“No, he isn’t,” she said. She gritted her teeth. “No. He. Isn’t.”
When Bobo moved toward her, she drew her fist back and punched him hard in the face. Her fist landed with a hard crack on something that didn’t feel like a face, sending a blaze of pain up her arm. A warm sluice of blood splashed back at her. She wiped it from her eyes and saw that her own hands were caked with blood. So much of it, dried and caked under her nails. Where had it come from? There was a picture in her mind then, of Momma beneath her, and her own arm coming down again and again, smashing, breaking.
“You killed her,” said Bobo, standing to her right now.
“No,” she said. There was a notch in her throat. “You did.”
“No,” said Bobo sadly. “It was you. You were inside me. I felt you. You made me do it.”
She didn’t know if it was true or not. Once when she’d been very angry, so angry—what had she been angry about? She couldn’t even remember now—but the feeling had been so big, it didn’t fit inside her body.
“Sweetie,” her mother had said calmly. “You need to calm down and then we can talk about this.”
She had wanted something—what had it been? Then, it had seemed like the most important thing in the world. She couldn’t calm down. The feeling grew and grew, tumbled around inside her getting bigger, and she started shaking.
“Sweetie, relax,” said her mother. “You’re turning red. This is ridiculous.”
When the lights flickered, then went dark, then came up again, it had scared the anger right out of her. Startled, she’d looked to her mother, whose eyes were wide, lips parted with surprise.
She knew she had done that; that her rage had leapt from her like an electric current and caused something to happen. Maybe it was like that with Bobo. Maybe she had made him do what he did. She didn’t know and didn’t care. She was glad Momma was dead, and she wished Bobo was dead, too.
Should she move toward the light, or back into the darkness? She opted for the dark, since she suspected that Poppa was up ahead. The light flickered and danced like a flame. She knew now that Bobo wouldn’t stop her, that he couldn’t.
“Momma’s gone now,” she said. “Penny’s gone. You can go, too.”
“I can’t,” he whispered fiercely. “I have to stay until—”
Poppa loped out of the darkness, a ghoul, a breathing skeleton, and knocked her down hard; she fell like a rag doll. No muscle, no bone. The manacle of Poppa’s hand clamped around her ankle. And then Poppa was dragging her, pulling her toward the light.
She started screaming then, a squeal of rage and fear, the loudest sound she’d ever made. She clawed at the ground, looking for a hold.
Scream, make as much noise as you can. And whatever you do, don’t let him take you. Don’t let him.
“Bobo!” she cried. “Help me!”
But Bobo was gone, as if he’d never been there at all.
THIRTY
The boy with the trains knelt over the wooden tracks and moved the engine back and forth clumsily.
Choo-choo, he said, as happy and content with his toy as any child had ever been. Finley sat beside him, but he didn’t look up at her, kept moving his train along the imaginary track on the ground. Choo-choo. Of all of them—Faith Good, Abigail, the squeak-clink, he’d been the quiet one, the least demanding.
“Where is she?” Finley asked.
The boy looked up at her, his face a pale, grim mask. “Penny’s gone.”
“Not Penny. Abbey,” she said gently. She reached out to touch his golden hair. Of course, there was nothing there, but still he lifted his eyes from the train on the ground. Old eyes, a fathomless mineral green. Once she started staring, she found she couldn’t look away.
“They’re the same.” He did not speak like a little boy.
“No,” she said.
“We’re all the same,” he said. “Lost, broken, the victims of our parents’ evils and mistakes. The Three Sisters, Penny, Bobo, Abbey, Elsie, even Momma . . .”
He went on listing names, and Finley listened until finally he stopped. The dark around them seemed to expand.
The last time she’d been with Agatha, Finley had asked, What is this place?
A vortex, Agatha had answered, an energy center certainly.
But it was more than that. It had intelligence, didn’t it? It was running some kind of agenda.
What does it want? What does The Hollows want?
It’s too soon to tell.
“What does it want?” she asked the boy with the trains, now. Joshua, she realized now. She recognized him from the photos in his mother’s house. He appeared older now than when she had first seen him.
The boy cocked his head at her and frowned. “Don’t you know?”
“I don’t,” she said. “I’m sorry.”