The Hollow Kingdom Read online

  “How nice of him to say that, dear,” she answered, “but I can’t place who he would be.”

  Just as Emily opened her mouth to explain, the door slammed loudly. They looked up, startled, to see Kate standing against it, a Kate they had never seen before. It wasn’t just that her clothes were damp, filthy, and torn. It wasn’t even that her hair straggled wildly about her dirt-smudged face. It was the ghastly color of that face and the glittering eyes full of unshed tears. She stared back at them for a few seconds, her chest heaving as she struggled for breath. Then she burst into loud sobs and collapsed onto the floor.

  “Draw the curtains! Draw the curtains!” was the first thing she managed to say. Emily ran to comply. They hustled her to the couch, pulled off her shoes and stockings, and piled blankets on her, but when Aunt Prim brought her a cup of tea, she could barely hold it, her hands shook so much. She gasped and shivered and alarmed her aunts extremely.

  The worried Prim wrapped Emily in a blanket and made her drink a cup of tea, too. “But, Aunt Prim, there’s nothing wrong with me,” protested Emily. “I don’t know what’s wrong with Kate, I really don’t. She and Mr. Marak were quarreling a little, but I think that’s really her fault because she was rude to him. What happened to you, Kate? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  Kate let out a quavering little laugh. I suppose I do, she thought. The memories of the bonfire and the journey whirled around in her head like fragments of a dream. She gulped the hot drink, feeling its warmth spread through her, and looked at the cozy room. Everything here was so real, so solid. Outside she could hear rain lashing the windows, thunder rolling and advancing, the wind howling in the trees. The storm had finally struck.

  “Emily,” said Aunt Prim. “I want you to tell Celia and me everything that happened tonight. And, Kate, I want you just to listen. Start right at the beginning and go on till the end, and don’t leave anything out.”

  Emily had been waiting practically her whole life for such an invitation. She had a world-class story and a perfect audience, and her sister was not to say a word. Emily started at the beginning and went on till the end. She didn’t omit a thing. She didn’t even forget to tell them that their nephew was a pigheaded fool.

  “Well, Kate, I can certainly understand your being tired and upset,” Celia said cautiously. “But—did anything else happen, dear? That Emily’s left out?”

  “Yes,” Kate said, taking a breath. “After Em left, Mr. Marak said good-bye to me. No—he said—he said until next time.” She thought about that for a second, and her eyes grew large. “And then I wouldn’t shake hands with him because he’d been so rude. So he laughed and said I was just upset because of his hood, that I’d been imagining all these horrors. And then”—she raised her frightened eyes to theirs—“then he pulled back his hood. And he said I might have imagined other horrors, but not this one. Because—because—he wasn’t human. He just wasn’t human! Oh, Em, you were on that horse with him! I can’t believe you’re still alive.”

  The three listeners exchanged amazed glances. Emily was the most startled of all. She stared blankly at her sister.

  “I thought he was nice,” she said.

  “Now, Kate,” asked Prim, “when you say this Mr. Marak wasn’t—human—what exactly do you mean? Do you mean he didn’t look human?”

  “He, well…” Kate trailed off, looking around at their expectant faces.

  “Well, what?” prompted Emily. “Did he have three eyes?”

  “No, just two, but they were so strange,” she answered. “Different colors. Light and dark.”

  “Kate,” said Aunt Celia kindly, “that is quite rare, but it’s not unheard of.”

  “I know,” Kate replied, “but that wasn’t all. His hair was all wrong, too. It was part white and part black, like a horse’s mane, and it was long, and loose, and it wasn’t like hair somehow.” She looked helplessly at their puzzled faces.

  “For heaven’s sake, Kate, he was an old man,” snorted Emily. She had secretly been hoping for empty eye sockets or no head.

  “No, you’re wrong, Em, he wasn’t old. Oh, he must be old, but he looked, well, not young, but…not old. But so ugly and bony, and his skin was so pale! And his eyebrows were all thick and bushy, and his teeth—there was something awful about his teeth.” Emily started to giggle. “Stop it, Em! I just can’t explain it.” She glared at her sister. “You wouldn’t be laughing if you saw him, too. He was just—all wrong somehow.”

  “Well, Kate,” said Aunt Prim sympathetically, “he doesn’t sound like a nice old man at all. He sounds like quite an eccentric all the way around. He certainly set you up for a shock, wearing a hood and talking about horrors and ghostly rides. I suppose if you saw him neatly trimmed and brushed by daylight, you would have thought he looked odd, but you were tired and unstrung, and he wanted to give you a scare. Your nerves weren’t ready for it, that’s all. You haven’t been yourself these last several weeks.”

  A short time later, Kate lay in bed listening to the rain against the windows and the ominous rumble of the thunder. Flashes of lightning lit the sky. She stared up into the darkness overhead, dreadfully tired but too upset to sleep. She was contrasting the terrifying memory with the humiliation of trying to describe it. She wasn’t sure which one was worse.

  Her door creaked open in the darkness. A small figure padded in and snuggled down next to her.

  “Kate, are you awake?” came a whisper. “I’m sorry I made you mad. If you don’t like that man, I don’t like him either, but it was splendid to hear him call Mr. Roberts a pigheaded fool.”

  “Yes, I suppose it was,” Kate whispered back. She hugged her sister and smiled a little at the memory.

  “I’ve thought of something,” Emily whispered. “I’ll bet he was a ghost. Did he shimmer a little? Do you think he was a ghost?”

  “I don’t know,” Kate murmured sleepily. “Maybe he was. Maybe his skin shimmered. It certainly looked odd.”

  “Did he look as if he’d been dead a long time?” Emily asked.

  “No,” came the drowsy reply.

  “Well—how about a little while?” Emily prompted hopefully. She waited. “Kate? Had he been dead a little while?” But no answer came. Her sister was asleep.

  Kate’s nightmares left her no peace. A man in a black hood kept dragging her from the house. She caught onto chairs, banisters, door frames, anything within reach, but he was stronger than she was and just laughed at her. She couldn’t see his face, but his eyes gleamed brightly from beneath the hood. When dawn came, she was glad to get up.

  The house seemed very quiet with all the windows closed against the rain. Kate stood at the parlor window and watched the wind tossing the tree branches. Thick, dark clouds hung low in the sky. Aunt Prim came back from the Hall after lunch, bringing Hugh Roberts with her. They hurried up the steps together as large drops began to fall, and in another moment the rain cascaded down in silvery sheets.

  Hugh Roberts came into the parlor and warmed up at the fire. He hadn’t seen much of his charges in the last couple of weeks, and he was surprised at the change he found in Kate. Prim was right. The girl looked really ill. The big man rubbed his plump hands together as he toasted them in the heat.

  “Your aunt has told me quite a tale of adventure,” he announced to them. “Do you have any idea how far you were from here? What land you crossed last night?”

  “Em, you were on the horse,” Kate said. “Did you see any lights or landmarks? I was too busy trying to keep my footing,” she added resentfully.

  “I couldn’t see anything at all,” Emily said. “It was as black as a pot out there. I don’t know how the horse kept from tripping over his own feet.”

  Her guardian frowned at her critically. “If it was as dark as that,” he observed, “I don’t see how anyone could have possibly brought you home. Didn’t you carry a light?”

  The two girls looked at each other, surprised. Neither had thought about this. “No,” answered
Kate, “he didn’t carry any light at all. I was walking right by the horse, and I kept tripping because I couldn’t see. I don’t know how he knew where he was going.”

  Hugh Roberts looked from one to the other of them. “Your great-aunts didn’t see this Gypsy,” he remarked.

  “He stopped just past the orchard and said he wouldn’t come in,” Emily said carelessly.

  “And he rode back the direction he came,” said Kate with a shudder.

  Their guardian rubbed his chin thoughtfully, surveying them both. “And you say this man was my cousin?”

  “That’s right,” said Emily. “He said he was family. He said that your grandfather and his mother were cousins.”

  “Yes,” added Kate, “and that their fathers were brothers.”

  Hugh Roberts put his hands behind his back and began to pace slowly. “Now, that’s a nice little puzzle,” he told them. “And if you work it out, you’ll find that such a cousin would be the child of Dentwood Roberts’s daughter Adele. But Adele Roberts, as you know, Miss Winslow, died as a child. She left no children of her own, and her playmate’s son inherited the estate.”

  Adele again! Kate was dumbfounded. She called to mind the picture from the Hall parlor. Black hair and green eyes, laughing. Adele, who had died so that Kate could own Hallow Hill.

  “Let’s examine this rationally,” Hugh Roberts suggested, ticking the points off on his fingers. “You get lost within sight of your own house. You meet a hooded man who claims he’s the son of Adele Roberts. You walk home without so much as a candle through a pitch-black night, and then you raise a fuss because he’s some sort of ghastly monster. Really, Miss Winslow!” he concluded in irritation. “Don’t you think I’ll see through a story like that?”

  Kate stared at him, confused. “Why do you think we would invent such a thing?” she asked.

  Emily jumped up in a fury. “We really did get lost last night,” she declared, “and your cousin Mr. Marak really did bring us home. He knew all about Aunt Prim and Aunt Celia, and he knew about you, too. He knows lots of things about this place that you don’t know, and he assured us that he always speaks the truth.”

  Hugh Roberts failed to look either mollified or convinced. “Miss Emily,” he replied heatedly, “if you can introduce me to this monster cousin, I’ll be happy to believe you. Otherwise, let me just remind you that you’re dealing with an educated man who knows the difference between fact and superstition.” He glared over his spectacles at Emily, who glared right back.

  Kate hurried to say something more helpful. “I know it sounds unbelievable, Mr. Roberts,” she said. “I can’t explain how we got lost, but Mr. Marak certainly is no creation of ours. He’s the most unpleasant man I’ve ever met. He deliberately scared the wits out of me.”

  Hugh Roberts studied her narrowly, clasping and unclasping his hands. Her pale, worn face and earnest voice made it obvious that she was sincere. “So you really believe in that story you told?” he demanded in surprise. “You didn’t invent that monster? You didn’t just make it up for a thrill?” Kate shook her head without a word. Her guardian noticed again how thin and sick she looked.

  “Children, run up to your rooms for a few minutes. I’d like to speak to your aunts alone.”

  Hugh Roberts left in the dogcart half an hour later. Noticing her aunts’ frightened eyes, Kate wondered in irritation what on earth he could have said. They soothed Kate and fussed over her like two old hens. They didn’t let her sew or read. They wanted her to rest. And every time she said something—anything—they exchanged furtive glances.

  Emily fared little better. At suppertime she tried to bring up the strange rider again, and Aunt Prim snapped at her.

  “Don’t tell stories,” she said sternly.

  “Stories!” Emily cried. “I never do! Kate—”

  But Aunt Celia interrupted. “Leave your sister out of this,” she said sadly. “Kate’s nerves aren’t strong, but we expect you to know the difference between facts and falsehoods.”

  “Well, I like that,” Emily stormed a few minutes later as she stomped back and forth on the wooden floor of Kate’s bedroom. “We tell them what someone else says, and we get blamed for lying. I’d like to see them face a ghost. I think your nerves are just fine.” She flung herself down on the bench at Kate’s dressing table. Looking in the tall, old mirror at its back, she made a disgusted face at herself.

  Kate lay on her bed, not really listening to Emily’s tirade. She was staring up at the canopy, trying to puzzle through to the truth of last night. It did seem very much like a dream, like the nightmares she had been having. Maybe she had exaggerated. Maybe she had been half asleep and hadn’t really seen enormous cats or children with beards. Maybe she hadn’t really seen that strange caricature of a face. Facts and falsehoods. Weak nerves. She closed her eyes, terribly tired.

  “Come look at this.” Emily’s voice rang out loudly, blaring like a bugle call through Kate’s foggy brain.

  “Oh, Em, what?” she begged. She opened her eyes and turned toward the dressing table. Nothing. Sitting up grudgingly, she found her sister standing by the window, staring out at the rainy trees beyond.

  “Now they can’t say I’m a liar!” Emily declared triumphantly. “This is great! Shall I call Aunt Prim?”

  Level with the window but a dozen feet away, a cat crouched disconsolately on a dripping tree limb. It turned its golden eyes toward them, ears flat against its head, and shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. It was very wet, very unhappy, and very, very large. It was the big black cat from the bonfire.

  “Poor Seylin! He’s so miserable,” Emily said sympathetically. “Kate, don’t you think we could call him down and bring him inside?”

  “No!” yelped Kate more forcefully than she had meant to. “No, Em. We have to think this through. If that man who brought us home last night is a ghost, then his friends can’t be much better, can they?”

  “But I petted Seylin!” Emily protested. “He’s perfectly solid and not in the least terrifying. And he’s out in the rain. You can see how much he hates it.”

  Kate went to the window and pulled back the lace to get a better look. The huge cat stared at her steadily.

  “No, Em,” she said at last. “I don’t like it. He may be a normal cat, but I’m not willing to find out. Aunt Prim would never let a cat into the house, anyway, much less a wet one as big as that. And I don’t think it’ll do any good to tell the aunts he’s the same one we saw last night. They don’t want to hear about last night at all.”

  Emily went grumbling off to bed. Kate spent another minute staring out at the cat. Then she dropped the sheer lace and pulled the long, thick curtains over the window. The rainy evening was fast becoming a rainy night. She lit the candle on her dressing table and changed hurriedly for bed.

  She fell into a restless slumber, but even in the confused shreds of dreams, she knew she wasn’t safe. In her sleep, she was telling Emily all about it. “Then I heard a click as the window opened,” she said, and in that instant Kate was wide awake. The click hadn’t been a dream. She craned her neck to see over the footboard. The heavy curtains still covered the window, but they were billowing gently outward as they caught the breeze.

  Kate crawled to the bedpost and ducked behind the thick, gathered curtains of the bed. The open window let in all the sounds of a drizzly night: the gentle dripping and tapping, the wind sighing. Another unmistakable sound joined them: slow, heavy footsteps by the window. They wandered in an unhurried fashion down the room as if the unseen caller were looking casually around. They came closer and closer. They were right beside her bed.

  Kate let out a scream. “Get out of my room!” Then she ducked down farther and held her breath. Nothing happened. The stillness was profound. She scrambled up and peered into the darkness, but she couldn’t see anyone there. The window was closed now, and the curtains hung limp. No footsteps sounded in the room beyond, no movement, no breathing. Long seconds crawled by.

/>   “I’m not in your room,” announced Marak’s pleasant voice.

  Kate froze in horror. Her first instinct was to leap to the door and run away, but he was bound to follow her. If she ran to Emily’s room, he might hurt her little sister, and if her great-aunts ever saw such a monster Kate was sure they wouldn’t survive it. She stared feverishly into the blackness but saw nothing at all. Where could he be?

  She slipped out of bed and crept to her dressing table. Her hands shaking, she struck a match, but her candle blossomed into golden light before the match even caught. She whirled, examining her bedroom by its friendly glow. The room, lit by the single candle flame, seemed full of shadow and menacing beyond words.

  “You told me to get out of your room,” noted Marak’s voice behind her. “Look in the other room, the one you see in your mirror.”

  Kate turned to face the tall mirror on her dressing table. What she saw could not possibly be. She put a hand on her bedpost to steady herself. The reflection reached out a hand and clutched its bedpost, too. A hand with six fingers. Marak stood facing her in the old tarnished mirror. Kate’s own image was gone.

  What Marak was, Kate didn’t know, but he couldn’t be a human, not with that big, bony head and tough, wiry body. The slightly bowed legs and large, knotted hands conveyed the idea of strength without grace. He was wearing a black shirt, breeches, and boots, but he had left the riding cloak at home, and his high, twisted shoulder showed to advantage. His face and hands were a ghastly pale gray, and his lips and fingernails were dark tan—the colors, Kate thought, shuddering, of a corpse pulled out of the water. His dull, straight hair fell, all one length, to his twisted shoulders. Most of it was a very light beige, but over one eye a coal-black patch grew back from the forehead, the long black wisps overlaying the pale hair like a spider’s legs. His ears rose to a sharp point that flopped over and stuck out through that rough hair like the ears of a terrier dog.