The Hollows(24)

Chapter 11


He and Abigail stand concealed by the trees, watching Frankie and Ryan as they slip behind the reception building. A moment later he hears a little cry of triumph and he realises what they’re doing. Not making out. Not sparking up cigarettes. They’re stealing Wi-Fi. It’s kinda funny, and he goes to catch Abigail’s eye, to see if she’s smiling too, and she is, but at something else. There’s a faraway look in her eye.

‘What?’ he asks, not moving his lips.

I was remembering, she replies. When you were their age.

She’s moving away, slipping into the trees, away from the teenagers, and he has to hurry to keep up. It’s easier for her, though he knows these woods like he created them himself. He’s walked these paths for so long. She’s moving down towards the lake, along the shoreline, and he knows where she’s leading him. It’s a hot day, and the mosquitoes are attracted to the heat of his flesh, to the stink of his sweat, and he swats at them as he goes. They don’t bother Abigail, of course, and she aims a smile back at him as he flaps at the buzzing insects.

Sweetgrass, she says. How many times have I told you?

He nods. He has some braided and hung in the cabin – she knows that – but it’s not doing him any good now, is it?

They reach the little cove by the edge of the lake, and she reaches out a hand towards his cheek.

You were always such a sweet boy, she says, and they both look out at the water, this corner of the lake undisturbed by boats, and all of a sudden it’s 1998 again, he’s lost but innocent, and the woman beside him is warm.

Warm and alive.



He had never met anyone like Abigail and there was a good reason for that. Because there wasn’t anyone like Abigail. Not in this town, anyway.

His mom worked twelve-hour shifts at the strip club out near the highway. Not one of the dancers – not these days, anyhow – but helping to manage the place, looking after the girls and the takings and the clientele. She was always asleep when he left for school, and by the time he got home she was at work, though she’d leave his dinner in the refrigerator with a note, always signed with a kiss and a smiley face. Her days off, she was usually too tired to do much except sit around watching TV. When he was younger he’d curl up with her on the couch and impress her by answering the questions on Jeopardy!. Now, though, he was too big for that, and besides, she was dating this loser she’d met at work and spent most of her free time at his place.

With no dad on the scene – no dad had ever been on his scene – he was left to look after himself. There was nothing to do in Penance. The youth centre had shut down after the guy who ran it was caught exposing himself to a pair of eleven-year-old girls. He wasn’t into sports, and his only childhood friend had moved to Chicago after his dad got laid off. He had entertained himself playing video games and hanging out in chat rooms on the computer he’d guilt-tripped his mom into buying, discussing the bands he liked. Most of that time was spent on a board for metalheads, trading chat and gossip about Korn and Metallica and the Nordic death-metal groups he was getting into.

Until this summer, when he met Abigail.

He’d just turned fourteen, the summer was blazing, and their dial-up internet wasn’t working right. He’d taken himself into the cool of the woods, thinking he’d go for a dip in the lake. He headed down to a small clearing he’d visited before. A good spot for swimming, well away from the campground and the out-of-towners that came and went throughout the spring and summer months. There had been times when he’d hidden in the trees and watched them, looking out for pretty girls, of which there were many. But not today. Today he wanted to be on his own.

Which was why, when he spotted the figure on the shoreline, a grown-up with her back to him, he almost left straight away. Except he must have made a noise, a grunt of disappointment maybe, because she whipped her head around like she’d heard a rattlesnake.

‘Hey,’ she said. There was a smile in her voice and on her face. Then she laughed. ‘You look like a startled fawn.’ Her smile grew broader as he gawped at her. ‘You don’t need to look so afraid. I don’t bite.’

She had long golden hair that reached almost to her waist, shot through with purple and red streaks. Bare feet and a loose cream dress that he would later discover was called a tunic. She had lines on her face that made him think she might be somewhere around his mom’s age – his mom had just celebrated her thirty-fifth birthday – but she seemed somehow both younger and older. She didn’t have the under-eye smudges and the vampire skin of the night worker; but she seemed . . . wise. Maybe it was dumb to think that within seconds of meeting her, but there was something about her that reminded him of a teacher. Which, as it turned out, she was. Just not like one of the teachers at school.

‘I’m Abigail,’ she said.

He told her his name, approaching her slowly and warily, like a stray dog drawn by a piece of meat.

‘It’s beautiful here, isn’t it?’ she said in her soft voice. ‘You planning on taking a swim?’

He nodded.

‘Well, don’t let me stop you.’

But there was no way he was stripping to his shorts in front of this woman.

‘I ought to be getting back,’ he said.

‘No, why don’t you stay? We were about to have a picnic.’