Read Hollow by Caroline Peckham Chapter 15 –
Bitterness coated my tongue as Hendrix manhandled me back to the castle, and it didn’t sweeten as night fell and I once again found myself trapped in his company.
“You’re even more useful than I thought you’d be, lightwing,” he drawled in what was clearly an attempt to bait me into a fight, the pair of amulets he’d stolen from me clinking together around his neck.
Furious didn’t come close to how I felt as I scowled at the matching amulets, one carved with the figure of the Bear, the other of the Fox. He hadn’t deserved either prize, though the way he was acting told me we didn’t agree on that. He clearly believed that stealing one from the corpse of my friend and snatching the other from between my outstretched fingers wasn’t a problem at all. The Fox had been mine. It had been drawn by the fire I’d lit and had only been captured by that dull-witted brute because it had paused to regard me when my trap was sprung.
I hated him. Him and his whole fucking realm full of Fae. He was right to question whether I might use the boon to rid myself of the lot of them because in that moment, I felt like it wasn’t such a bad idea. But I had a far more important use for the boon, one which I couldn’t allow myself to take my focus from.
I ripped my arm out of his grasp and strode away into the luxurious castle, heading for the kitchens where I planned on claiming my own meal. I had no appetite for sharing a place at his table and the sight of his smug face, for even a moment longer would certainly make me hurl.
“You did well, beastie,” he called after me, clearly still hoping for a fight, but I wasn’t going to play his game. “The perfect tidbit for a hungry spirit. And you even managed to return here with all of your limbs – aren’t you going to thank me for keeping you alive out there?”
My blood boiled and I stalled for all of half a second, meaning to turn and embark on the war of words he was hoping for, but that was just it; he wanted my ire, my wrath, my fury. It amused him. So he wasn’t going to get it.
“Your company is so dull I fear I might fall asleep should I remain within it a moment longer,” I called over my shoulder dismissively. “So I plan on removing myself from it lest I end up sleeping right here on the floor.”
“And I suppose you think yourself to be a riveting conversationalist, far above conversing with the likes of a Fae who is over six-hundred years your senior?” he called, but I’d already made it to the kitchen door and even his diabolical claim at longevity wouldn’t rouse a reaction from me. “You know, if I wanted to, I could have you-”
I let the door thump shut between us and thankfully missed whatever audacious statement he’d been so keen on making. I knew he wouldn’t leave it at that though, so I grabbed a broom from the closet beside the door and wedged it beneath the handle to slow his pursuit. He was like a dog with a bone when it came to harassing me and I wondered whether he was truly so desperate to infuriate me or if he was simply so oafish that it had been a long time since anyone else had deigned to endure his company.
Either way, I wasn’t inclined to become his new confidant or plaything. I was going to get away from him whatever it took.
I grabbed a picnic hamper from beneath the large kitchen table and hurried to start filling it with all manner of delicious food and drinks from the pantry, making my very own feast which I planned to enjoy in solitude. I couldn’t fathom the powerful magic which had been used to preserve this place and the food within it in such a perfect state but I certainly wouldn’t have minded having the ability myself. Either way, I was going to take full advantage of its use.
The door rattled as Hendrix reached it, his muttered confusion only offering me brief satisfaction. I doubted a broom would waylay him for long.
I grabbed my supplies and hurried across the huge room, heading for the door I’d spied in the corner there and pulling it wide with hope blossoming in my chest. A second staircase greeted me, this one narrower and darker than the grand thing in the heart of the house, likely meant for servants and certainly welcome for use by me.
I closed the door at my back and hurried to ascend the stairs in the dark just as the sound of a broomstick shattering and a door banging open against a wall caught up to me.
“Playing hide and seek?” Hendrix taunted, back on the hunt for me, but I ignored him, climbing higher and higher in the dark until I found another door which let me out onto the second floor.
There were countless doors on either side of the corridor I emerged in but I hurried past all of them, ignoring the stares of the Fae woven into tapestries and brought to life in oil paints. The corridor veered sharply right and I selected the second door I came to, slipping through it while working to ignore the sound of Hendrix flinging doors open deeper in the house.
This place was huge. With a bit of luck I could at least avoid him long enough to eat. With a lot of luck I could stay clear of him until the sun rose again and I took my next chance at escaping.
I hurried further into the room, unable to make out much more than shifting shadows in the gloom.
The brush of a silken leaf slipped across my cheek in the darkness and I stilled, my heart lurching. I wondered if I’d somehow made it outside or found my way into a room that had been breached by the trees.
I reached up to knock the fronds aside and my fingers grazed against more of them. But there was no wind here, no chill from between wide trunks or rustle of small critters in the foliage.
I could still hear Hendrix hunting for me and perhaps it was madness but I pressed on, eager to avoid him.
More leaves brushed against my arms, my face, tangling in my hair and tugging at my cape. The scent of earth and dampness surrounded me and my fear over the forest spiked again until I stumbled out into a small space where the room widened and silvery light pooled down from the roof to surround me.
My lips parted as I peered up at the glass structure which loomed over my head, moonlight illuminating a grand conservatory abundant with beautiful plants and luscious blooms. They flowed into every spare inch of space, flourishing with life and vitality.
I was standing upon a wide balcony, wrought iron staircases descending into the conservatory on both my right and left, this monstrously huge addition to the palace spanning all four of its floors and extending out into the gardens to the rear of the building.
I almost began to question how they had survived in here without anyone to care for them but I could hear a low trickle of water, and as I stepped up to the edge of a balcony, I spied a beautiful pond at the heart of the room, small rivulets running from it in every direction.
This place didn’t need anyone to care for it. It was an oasis all of its own. And the magic which preserved everything in the castle had clearly helped it thrive.
My feet chose their own path as I descended the stairs, slipping beneath overhanging branches with orange flowers bigger than my head. There were paths between the fauna, little gravel tracks which I could just about navigate by stepping over or around the occupants of this miniature nirvana.
I didn’t follow any particular path but I ended up standing before a wooden hut which was hidden beneath a swathe of leaves so big they could have been bathing tubs. There were a pair of chairs nestled inside with cosy blankets draped over them and a firepit waiting expectantly between them.
I dropped into one of them with a sigh, lifting my picnic basket onto my lap and taking out the first piece of my feast. The vegetable pie was creamy and delicious, the tomatoes bursting against my tongue and making me groan. I was used to plain, hearty fare and though we’d never been at the point of starvation, I was more than accustomed to difficult winters with monotonous simplicity on the menu. The kind of food the Fae had left behind made me certain they’d never faced that type of hardship, which only made me hate them more.
I devoured another slice of the pie, then a third, grinning while I ate because there hadn’t been another and I knew Hendrix would get none. Then I settled back and took the sweet pastries from my hoard. One filled with blackberry and apple, the second with strawberries and cream, and the last smelled of the finest chocolate.
But before I could lift any of them to my lips, something hard dug into my side from a gap between the cushions of my seat. I leaned to the left, rooting around for whatever was ruining my moment of petty victory before finally pulling a small diary free.
I frowned as I looked at the pale grey book, the journal loosely bound and nowhere near as fine as the rest of the items I’d seen in this house. In fact, if I were to guess, I would have to say that it looked distinctly… human.
I released my hold on the pastries, letting them tumble back into my hamper before carefully opening the book to discover its secrets.
A small chill ran down my spine as I cracked the pages open. I’d always loved that feeling, the moment of delving into a new world, mysteries whispering their way out of the ink for me to consume.
The book fell open on a page a little more than half way through, the spine bending there as if it had been waiting for my arrival. I frowned at the handwriting, finding something comfortingly familiar about it as I began to read.
Day thirty-seven.
I heard singing in the trees again. The Lost Children are hunting me, there is no denying it now. They don’t wait for nightfall any longer but start creeping through the shadows in my wake for at least an hour before dusk.
I don’t think they wish to harm me, but they want to lead me somewhere and I’m uncertain how many more times I’ll be able to resist their calls.
I realise now that I should have spent time finding the other Champions. What point is there to us all trying to gather the amulets alone – how are we supposed to know when all thirteen have been found??
The Unicorn and Rat amulets no longer feel like accomplishments where they hang around my neck but rather burdens to bear. Time slips by and the only other spirit whose location I know of is impossible to capture. That monstrous beast will not be tamed by me, I know it now. Perhaps it would take an army to vanquish such a being. And perhaps that means I must leave this place to find one. I am not sure there has ever been a creature more powerful in this world. Even the Fae tremble at the mention of it.
I cannot be the only Champion still living. I no longer covet the boon. What good will my unfulfilled wishes do me when we run out of time and the forest consumes me? So I plan to set out and find whoever else still lives within these cursed trees, though it pains me to abandon this sanctuary I found. But what other choice do I have?
I can only hope that the rest of the spirits have been captured by now, and if all the Champions unite, we may yet claim the final beast and break this curse together.
But my hope for that is dwindling, hence my abandonment of this journal. Herein I have documented all I’ve learned during my tortuous weeks in this cursed place. I cannot say I am glad I came. The prestige and renown I’d so coveted when coming here has lost its shine. I do not wish to break this curse so that I might be hailed as a hero for the rest of my days and beloved by all people any longer. Those were the wants of a foolish woman, convinced of her own self-importance. I am now simply a being who wishes to survive this place but fears I will not.
The map may guide you, though I wouldn’t trust it fully – these trees are no mere lumber awaiting the axe but living, feeling spectres with minds of their own and no spirits to rein in their malignant intents.
I have noted all I’ve found and all I suspect as well. I compete in the eighth Great Hunt. I hope on all I am that it is the last and my plan to unite with the other Champions works. If not, then I pass my hopes to whoever finds this journal and offer you my wishes that your hunt is more fruitful than my own.
A shiver ran through me which had nothing to do with the cold and everything to do with the author of this journal. I was currently taking part in the thirteenth Great Hunt. Her plan had failed and she’d been claimed by this place.
I’d been so caught up in my reasons for needing to join the hunt that I supposed I’d never given enough thought to how hopeless a venture this had been for so many before me. People who had trained their entire lives for this challenge had succumbed to it time and again, human and Fae alike.
The forest was the only victor in this game, yet still we kept playing. Still I’d chosen to play.
And as my thoughts slipped to my reasons for doing so, I knew I wouldn’t have ever made a different choice.
A note of melancholy song started up in the distance, a feminine voice which made the hairs raise along the back of my neck and my heart jolt to attention. I sat up in my chair, seeking out a window between the tangled vines and flowers filling the conservatory.
There was a flicker of something pale as it darted between the trees and I was on my feet.
I ran between the wildness of the plants, my boots splashing into one of the small streams and sending spray up around me as I raced toward that tiny offering of a clue.
“Rissa?” I called, my voice loud and echoing, but I didn’t care.
I slapped large leaves out of my way and ran until I finally came upon the towering pane of glass which divided me from the forest beyond.
There was a door to my right, a key in the lock, a finger beckoning me closer as if to make it all too easy for me to step out there. I reached for the key, heart pounding as I scoured the trees for what I thought I’d seen, my ears straining for another note of song.
Nothing.
The trees bowed and bent in a wind that seemed intent on changing direction over and over, creating a dance with the leaves which had been torn free from the canopy above.
I almost turned the key. Almost stepped out into the dark. But there was something in my hand already, something warmed by my touch and grounding in a way I’d always found so very reassuring.
I glanced down at the book I still clutched in my fingers and stepped away from the door. It was madness to go out there at night. I hadn’t seen what I’d thought I’d seen, hadn’t heard it either. And even if I had, I couldn’t risk the trees at night. I knew that.
“Rissa?” I called again, my hope fading, that old ache rising to consume me. Was she here? Were my hopes weighted in anything real at all? If I failed in this task, then everything I had dedicated my life to would come to nothing, the fear and grief I had exposed my parents to when coming here would be nothing more than a cruel and callous act.
Tears burned the backs of my eyes and my breaths came unsteadily.
“I’m here,” I told her. Or told no one. Perhaps I was chasing a ghost which had no desire to be found.
I took another step back, forcing myself to ignore the call of the forest, and dropped down in defeat to sit beneath a leafy canopy of wisteria, the purple blooms perfuming the air and drawing me back from the madness which had almost consumed me.
I leafed through the pages of the journal, flipping back through the book past the neatly written words penned there by an author long since dead and lost to time two hundred and fifty years ago.
Finally, I made it to the front of the book where a sheaf of parchment fell free into my lap.
I took hold of it, my fingers trembling lightly as I unfolded it, like I could already tell that it was important.
I bit down on my bottom lip as I took in the map which had been drawn there, the detail and talent which went with it putting my own rough sketches to shame, though I found some similarities to my own work in it. There was the well I’d almost fallen into when encountering the Raven and there, just to the north of it, a dell had been marked with a little image of a midnight black bird upon it.
My breath caught as I took in its implication and my eyes darted over the rest of the map, drinking in the details. There were notes, questioning and dismissing the locations of the various spirits, making it clear that the author of the journal hadn’t been certain of many of their locations but had made guesses based on what she’d gleaned from other Champions or had witnessed herself.
I noted the positions of both the Unicorn and the Rat, knowing that she had captured those spirits. If there was any truth to her theory that they had secured their own dominions within these cursed trees and that they haunted specific places then I would need to head there. She didn’t have all of the spirits marked but her guess for the Raven made my pulse quicken because it aligned with my own experience too perfectly to be a coincidence.
And there… the Fox was marked in a position to the west of this castle too. My heart pounded faster in my chest, hope a spark that built and burned more brightly with each aspect I took in.
I scoured the page, drinking in every detail. This could be it. Precisely what I needed to be able to win the boon and do what I’d come here for.
As I hunted the neatly drawn lines and worked to commit it all to memory, my eyes snagged on an image above a network of caves to the north of the castle we were in, showing a reptilian beast with gleaming eyes and scales that shone silvery even in the tiny sketch.
The Dragon.
“Ferris.” Hendrix took his time over my name, the deep baritone of his voice making each letter rumble like a new secret to be discovered.
I flinched, folding the map hastily and shoving it back into the journal before pushing both beneath my crossed legs and glaring up at him.
“Oh good, you found me,” I deadpanned, everything in my expression urging him to get lost again, but he simply shrouded me in his shadow, a scowl descending over his features.
“If you were so keen to play prey for me you could have at least hidden yourself better.”
“The only thing I’m determined to do where you’re concerned is leave,” I muttered.
Hendrix smiled that predatory grin which he favoured so often, bending low until his face was level with mine and I was utterly drowned within his dominant aura. I wasn’t afraid. Not because he wasn’t terrifying but because it was so painfully obvious that he could kill me whenever he wanted to. Fear seemed utterly pointless in his company. Fight or flight would get me nowhere. I doubted it would so much as delay the inevitable. So I gave him neither and awaited my chance to slip away from him.
“You played a better role than I gave you credit for today,” he said, goading me, and I couldn’t help but drop my gaze to the twin amulets which hung around his neck, the pair of them dangling before me as if daring me to snatch them. Not that it would do me any good to do so.
I pursed my lips, leaning closer to him, refusing to recoil.
“And you played yours so predictably,” I said. “The Fae always were treacherous, scheming creatures, willing to connive and steal whatever they couldn’t claim with honour or dignity.”
“I suppose the humans are rife with honour and dignity then? As we are so despicable to you, you must have grown up in quite the paradise where all are treated so well and so fairly.”
My silence answered him on that and he snorted derisively. “Are you going to make me take it?”
I stiffened. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“You don’t know what I mean?” he parroted, leaning lower, his rough fingers brushing the outside of my thigh and making my skin burn beneath my trousers. He lifted my leg with the back of his hand, tugging the journal free, and I had to force myself not to snatch it away from him again.
“That’s mine.”
“Liar.”
“I found it and the original owner is dead. Same difference.”
“Then I took it, so I suppose its ownership has changed hands once more. Didn’t you say that my kind are all thieves and scoundrels anyway? Please, dear Ferris, let me play the villain you so keenly paint me out to be.”
“You clearly paint yourself as such,” I sneered. “And your people did too.” My eyes flicked to the tattoo which curved around his eye.
He snatched my chin into his grasp and forced my eyes to meet his again, the green so dark it appeared black in this light. “If you had an ounce of real understanding about this mark I carry, you wouldn’t be scowling at it, lightwing. You’d be screaming and running out into the night, begging the trees to claim you before I do.”
“I thought you’d already claimed me,” I replied, though his words sent a chill to my core and made a thousand questions blossom on my tongue. But I knew he wouldn’t answer any of them. He only ever spoke about who he was in riddles and lies.
Hendrix chuckled, straightening suddenly and releasing my chin from his grasp. His fingerprints left a burning impression on my flesh where they’d departed and the coldness of the room crept closer in their absence.
“You’d know if I had.” He fell silent as he opened the journal and I bit down on the inside of my cheek to stop myself from demanding it back. “These are just the ramblings of some poor bastard who failed to do what I will succeed at. What use is it to you?”
“Perhaps I can learn from her mistakes,” I said, wondering if my Fae captor might just lose interest in my discovery before realising what a great treasure it had the potential to be.
Hendrix scoffed dismissively, snapping the journal shut before tossing it back to me.
“Come. I’ll not have you wandering the corridors like a mouse scurrying between the walls. You’ll join me for dinner willingly or I’ll tie you in place again. Perhaps you have a taste for that treatment now?”
“Fine.” I pushed to my feet, slipping the journal into my pocket before he could think any more of it.
I’d play his games for now. But soon, I’d find a way free of them and the moment I could, I’d disappear into the forest once more.
