All the Inside Howling (Hollow Folk #2)(114)

I liked the sound of his laugh, and I liked the way he tilted his head, and even if I didn’t want to admit it to myself, I liked the sound of those words. Leaning back against the seat, with that crooked spring poking me in the neck again, I closed my eyes and slept.





The dream opened like a greeting card, unfolding along a neat vertical crease in the darkness. This time, there was no slapdash portrayal of Vehpese. Instead of the technicolor backdrop and the flattened perspective that usually met me, I found myself in a room. Even that word is generous; it was a room only in the sense that it was a gray space that seemed, as far as I could tell, enclosed. But I had no real confidence in its dimensions or in its appearance. This, after all, was a dream, and the man who had summoned me could change it at whim.

Unlike the other dreams, in this place, Mr. Big Empty did not loom like a hollow shadow. He did not swell against the skyline. He stood a few paces away, and aside from the perpetual blur that hid his features, he could have passed for just another person.

“You don’t call me Luke,” he said, and even his voice had changed, dwindled. It still filled this space, but it wasn’t the booming, overpowering volume that had struck me before. “When you talk about me, you say Mr. Big Empty. What do you say to yourself? What do you think, when you think about me?”

Something pressed against that—

—third eye—

—door inside me. It wasn’t Mr. Big Empty’s full force, but it was substantial. I braced myself against that pressure, and after a moment it passed. If he had tried a little harder or a little longer, though, I might not have held. The last few days had left me drained, emotionally and physically, and I was starting to realize how that affected my ability. I needed a week at the beach before I confronted Mr. Big Empty. Well, to be honest, I probably needed a week at the beach before I confronted so much as a sock puppet.

“You aren’t Luke,” I said. “The Luke I knew wouldn’t do these kinds of things. He wouldn’t hurt people.”

“But you didn’t know me. You just knew a piece of me. You saw exactly what I wanted you to see. With your eyes. With your gift. Doesn’t that make you feel foolish? Doesn’t that make you realize how insignificant you are? I could have killed you the day we met, or a hundred times after that. You’re alive because you were amusing to me, because it was fun to watch you bumble around, grasping at wisps of ghosts, picking up every nasty thought like a broken radio. How does that make you feel?”

As I focused on him, I could sense it again, what I had sensed the first time Mr. Big Empty manifested to me: his hollowness. On the outside, at the edge of what he projected, Mr. Big Empty had a rigidity, a strength, like steel. But the more I concentrated, the more I could feel that emptiness, as though something essential had been stripped away. Or, I thought, remembering what Emmett had said, perhaps had never been there in the first place.

“Vie,” Mr. Big Empty said again, louder this time, the force of it battering me. The pressure against that inner door returned, and this time, in spite of my best efforts, it gave an inch. “Vie, are you listening to me?” That inner door—

—eye—

—skidded another inch. I could feel myself failing, feel the weakness that ran deep into my mind and spirit. In a matter of seconds, Mr. Big Empty would force his way into my mind.

“I know about River,” I said through gritted teeth.

His shock rippled through the dream in visible waves, disrupting the gray like a stone thrown into still waters. His assault slackened, and I took advantage of the sudden respite to barricade my mind as best I could. To my surprise, though, he didn’t attack again. He seemed to be studying me. Searching.

And then he laughed.

“Oh my God. I thought for a minute—but you don’t. You don’t know. Not yet.” He shivered, and for a moment, the distortion of his face seemed to go wild, as though Mr. Big Empty were on the verge of losing control of himself. “I’ll be there, though, when you do. I’ll be there when you realize. I’ll watch, Vie. And here’s the truth: the shit-storm you’ve caused, the trouble you’ve put me to, sending Lena chasing after you because of your stubbornness—after all that, Vie, I’m going to enjoy watching as your life comes to pieces around you. I’m going to wait for the moment when you realize, when you know all the way down to the bone, that you can’t stop what’s coming next. Seeing that—well, it’ll almost be worth the rest of this.”

“What are you talking about?”

“River, in spite of his rather remarkable ability, does not share your . . . persistence. Can you believe that he had given up on ever knowing where his mother came from? Remarkable, in the age of the internet, but somehow it’s true. I reached out to him. I promised him exactly what he wanted: a chance to know his family. All I needed in return was a favor. And now I’ve done him a favor in return. You would not believe, Vie, how excited he was to meet the Millers. I was even kind enough to provide him with an address.”

Cold washed over me: a stark, crystalline cold like I’d plunged to the bottom of the Bighorn River in winter. With a final surge of strength, I shattered the dream and sent myself tumbling back to reality. But as I fell, Mr. Big Empty’s voice chased me:

“Hope you can make the reunion.”