Ink and Bone(4)

She wound through town slowly, looping once around the square, lifting a hand at the light to the man who waved from the crosswalk. Then she parked near The Fluffy Muffin, took off her helmet, revealing a shocking head of hot pink and black hair. She hung the helmet on the handlebars, not worried about anybody taking it. That wouldn’t happen here, not in The Hollows. Mrs. Kramer, owner of the bakery, smiled indulgently at the girl from the shop window. Then Finley disappeared inside the shop, where she would buy some fresh croissants for her grandmother, which she would try to get home before they got cold.

Across the street, Miss Lovely cleaned out the annuals from in front of her bed-and-breakfast establishment while her daughter Peggy balanced the books inside, worrying about the financial health of their business, which was poor. Expenses far outstripped income, and Peggy wasn’t sure how to tell her mother, who never liked to talk about such things.

Around the square, shops were opening. Yogis lined up outside White Orchid, shouldering their mats in stylish bags and clutching water bottles as they stood, chatting. From the Java Stop the scent of roasted coffee beans drifted out, luring in passersby. Marion March, owner of Gentle as a Lamb, lay out on a wooden stand a beautifully crocheted blanket made from the lamb’s wool she sold in her boutique of handmade clothes and linens. She’d thought by this point in her life that she’d have been a famous fashion designer living in Manhattan. But instead, she’d never left The Hollows. Marion was born and raised here, married her childhood sweetheart, and raised two girls, one of whom was currently studying at the Fashion Institute of Technology, with aspirations of her own to design (inspired by her mother). If Marion was disappointed at the way her life had turned out, no one knew it, especially not her girls, who thought she was the most wonderful mother on the face of the earth.

Around the corner and down the road, private detective Jones Cooper mowed the lawn in front of the house he shared with his wife, Maggie. His wife had been nagging him to hire the neighbor’s son Greg to do the yard work. The boy was a boomerang, unable to find a job in banking after college and living in his parents’ basement; he needed the work. But Jones Cooper needed the exercise. Of course, it was only a matter of time before he did what Maggie told him. He was a man who loved his wife and was smart enough to know that she was right about most things, even if he took his time getting around to admitting it.

There were 9,780 living souls populating The Hollows. There were good people and bad ones, people with secrets and dark appetites, happy people, and people buckling under the weight of grief and sorrow. There were people who were looking for things and loved ones they had lost, and people hiding. There were lost people, trying to find their way home. Each of them was connected to the others in ways that were obvious or as hidden as the abandoned mine tunnels beneath the ground. Each had his purpose and his place in The Hollows, whether he knew it or not. Every thing here had its time and its season.

After a few minutes, Finley came out of the bakery with a pink box that she carefully stowed in her backpack, mindful not to crush the contents. Then she climbed on her bike. She zipped out of town, returning home the way she came. Even though she had been born and had grown up -someplace else, The Hollows had kept its tendrils reaching out to her, tugging at her, keeping her connected until very recently, when it was time for her to come home.

Finley had noticed that all the warmth had gone from the air and knew that it meant winter, her least favorite season, was approaching. She didn’t know how fast it was coming or how hard it was going to be. She didn’t know that something would be asked of her, something she didn’t want to do but in which she had little choice. And she certainly had no inkling that she might not see another spring.

Even The Hollows couldn’t tell the future.





ONE


Squeak-clink. Squeak-clink. Squeak-clink.

Oh my God. Finley Montgomery rolled over in bed and pulled the pillow over her head. What the hell is that?

Squeeeaaak. Clink.

It wasn’t loud exactly. In fact, it was faint but unceasing and arrhythmic, like the dripping of a faucet in another room. It was its stuttering relentlessness that made it so annoying.

The unidentifiable noise had leaked into her dream, where Finley had been repeatedly turning a knob on a door that wouldn’t budge. In her dream, her frustration grew as she tried in vain to enter the room, tugging and pulling, twisting the rusty knob. Finally, the sound had woken her, tickling at the edges of her awareness as she came to wakefulness, her irritation lingering.

Sitting up, she looked around the mess of her bedroom—open laptop on her desk, stacks of books, laundry in a basket to be put away, more clothes on the floor, boots in a tumble by the door. She was alone, the door closed. She knew that the sound was inside her, not outside.

Squeak-clink.

“Okay,” she said, drawing in and releasing a breath.

Finley focused on the details of her room, listing off what she saw. The gauzy curtains are billowing in the cool breeze. The wind chimes are tinkling outside. The golden sunlight of an autumn morning is dappling the hardwood floor. She took another deep breath and released it. By staying in the present moment, she could—allegedly—-control “the event.” This is what her grandmother—who had a way of making it sound so easy, as if it were just a choice Finley could make—had told her. But it required an unimaginable amount of discipline, of psychic (for lack of a better word) effort.