Read Hollow by Caroline Peckham Chapter 25 – Day seventeen.
Dusk creeps up on me each day with reckless cunning. I’m certain the trees are working together to try and lure me out into the night. When I sleep, I’m haunted by the songs of the Lost Children. I wasn’t certain what it was at first, but as I sat by the window of the tower I took shelter in tonight, the truth struck me.
Out there, roaming the woods beneath the cover of darkness, is a legion of children who wish for me to join them in the dark. I’ve come to believe that the children who were stolen by the cursed forest during the blood moon Offerings are those same creatures who now steal between the trees in the dark. But I’m not convinced they are still those same, innocent beings they once were.
This place is rife with corruption. My heart breaks as I listen to the cries of those who were stolen from their parents and brought to this cursed place, but I cannot do anything to help them, no matter how much I might wish to.
Their songs lull me towards sleep as I write this. I only hope I don’t find myself walking the woods in the dark when I wake.
“Again with the diary?” Hendrix drawled.
I pursed my lips, closing it as I looked at him. We’d had little to show for the days we’d spent hunting the Boar and his mood had darkened with each passing day, leaving him prickly and searching for a fight.
I wasn’t planning on giving him one.
“Go to sleep,” I told him.
We were still taking shelter in the tiny grain store, his huge body sprawled across my bedroll while I sat propped against stacks of grain, reading by the light of the Fox’s fire.
We’d dined on berries, nuts and a thin soup made from nettles and mushrooms. It hadn’t been nearly enough to sate my rumbling stomach, so I imagined he was faring far worse.
“If I try to sleep now, you will only disturb me when you come clambering into my bed at some unspiritual hour. I need you to join me now if I’m to have any hope of actual rest.”
“You’re forgetting something,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“That you’re the one who has come clambering into my bed. I’m the only one of us who had the foresight to keep my pack close at hand at all times and-”
“Excuse me for not expecting you to topple an entire castle with your atrocious attempts at Summoning,” he taunted, and I almost gave in, almost bit back, almost rose to the bait.
“The Fae is a brute with no finesse or true understanding of what we are,” the Dragon spoke in my mind, and I jumped in surprise.
I’d tried reaching out to the spirit countless times over the last few days, running my fingers across the carved amulet at my throat. I’d willed it to speak with me, to offer me some guidance in Summoning or even in what we needed to be focusing on now, but until this moment, the spirit had been stoic in its ignoring of me.
I hadn’t dared try to call it forth again, and even Hendrix had agreed it was better I didn’t until we found somewhere more secure to base ourselves at night.
“What does that mean?” I breathed.
“In what way was I unclear?” Hendrix scoffed. “If everyone was as bad at Summon-”
“Shh.” I pushed forward on my knees and pressed my palm over Hendrix’s mouth to shut him up.
The Dragon laughed in the corners of my mind. “Perhaps you should toss him out into the dark and see if the forest likes the taste of him?”
“I would, but I fear I can’t haul his dead weight through the door.”
“You could always ask for help.”
A laugh fell from my lips just as Hendrix knocked my hand from his mouth with a growl.
“Have you lost your mind, lightwing?” he asked.
“I wasn’t talking to you.”
“I suppose your imaginary friends are more interesting than me then, are they?” he scoffed.
“I was conversing with my Dragon, if you must know.”
“Your Dragon?” Hendrix gave me a flat look which did nothing to disguise his scepticism.
“The Bear and Fox still don’t talk to you?” I asked.
“They’re animals. Of course they don’t.”
“They’re spirits,” I corrected. “So why would it be the least bit surprising that they can talk?”
Hendrix huffed irritably. “Nevertheless, I do not converse with the spirits I have captured, and if you wish to gain true control over the beast at your command, perhaps you shouldn’t waste time on idle chatter with it either. Tomorrow we will find an open spot for you to practice Summoning it once more.”
“You think that’s wise?” I questioned, unable to banish the memories of the Dragon destroying our castle all too easily.
“I think it’s necessary,” Hendrix replied. “As is sleep.” He indicated the spot beside him, and I tried not to look bothered by the idea of curling up in his arms once more as I gave in and moved into it.
Hendrix watched me the entire time, but I busied myself with getting comfortable and refused to return his stare.
Once I’d settled into the space to the right of the bed roll on my side, Hendrix lowered himself down beside me, draping his muscular arm around my middle and hauling me into the curve of his body.
I stilled.
He’d done the same thing each night, pulling me so close that our breaths fell into sync with one another, offering me his bicep as a pillow, his own head nestled against mine, his mouth a breath away from my neck. Each of his exhales roused gooseflesh across my skin.
But this night, his hand did not hang loose and still around my middle. This night, his fingers brushed against the skin at the top of my waistband.
I swallowed, shifting against him and receiving a low growl for the movement.
“I’ve warned you not to squirm,” he said.
A defiant, insane, utterly foreign piece of my soul ached to test him on that threat. What would the warrior Fae do to the human woman who dared to press her body back against his? What would he do if she were to arch her spine or tilt her head so that his lips met with the skin of her neck instead of simply teasing her with the possibility that they might do so?
His fingers brushed across the top of my waistband again, his skin rough in the best possible way.
Truly, I hated him. Even more so for getting so close, for making a traitor of my flesh. One moment I felt like he was toying with me, but the next it seemed more like he was torturing himself, holding his body in check, keeping himself restrained.
What would he be like if he allowed himself to unleash fully?
“Hendrix…” I began, uncertain of my question, only that I wanted to ask it.
“Ferris,” he replied, my name a rough demand, or perhaps a ragged plea.
I counted to ten, meaning to use that time to talk myself out of this madness but when I reached zero at last, my hand came down over his and I turned my face so that I could meet his eyes.
His pupils were wide and hungry as he drank me in, his dark hair casting a shadow around his features in the dim glow of the Fox’s fire.
I flattened his fingers against my stomach, stopping their motion along my waistband.
He arched a brow, his arm tensing as he made to withdraw it, but I held him tightly and instead, shifted it lower. My fingers guided his beneath the edge of my trousers, my gaze never moving from the solid green of his as our combined hands made it to the top of my undergarments.
“I could destroy you so easily,” he breathed, and I wasn’t sure if it was meant as a warning or a promise, but my eyes fell to the movement of his lips as he uttered the words.
“You’re wrong,” I replied, because it wasn’t destruction I found in his gaze, it was freedom, a wild and furious kind of freedom which would likely tear me apart should I dare to steal a taste of it. But I wanted to all the same.
His eyes spilled from mine to his hand, his fingers flexing beneath mine, the fabric of my trousers tightening around them, bunching against my core.
I gasped at the friction, heat blossoming between my thighs.
He was all the things I shouldn’t want, but the only thing I could think of was how desperately I needed him to move his damn hand lower.
Still he hesitated, so I took him up on his promise. I arched my spine, my ass pressing back against his cock and a groan of pure need escaping me as I felt how hard he was.
Hendrix cursed, tugging me against him firmly, his fingers slipping beneath the very top of my undergarments, the full, huge length of his cock driving against my ass.
I almost begged him for more, almost pushed his hand lower just to relieve the ache between my thighs, to sate the need which was making my breath catch and entire body thrum with want.
Hendrix bit down on his lip, his eyes on my mouth, his muscles corded with tension as he fought to hold back. But he was going to shatter. I could see it in his eyes and despite everything that hung between us, the salt in so many wounds, the chasm of hatred between our people, I wanted him to break.
His head dipped at last and I tipped my chin up, unable to deny how the words he’d spoken about needing to taste me had lingered in my mind, running circles through my thoughts. I wanted to know the taste of him too. And here in the dark, I didn’t want to deny it.
A loud bang on the door made us flinch apart, the hammering strike of a fist on wood coming in quick succession.
“Who-” I began, but Hendrix pressed his hand to my mouth to silence me, his eyes dark with warning.
“Ferris?” a voice called from beyond the door. A voice I knew better than my own name.
My eyes widened and I tried to lurch upright, but Hendrix still had hold of me and he yanked me back into his arms.
I shoved his hand away from my mouth.
“That’s Rissa,” I hissed, my pulse thundering wildly as my sister called for me again from beyond the door.
“That’s not your sister,” Hendrix growled, fighting to keep hold of me as I struggled to stand. “That’s a lost child – even if it used to be her, the magic of this place has made her into something else. You’ve heard them calling before. You know they wish to lure us out into the dark.”
Footsteps raced away from the door, soft laughter fading as Rissa ran from us and tears pricked the backs of my eyes.
Hendrix didn’t release me until I sagged in his hold, defeat weighing me down against the bedroll, all other thoughts or schemes of insanity long since fled.
In the trees beyond our hiding place, a song started up, the sweet call of children playing in the forest, their words lost in the lilting melody.
She was out there. I’d already come to realise that the only chance I had of finding her in this place was by venturing into the dark. The only hints I’d gotten of her came at night.
“Afraid of the dark, human?” the Dragon rumbled in the back of my mind.
Hendrix was eyeing me suspiciously, still waiting for my answer. I knew he was right. I knew I should have been doing all I could to put the Lost Children and Rissa out of my mind, but I couldn’t deny the ache in my heart which had risen at the sound of her voice calling my name.
“Okay,” I said, wanting to placate Hendrix, needing him to stop looking at me like that.
Someone started banging on the wall at the back of the building, first one fist, then another and another until there were so many children knocking on the walls that dust shivered from the beams overhead and the whole building trembled beneath them.
Hendrix pushed to his feet. “Be gone!” he bellowed.
There was a beat of silence, then laughter rang out all around us, the joyful, unfiltered laughter of children.
Hendrix yelled at them again, moving towards the back wall and thumping his fist against it in reply to their calls.
I had less than the blink of an eye to decide on what to do but something more than my sister was calling for me out there. It was as though the forest was singing my name, begging me to come out, promising me all the answers I sought and more if I were only brave enough to seek them.
And perhaps it was brave to scramble to my feet and wrench aside the sack of grain which was barring the door. Or perhaps it was utterly stupid.
“Ferris!” Hendrix roared in warning, but I’d already yanked the door wide and hurled myself through it.
I slammed the door at my back in some vain attempt to protect him from what was out here because I knew in my soul that it wasn’t meant for him. It was meant for me.
The Lost Children whooped and hollered out in the darkness of the trees, and I whirled around, finding their small and tear-stained faces peering back at me from all around the grain store, its roof and even the surrounding branches.
Their eyes glimmered with silvery light, something entirely unhuman about them as they watched me.
“Come, Ferris!” Rissa called, and I whipped back to face the forest once more, catching a glimpse of her white gown flitting away between the trees.
“Wait!” I cried as I took chase, the pounding of Hendrix’s feet right behind me as he threw the door wide and roared my name.
But I was already gone, running into the trees with reckless abandon, racing after my sister while root, branch and bramble all twisted out of my way to accommodate me before tangling at my back to halt him.
“Rissa!” I cried, pleading with her to wait, to turn back. But all I caught were glimpses of her white dress and auburn hair flicking between the trees far ahead of me.
I ran until my legs burned with fatigue, my breaths coming in sharp and jagged pants which seared their way into my lungs.
Hendrix cried out behind me and I stumbled, almost turning around for him. But it was as though the magic of the forest had taken hold of my soul, lashing a cord to it and tugging me ever onward. I couldn’t stop, I couldn’t turn back. I could only race to catch up to the girl who I had come here to find.
I yelled her name again, entire trees uprooting themselves and moving out of my way as I ran after her faster and faster until finally I spotted her standing entirely still in the heart of a moonlit glade.
Rissa looked just how she had when I’d last seen her at twelve years old, her silver eyes sparking with secrets, her freckle-spattered nose straight at the centre of her heart-shaped face. But she’d grown too. She wasn’t small like the other Lost Children I’d spied between the trees but had aged in the last eight years.
I’d lost a girl and now a woman stood waiting for me in her place.
I launched myself at her, meaning to hurl my arms around her neck, but a massive serpent launched itself from the trees to my right before I could, its hard body built of stone with rivers of glinting minerals and metals running through it, its bright eyes keen with knowledge.
The snake wrapped itself around my middle and held me there while I still reached for my sister, my fingertips almost grazing her hand.
Rissa smiled at me and my heart broke for all the lost years which weighed between us.
I opened my mouth to speak, so dazzled by the sight of her that I could hardly spare a thought for the enormous spirit which had me caged in its grasp.
“How are you here?” I demanded.
“Later, sister,” she said. “There is something you must see first.”
My lips parted on a reply, a protest, I wasn’t even certain what, but she stepped aside before I could so much as utter a word.
Behind her was a towering horse chestnut tree, its roots a tangled web which extended into the clearing, trailing towards me where I scrambled in the hold of the Serpent.
Within the cage of those roots was a woman, one of the Cursed Ones I’d so often avoided.
Her hair was dark and shrouded her face, but she murmured something I had to strain to hear.
“Again and again and again,” she muttered. “Each time we fail and the clock is reset. Again and again and again…”
“Rissa, what is this?” I demanded, but before I could get any form of reply, the Cursed One looked up sharply, her violet eyes meeting with mine in a fierce demand.
“Make it stop,” she spat at me in a voice which was my own, with a mouth that mirrored mine. ‘End it on this cycle, Ferris. We’ve all suffered the failure too often.”
Her words barely registered with me at all because I wasn’t staring at some unknown Cursed One trapped forever and suffering in the grips of the forest. I was staring into my own face at a death which was mine and yet wasn’t. Because the Cursed One wasn’t an unknown human. She was me and I was her.
And my screams carried away into the night.
