way.
He looked as though he were sad for me. “I can’t. Not like this. I won’t be able to get down the trellis.”
“I’ll carry you if I have to.”
He half-smiled, which ripped a hole in my heart.
“How did you always get from the attic window down to the landing? I can’t figure it out.”
“A rope … tied to the chimney… lots of knots. Let it down to sneak out. Hid it again after.”
“Well, that’s not going to help us. But, I’m serious, Zach. We have to find a way.” I looked around the room, trying to come up with a plan. My eyes settled on the door. “Okay, here’s what you’re going to do. She’s not locking you in any more. So you’re going to wait until she’s asleep, and then you’re going to walk right out the front door. And you’re going to go to The Hollow. It’s either that or I’ll come up here and get you myself.”
“No,” he said. “She can’t know that you know. I’ll … I’ll get down there. I’ll try.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I’ll fix it. I promise.”
“You better go,” he said.
“Promise me you’ll be there tonight.”
He nodded. I sent out a silent prayer of thanks that I hadn’t had the chance to tell him about the black cat or the creepy girl in the mirror. If he knew what it might cost me, he would never have agreed to come.
I climbed out the window and down the trellis, closing my eyes against the black cat, ignoring the sounds of its hissing. I ran up the street toward the bakery.
George McGraw was heading in. “Hey there. You heard the latest rumors?”
I shook my head, hoping it wasn’t anything about MK or me.
“Word has it Myra Clay’s ghost has been moaning in the night, woooo,” he said in a scary voice.
I wanted to die right there. Neighbors must’ve heard him whimpering. The fact that Myra Clay could still play along with this game, when he was suffering, made me want to kill her. An image popped into my head of me standing at her door. In my hand I held the giant sickle-type knife Mom used to chop shortbread. I shook my head to clear the image and followed George into the bakery.
“What, you’re too big now? You used to love those stories,” he said, punching my shoulder.
It made me sick that Zach’s suffering had once provided entertainment for me.
Astrid was sitting at the table with MK, the two of them chatting like old friends. They looked up when we walked in.
“Doesn’t look like the fresh air helped much,” Astrid said.
MK waved me over and I collapsed in the chair beside her. She stroked my hair. Astrid came around and started doing her aura-cleansing thing. I looked up when I heard the chimes over the door. Mason McDowell stood there, staring at us. He looked creeped out.
“You … gave me the wrong change,” he said. “I handed you a twenty. You gave me change for a ten.” He looked like he didn’t want to come in.
I had no idea if it was true. But I needed him out of there, needed to not see his eyes calling us freaks. I went to the register, grabbed a ten and brought it to him at the door. He took one more look at Astrid and MK, and then took off.
The image of me with the sickle popped into my head again. This time the knife was bloody and Mason’s body was on the ground in front of me. I shuddered.
It was just a thought,
I told myself.
It isn’t real.
Myra Clay walked by, heading toward the mini-market. I stepped outside. She stopped, stared at me. Neither of us said a word. Then she continued on her way. I wondered how much she knew about me, and if she knew that I knew about Zach.
I helped Mom clean and close, and then we drove home. MK’d had a quiet day. She twitched less and less often.
“No dinner for me tonight,” she said in the car. “I don’t think I’ve eaten that much sugar since … probably since your tenth birthday, B. Do you remember?”
From the back seat, I could see the edge of Mom’s smile. “I remember,” she said.
MK turned to me. “Your mom wanted a chocolate cake and Gran didn’t know the first thing about baking. I guess she got tired of your mom whining about it, so she drove into Sonora and bought every chocolate cake she could get her hands on. There must have been dozens! She piled them on the dining room table in a huff, then stormed off to her room.” MK laughed. “I think your mom and I ate half of them right there on the spot. I guess we were afraid Gran would come out and take them away if we waited.”
“I felt awful,” Mom said. “What a stomachache.”
“It was weeks before I wanted anything sweet again,” MK said.
Mom took her hand.
“Why do you call her B?” I asked.
“We used to call her that when she was little,” MK said. “Clarabelle seemed too big a name for such a little baby. First Clarabelle got shortened to Clara B, then just B.”
I wondered what it had been like when MK was well enough to be the big sister, how hard it must have been for Mom to switch roles when MK got sick.
Dr. Gates came by in the evening. She watched me more than she did MK. Then she took Mom into the kitchen and whispered with her. They had to be plotting about taking me to Meadowland. They knew I wouldn’t go easily.
When MK went to bed early, Mom settled on the couch. I sat beside her. “You can go to bed,” I said. “She’ll be okay.” I was trying hard to remember why I needed
Mom to go. It had something to do with outside, but when I tried to focus on it, it was like there was fog in my brain, obscuring the details.
“How are you doing with all of this?” she asked.
The cat flung itself at the window. I hoped it couldn’t get through. “Fine.”
“Maybe you were right all along,” she said. “Maybe there’s hope yet for this healing of yours. Maybe you’ll be the one to break the chain.”
I nodded, while the cat tried to break the window with its head.
What chain was I supposed to break?
I hoped the fog would clear before I had to break it.
I must have fallen asleep on the couch. I woke to the worst Zach tug I’d ever felt. The piercing pain of it focused my mind. Mom slept on the other end of the couch. How was I going to get out the creaky door without waking her? It seemed safer to sneak out my bedroom window. But that wo
uld require me going in there — with the mirror.
For Zach, I crept into my room. I didn’t look in her direction. I held my breath.
“Better take that knife with you,” the girl said. I looked. She had it in her hand and she was hacking at the mirror from inside it. I wasn’t about to wait around to see if she managed to break it.
I shoved open my window and dove outside, where the cat was hissing at me, rearing up. I ran as fast as I could down the hill and around the boulders and through the trail to get to Zach.
He lay on his back in the center of The Hollow.
“You made it,” I said.
He sat up slowly, moving his body stiffly. “I needed to see you. In case I can’t come back … for a while. I wanted you to know… it’s meant a lot to me, meeting you here. I’ll miss it … you.” His pale skin looked green in the shimmery moonlight.
Here in The Hollow, his tug felt even stronger. I wasn’t sure I had the strength to do what had to be done. Nausea overwhelmed me. I sat by my sequoia, tried to steady my breathing.
The cat followed me, its hissing distracting.
“What’s there?” Zach asked, following my gaze, looking right at the cat.
“You see it?” I asked, elated.
“See what?” he replied.
I needed to act fast. There was no telling when the fog would obscure my thoughts again, when the hallucinations would demand attention.
“I healed my aunt,” I said.
“You did?” he asked, his face, though pained, lit up.
I sniffled. “Yeah, she’s not crazy anymore. She’s up at the house right now, sleeping in her old room.”
“Sera, that’s awesome. It worked.” He flinched at the movement of his body.
I nodded.
“And nothing happened to you? All that stuff your mom warned you about?” He struggled to arrange his limbs in a position he could tolerate.
I hated lying to him. But I had no choice. “Nothing,” I managed to say. “So let’s get this cleared up so your grandmother won’t have to take you to the hospital.”
“It might be different with me.” He shifted uncomfortably. “What if you pass out like last time? I won’t be able to carry you.”
“I won’t. I know how to do it now. Like I told you before, I just needed more practice.”